The Dimensional Gap was the space outside of reality, or perhaps the space in between realities. It was, in essence, the local equivalent of the Blind Eternities. Granted, the Dimensional Gap wasn't quite as dangerous as the Blind Eternities – something powerful enough could survive in the Dimensional Gap even without a Planeswalker Spark, and being destroyed could take a few minutes – but traveling through it unprotected would still kill you very quickly. That was all ignoring the resident Great Red, the entity that wasn't unambiguously considered the strongest in the world because it was technically outside of it.
The point was that it hadn't been safe for me to enter the Dimensional Gap until now. Even if Great Red did not take exception to my presence, I would have died within a few minutes, and be erased out of existence shortly thereafter. That all changed with the acquisition of the Sorcerous Gear though. Using Azi Dahaka's knowledge, it became possible to create a spherical bubble that protected me, allowing me to traverse the place.
At this point, one might consider it appropriate for me to describe the environment, my traveling companions, or the riveting conversations that we had. Unfortunately for any such needy people out there, I was all alone. About the only Entity one could expect to encounter here was the Great Red, and with him, more numbers just meant a higher chance of someone pissing him off and him starting a fight. Unfortunately, no amount of numbers would provide safety against him. As for the environment, well, how do you describe a place that is alien to concepts like distance or color, and yet does not cause you any mental issues to look at? It was a place that was simultaneously indescribable, and perfectly normal. None of that Lovecraftian nonsense about going insane from just witnessing it, but human languages never bothered to develop words that could be used to describe this place.
Pointless pontification on the description and appearance of the locale aside, a larger issue was that this place had about as much of a concept of basic geometry and directions as a "creative" modern arts student in the middle of a 3-day high using experimental drugs.To put it another way, the concepts were too fluid to answer even such basic questions as 'how far' or 'in what direction'. At the same time, the concepts did exist in small localized areas.
To put it another way, up to the distance that you can see? Distances and positions up to that point were concretely defined. An inch beyond the local equivalent of the horizon? It could contain anything from absolutely nothing to a millennia-old Holy Sword, and reality – or unreality as the case may be – itself would not know until someone checked. Or it might be that it was defined at any given moment, but things just teleported around randomly when not being observed, like someone took Quantum Mechanics and scaled them up to work on the macro scale. No one was certain.
Of course, the question then arose as to how you found anything in this space. Did you just randomly fly around blindly and hope you ran into something?
Kind of, yeah. The only exception was that if you were looking for something concrete that was in this space, then the more exact – and accurate – your idea of what it was, the higher your chances of randomly stumbling upon it. Not that the odds went up to infinity. Even if you knew exactly what you were looking for, you could still expect to float randomly around here for a good while before coming upon it.
So, one might be wondering what I was doing in this place then. To anyone sane, traveling here sounded absolutely useless. And yet, as soon as I mastered Azi Dahaka's spell for safe traveling here, I had plunged right in.
The answer, naturally, was that I was looking for something that had been dumped in here a long, long time ago. As in, before the three-way all-out warfare between the three Biblical Factions, after the continental scale war by the previous big shots over in Northern Europe.
"That is a lot of monologuing to say that you are looking for some inactive golems whose presence here is no great secret, even to those pissants that you call muggles."
I nodded to the Dragon talking out of my arm.
"Sure, most of the Gogmagog became deactivated after being tossed in here, but one of them is still active."
"And pretty much useless." He responded immediately. "Just because those golems were developed to use as weapons of war between Gods, does not mean that one of them could fight on even footing against a God. Pretty much anyone but you who could safely travel through here could easily dismantle one of those toys. If they were truly God Class combatants, they would have been retrieved by someone before now, and reactivated, no matter how much effort it took."
I shrugged. "I'm not expecting them to defeat Gods, though even in a fight against one, having a minion that can regenerate, whom I can afford to sacrifice, and can spam attacks capable of harming said God could be pretty useful. Mostly though, I figured that they could be useful for dealing with lesser threats. One of those would still have the stats of an Ultimate Class being. If we can use the active one as a base to reactivate the rest, that could be a useful show of force in Devil politics."
The Dragon snorted in laughter. "Ah, yes, politics. The so-called great game of the weak. I have dismissed caring about such trivialities."
Well, I wasn't going to argue that point. Even if the Dragon making that argument ended up dead as a result of his dismissal of those politics. Well, at least he didn't fuck up as badly as Vritra had.
"Hey, Azi-tan, are those it?"
"Don't call me that, unless you want me to call you So-tan."
I shuddered, as I suddenly imagined Azi Dahaka dressed up like Levi-tan. A three-headed semi-humanoid Evil Dragon dressed up in a stripperific magical girl outfit with a staff with a cartoon heart as its head was a really weird image. Also, Dragons weren't supposed to have tits.
"Hey, Azi Dahaka, are those the Gogmagog?"
"They are." He agreed simply.
What we were looking at was a series of armored statues. I wasn't sure of the exact height, but each of them was tall, the heads alone at least twice my height. That would make each statue somewhere between ten and twenty meters tall? It was hard to tell. While the statues were humanoid, they were bulky in shape, as if an ancient artisan crafted a human sculpture out of mud. You could recognize the shape, but the fingers were stubby and wide, the arms and legs were bulky and muscular, and there was no neck. The head was basically just a steel-colored metal helmet – despite these things being created before the invention of steel – in a roughly hemispherical shape.
"The Gods who made this weren't very good artists, were they?"
"Art is, by and large, a human invention. Some Gods copied human art, took it as their domain and tried to take credit for human inventions, but in the end, supernatural beings are merely aping at human creativity in this respect. These Gogmagog are only as good as human artistry was at the time." He paused for a moment before continuing. "Also, the point of a weapon of war isn't to look pretty. It is to murder your enemies. If you are spending time making it look pretty, you aren't working on making it better at murder, or creating extra murder machines."
Well, that made sense.
"So how do we find the one-"
"Third from the left, the one that is pointing its middle finger at the sky."
I looked, and found that yes, there was one golem there that was alternating between flipping us off, and pointing a fist at us. Middle finger, then fist. Middle finger, then fist. That was it.
"Hmmm, minimal movement at best. It appears to have some sensory functions if it noticed us, but friend or foe detection and more complex sensory suits are offline. Given that they have a self-repair function, odds are they are low on power by this point."
