Chapter 75 – Contrast

"Say, mom." I ask at some point as we are sitting in the forest, waiting for Letty and Dragha to come. "Back when I was entering VOW for the first time... you told me you are Demon Princess. What was that about? Are you really a princess?"

"Mmm." She doesn't answer for a while, and I look up at her face from my position on her lap only to see her deep in thought... and yet with a smirk. Huh. "It is mostly true, yes. You would be right calling me a princess. Although it is a representative position I hold because of my power and accomplishments, not birth. There is no such thing as demon nobility and demon royalty, at least at that scale."

"Okay." I nod. "What about the queen? The king? And, um. Your parents in general, if that's alright?"

"My parents..." Shiva trails off, seemingly gathering her thoughts, and when she finally speaks, it is with a particular undertone I'm not sure I recognize. "To put it simply, the Demon Queen, the most powerful being whose existence I am aware of, is my partner."

"Eh." I let out. Is that, by any chance, age gap yuri? Sounds like incest as well, although she said that her title was not decided by birth so it's most likely not. Although... she has that much power... I blink, realizing I've been silent for a while. "Ooops. Sorry. Um, what do you mean?" I look up at her again and see her with what I recognize as a soft smile.

"It is quite a long story..." She chuckles. "I might recount it to you sometime, but it will not be today as we do not have enough time. The simplest version is that due to an unforseen turn of events in far, far past, our souls became connected. We grew close during that time... and continued living together, having decided not to split our beings completely."

"...How long ago was that?" I ask curiously, trying to somehow connect that sentence with the fact that apparently my other mom is even more powerful than Shiva. There are two massive flags here, and both of them have huge implications while the second is completely unreal no matter how I try to think about it.

"Longer than you can understand." She answers immediately, making me look at her with raised eyebrows. "Suffice to say, I have seen universes begin and end, and most of that time I was together with Vanessa." Oh.

"Vanessa..." Her name... "Um. Will I be able to meet her?" I try to keep something of a poker face, but I think a lot of my emotions still leaks out. A lot of it is nervousness.

"Sorry to say that, but I do not think so. Not in close future, that is." Shiva replies and pats my head lightly as I deflate a bit. "Vanessa is... different from me. It is hard to explain properly, but an oversimplified analogy would be that if I am like a computer, with each mind a small independent program, she is a single, monumental, homogeneous neural network. Our powers are fundamentally different, and hers puts her above me in terms of raw strength and capabilities, but it has many limitations and inconveniences that mine does not have."

"So if I managed to push my mind higher, it would be possible?"

"That... essentially you are right." She confirms, but quickly adds the second part that brings me back to earth. "However, I do not think you realize how much higher it would need to be. My partner is the absolute strongest being that I know of, even including me. By attempting to reach a level where you could converse with her safely and not one-sidedly, you would be trying to reach a level I, as I am here, cannot even begin to explain to you. If you tried to contact her as you were when you did the thing to Elisora, you would have your brain fried before you could comprehend anything."

"Alright. Makes sense." I nod, a little glum. "Just like you higher Rings, right?"

"Indeed. It is just that the requirement to meeting them would be lower."

"I see." I think for a moment and sigh lightly with a smile. "Not that I'm gonna meet them all, I guess."

Shiva chuckles at that and I look at her metallic face with raised eyebrows. "We number more than the humans in all of this world's history. Much more."

"Oh." I blink. "That's quite a lot." Many billions at the very least... haaah. With each word, my mom is turning into someone more and more terrifying and amazing at the same time. I sigh lightly, leaning back on her, and we stay in the comfortable silence for a while, my mind eventually wandering to Letty. Were are those two, if we're on that...? Oh, they are close to Riverside already. Must have taken the while to relax.

"...When are you going?" I ask Shiva, looking up at her, and notice she has a reluctant expression.

"I was about to bring it up. I need to be back soon, so I better get going now." Her hand moves and I feel myself being lifted up, then promtply get kissed on the forehead. Or, well, as much as her metallic body allows for that; it's more of a symbolic gesture than an actual kiss.

I hug her in response, feeling a tightness in my chest that I already got to know when I first met her. "Mmm, alright. See you later, mom." I smile as I pull back and hop down to the ground, then hug her massive leg and pull back again.

"See you later, dear." She smiles. "Maybe sooner than you think."

I raise my eyebrows, but I see the facet of the space rotating around her and she disappears. I stay there for a long moment in silence before turning around and beating my wings, shooting up into the air with a massive shockwave sweeping through the forest behind me.

I turn in the direction of riverside and accelerate quickly, at the same time writing to Letty I'll be back with them in a while.

By the time I reach the two, they are almost at Riverside. I swoop down and land next to them, causing both to look up in surprise and Letty to jump at me, knocking me out of the air with a laugh. We both tumble to the ground and I huff when she pins me down with a huge grin.

