Chapter 42 – True Demoness

A fight with a Primordial is never fair. You can have kings, masters, saints, and even then it won't be fair for them to fight a Primordial. Why? Because a Primordial is in itself in another realm of power, it is simply different kind of strength. It's like an ordinary archer without magic contending with modern weaponry, for example guns, but also tanks, drones and even more advanced things. The archer might be skilled, but in the end it is not possible to fight with such difference in the very base of their strength.

I spin on my toes and evade to the sides as huge, light red jaws almost as long as my body snap loudly on my side, and punch forward with a gauntlet covered arm into the lower jaw. I smile hearing a satisfying crunch of a dislocated jaw. The monster's scaly head shakes and it swings its large, winged front leg at me in retaliation, but I jump to my side quickly, already anticipating what is to come next.

I then wrap my arms around the leg that smashes into the ground, catching it in an iron grip, and yank it to me. One would think it's a stupid idea, but my Energy affinity makes me stay in place as the wyvern is pulled to the side and fumbles with its legs unsteadily to remain standing. I quickly lunge to its head, anchor myself to the ground with two fiery chains, and pull the monster down.

"Now!" I shout just before the head smashes into the ground and stops moving briefly.

I barely hear a loud whistling sound behind me before a heavy, black arrow embeds itself straight into the forehead of the beast. Hm, if the arrows are that fast, then I don't know why I was holding it down. No matter. Point is, the middle gold shit, despite its size and strength, can't to anything after my flame grew to three tens of the base soul size and Levia's Nihility to slightly higher level.

And that's in spite of its ten meters of length and mana density in its body at around thirty times the base soul size. In other words, Black Harbor's branch master has similar strength to this thing, but a few tens or even hundreds times less mass and effective strength.

My strength itself isn't very high, probably at the level of a soul fifteen or so times the base size filled with mana, but I more than make up for it with my Primordial Energy and my affinities. Hm, Levia made a table a while back about it. I don't remember exactly, but Madella would be like one and a half times me in terms of pure strength? Something like that.

I raise my head and make a victory sign. "Done for..." I begin and I realize the wyvern's core isn't materializing. My face twists into a frown and I smash my arm into the back of the arrow, making sure it goes straight down instead of breaking. It buries deep into the skull and this time I see the core kinda flowing out onto the same plane we the rest of the body is. I still don't really understand what actually is happening there, but if I had to guess it would be mana flowing out of the soul and into the body.

"Dead!" I shout, turning my head to Levia hovering in the air a couple hundred meters back. She quickly flies forward using the set of, uh, hovering wings she made for herself. I've no idea how this stuff is called, but it's like the shape of a wing with a large rotor in the middle.

"Nice warm up." She comments with a small smile as she lets herself fall to the ground with two strings of nanobots slowing her.

"Still not enough." I grumble. "If True Demon form gives me half as much as I think it will, there will be nothing challenging left for me. I'll need to restrict myself."

"Then we can test it now. You don't need to fight to test it, right?"

"I... don't need." I admit with a grumble. "But I would really like to. But yeah, I'll test it now." I nod my head as I cover my hand with flames and start digging through the skull to the mana stone. "We don't know what might turn up later so better have it behind us. Also, the whole matter with the crystal thingy, I would prefer to sit it out somewhere safe."

"Mhm." Levia nods lightly. "We're also supposed to meet with your folks tomorrow, remember?"

"Right." I nod as I dig out the mana stone and put it into my inventory. "We can go back to Black Harbor as soon as we log back in then."

"Sure. True Demon form now." Levia walks up to me and pulls me up, her voice with a hint of impatience. Hm, is she so eager to see me in that form?

"Well, alright." I nod. Hm. I'm kinda anxious to try it. Why is that? But... I feel I can do it. I'm not sure what makes me think so, but I'm positive I can take my True Demon form right now. "Are you sure?"

"Mhm!" Levia nods enthusiastically.

"Well, alright." I take a step back. "But stand back a bit. I'm not sure if it's a hundred percent safe."

"It is." Levia pulls herself into a hug again while pouting adorably. "You'd never hurt me. Do it now." She commands, though she can't stop a grin worming its way onto her face, and I feel some funny feeling inside my stomach from that authoritative voice.

Actually, if she's telling me to do it, I'll gladly comply. "No complaints later, dear." I mutter in low voice into her ear, discard my dress directly into my inventory so it won't get torn, and activate the transformation.

I feel Levia tensing for a moment as she realizes she's hugging my naked body, and then the changes kick in.