I frowned, while I slowly descended towards the golem. Or flew up at it. It was hard to tell. This place had no gravity beyond the place that I thought the golem was supposed to point at. This meant that most of the Gogmagog were upside down to me, so what was up for me, was down for them. Then there were a handful that were turned sideways, because apparently they were being contrary about the direction of gravity. Point was though, that I floated through the non-space towards the Gogmagog in question.
"So, how do we activate this thing?"
"You just need to recharge it." My Dragon mentor replied. "Though to do that, you need to form a contract of ownership with it first. Which is useful, because if you gave it enough magic to regenerate, its friend or foe systems would declare you a foe, and it would try to murder you. For now, we should form a contract with it. Then you can let it recover in your pocket dimension by feeding on your aura."
Right. Don't poke the ancient anti-God weapon until you are absolutely sure that it won't do its job and try to kill you. Got it.
"Okay. So, how do we do that?"
"It is similar in concept to the Devil style familiar contract. Given the spell was last used on these things thousands of years ago, before Devil Magic was invented, there are naturally a few conceptual differences. I will guide you through it, but first you should Boost your capabilities so that you don't fuck it up."
I sighed. I had been hoping to transport it back home before working through this. Unfortunately, taking all of them back right now wasn't an option, since I could not hide all these Gogmagogs. That made things politically non-viable, since coming home with a few dozen weapons that a group of Gods used to wage war on another group of Gods with would make it look like I was preparing to kick start a war or something. Given my goal was peace between the three factions, that meant I had to take things slow for now.
"Boost."
So that meant pondering about useless things as the Sorcerous Gear slowly Boosted itself for a couple of minutes.
"Boost."
"The overall goal is to form a sympathetic link for a master-slave contract's establishment. You take advantage of the non-sapience of the target to form a mutually consensual contract without needing the Gogmagog's consent..."
Well, at least Azi was willing to spend the time giving me a lecture on Magic. Slowly, with the help of the clones that popped up with each Boost, started forming the spell under his guidance, using our multiple existences to triple check the spell without slowing down our work.
"...You only allow the mind of the target to awaken once you have bound its will to you. Then you widen the mental link to send through ideas and concepts. This allows the Gogmagog which only possesses sentience to act with sapience when following your commands..."
It was spell work that normally required at least two users, but with enough clones supplying multiple users at the same time it was no issue. Whoever said there was no 'I' in teamwork was just too much of a talentless hack to figure out self-duplication.
Eventually, the spell was completed. There was, unfortunately, no flashy light or dramatic music. The dozen magical circles that we had formed simply settled down into the Gogmagog. As they did, I could feel my aura rapidly decrease. The dozen clones that I had out all popped. The amount of magic that I possessed drained at an unrealistic rate, going in seconds from about four-thousand times my regular level back to how much I normally had. I blinked, my sight going dark for a moment from the drain. When I looked back up, the lone eye of the golem – a bright red color – had lit up in the middle of its face, and was looking directly at me.
"GAOOOOOOOOOUW."
It roared, before moving to kneel before me in a slow, cumbersome pace.
"It is done," Azi said unnecessarily. "It will now repair itself in time, then you can play with the useless toy. Now toss it in your pocket dimension, and let's get out of here. I do not feel that we are up to fighting the Great Red yet, and it would be a shame for you to die because you picked an unnecessary fight."
I snorted at the idea of an Evil Dragon calling a fight 'unnecessary'. Still, he had a point, and I wanted to get out of here. So I complied, quickly throwing the two spells together and evacuating the area.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Gyaaaaah!"
Sorin looked down at his clone that was screaming like a pathetic little bitch. Really, he had only melted most of his spinal column and was constantly in agonizing pain as his organs stopped functioning. There wasn't a need to make such a big deal out of it.
"Gyaaaaaah!"
The clone appeared to disagree with Sorin's perfectly rational assessment. Seriously, his expected lifespan had been less than an hour even before the spell fucked up his nerves. Was dying half an hour before his natural time such a big deal? Sorin certainly wouldn't be crying like a little bitch if he was to die half an hour before his natural life expectancy gave out. He would have appreciated getting to live 9999 years and change.
"Gyaaaaaah!"
"Oh, do shut up."
Sorin shot a laser of destruction at the head of the clone, destroying it. As soon as it 'died', the thing shattered into a dozen pieces with the sound of glass breaking. The pieces also did the same, and then those pieces, the mass and volume getting less and less each time, until it was all gone. As the body finally finished evaporating, Sorin also received its memories of how it had tried to cast the experimental spell. Unfortunately, its memories were heavily focused on the moment when it thoroughly fucked up, and the precise step it did to create the error. The rest of the clones receiving this memory at the same time caused them to instinctively replicate the action, to predictable results.
"Gwaaaaah!"
"Oh, Morgana's firm tits, it hurts!"
"My spine!"
"My eyes! Why do my eyes hurt!"
Sorin sighed. "Oh, for fuck's sake." A single hand-wave tossed out dozens of lightning bolts, blasting the clones to pieces and destroying them. Unfortunately, all the memories he received only taught him the exact same lesson on how not to fuck up.
"You know, I am willing to try out new things as much as the next slave girl," Kuroka's voice called out teasingly as she slouched atop a throne grown out of flowers, her yukata worn loosely to show her cleavage, "but I don't think you electrocuting yourself is doing it for me."
She pushed herself off of her throne, the ground growing flowers beneath her bare feet as she sauntered forward, never actually touching the soil itself. When she passed, the flowers that she had stepped off of would straighten out and grow for another second or so before stopping. A kaleidoscopic road marked her path as she came over to Sorin, draping herself over to him.
"Please tell me masochism isn't your fetish. This slave doesn't want to punish her master."
Sorin rolled his eyes at her act. Not that the naughty kitty could see it. Given the disparity in their heights, his face was comfortably buried in her ample bosom, hiding it from view. Instead, he reached around and gave her ass a firm smack to get the point across, before stepping back.
"You know exactly what I'm trying to achieve here. You are just being lazy and trying to find an excuse to get out of your training."
"But training is booooring." Kuroka pouted. "If I was going to get sweaty and out of breath, I would rather it be from choking on your dick than making flowers bloom. What is even the point of figuring out how to grow flowers using Senjutsu?"
Sorin sighed at the cat girl being horny once again. Though to be fair, he hadn't taken his hand off of her ass as he played with it, so he wasn't in a position to be laying blame. Sex was simply more fun than training. Which was why he planned to combine the two, to make training less boring.
"Boost."
Sorin ignored the clone that appeared next to him as he pulled Kuroka's back into him, hands snaking around and under her robes to play with her breasts while his erect dick nestled between her ass cheeks.
