Chapter 62
In a certain sense, Ethel carried more face than Jared, the newly seated Clan Chief, over these past days, she had grown thoroughly close with Soren’s mother.
She alone was excused from formal bows when greeting Sylene.
Sylene had requested it personally, telling her not to weigh status so heavily, better that they simply be friends.
Ethel was pure to the bone, without a malicious thought in her, and Sylene liked the girl enormously, her company was restful, and they could talk about anything.
Jared took in every detail of how well Soren and Sylene treated his sister, alongside the gratitude, his loyalty climbed another steady notch.
A faint worry crossed Sylene’s face. "It’s been four or five days now."
"Soren still hasn’t come out of that independent space of his?"
Bruce shook his head, keeping it humbly bowed, not daring one extra syllable, ever since learning what Victoria and Soren were to each other, he had permanently retired his old demoness, release my master temper.
Soren was the master he’d serve with his life, and Victoria was Soren’s rightful woman, what bold demoness? That was clearly his highly respected, thoroughly good Matriarch.
Sylene’s willow brows drew together, she liked Victoria as much as she liked Ethel, it was just that a worry was taking shape, one best summarized as her son’s life might be in danger.
It was one thing that Victoria held the realm of an Upper-Tier Demon Emperor, she was also blessed with fair skin and exquisite beauty, generous curves in full measure, an absolutely superior furnace constitution, as the old texts would put it.
Soren was formidable, but still only a Middle-Tier Demon Emperor, in sheer demonic energy reserves he could not compare with an Upper-Tier.
The two of them, sealed away for days on end, could something have gone wrong? Her worry was not unfounded.
In her understanding, Soren had been timid to a fault his entire life, touch a woman? He couldn’t manage a sentence to any woman besides his own mother.
Now he’d gained enlightenment and become another person entirely, but chasing enjoyment with no concept of moderation was how young men ruined themselves.
The upper floor of the demonic fortress.
Soren was already sitting in a chair drinking tea, eyes on the strategy panel in his mind, mouth curved in the faint beginnings of a smile.
Victoria sat cross-legged and formed a hand seal, a strange wave of heat kindled inside her body, flowing outward, slowly engulfing her from crown to heel.
Every surge of that heat hit like a physical impact, leaving her twisting where she sat. "So hot..."
"My body feels so strange."
"There’s a weirdness to it I can’t describe."
The sensation wasn’t pain, exactly, it was as if she’d been anesthetized while her bones, bloodlines, even her skin were taken apart and rebuilt.
Soren knew this was the change from feeding his destiny and fortune back into her, per the Strategy Encyclopedia, none of it would harm her.
"Don’t panic."
"It’s just a small gift for you."
"You’ll understand very soon."
"Whatever you say, I believe it." With Following to the Death lit, Victoria could not harbor the faintest doubt toward him, at any time, in any situation.
Three sentences, and her nerves settled, she even felt a small, secret delight.
The next second an itch scratched at her heart, and it escaped her mouth before she could stop it. "Did Lysara get one?"
"No."
"Then... the other women?"
"No."
"Wonderful! Exclusive to me, whatever it turns out to be, I already know I’ll love it." Victoria couldn’t even say what was happening to her, and couldn’t control herself either, joy misted her eyes over.
Purple, scorching flames erupted across her body.
Crackling arcs of black lightning laced the blaze, Victoria stared at this energy that was somehow thunder and fire at once, with no idea what her body was becoming.
All she felt was a boundless tide of power pouring up from deep in her flesh and blood.
The flames burned hot enough to warp the surrounding air, the black lightning dancing along their edges carried lethality vicious enough to shred the great bed to ribbons in an instant.
For all its destruction, it did not harm Victoria by so much as a hair, her thoroughly drained body sprang back to peak condition in the blink of an eye, comfort soaking through her whole being.
"Th-this is..." She hardly dared believe her eyes, this was the gift he meant?
Soren didn’t know what the thunder-fire was either, only that it had been born from the transformation his returned destiny triggered, he summoned the Strategy Encyclopedia.
[After Master fed his destiny and fortune back to Victoria, her body had undergone a qualitative transformation]
[Her constitution did not evolve. Instead, she birthed something far more precious: a companion demonic flame, the Demonic Corrosion Thunder-Fire.]
[This thunder-fire would continuously adjust and purge Victoria’s weaknesses, granting formidable power in both attack and defense.]
[At her current cultivation as an Upper-Tier Demon Emperor, fully unleashing her demonic techniques in tandem with the Demonic Corrosion Thunder-Fire allowed her to fight across realms and kill a Lower-Tier Demon Ancestor.]
Kill an Ancestor Realm, if she could truly kill at the Ancestor Realm, this companion flame was flatly absurd.
The gap between major realms ran dozens to a hundred times over, before this, outstanding as Victoria was among Upper-Tier Demon Emperors, outright killing a Lower-Tier Demon Ancestor would have been impossible. Now she could.
Soren shared the information, Victoria’s eyes went wide, and for a long moment she simply couldn’t process it.
She could feel the flame’s profound mysteries and raw power for herself, but demonic skills elevated to Ancestor-killing? Was that real? It had to be, Soren’s words could not be false, her trust in him was absolute, so she threw every doubt away.
"Try drawing it back into your body."
Under his guidance, she reined the Demonic Corrosion Thunder-Fire in.
The control wasn’t seamless yet, now and then a wisp of black lightning or a purple ember drifted loose from her body, accented by the crackle and flicker, her aura turned more wickedly bewitching still.
Guessing she must be bursting with questions, Soren didn’t leave her hanging, he told her plainly, this was his own unique ability, through dual cultivation as the catalyst, he had enabled her to birth this companion demonic flame.