PREVIOUSLY
'Fuck, she's not listening!' Pochi's inherent sense of danger spiked suddenly, to the point his serpentine body got goosebumps. He looked down to see that the living dungeon was staring straight at them. 'Fuck, he's listening!'
"Boom."
Suddenly, thunder boomed in Pochi's ears. He closed his ears from the loud crackle of lightning, but opened his eyes to see that in just a flash, the spear of light had been enlodged deep into the sentient dungeon.
But then, the sentient dungeon grew arms of black, and just. . .erased the light. Erased fucking matter made of light.
Pochi's regeneration factor kicked in, and his ears didn't sound so deaf anymore. The ringing faded away in his ears. "Um, so your surprise attack didn't work so well, did it, Singularity?"
"What do you say to my plan of getting the fuck out of here, eh?" Pochi mused with a smile, because he was sure of his death the moment he heard the sentient dungeon roar at them. It would have been terrifying. . .if he hadn't seen the look on Elm's face.
A smile. A fucking smile on the woman whose face barely twitched in the few weeks they'd been together.
She was deadset on fighting the thing.
"Fuck me."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"I can't believe you just did that," Pochi wheezed within breaths. "That doesn't make any sense! Light shouldn't be able to beat a fucking black-hole on two legs."
"Hm." Elm hummed, casually yanking her sword of light out, before jumping off the body of the sentient dungeon. It sparked temporal-spatial energy for a few seconds more before the color faded, no longer beaming a bright purple-black like before.
Elm reviewed the fight in her mind. It wasn't a bad fight, the gravitational attacks from the sentient dungeon was pretty strong, and annoying since she couldn't move at her usual speed of light since it'd just be sucked in, but other than that, there wasn't really anything noteworthy about the fallen king of this ancient ruins. In terms of strength, it was a little higher, perhaps a tier higher than the nephalem she had humiliated, but it was still leagues under her, under the current her.
Holding a sword of light in her left hand doused in chi, Elm released a long breath, relaxing now that the fight was over. There was no more backlash, ever since a week ago when she finally mastered the using of both chi and light. She felt pretty stupid when she found out that the truth was simply to think of using both energy as one, instead of categorizing them as two separate things in her head.
POOF!
Elm turned her head, to see that the body of the sentient dungeon had disappeared. And in it's stead, she saw the words 'Thank you, Hero' carved onto the sandy ground, with a glowing purplish-black monster core in the center.
"Something smells. . .good?" Pochi said, turning his head to see a golden egg. His mind almost exploded from seeing that the living dungeon had left behind a monster core that was of near demi-god quality.
If Pochi got his claws on that monster core, he would be able to immediately ascend to nearly demi-god status which was the realm of power Elm was currently in. Basically, he would be as big and long as a range of small mountains, and with a single wave of his hand, he would be able to split the earth, and seas.
He drooled onto Elm's pocket. He had really made the correct choice of not running away!
"Um," Pochi continued to drool. "You don't really need that, right? Since you're a human, and all, the best it could serve to you would be upgrading your equipment." Of course, Pochi was severely undervaluing what a demi-god ranked monster core could do for her, for anyone really, but he really wanted to swallow that monster core right there and then.
"Come on," Pochi started begging, when he saw that Elm looked a little disgusted with him. "I'll do anything you want! Please, just give me that monster core!"
"Think about it! If you give me that core, you'll be able to get yourself an extremely strong, serpentine dragon standing in the realm of a demi-god. Besides, don't forget, I get powers similar to those that I eat, so you'll be able to see me spew out those same gravity bombs annoying you so much, only this time, it'll be at your enemies."
Elm stayed silent. It was only for a couple of seconds, but to Pochi, it felt like hours. So, he started pulling at Elm's pockets and started to cry.
It felt pretty weird for Elm to see a crying serpent but, what the little snake said did hold some truth. After all, it would take too long for someone with her constitution and race to try and absorb the monster core, and even if she did use it for equipment, it would never be as good as her 3 Holy Equipments, never.
So, giving it to the little serpent who would have the abilities of those it ate, was a pretty good idea. None of her incarnations really came across a pet monster that was able to follow them all the way to the top.
A scene played out inside her head. A World Serpent, and devourer of worlds, clearing out all of that bitch's minions while Elm herself fought an intense last battle against the Demon God, all over the hands of her beloved brother.
It was perfect. But first, Elm had to do something first.
"Swear fealty to me and," Elm said. "give me your blood."
"Under the name of the Myriad Realms."
Now, swearing oaths came in many shapes and sizes. There were those that swear oaths under gods, with the lowest being those that swore under their world's name.
But, an oath that was sworn under the Myriad Realms's name was the strongest, and most dangerous oath if you broke it of course. Just like it's name, you would be punished with a myriad of damnations, one being that you were forbidden to enter any of the worlds listed within the myriad realms.
Pochi, under any normal circumstance, would never, ever swear an oath in this world, or his previous, but his head clouded with hunger for the monster core, he failed to think straight and instead, shook his little serpentine head fervently.
Then, he bit his own tongue, and presented it to Elm. "Ash shyou shay."
"Hm."
"Do you swear fealty to me, little serpent who bears the blood of the Devourer?" Elm pointed her finger, the oldest magic of law summoned from her words in the form of lightning and hail above.
CRACKLE!
Pochi nodded his head, before bowing, with his tongue still out. "I swear upon my name, under the witness of the Myriad realms."
The moment he finished speaking, the blood that was oozing out of his little tongue started floating up slowly, in little rivulets climbing onwards Elm's pointed finger, as thunder boomed above. For any onlookers, the scenery was a nice sunny afternoon turning dusk, but to them, and anyone who knew of the presence of oaths, they would see the sky splitting apart, and the ground shaking as hands darker than the abyss started rising from the ground, each hand forming an ancient symbol with their fingers.
"Then, I take you as my servant and pet, under the name of the Myriad Realms," Elm said, as the blood flowed inside the veins of her hands from her finger.
"Urgh!"
Both of them almost fell to their knees, well Pochi was almost knocked unconscious when they felt a profound connection between their souls, tying them together but in the sense that Elm was the master, and Pochi as a servant, a kin. Doubt left both of their mind, as they both gave their final consent towards this contract and oath, and so, the oath was taken.
Everything stopped. Then, everything returned to normal.
"Woah. . ."