"If you can make flowers sprout, we can develop that into giving them a controlled growth, or even do the same with trees. It could be a useful combat technique."
"Boost."
"Senjutsu isn't – ah – Mokuton. Naruto isn't – mhhhm – a reference for how Magic – ahhh – works." The girl said in between moans.
"Boost."
"Maybe," Sorin admitted fingers pinching and playing with her erect nipples. "But we won't know how far you can develop Senjutsu unless we try it."
"Boost."
"But it is so boring!" Kuroka protested, moving her hips back and forth to rub her ass up and down on his dick. "Training is boring."
"Boost."
"Didn't I tell you?" Sorin asked, reaching down to lift up her dress and expose her ass. The girl eagerly pressed her ass back into him and spread her legs to expose her wet pussy, purring in satisfaction as he slid a finger inside. "We can have sex to recover once we have exhausted ourselves."
"Boost."
He pulled his finger out of her, and gave her a light thwack between the legs, making Kuroka jump. "So if you want to get laid, get back to growing plants."
"Boost."
He ignored her frustrated pouts, turning to his own training. This time, he would not make all of the clones try at the same time. Instead, he set them in pairs of two in the order that they had been created in. The first two started first on their experiments, even as he kept using Sorcerous Gear to make more clones. His current limit was 12 Boosts – and hence 12 clones – before he started overtaxing his mind, and his focus dropped.
What he was doing wasn't particularly conceptually complicated. The body communicated using bio-electrical signals. In mundane humans, these signals traveled at up to 150 meters per second. An impressive pace. But nothing special. In other species and those enhanced with magic, this pace was faster. Still, there was the fact that if you had actual electricity flowing through your nerves and spine instead of chemical flows dropping and increasing voltage, the signals could travel faster, and with higher fidelity. This could initially lead to things like increased reaction speed and mental processing, and escalate from there.
Now, the actual, scientific practice of what he was trying to do was a fair bit more complicated. Anyone who had actually studied the chemical process of nerve signals would tell you that immediately. That was where Devil Magical Power came to the rescue. He did not need to figure out the science or math first. Just imagine the results, make it happen, study how it happened, and replicate it with Magic.
The problem, of course, was that lightning was flowing through his nerves. If someone read that, and their thought was that this was a perfectly safe and rational technique, then with all due respect, they were a fucking idiot and should let someone else handle all of their risk assessment based decision making. This was something where a single mistake, or a momentary lapse in concentration if he was unlucky, could fry his nerves, killing him or maiming him for life. Which was where clones came in. Without clones, a technique with a 99% chance of success and a 1% chance of death was too risky to use. With clones, a 1% chance of success and a 99% chance of death just meant that he would need to spend a week or two to achieve guaranteed success without the slightest risk to his health.
"Ugyaaaah!"
"Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"
Of course, the cost of such success was the torture and death of a ton of clones, but it wasn't like clones had rights, so that did not matter. Besides, they were dying for a good cause. Lucifer knows that, you couldn't get any proper SCIENCE done on a timetable without killing a few innocent living beings. Just ask any bio lab.
Eventually though, all of the Boosting consumed most of Sorin's stamina, making him too tired to continue. The clones had continued to heroically sacrifice themselves, building on each other's failures to last longer and longer. He had studied the techniques that they used, and was confident that he was making progress. Unfortunately, Azi Dahaka had decided to not just give him the answer, wanting him to develop it himself as a learning experience. Still, now that he was exhausted, it was time to take a break from the hard work, and get to the fun – and still hard – work.
Turning to Kuroka, he found that she had figured out how to make a tree grow larger. And turn its branches into tentacles with dick-shaped ends, four of which were wrapped around her body, trapping her with her hands and face resting against the tree, ass out invitingly, and legs 'forcefully' spread apart.
"Ahhhhn, Sorin-sama. Please help your miserable slave. She has become trapped by this naughty tentacle tree."
I can see why people say to not stick your dick in crazy. Not that I'm going to stop, but maybe tapping someone sane more frequently might help with my own sanity.
Walking up to the girl who seemed to be trying to reenact a scene out of a Hentai, Sorin did the only thing appropriate. Drop a Hentai worthy one-liner and fuck her.
"It seems that you are thoroughly stuck here." He said as he gave a slight tug on her waist to confirm that she had, indeed, thoroughly wrapped herself up. "Don't worry though," he continued, undoing his pants before ripping off her clothes. "I have just the solution."
"Oh my, master," Kuroka replied as she glanced back, an excited look not in line with her dainty tone on her face. "Wouldn't that just excite the creature?"
"Tentacle trees don't like the cum of others in their victims," Sorin said, slowly rubbing the tip of his dick along her wet entrance. "I guess I'm going to have to pump you full until it lets you go."
"Aaaaah!" Kuroka moaned in pleasure as Sorin sheathed himself deep inside of her. "Yes master, fuck your pussy! Violate her until no other men would be interested in your sloppy seconds!"
Well, shit. Sorin wasn't sure what to say in response to that. Besides, you know, pistoning in and out of the little slut from behind like she wanted him to.
"You are awfully eager for someone getting violated." He eventually grunted out between thrusts, picking up the pace as he started to feel his first climax approach. He could already tell that Kuroka was on the brink, and barely holding herself back from cumming. The girl was trying to train her body to only cum when he blew a load inside of her, to mixed results so far. "You sure the tentacle tree isn't just an excuse for receiving your master's dick?"
"Yes, master!" She yelled, her own hips bouncing back to match his thrusts. Their auras were intermingling, giving them near-complete understanding of each other's position and emotions. There was no need to keep a rhythm, as Kuroka instinctively knew when to move her hips to match his thrusts. "Your slutty slave just wants to be your personal cum rag. Please cum in her. Pump her whore womb full of your cum."
Sorin did not verbally reply to that. He just thrust once more and let go of the mental restraint he was holding onto, thick ropes of cum, one after another, shooting deep inside of her as he let out loud, guttural grunts. Kuroka let herself go as well, back arching and insides clamping down on him as she screamed in pleasure while she was filled up.
They came down from their mutual high together, panting and sweating, but still connected as one. Kuroka looked back to give a satisfied grin, raising her right leg.
"Master, I'm afraid the tree has only let go of one of my legs. You will have to fuck the other limbs loose as well."
Okay, even for lines one might hear from a Hentai, we are entering stupid territory. Really, what is wrong with simply fucking without any roleplay?
