The man inside is driving the thing at some remove. It's carrying him towards other people, trying to fuck them at any cost, but the umbra isn't pleasuring the man inside at all, and Shae knows he can't feel it when the umbra fucks someone else.

It doesn't make any sense. Why is the gleam directing all of the motive outwards like that?

Shae darts in, slashing with her portals, once more revealing the human cock within the forest of tentacles. Then, before they can regrow, she leaps up, locks her boots against the things umbral body, and drops into a squat to impale herself on that cock.

Instantly, as her vulva splits and her tunnel swallows the man's gleaming penis, she feels the state of her own arousal wrench hard, inflamed to match his. She moves her hips, riding him hard and fast, trying to make them both cum as quickly as possible.

Some of the umbra shifts, retracting slightly to bare more of the man's skin to Shae's body.

His face emerges last, and there is no awareness in his gaze.

"Not fair... Not real... Not fair... Not real... Not fair... Not real..."

He babbles, moaning and shaking as tears trickle from his glazed, unseeing eyes.

"Just want... Not enough... Not real... Why can't I... Why not me..."

The umbral tentacles start to wrap around Shae's body, attempting to pull her off the man's cock and fuck her themselves.

Suddenly it clicks. The Isht can provide any sensation, but he needed the one thing the Isht can't ever provide: emotional validation as a lover.

Stars above, she really should've thought of that. She was so sure she caught all the errors in her design, but apparently she was deluding herself if she missed a mistake this catastrophic.

Shae bounces and fucks even harder, faster. She ignores the tentacles. It is nigh-impossible for them to overpower her. She works her hips, stroking her pussy up and down his cock, bringing them to orgasm in lock-step.

The enforced simultaneous orgasm mingles Shae's empulse with the man's and with their empulse free and mingling, the Eropath Core forces it to cycle fully, washing the gleam out of him.

A bubble of restored color bursts out of his body, wiping away the gleam and turning the umbra to inert goo.

He and Shae fall to the ground with a splat, still joined. He slowly regains awareness, wide eyes drinking in the bizarrely attired woman impaled on his cock.

He lurches up, wrapping his arms around Shae, and sobs wordlessly into her breasts.

Shae pets him gently and makes soothing sounds.

But the city is in chaos around them, and she's starting to realize with a sinking feeling of dread that she's never going to be able to keep up. She might as well continue gently holding and fucking this man, since even if she drops him right now, she won't be able to get to all of the other afflicted. There are probably already thousands of people similarly Consumed.

Even if she taught Ese and five other girls how to use the Eropath Cores, they'd never be able to keep up.

The Isht had so much time to spread. It probably couldn't even be contained in Sanguine Primus. She meant to bring solace to the silent, and after a fashion she supposes she has. This is about as loud as it gets. But there will be no stopping what she's unleashed. This world just wasn't ready for it. She sees that now.

If everyone's needs were met, the Isht would remain entirely inert. She knew the silent underclass was suffering, ignored by society and left to fend for themselves, but even she vastly underestimated just how much suffering that was, just how many people had retreated into that lonely agoraphobic silence.

In her carelessness, Shae has destroyed the world.

She buries her face in the unnamed man's hair and lets her own tears fall.