"Hey dear." She asks excitedly after a quick hug. "I saw the video of you playing Xavier. Was it unedited?"

I blink at that. "Uh, that depends what playing Xavier means?" I ask with a twitch, as I know very well it can have more than one and not necssarily decent meanings.

We proceed to roughly discuss the event while picking ourselves up from the ground - watched by distinctly amused Dragha - and quickly conclude it was all unedited. I learn that someone in the crowd filmed it from the very beginning when I was talking to Lucief all the way till I disappeared, making it into the first ten trending videos all over FTLN within an hour.

"Did you have a lot of fun fighting him?" Letty asks afer a while as we resume the casual walk to Riverside, which is already well in sight and no more than two hundred meters away.

"Mmm, depends?" I hesitate. "It was... fun, but disappointing, if that makes sense?"

"What did you do afterwards, by the way?" Her mom asks with a raised eyebrow. "I won't believe it took you ninety minutes to get back here from Black Harbor."

I nod to that, this time decisively. "I did a lot. I talked to a goddess, met Eli who was under arrest for that communicator Letty gave her, and talked with my mom afterwards." I say, rooting both in place as they stare at me. For a long while in silence.

"Uh, maybe one after the other?" Dragha finally hedges.

"Hm." Yep, that might be better. "So I met Handrangea, the goddess of fertility and prosperity, who was long story short reassuring me that Xavier was acting on his own and that she has very little impact on the Church's doings. I didn't talk long with her though."

Lety nods slowly at that and smiles. "Alright, that's better. Will we be meeting her more, or is she more like an observer?"

"I would say an observer, although I don't really know her. She said that gods generally don't meddle in human affairs much. Not officially, at least."

"Um." Dragha clears her throat, somewhat put off. "Shouldn't you be focusing more on the god part?"

I look at her and tilt my head. "She's not that strong." I reply and she blinks repeatedly. "She's only a deity for humans here, but in the grander picture she's just one of uncountable so-called gods."

Letty giggles when her mom slaps her forehead with a splash and waddles in it in silence for a long while. "Fair..." She mutters finally. "Why did I expect anything else with you."

Should I take offense to that? Nah. "Anyway, yes, that was the first thing. Then I talked with Eli, who-."

"Who's Eli?" My girlfriend interrupts and I turn to her with a frown, processing the issue for a long while until it clicks.

"Ah! That's Elisora, the Inquisitor Captain we met earlier. I call her Eli because..." I trail off. Um. Why do I call her Eli?

...That's a good question.

When did I start? Not immediately after I met her, that's for sure. Was the first time after her soul bloomed...? I feel like that matches. Though, why did I change the way I adress her then?

Because her soul bloomed? My memories of the time when I pushed my mind to do the thing are telling me there's a good reason for that, but it's, uh, like asking a human to explain something to a cat. It might get the idea, but it definitely won't get the context and intricacies and most likely won't understand at all.

So... it was... naming? A baptism of sorts? That kinda matches, but it's... hm. Shit, I can only get the gist, and the problem is that even if I push my mind again, it won't help me with understanding when I pull back.

...I supose it has to be enough. "Um, I'm... not entirely sure?" I hedge, back in the conversation. "I did... a little something to her that that made her soul bloom, and I think that made me unconsciously name her Eli?"

My girlfriend stays silent for a long while and nods slowly, glancing at her mom. "I think I know what you're talking about, but you'll be explaining that to me later." She says with a grin. "Continue?"

"...Mhm." I nod, my mind latching onto the explaining later part, but I focus on the conversation. "She was being... not quite imprisoned, but close, and I took her out of the Inquisition. I suppose she is no longer a part of it? I kinda hired her as well, but that's more of an insurance for us. I'll explain it later in more detail, if you want?" I look questioningly at Letty, seeing that the walls of Riverside are barely twenty meters away.

"Alright. What about your mom?" She asks with a smile as we approach the guards and go in after giving our identification and vouching for Dragha.

"Well, I met her again." I shrug lightly after we go past the gate and into the town. "I spent a while with her, apparently she was busy and could only stay for an hour. Oh, and it was a different body... person...? Um, different mind, I mean."

"Is she like a hive mind?" Dragha asks, and I hesitate realizing we haven't told Letty's parents about that.

"For simplicity yes, although it's more complicated." I finally settle on that. "I could explain if you want, but I'd rather focus on this?" I glance at her, gesturing at the bustling town around us, and she nods her head.

"Sure. Where are we headed now? Also, there aren't many monsters there, right?"

"If you mean monsters as in people like you, with inhuman bodies, then there's some. Rare, but not rare enough to be surprising." Letty answers her mom.

"Vulcan's arguably one." I add. "I want to meet him now actually. I was thinking we could go to the guild, then get a meal with Cathie and the rest if they're here?"

"Fine by me." Dragha nods.

...

After introducing Letty's mom to the town and to adventuring so she would not need to take care of the guild by herself, we went to the same bar we left with Letty that memorable day. We had our first kiss not long after we raced out of here, huh?