"I suppose I haven't dominated you enough if a mere tree would dare contest my claim." He said, raising her free leg up, and bringing it down so that it was resting on his shoulder. "I guess I will just have to be rougher and more thorough."
"Yes, master!" The slutty cat yelled, even as her insides started loosening and tightening, massaging the dick that was still held inside of her. "Use me like your personal onahole to your heart's desire."
Sorin took one final moment to adjust his footing and then thrust forward, hard. The two of them had recovered a fair bit of energy from the last session and had their Touki reinforcing them. As such, not only could they move harder and faster than normal, but their bodies were tougher, and could take more of a pounding. That meant that Sorin could be rougher than her with a normal woman, without having to worry about hurting her. Given Kuroka's pleased cries, she appreciated the treatment.
After the first two thrusts, there was a loud cracking sound. The two paused, but as neither were in pain, Kuroka immediately wiggled her hips for him to continue. The crack after the next thrust they ignored, as well as the one after that. Soon, Sorin was pounding away inside of Kuroka to the rhythmic sound of something cracking and breaking. This went on for maybe half a minute before there was a thunderous crack as the tree broke in half, the limbs around Kuroka's arms ripped loose as the mighty wood fell forward and to the ground, leaving behind only a stump at merely waist height.
The lack of a balance to support Kuroka's weight made the two lovers pause for a moment.
"Well, that happened," Sorin remarked.
"Yea- Wha-"
Before Kuroka could state her opinion, Sorin had flipped her around once more, and placed her lying down atop the bark of the tree, and started pounding her once more.
A tree fell down in a forest, and philosophers asked if it made a sound if no one was around to hear it. As far as Sorin was concerned, they were asking the wrong question. He wasn't sure what the correct question was, but the correct answer was simply enough. Shrug, and go back to fucking your cat girl.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Brat. Why are you worried?" The Evil Dragon's voice reverberated through Sorin's mind. "So your mate wants to talk to you. Just bend her over a table, put a baby in her belly, and you can go back to working on important things like getting your Magic up to God Class."
That made Sorin stop frowning and smile. No matter the situation, you could trust on Azi Dahaka to have his priorities straight. Objective 1 was to learn Magic powerful enough to kill Gods. Objective 2 was to use Magic from objective 1 to kill Gods. If any social or political situation got in the way of fulfilling either objective, find the simplest and quickest way to extricate yourself from that situation.
Well, okay, that wasn't being fair to the Evil Dragon. He was fine with using the Magic to fight anything that was God Class, even if they weren't a God. He was an equal opportunity nuker like that.
"This conversation is kind of important. It can affect a lot of things going forward."
"You did not particularly care about this exact same problem before, from what I recall."
"I had bigger priorities. Like the creation and acquisition of the Sorcerous Gear, and making the Holy Grail functional and protected. Now that I have those two locked down, I can focus on lesser problems, like making sure that my future wife isn't fucking other men."
Azi Dahaka snorted at that. "Ah, yes. Monogamy. I have heard of this concept before. I believe it was in a story that would today be called fanfiction. It was written by the same author who wrote a story about Indra and Shiva finding their brotherly love, giving up their feud, and going off to fuck each other's brains out. Personally, I think the second story was more realistic."
Sorin decided to act his age for once, and ignored the words of the ancient being with many times his life experience to draw upon, in favor of listening to his own feelings and gut instincts. Sorin felt that in this case it was very much justified on the basis that the ancient Dragon in question had never been interested or engaged in the topic on which he was commenting.
So instead of listening to the 'words of wisdom', he adjusted his tie, checked his clothing for any wrinkles, straightened his shoulders, and walked into the room.
Roygun entered on the other side of the room from him, dressed in a beautiful but modest white gown. Her face was relaxed and smiling, and she glided along the floor with a smooth elegance that just oozed confidence. Of course, Sorin was cheating like a smart person, and so Senjutsu relayed to him that she was in fact also feeling nervous. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who was uncertain and nervous about this. That was good he supposed. Looked like they were in the same boat, though he wasn't sure what she was nervous about.
"Sorin."
"Roygun."
They awkwardly stared at each other for half a minute, uncertain on how to proceed, until the third person in the room spoke up.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, can we get a move on." Azi Dahaka growled. "Look, we all know how this is going to go, so could we skip the awkward monotone, single words phase, and skip to the part where you jump on his face and suck his cock while he dines on your pussy, you two have sex, and then you discuss things while covered in each other's love juices? Or better yet, how about we skip straight to the part where you talk about whatever problems you both have to the deal you agreed upon. Seriously, why is the Evil Dragon the most socially insightful person in this room?"
Roygun glared down at Sorin's hand. "Believe it or not, Azi Dahaka, there is more to Devil social graces than having sex."
"Yes, sometimes you give long windy speeches first. Other times you start a war with daddy because he won't let you play altar boy to his catholic bishop."
"Okay, I am going to cut in before this devolves into hours of arguing with the Evil Dragon about his misconceptions about how society works."
"I don't have misconceptions about society. Society has misconceptions about reality."
Roygun rolled her eyes, a combination of annoyance and amusement creeping into her mood. "So, we got off on the wrong foot at our first meeting. I think the issue stems from my whole declaration of sleeping around?"
Sorin decided to take her approach in ignoring the Dragon in his arm. "The way you presented your position did not help either. Perhaps if you had been less confrontational and demanding about it, we could have gotten somewhere. Though, to be fair, my mind wasn't really on the discussion at the time. My mind was on other, more important things than the fiancee I was meeting, which, in hindsight, was wholly inappropriate. I'm not sure things would have worked out then, even if you had been less confrontational."
Roygun shrugged. "Yes, I did pick up on your lack of a reaction to my statement. Normally I would be upset at my fiance ignoring me like that, but I wasn't giving the best impression as I tried to manipulate you either."
Sorin blinked in confusion. "Manipulate? How? You just said what you wanted, and I agreed to it. I don't recall you manipulating my feelings into that state."
"That is because my attempt at manipulation failed," Roygun admitted. "I didn't want an open marriage where the entire world declares open season on us. I wanted monogamy."
Sorin blinked again, then blinked three more times just to be absolutely sure that he was getting his confusion across here. "You wanted us to be monogamous. And your approach to managing this was by asking for an open relationship? How does that even work?"
"Not at all," Roygun admitted, a hand rubbing the bridge of her nose in frustration. "I was expecting you to react emotionally, maybe argue the point. Some response where I could give ground, and be able to demand that you give ground as well. I figured we could come to some sort of agreement that we could both be happy with."