I feel myself getting taller and larger, my body getting heavier and skin hardening, and I feel power within my body. Incredible, almost intoxicating feeling of strength from my powerful legs up to my horns filled to brim with energy. I gasp and hear a reverberating, low, and still distinctly feminine voice escaping my throat, and within half a second after the transformation I realize I have Levia's head on the height of my belly. Wow. Looking with my magic sense, I have a bit more than eight feet in height if I stand like a human, and even more, almost nine feet, if I stand like a Demoness.

As I look down at my girlfriend, I become aware of the smaller changes to me, including that my field of vision is suddenly slightly narrower, and yet my magic sense suddenly expands to almost two times my previous range. As for my body, my skin is black with tiny, vibrant yellow ridges, somewhat rough, but it stretches and bends as if it was normal, elastic skin.

My breasts seem to be flattened, though they are still prominent on my chest, and they are kinda hard, without nipples. They are completely covered in the black carved stone-like skin and look a bit as if they had fabric stretched over them. My arms are long and rather slender, though with powerful muscles outlined, and my general body shape is unchanged. Wide hips, long legs, thin waist, though despite the increase in size it's all slightly less pronounced.

I immediately realize a reason for that. This body is made for battle. All parts that were supposed to emphasize my beauty and attractiveness are reduced or completely gone, while the functionality, flexibility and power is cranked up to eleven. Or twelve. My hands are much larger, though still quite slender, and they end with sharp, pitch black, pointed claws. As I clench my fist, I feel the incredible power in my grasp, quite literally. I fell as if I could crush boulders with my fingers, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was true.

On the topic of my horns... I reach to my head and find my horns with my hands, touching them lightly. Not like I need to do it, because I have my magic sense, but they are as hard as they were before, slick, of the same colors and shape, and, in one word, huge. My head has increased proportionately in size along with my body, but my horns are much larger than that. Around seven inches in diameter closer to their base, with the curl by my skull at least a foot across, and stretching out around a foot over the top of my head. Almost twice their previous size.

Also, with my magic sense, I can see that they are filled to the brim with my Primordial Energy, and whenever I trail a finger over them, small sparks embers jump into the air. Interesting.

Another thing I notice are my feet, about which I could say basically the same as about horns. The feet themselves scaled up and got the distinctly larger, longer, and sharper black claws.

And the last two, but not less important parts, my wings, and my tail. The wings... didn't change, basically, just that they were scaled up, and right now my wingspan equals around nine meters, or thirty feet.

My tail meanwhile, while it might not be the most important change, is probably the most noticeable, save for the obvious things. It's very long, around three meters or ten feet from the base and right now curled around my feet, but it's much thicker close to the base and slowly thins out till the last segment. It is all as black as the rest of my body, save for last segment, which is pitch black just like tips of my horns and ends in a sharp tip that looks like a black gem in the shape of a sharp, elongated heart.

But of course, the cherry on top is Levia's reaction. She is staring at my abs with flushed cheeks and silly grin. When I lower my arm and place it delicately on her chin, she raises her head with both awestruck and happy expression and looks straight into my eyes with her own filled with inexplicable torrent of emotions.

"So? What do you think?" I ask and I'm immediately amazed by my own voice. It's deep, reverberating, resounding, reminding me a little of Shiva's, but more... dangerous. More... monstrous.

I see Levia's eyes widening as her lips make a thin line and she freezes with her face reddening even more than it is crimson, and she is looking at me with that expression you make when your girlfriend does something in public and you're trying to appear somewhat composed and not squeal in happiness and hug and rub the life out of her and hide in a hole in embarrassment all at the same time.

"Wow." She finally mutters and tentatively wraps her arms around my waist. I feel each gentle touch of her fingers as if her hands were on my usual skin, and I smile giddily when she barely manages to join her hands around the base of my tail, which is, by the way, a fair bit higher than it was because it's much thicker than my succubus tail. "You're... beautiful." Levia says quietly while gazing up into my eyes, and I'm lost. Oh, I'm so down bad lost.

I forcefully reign in the torrent threatening to engulf me and I gently shift my hand the Levia's chin and lift her head up. I see her beautiful face heating up and I kneel on the ground slowly, all this time looking intently into her eyes.

"Levia..." I mutter in this low voice and I see her shivering lightly as she stays motionless in anticipation, and then jolts and rushes forward, pulling herself up and wrapping her arms around my neck.