The day's special guests were Cathie with Xethu, who were awfully chummy with each other. Maybe that's just because I could see more than just what was visible at first glance, including their heartbeat or internal mana flow that I had started noticing at some point. I have no idea when, to be honest. I think I noticed it with Handrangea...

Point is, their flow just... felt different. And their cores seemed to be doing the exact same thing my Demonic Flame did with Letty pretty often, that is move and express itself, just in their case it was much less visible since a Mana Core is a findamentally different thing. It's like comparing the attention of a plant to the attention of an animal.

Anyway. Back on tracks. We talked for a while with them, introduced Dragha as Letty's mom, which was met with pretty comical reactions, then reaffirmed we'd be meeting on Gaia's Sunday, and chatted idly for a while. It was also during that time that I slipped out to talk to Vulcan.

Now as to where he is, he's in an inn together with Crimson. I don't think it'll be a problem.

So I write a quick message to Vulcan, asking him if he has time - I see he does, which doesn't mean I'm going to be rude - and receive a confirmation a moment later.

So I teleport to his door and knock. He jumps up in surprise, but goes to the door and opens it quickly.

"Hey Vulcan. Been a while." I grin and he wordlessly looks between me and a window floating next to him, where he wrote a reply like ten seconds ago. "Don't sweat the small things. There's something I need to talk to you about."

"Sure, Helia. Should we...?" He gestures to the inside of the room, but I just grab his hand and teleport us out somewhere in the forest, then close the door and slide a lock into place, and finally install a barrier so no one would spy on us.

He looks around, blinking, and rubs his forehead. "Um."

"I told you, don't sweat the small things." I grin. "Sit down." I tell him and he does. He sits down on a rock directly next to him and blinks in surprise. "And that's what I want to talk about."

"Ah, right..." Vulcan nods, tensing as if he wanted to stand up, but eventually sighs lightly and keeps sitting. "It's..." And he trails off. No surprise there. I also would have no idea how to put it.

"I'll give you the explanation I received directly, because I don't understand the full details myself." I begin, sitting down on a floating string of Primordial Energy and starting to swing it a little. "First, I'm a Primordial, you're a Hellcarver. No questions there, I assume, but there's one thing you probably don't know. Hellcarvers were originally designed as a race of servants."

He sharply breathes in at that, and I quickly continue, not allowing him to interrupt. "As you've probably guessed, the vassals are Primordials. What it means is that you have a light mental compulsion to follow my orders, and I have a mental compulsion to treat you well. Apparently you should be able to resist it easily once you know it's there." I finish and look at him as he processes that information.

"...Alright. I see." Eventually Vulcan nods slowly. "That's... good to know. I was... worried about it." He grimaces.

"Mhm~." I nod. "Now that that's behind us, do you have any questions?" He blinks in surprise and leans back, seemingly surprised at the quick resolution. I giggle and flip around on the string as I pull it up, ending up with my head on the same height as his own. "I said what I wanted, hopefully reassured you, and if that's all I'll be going and give you back to Crimson, yeah? So?"

"...You changed." He remarks after a while and I slip off the string, then stand up and dust myself off. The entire thing completely purposeful.

"Well I changed a whole lot." I gesture to my body, without a single blemish, without a speck of dust that makes me up. "That it affected my mind is a given, right? You did as well, and so did everyone else. Though..." I trail off, looking up into the air, although still seeing his conflicted face. "It might be because I met my mom. As in, the mom here, the mom of me." I hit my sternum with my thumb a few times. "My mom here in this world, if you'd prefer. Maybe I'm still on a bit of a high after that." I grin.

"Wow, okay." Vulcan rubs his forehead at that and pauses for a long while. "That's, uh, a lot to take in. I take it she loves you?"

That gives me a pause, and I put a finger to my lips. Then I grin. "Yeah, I suppose she does. She's... hm. Aw, well." I step forward and pat Vulcan on his shoulder, looking him into the eyes with a bright smile, making him blink in surprise.

"You worry too much about me, Vulcan." I tilt my head. "Maybe being a Hellcarver has something to do with it? But you've always been like that. Thanks for worrying, but you're out of the loop here. Point is, don't worry about me. I'll give you another piece of world shattering news on Gaia, so look forward to it. Now sorry but I'm going back to Letty." I wink, grabbing his arm, teleport us both to his room, then go back to Letty's lap by myself.

"...Hello again, Helia." Dragha says dryly and Letty, just about to give me a welcome kiss, huffs in amusement, tickling me with the blown air.

"Hey." I raise my arms in her direction with a hurt expression and she snorts, then starts laughing and pulls me up to her chest, leaning back and wrapping her arms around my back.

"You're awfully cuddly today. Did something happen?" She asks with a soft smile.

I purr a little. "No, not really." I nuzzle into her neck. "I'm just getting cold feet."