"And you couldn't start with that because?"
"Because I thought that I was being clever. I wasn't." Roygun paused and collected her breath. "Look, can we just agree to put it all behind us?"
Sorin considered it for a moment. As far as he could tell, Roygun was being honest. Furthermore, despite their prior agreement, she hadn't had a dick inside of her since their meeting. Sure, Senjutsu wasn't some sort of ultimate detector of when a pussy had last seen a dick – that sounded more like the realm of the Holy Grail probably – but in the end, it wasn't like that would change anything. Throwing a tantrum because she did something he gave her permission to do, was a tad bit too childish for what he was willing to resort to.
"Sure. I can agree to start over with a blank slate this once. Though we both need to treat this discussion seriously and honestly if we don't want another disaster like our first meeting. So, what is it that you actually want from this relationship? You mentioned monogamy, but then you weren't specific about what you wanted to negotiate towards."
"I honestly want a monogamous relationship," Roygun said, picking up a bottle of wine and slowly pouring herself a cup as she started strolling back and forth, collecting her thoughts. "I used to be the stereotypical party girl, fooling around, sleeping with men and women, getting my pleasures where and with whom I felt like. All of it was shallow though. No emotion, no meaning, no love. It isn't what I crave anymore. I still want physical pleasure, but I don't want just physical pleasure, constantly, all the time. I want an emotional connection, love, someone to care about that cares about me."
"And you decided that love can only come from monogamy?"
"I have seen Devils who tried open relationships. There are Devils in the circles I ran in that loved targeting those couples." She sighed, and stopped, looking down at her glass, but did not touch it. "It is a game to them. Sleep with one member of the couple. Give them such good sex that they get addicted to it, but never let their partner join. See how long the forever after marriage lasts before one side breaks it up. Then cut the sex-addicted fool loose, and laugh at their misery. I never saw a single relationship survive the game. Some rebuilt, afterwards, but that was a trial of years, and who knows how fragile such a relationship is. So no, I do not believe that open relationships can work. I won't say that only monogamy works, but unless you have very strict limits that neither side is willing to cross under any circumstances, a relationship like that is doomed to failure."
Sorin was not sure about that. That was a bit of an extreme stance, but then, that stance would have come from Roygun's experiences and what she had seen. What he took away from it was to stay the fuck away from the sort of party scenes that Roygun frequented. On the other hand, if her career required her to be at those kinds of scenes, then laying out absolute rules to make them safe did make sense.
"So, you want monogamy as the default, and absolute and precise, hammered out rules for under what conditions we can stray from that? Should we get a lawyer to write those conditions?"
"Har de har har." Roygun rolled her eyes at him. "This isn't a joke, but no, we don't need a lawyer. They are good for the letter of the law, but not the spirit. That said, there is one more thing I want; equality."
"Equality?"
"Equality." She repeated. "Whatever agreement that we have, I want it to treat the two of us as equals. No asking who wears the pants in a relationship. We are equal partners. Sure, we might not be equal in all aspects, but on balance, I want us to be equals, not either one of us subordinate to another."
Sorin nodded and considered that. "That makes sense. Though if we are going for equality, I suppose I should lay my cards on the table as well. To start, sleeping with Kuroka makes me stronger."
Roygun glared at him. "I am trying to be serious here."
"And I am being serious," Sorin replied back. "Kuroka is a user of Senjutsu, and Senjutsu has a technique called the Bedroom Arts. It lets you strengthen the target's Life Force, and heal lost or consumed Life Span. It also revitalizes the target, healing injuries and recovering their stamina to wipe away exhaustion. I literally have multiple scrolls outlining the technique and the methods and principles that build up to it."
Roygun glared. Then the glare turned to a frown, and then into a stare. "You are being serious."
"Yup." Sadly the timing was inappropriate to make a joke about Kuroka's pussy being the Fountain of Youth.
"Fuck. That complicates things." She said, falling down into the couch she had been dramatically pacing around. She glanced at the glass of wine in her hand before putting it and the bottle down on the table next to her.
"Yeah, it kind of does." Sorin agreed. "I honestly wasn't expecting to get engaged to someone looking for monogamy when I started sleeping with Kuroka for power."
"And I wasn't expecting to become engaged to a ten years old playboy." His fiancee replied.
Sorin shrugged. "Well, that is easy enough to fix." And then, he drew just a bit of nature's Life Force into his body.
Roygun squinted at the suddenly much older and taller looking Sorin, standing where ten years old Sorin had stood. "That wasn't Devil shapeshifting."
"Senjutsu is the manipulation of Life Force," Sorin explained. "One of the simplest techniques is to physically age or de-age one's body. Where a Devil can alter their appearance and age given months or years, a Senjutsu master can do the same in seconds. While the more common use is to extend one's lifespan, it can also be used by talented children to appear older for whatever reason. Like, making their fiancee's more comfortable with premarital sex."
"Is Senjutsu your answer to every problem?"
Sorin shook his head. "No. My answer to most problems is Longinus abuse, followed by Magic, followed by Senjutsu. Senjutsu is one of the most powerful and versatile support or secondary Magic systems, but it lacks many of the abilities that are expected of Magicians."
"Right. Well, given how I have already seen you throw around Forbidden Techniques to consume Life Span, I don't believe that asking you to give up the Sage Sex is an option. So there goes the monogamy option, dead before it was ever given a chance."
Sorin finally decided to stop standing and sat down next to the woman who was set to be his wife. Honestly, a part of him did feel sorry for her. Sure, like him, she was probably deriving some material benefit from entering this marriage over one of pure love, but his own dreams and ambitions were still fucking her over. Logically, he didn't really have a reason to care, but that sounded like latent sociopathy talking. And you never listened to your inner sociopath.
Though, really, he did not see how this marriage could work. While he felt sorry for Roygun, he honestly did not care about her enough to sacrifice his own happiness for her happiness. He couldn't really break the marriage off without triggering Zekram's wrath either. So that meant he had to remain engaged until he was strong enough to strike out on his own, and protect all that he cared about.
So marriage for now, then break it off in a way that we both benefit when the time comes? Not sure how, but I'm sure we will figure something out. Maybe find a different partner for her to fall in love with, then use that opportunity to extricate myself without any hard feelings on either side?
"So, if we are going to be sleeping with others, what restrictions were you thinking of?" Sorin paused. "I'm assuming that you had thought this through."