I feel her lips, a little cold, really small now, as she presses them directly onto mine now incomparably larger, but still humane, and I lose with my own feelings and wrap my arms around her in a needy, tight embrace. Levia pulls back a little from the short kiss and looks up at me with curious eyes and huge grin, and she starts looking all over my face and learning about it. My eyes, my lips, my nose, my ears, my horns.

I feel as she stretches out her arm and grabs some of my dense, flaming hair and she brings it closer to her face, then giggles, bringing a wide smile to my face. "I love it. I so freaking much love it." She says in an excited whisper.

"I'm glad." I murmur quietly, trailing my fingers over Levia's back.

"I saw you earlier, in the hoverer, you know?" She continues quietly. "I was really shaken and it didn't really hit me back then, but... you're everything I wanted." She whispers and buries her head in my chest. "Whenever I thought about relationships, I never really wanted my... girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever, to be a human. I just... I think I wanted to find someone who would be as odd as me. Or even more odd. When I was younger I dreamed about meeting an alien in space and falling in love, you know? It's stupid now, and I know it's not really possible, but I really dreamed about it. And, uh..." I see her face reddening even as she looks sideways with her head on my chest.

"What is it?" I nudge her lightly.

"Later, I was interested in monsters. I was always weirdly obsessed about stories about humanoid monsters, like Elena I guess, falling in love with humans. Or demons with humans... uh, you know." Levia mutters in embarrassment. "And I think a part of me always wanted that. To find a monster out there and fall in love with it." She looks up at me with beet red cheeks. "And I did." She purrs and kisses me again.

"Mhm." I mumble and giggle, and Levia looks at me with eyes wide open at that sound. It is low and resounding, and yet so typically girly. Gap moe, ehehe.

I lean forward and bop Levia on her nose with my own. "Wanna see how this body fares?" I ask with a grin, already eager to move around, but I halt in my tracks as Levia gets redder for some reason and looks between my face and my chest. Huh? Oh. Oooh~.

"Ah, you naughty girl~. I mean to test my strength." I say with amusement. "You can find out other things later, but some priorities are in order."

"I know!" She shouts and glares at me with a cute pout as her face gets beet red. "It's not my fault you're asking me that while hugging me naked, okay!?"

Hm, you're not wrong. Though, hm. Does this count as naked if I have no private parts exposed and... all that? I have checked and I don't even have a proper vagina. My core is tightly shut and seems to be a bit more yellow from inside, but I don't think there's anything inappropriate visible, though at the same time I'm also convinced that this body must have... well genitals. Hm. Well, better not go into that rabbit hole now. Uh, that one demon hole as well. Ehehe.

A short, kinda embarrassing moment later we both stand up and turn to the light red wyvern corpse still laying on the side. We stand hand in hand, which in this case takes on a more literal meaning since my hand is like, over one and a half Levia's in size.

I'm towering well over three feet above my girlfriend, even excluding my massive horns, which is frankly a bit funny. I've been only a few inches taller than her up to now, and this change is kinda hard to get accustomed to when each tiny, subconscious interaction between us needs to be paused and adjusted to our new height. Like when either of us tries to grab other's hand. Levia needs to reach up almost to her shoulder, or I need to find her arm and nudge her so Levia would raise it. If not for our completely different appearances, we would look like a mother and daughter pair.

Well, no matter. Let's get down to business. How do I test my strength? Hm, actually, wait a bit. Lemme test my flexibility first, and do a warm up while we're at it.

I do a couple quick poses while Levia stares at me intently with healthily red cheeks and quickly conclude a simple thing. My flexibility is unchanged. By body moves a bit differently, which, by the way, is something I only now noticed because my brain seemed to automatically adapt to it, but there are no changes significant enough to affect my performance in battle negatively. At least, none I can spot within a minute or two and not in a fight.

So we're back to square one, how do I test my strength? I know I am greatly stronger than I was before, because my size has increased by about a half in height and I'm pretty sure True Demon form was supposed to increase my stats, which don't depend on size. Going by that, hm, how much did my stats increase?

On that matter, I wonder how this system works. I mean, if I now know this is reality, or at least have very good reason to suspect as such, then this system needs to have some real basis. But, well, I won't be trying to solve that. Maybe Levia will be interested.

Either way, I look into my stats and see then increased by... hm. How much did I have before? I think all my stats, both those of body and soul, have been increased by about half, plus minus twenty percent, save for Strength and Toughness that for some reason are both whooping two times higher... why are there three question marks by my Control? Eeeh, no matter. Later.