Roygun nodded but gulped down her cup of wine before talking. "The idea in that case, is to disassociate love from sex. Reduce our other partners from 'lovers' to 'sex toys'. Basically, dehumanize them, do all the stuff that would get one of those human Social Justice Warrior things all prissy. I mean, if I used a dildo to masturbate, you wouldn't get jealous of the dildo and consider that cheating right? I certainly wouldn't consider you using a fleshlight to be cheating."
Sorin nodded. That made sense, at least from a purely practical perspective. He wasn't certain about the ethics and morality, but, well, Devils. He wanted to protest against dehumanizing Kuroka or his orphanage girls, but seeing how he had raised and treated them, that would be like the pot protesting when the kettle insisted they both paint themselves black. It wouldn't even be hypocrisy so much as plain ignorance or self-delusion at that point.
"So, how would that go?"
"We set restrictions on who the other can sleep with. They don't need to be the same restrictions, since these are supposed to meet different needs. Beyond that, basically, we pass around our fuck toys. If someone sleeps with me, that act constitutes consent for sleeping with you, you can choose whether to use them or not. Same with someone you sleep with, I can use them for sexual relief if I feel like it. We obviously have to inform any partners of this arrangement before engaging in sex."
That had been more thought out than Sorin would have expected of her, given how her last attempt at making a plan had gone. Though that was only the rough outline. After that, came the hard part; restricting whom or what each of them could fuck. That ended up being a long discussion.
In the end, Sorin was restricted to those who were his 'property' in a more literal sense than simply those that he dehumanized for sex. Essentially, he was restricted to sleeping with his Peerage members - once he got those - and literal slaves. People he merely adopted or looked after like his orphans did not count. If they wanted to join his bed, they would need to dehumanize themselves by becoming literal property. It also wasn't the temporary, sexual master and slave relationship, but they had to legally become his slaves.
It definitely made the possibility of starting more romantic and meaningful relationships harder. But then, that was the entire point really, and it meant that he could still continue bedding the girls that he was bedding now.
Roygun wasn't as restricted. She could sleep with as many people as she wanted, no ownership necessary. However, her partners were restricted to females – no hermaphrodites, futanari, extra sexuals, tentacle monsters or the like, and they had to be 'hot'. They would also be consenting to letting Sorin use whichever holes – or all of them if he felt like it – he felt like, with or without protection, and where to finish. The idea there had been that few women would be willing to so degrade themselves to a ten years old boy.
Or at least that was their agreement until the wedding. The hope was that by that time they would get to know each other better, and could perhaps come up with an agreement that was more custom-tailored to keep their relationship happy and satisfied. That, or broken off the engagement, found other partners, and gone their own ways. It was in essence a band-aid to get through this transitory period.
"So now that we have worked all of that out, there is one last thing to discuss," Roygun said, making a Bishop Evil Piece appear in her hand. "Your mother believes that Sairaorg needs help to keep up with his peers, and so wants me to add him to my Peerage so that he can learn the ropes, gain some experience, and maybe make a name for himself in the arena if he can't be family head. The problem, of course, is that I wasn't sure how you would react to this."
"My brother is neither female nor hot."
Roygun made a gagging sound. "First of all, ew. Second, no, that is disgusting. Third, I don't know how you intend to run your Peerage, but in the professional leagues, your Peerage is not a harem. Adding Sairaorg to my Peerage does not necessitate or even imply that he is getting anywhere near my goodies. No, I was going to ask if you were interested in becoming my Bishop so that you wouldn't be left out. Normally I would make some great speech about how I'm making a great sacrifice with my hard-won position doing this, and how it is worth it for family, but I think getting you as my Bishop would improve my chances of beating Diehauser. Sairaorg though, is a sacrifice I'm making for the sake of the family."
Sorin thought about it, but then shook his head. There were a lot of things he wanted. Or more accurately, potential futures that he was undecided between. None of them would be helped by joining someone's Peerage though. After all, once you joined a Peerage, there was no leaving, except by being traded away. Reincarnated Devils that achieved High-Class status gained land and could have their own Peerage, but they were still part of a Peerage, and when their King called, they had to go. Having chains like that, would close too many doors, and open none.
"I'm sorry, but I would rather not join anyone's Peerage."
Roygun shrugged. "I thought so. Though if you find any good candidates, I hope you can send them my way."
Cao Cao is claimed by Indra by now. Faust is part of some magic association, and artist boy with Annihilation Maker should have been born by now. Too bad, I don't know any of their locations.
"I will." Sorin agreed, and stood. "So, since your one issue was my physical age-"
"As someone with far too much experience, I am going to stop you right there." Roygun interrupted once again. "The first time you sleep with someone is important. You will recall the sex and the situation that led to it for a long time, and associate those with them. That means that it is important that the first fuck does not suck. Now, today, we hashed out and made more business arrangements than is needed to hire an entire brothel of hookers. If we slept together right now, that would be nothing more than a business transaction, and I don't want that coloring our relationship. We fucked up once, let's try to do better this time."
Sorin sighed, but nodded. "We are going to have to address that at some point, if we want to make this work."
Or, at least give the impression that they tried to make it work before it went up in flames, and they each went their own way. He was willing to make the effort and take a chance, but he wasn't going to be upset if he had to find himself a different wife.
Roygun nodded as well. "True, but now isn't the right time. Timing is important for these things."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Studying various mythologies could be somewhat interesting as a muggle. It was far more interesting as a Devil, when you had a far better idea of the truth. Cultures and authors took artistic liberties with the truth, twisting and adjusting it to fit whatever narrative they were trying to tell. This was considered 'good storytelling' in the modern world. It also made for an absolutely shit way of preserving truths and facts.
For example, the whole Eastern versus Western Dragons division? That was a completely arbitrary divide. Dragons were Dragons, and crossing a handful of mountains from Europe to Asia did not give them a spontaneous species change. It wasn't that either depiction was more accurate for the species as a whole either. A lot of those traits given to the entire species were actually true for only one or two specimens, but were applied wholesale to all Dragons to make an easier narrative.
The same thing happened with the Gods and Goddesses. A Greek God wasn't inherently different from a Norse, Egyptian, Hindu or Aztec one. They were all the same species, just some of them had better PR departments than the others. That whole myth about the Norse Pantheon needing golden apples to not keel over and die? Yeah, that was complete bullshit. Odin tried a PR outreach to show that they weren't all that different from the humans, figuring that would make humans more comfortable in worshipping them. The worship had since dried up, but the story stuck around.
Of course, there were other species that were just as prolific across nations and mythologies, but harder to recognize as such through a combination of varying names, and more artistic liberties taken by clueless historians.
The species Sorin was studying at this time were the nature spirits.
The Greeks called them Nymphs, and made them into female sluts by and large. There was a period in their history where they had trouble imagining supernatural beings not wanting to use them as disposable sex toys. Furthermore, they had divided them into different types depending on the spirit of what they were, and assigned personalities to entire categories. The Norse called the same beings Alfr, or elves in modern lingo, while the Irish called them Fairies. The Japanese called them Kami - a word that had in modern terminology come to mean Gods, but actually more accurately represented the spirits from a historical context - while the Hindu called them words like Apsara and Gandharva.
In the end, no matter what terminology one used, or what myths one ascribed to, the truth did not change.
Nature had its own aura, and it was a powerful aura. Spirits would sometimes settle into objects or locations, claiming it as their own territory, feasting and growing on the natural aura there. With time, they would come to have an affinity for whatever they had settled within, learning to manipulate it to some degree. Some spirits were slothful and inactive if left alone. Others mischievous, horny, or psychopaths. They were as varied in personality and behavior as any equally populous species.
The personalities of those still living were not what interested Sorin. No, making deals with them did not interest him. What interested him were those spirits that were powerful, dead, and willing to negotiate.
Fortunately, he had an easy starting point on finding candidates for the first two categories, thanks to the Heavenly Dragons. The Boosted Gear and Divine Dividing appeared, found each other, unlocked Juggernaut Drive, and fought each other to the death once each generation. Like clockwork, you could expect one flattened mountain or sunken island every 20 to 30 years thanks to the two Heavenly Idiots. Each of those mountains or islands, was a potential nature spirit for Sorin to investigate.
Of course, while figuring out where the two Heavenly Dragons clashed wasn't too hard - a mountain or island going kaput, with Gods and Goddesses having to step in to repair it was the sort of thing that tended to be easy to spot and get recorded in many places - figuring out the name, identity and personality of the associated spirits was notably harder.
For many of the spirits, Devilkind had no records of others interacting with them. Afterall, who cared about whether or not people visited a spirit in India? Devils had no territory there! For others, the only note was which Magicians they had made deals with.
In the end, it was the Greeks who came to the rescue. There had apparently been periods in their culture where youths read all the myths about how Gods and Goddesses were constantly getting it on with humans, and they decided to get in on that Divine booty call. These would result in youths traveling to all corners of the country hoping for a godly fucking. Hilariously, the very same elders who told them these myths would then often be upset at the youths for listening to them, and remembering their teachings.
Now, as established, the whole Greek narrative about Nymphs wanting it anytime, anywhere was complete bullshit. Many of the excursions were complete wastes of time as the spirits of the land ignored the humans. However, there were some humans that did get lucky, just not in the sexual sense. As it turned out, spending all of your time sleeping in a mountain could get absolutely boring, so the spirit of Mount Kyllini had taken to chatting with the occasional visitor and teaching them Geomancy. Then he got punched out of existence by the two Heavenly Dragons. The Olympians fixed the mountain afterwards, but the dead spirit would remain dead.
Well, at least until someone went and resurrected them in exchange for their service. That 'someone' being Valerie at Sorin's bidding in this case.
Well, time to get started.
The room that he went to was what was called the Necromantic Summoning Room. Not that they had done any summonings – necromantic or otherwise – in the room so far. It had just recently been completed. It contained several wards that Azi Dahaka had helped design, to limit and restrain the powers of Ghosts, Reapers, Vampires, Liches, and Undead in general. There were other wards as well, that could be activated with a single word – or would do so if anyone in the room took sufficient damage – that would release anti-Undead waves of energies. Basically, the idea was to perform the summoning of the dead in a room specifically designed for the containment and murder of those being called up in case they got uppity.
Next to Sorin stood a one of his clones, piloted by Azi Dahaka for extra magical back up. The original Sorin wore white and red, while Azi Sorin wore black and red. Aside from the switch from white to black, their suits were exact copies of each other, making the two look like a set of twins, with Azi Sorin trying to be the dark and edgy one. They also both had their aura gathering, readying themselves for magical combat. After all, it was better safe than dealing with the embarrassment of getting killed by a ghost.
Also in the room were Kuroka, Shirone, and Leanna. The last was more as an observer, and so that she could see what the process looked like and how it worked for future reference. At the moment, Sorin did not expect her to be able to contribute in anti-ghost combat. Kuroka and Shirone both had skills in Senjutsu, and were Nekoshou to boot. They had purification techniques that would let them easily slaughter an army of ghosts and the like. Roygun was there too, mostly as an observer spectator, and in case her advice might be needed. Largely, it was for her personal curiosity though.
The Gogmagog was there, now fully healed and functional. As it turned out, 'murdering incorporeal beings' was one of the functions that had been restored to it. Yeah, apparently Gods did not fuck around when making autonomous weapons to throw at each other. It was also currently scanning the room, looking for any threats that might pop up. Most importantly though, Sorin was able to tap into its senses, and see through them to get an extra – and different – view of the room, kind of like an overhead view with a video game HUD.
Rounding out the crew was Valerie Tepes, the resident Dhampir, and the girl who made what Sorin was trying to accomplish possible. She was wearing a Japanese shrine maiden outfit, because she had made Gasper wear one, and after seeing how cute he looked in it, had gotten jealous and wanted one for herself as well. She was also quietly humming to herself while waiting for the all-clear signal to start the summoning.
"Everything looks fine. I can't sense anything." Kuroka asserted first.
"Nothing outside of ourselves is here." Azi Dahaka asserted.
"Looks like it." Sorin was the last, checking both his own senses – not that he could spot anything the other two couldn't – as well as the Gomagog's. "Let's get started."
"Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill.
Repeat five times,
But destroy each when filled.
Let blood be the essence
Let stone and the archduke of
destruction be the foundation
Let my Master Sorin's will be mine
Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall
Let the four cardinal gates close
Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate
I hereby declare
Your soul shall serve under me
My desire shall be your sword
Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail
Refusal is not permitted, answer this summoning
An oath shall be sworn here
I shall taste all the blood of Heaven
I shall taste all the blood of Hell
From the True Underworld,
Attended to by three great words of power,
Come forth from the cycle of death,
My master's newest slave!"