Anyway, my Strength and Toughness are whole two times higher, the latter even more like two point two, and that's some number, because doing some simple math I can say that my sheer strength has increased by about five times. I think so, at least, because I'm not sure if it translates directly, but two times the Strength stat and a bit less than two and a half times muscle cross-sectional area should make five times effective strength.

Hm, I wonder. I approach the wyvern quickly and put my arms under its head. I have no idea how much this thing weighs, but definitely hundreds of kilograms since the jaw itself is well over a meter in length. It's disproportionally large comparing to the rest of the body, since it's a wyvern and not a proper dragon.

According to Levia, wyverns are various cross-breeds, usually made by magic rather than, uh, biological processes, that still retain their primary draconic heritage. Due to that their individual characteristics vary greatly, and it seems in this case things went into its head. Maybe also in the other meaning.

I make sure I use no Primordial Energy to assist and pull the thing up till I stand upright. Well, okay. I throw the thing back onto the ground with ease and look at my arms. "That was barely straining, damn it." I comment. "It's incredible."

I think for a moment and smash my palms together, and there's a small, but distinct shockwave created along with a booming sound not unlike that of a small explosion. Well, I'll be damned. That is some power, and all that without any assist from Primordial Energy. With the assist, well... With the assist, I probably could make this wyvern go splat just like that. I mean, I know I could even without, but I mean that I could do it with purely physical means.

I stretch out my arms and my wings as far as I can, and I arch my back, feeling the powerful muscles in my body relaxing and stretching. I whip my tail and beat my wings strongly as I feel something building up in my chest. The joy, liberation, freedom. I feel incredible, unstoppable power and energy in my whole body, only waiting to be used.

"Amazing." Levia comments from behind me and I turn to her briefly, grinning.

"It is." I say softly, or at least that's the intention, though it still sounds deep and powerful. "I feel like I could do anything."

Having a glimpse into my physical strength, I put it aside for a moment and turn to my soul, and the first thing that hits me is my Demonic Flame. Its size and how it is built, more specifically.

For some reason, my Demonic Flame is very distinctly divided into inner and outer parts, the former being the same round thing it always was, and the latter forming a layer around it. It's around third of the inner part's diameter in thickness, but leaves a thin empty layer around the core that seems to... wrap around it and connect directly with the outside? It's hard to describe, but I'm pretty sure that the inner part is directly connected with the outside on the whole surface while still touching the outer one. Not to mention it's a flame, so how do I know it's round... Huh? Eeeh, some weird space-fuckery. I won't be trying to understand how this works.

Let's get back to some easier topics. My Demonic Flame is around four times the previous volume, which is a huge improvement, but for some reason the density inside my body is unchanged... because it's still only as large as it was before. Huh? Wait, what? It has four times larger capacity, but is the same size as before, so the density in my body stays the same. Okay, sounds better.

Back to capacity, I wonder if it gets multiplied by the stat, which is around, um, forty percent larger, if I'm not mistaken. Probably it gets. Then I have well over five times capacity. Another thing to note is that my reserves aren't full. In fact, they are suspiciously close to being empty, barely fifth on the bottom, though regenerating very fast.

Then my body, which is filled with Primordial Energy, but in slightly different manner than it was before. Earlier it was just kind of uniformly infused into my whole body. Now, putting aside the fact there is simply more of it because I have a larger body, there is a huge amount of energy swirling inside my horns. I'm not sure why it is here, but it feels... almost cataclysmic. The simple presence of this energy gives off a terrifying sense of danger and... control. I'm not sure what it does... but I'll probably learn in no long time.

That is, I believe, all from the important changes. But they are more than enough, I'd say, because just simple bonus to strength would be already something to get used to.

How do I test all that though?

I look around the place quickly, but there are no monsters in sight. That wyvern we killed was a lucky find. It attacked us when we were strolling around the Highlands and looking for strong monsters to kill, but the situation back then was the same as it is now. Well, Highlands, no matter how you look at it, aren't a place to hide for the larger monsters when the only thing you can find is waist-tall grass. There might be some caverns there, but we haven't spotted any yet.

"You wanna test your strength properly?" Levia asks, guessing my thoughts.

"Mhm." I rumble. "But there's nothing here. Though..." I say, but the next second realize I might be able to find something if I increase the sensitivity of my ears.

"Do you want to try on my nanobots?" I hear from my side and I turn to the side to empty sky, then look down at Levia.

"What?"

"I can make a shield or something for you to punch." She explains with a smirk at my reaction a moment before.