Honestly, the chant was unnecessary. There was literally nothing in the Grail's functions that required a chant, or even became simpler by using one. There definitely wasn't a specific chant to use. However, Valerie had found that saying a chant like this helped her focus and get into the correct emotional state. Given that Sorin preferred to have her use the Grail out of combat, in a controlled environment where time was most definitely not of the essence, that was a good enough reason for him to give her free reign with using chants for summoning spirits using the Grail. Just so long as she didn't start organizing a Ghost Death-a-thon.
The soul that was summoned was a little girl, either in her early teens or perhaps a preteen, with pale white skin. She had dirt brown hair in a twin ponytail reaching down to her shoulders together with equally brown eyes. Her ears with long and sharp, like those of a Tolkienian elf. Finally, she was wearing a yellow toga with a yellow hat. Normally a resurrected soul would be naked, but Sorin supposed that for a spirit that could look like anything, they could be clothed while still being technically naked.
Spoiler
Kyllini
"Wha- what happened?" The little girl looked around, confused. "Where is this? Wasn't I in Hades?"
"Lady Kyllini, I am Sorin Bael, and I invite you to my home," Sorin spoke up, hand over the heart, and giving her a polite bow.
"Sorin Bael? Eh, Bael? Like a Devil? Eeeeep!" The spirit of a mountain let out a cute high pitched scream before blushing, and looking around. "Um, that is, Lord Hades says I am to avoid dealing with or working with Devils."
Roygun snorted. "That old sack of bones would say that," she spoke with clear distaste in her tone. "He is still holding a grudge over getting his ass beaten rawer than his wife got by his brother when the original Satans decided to take over Hell all those years ago. His opinions and directives on us won't be the most objective."
Sorin coughed into his fist. "What my fiancee means, is that despite what the Bone God might have said, we won't hurt you. We merely want to offer you a deal. If you accept, great. If not, we will let you get back to serving Hades in Hades."
And yes, Sorin was aware of how confusing that last sentence was. It wasn't his fault that Hades was such an egotistical little shit that he named his Underworld after himself. On the other hand, if you couldn't even pop a boner anymore because you were made of bones, it was understandable that you would develop some eccentricities. Or at least Sorin wanted to imagine that Hades had such issues. He did not want to imagine the intricacies of skeleton sex, even if that made explaining Hades's handful of children with his 'beloved' wife easier.
Kyllini poked the index fingers of her two hands together, and looked down. "Um, I can't make a deal like that. No matter what it is, Lord Hades would punish me for it. Could you please send me back?"
"Even if the deal is to be brought back to life?" Sorin asked with a grin. "Hades can't punish you if you don't return to him."
Kyllini perked up at that. "Eh? You can bring me back to life?" She blinked, and then frowned. "Is this that Devil Pieces thing Lord Hades mentioned? Are you going to make me into one of your Devil whores?"
"It is Evil Pieces, not Devil Pieces." Leanna spoke up as a method of explanation. "And Sorin-sama wouldn't use an Evil Piece to turn you into a Devil slave. He hasn't even made me into one of his slaves yet."
"Ahem." Sorin loudly pretended to cough into his fist to get the conversation back on track. "As Leanna said, I don't mean to turn you into a Devil. I want to give you a new body in the form of this Gogmagog here, and serve me."
The ghost of the spirit cocked her head as she looked at the statue, before slowly rising into the air. She didn't say anything for a while, simply flying around the golem as it moved, before eventually floating back down to where she had been summoned.
"You have an actual, functioning, Gogmagog. How do you have a functioning Gogmagog? Those were decommissioned and tossed in the Dimensional Gap."
"I found it." Sorin said simply. "It hadn't gone fully inactive, so I took command of it, and repaired it. Sadly, while the weapons systems are pretty nice, the controlling intelligence needs a complete overhaul."
"So you want me to take control of it and act as your familiar." She summarized, and then frowned, glaring at Sorin. "What kinds of 'services' exactly are you asking for here? Because I categorically refuse to engage in any sexual services. Except headpats. I shall graciously allow you to pet my head."
"I like her." Roygun remarked, a grin on her face. "It is refreshing to find a woman that doesn't want to fuck my future husband upon entering his services. My life would be so much simpler if more people were like her."
"No, you wouldn't be required to provide sexual services." Sorin said quickly. "I would like you to assist in moving earth using Geomancy, teaching Geomancy, and helping in combat. You should hopefully have plenty of free time to use on hobbies or sleeping."
Kyllini thought about it, before nodding. "Okay, but if you and your wife decide to play out Zeus and Hera's marriage, I refuse to be dragged into it. I had to put up with enough of that shit when I was alive."
"Of course." Sorin agreed. "Then if you would enter the Gogmagog, the spells already present on it would let us complete the familiar ritual."
The spirit took a moment to collect herself before nodding, and flying into the Gogmagog's chest. The transfer ritual, while not flashy, wasn't instant either. Valerie had to use the Grail to actually merge the soul with the body, giving Kyllini control of it. Sorin and Azi Dahaka in turn worked on adjusting the spells of the familiar ritual to bind the new soul without interfering with its control of the golem. The process took a few minutes, completing without much fanfare. Then, the Gogmagog's body started shifting.
The change wasn't instantaneous, but it was still fast. Flesh made of stone and metal shifted and compressed in on itself. From what Sorin could tell, it was a combination of Geomancy altering the body, and the Gogmagog's self-repair functions now recognizing a new state as its default form and 'repairing' it into that. The magical details aside, it looked like the golem was slowly shrinking while altering its shape. Features became more defined or articulated. The body gained color and texture while armor shifted into clothing. Ears were grown, and the head transformed from a helmet into an actual face. In the end, Kyllini floated a foot off the ground where the Gogmagog used to stand, once more in the form she had originally appeared at.
"Huh, this feels weird." She remarked as she looked over her hands. "This body is much more responsive than the mountain that I used to inhabit. Also all the new senses are really weird." She then frowned, and looked at Sorin. "Hey, does the fact that you are constantly pumping your magical essence into me mean that you are cheating on your wife with me? I don't think I'm ready for a committed relationship like that."
"I take it back." Roygun remarked. "I don't like her. Hey, do you mind if I destroy her soul and we try again with a less slutty spirit?" She raised her hand, gathering Demonic energy into it. The space around it started cracking and breaking simply from the gathering of her power.
"Wa-wa-wait!" Kyllini yelled, waving her hands in panic. "I was just joking."
"So was I." Roygun said in a completely insencere tone, dismissing the power. "Welcome to the family."
After the meet and greet, the Magical Beast used to run the burdens of the Grail's calculations, they were erased from existence using the Power of Destruction, and a new one put in their place.
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