Hm. That's actually not a bad idea. "Sure." I nod. "But you do realize I could literally throw cars around right now? And easily, not like I'd need to strain myself very much. Not hoverers though."

She freezes for a moment in the middle of creating a large, thick tower shield, but soon resumes. "Well, I'll just have to make it stronger." She replies quietly with an embarrassed smile.

Half a minute later Levia is holding a huge, two meters tall and half that wide shield, and looking at me expectantly.

"Nah, you get out of here." I tell her with a shake of my head. "If you want me to hit as strong as I can, I don't trust myself to stop the collateral from hurting you."

"Huh? Oh, okay. Gimme a moment." She says and another string of nanobots flows out from her hand and into the shield. I see as she anchors it to the ground under a light angle, and she steps back with a small smile. "Should be alright." She nods and walks up to and behind me.

"Alright." I step up to the shield and take a stance for punching. "How much do you expect this thing to hold?"

"Hard to say, but at least a hundred times the force of a human punch."

"Alright." I nod. Challenge accepted.

I pull my arm back and punch forward, for now making sure not to use any of my abilities, and instead make use of my knowledge about martial arts. When my fist connects with the metal, there is a distinct sound like a metal door being hit with something heavy, and when I pull back my arm I see a small, but distinct dent in the shape of my fist. Maybe... half of an inch in depth? Something like that, in a ten inch wide shield.

I look at Levia with raised eyebrows. "No abilities. Pure physical strength. How does that look?"

"Nice~. That's even better than I expected. You've got quite good technique." She nods appreciatively with a smile and I grin happily in response. "You're far from breaking it in one hit, but that's still really powerful. I would have trouble even denting it."

I turn back to the shield with a grin and pul my arm back again. I swing my fist, and this time I make use of energy affinity, focusing my momentum on my fist and transferring it from the rest of my body. In other words, I'm using a hundred percent of my normal strength.

This time when I hit, my hand starts aching a bit and the sound of the impact is much louder. My hand sinks into the shield visibly and the shield itself slides back in the ground a bit. When I pull my fist out, there is a two-inch hole in the thing and there are fine cracks in the metal, spreading from the point of impact.

"Wow~." Levia exclaims from behind me. "That was something. What did you do?"

"I transferred the force from my whole body to my fist." I reply, turning around. "So it's like using my whole strength. I haven't tried tapping into something more, like hysterical strength, but I'm not itching to."

"Um, hysterical strength?" Levia asks curiously.

"It's when someone exerts much more strength than they are normally capable of, breaking their body limits. It mostly happens in life and death situations, but theoretically it's possible to tap into it purposefully." I explain and she nods in understanding.

"Do you want to try hitting it with your full strength?"

I look at Levia with a small smile and one eyebrow arched in amusement. "You sure you want me to try?"

"Um, yeah?" She answers hesitantly. "I mean, that was the purpose, right?"

"Well, yeah." I nod. "I won't be accelerating my perception for now." I say and turn back to the shield. "Um, could you fix this?" I glance back at Levia.

"Sure." She extends her hand and a swarm of nanobots shots out from her hand onto the shield, and a few seconds later they all get sucked into the thing and it appears good as new.

"Alright." I pull my arm back with a grin and think for a moment. How do I go about it? I can do it the same way I did with Geru a while back, but I'm not sure if it's the best idea. It would be much better to make use of some kinetic or thermal energy to make it showy. Hm.

I punch forward, coat my hand in flame, transfer the force from my whole body to my arm, will my fist to have powerful, unchangeable momentum, and add another thing - to draw thermal and kinetic energy from the surroundings and from the target and add it to the kinetic energy of my fist. I feel incredible power accumulating in my hand, and when it hits the shield, two things happen. A huge amount of energy flows into my fist, and in the very same moment that torrent is discharged to the front.

There is a loud cracking and booming sound, and the shield abruptly bursts from the point of impact into countless frozen shards, ranging in size from motes of dust to pieces as large as Levia's head from the edges of the shield. They are all launched away with incredible power, showering and tearing the grass behind into pieces, some flying as far as hundreds of meters away and some making a cloud of swirling and shimmering in the sun mist. It all settles after a few seconds when only the mist is still dispersing, but most of the shield is already littering the ground in a few hundred meters range.

I turn to Levia with a wide grin on my face, dropping my sharply aching arm and regenerating it in a burst of flame. "So? Was it good?" I ask cheekily and she shakes her head slowly with her eyes and mouth wide open.

"It was... absolutely terrifying." She whispers. "And I love it."