"To achieve the amount of Lvl that can only be reached by a normal demon after relentlessly pursuing actualization for years…"
Azel watched as his hands trembled from the goosebumps alongside the surging increase of ohr that he could tap from his Tree of Life.
"But…" Azel muttered, realizing that something was wrong. "Why am I a woman now!?"
Unlike before, Azel's face became more feminine, reaching the territory of downright gorgeous if not adorable. There was also a significant increase on the bumps on the chest and the curves for the hips, rear, alongside the ample thickness on the thighs.
The height didn't change much, the body was still in the realm of youthfully petite. The skin was still gray and there was no change to the iconic pair of ram horns.
Azel could also no longer feel the magnum persisting anymore, as it was already replaced to that of a different arsenal.
"You look good, Azel," Yroa said as he donned a bratty smug. "Not as good as me, though."
"Why did it turn like this!?" Azel freaked out as she whimpered. The new stimulation and sensation that she received since the sudden transformation was foreign, enough to make her confused and flustered by the changes alone. "There's no terms nor clauses implying that I need to turn into a woman!"
"Hmm, it's weird indeed," Yroa said, trying his best to hold his bratty laughter. "Though, I might have some clue on why it happened."
"R-really!?'
"Azel, tell me truthfully." With an uncanny wide smile, Yroa leaned his head forward menacingly towards Azel who appeared helplessly sitting on the floor. "What came to your mind after you saw my cock?"
"... WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT!?"
"Answer me, or we might never find the cause of your transformation."
"I-I.." Cornered like a helpless rabbit, Azel has no choice but to tell the truth since it would mean that she broke the contract if he did otherwise. "It makes mine appear smaller, and I don't like that!"
"Hmm~ and what did you think about your own appearance before this?"
"I don't like it either!" Azel exclaimed, face reddened, head steaming. She felt that she could just die at any moment from the embarrassment. "I'm a dude but I look like a girl! Other Dream Devourers and my Incubus friends make fun of me a lot, saying that I should just be on the receiving end instead of the one who wields the sword…!"
At first, it was hilarious. Now, Yroa just felt pitiful at him.
Being insecure due to how you look, Yroa knew damn well on how it felt like, especially if there were no supportive people who lend their wisdom and help to cast out the doubt and creeping self-loathing.
"This is just a little bit of my hypothesis," Yroa wryly grinned, not entirely in the mood to indulge in the comedy of Azel's gender change. "But you might subconsciously deem that your appearance didn't really fit to fully actualize the terms of giving your utmost loyalty and devotion. With the help of the contract and the burst of Lvl that we gained, some portions of it are used to transform your physical vessel."
"... Is this why my Lvl is lower than yours, despite the contract equally giving the same amount of essence to you and me?"
"Possibly," Yroa casually answered as he caressed his chin. "If we want to stretch it further, it might also be because there is a missed side-effect of all the terms and clauses abuse. I'm afraid that your transformation is the result of this Void Deity of Law giving its punishments.
"And since the demons are the closest to its influence, it affects only you. It might also be because of the incompatibility of the Mutual Ohr that we conceptualize, or even the fact that we're sharing Essences of Actualizations to begin with. There's a lot of possible causes, really."
Azel immediately broke down as she firmly held both of her ram horns with both hands.
"Well, I can console your loss of 'sword' later," Yroa said, still speaking with the same playfully demeanor like he usually was. "But I think it's better if we leave the house first. If possible, posthaste."
"... Why?"
Yroa simply responded to the confused question with a mere thumbs gesture pointing towards the door. Without further questioning, Azel willingly followed her master.
As soon as both of them exited the house, a sudden giant object thundered down and mushed the entire house, unleashing an outward shockwaves of splintered wood, shattered minerals, and billowing dust.
The force of the impact sent not-so-calming gushes towards the casual homeowner and the traumatized Dream Devourer.
"Luckily, we're a few seconds faster!" Yroa jested as he chuckled afterward.
"The house that you had painstakingly built has just been destroyed!" Azel distressedly gestured both of her hands. "Why are you so calm!? How do you even know that there is a giant flying boulder that perfectly submerges the entire building underground??"
"You mean 'crushed' under the boulder?"
"Same thing!"
"Well, I kinda have a strong instinct when it comes to perceiving dangers," Yroa shrugged, quite annoyingly. "As for the house, I can just make it again."
"B-but!"
"No buts, if I, your Master, didn't think much of the loss, you shouldn't either."
Following it after was a deafening roar of ghastly gargantuan beast alongside the cacophony of clashing minerals, steels, and explosions.
Somewhere on the west side of this region, a fight was currently ensuing between four silhouettes of humanoid figures and a 40 meters tall monster with the same appearance akin to that of the Natural Calamity that Yroa subdued a few days ago, and was currently buried under the massive boulder that came from the sudden battlefield.
"HIIKH-!" Azel cried, her legs still shaking from the tremor and ringing of being just beside the area where a giant boulder crashed. "A Natural Calamity that big means absolutely no good for this region! We should escape to the east in this instance, Master!"
A wide grin appeared on Yroa's face. "Sure, let's see what that Natural Calamity is all about. Go cast that invisibility magic on both of us, heh?" He then proceeded to casually walk towards the source of danger, donning a joyful gaze.
"Dammit, Master!!" Azel complained, frustrated that she knew damn well at this point, that her new Master won't be convinced to stay put and away from interesting events like a curious goblin to a mountain of shiny golds.
Azel ended up casting the invisibility magic on both of them. Unlike before, the invisibility spell appeared to be much more refined since it used ohr of higher quality and quantity than last time, thanks to the Lvl difference, making it much more stealthy than before.
"Ah right." Yroa was reminded of something. "While we walk there, explain to me this whole ohr-controlling deal." Yroa snapped his finger like that of a lighter, conjuring a warm, bright, white plasma-like substance of pure ohr. "Give me comparison too, since I'm at a loss on whether Lvl 225 Malkuth can be considered decent or not by standard."
Both of them walked rather casually with not much sense of urgency. As the occasional explosion and shock waves startled the nearby animals to run away, these two invisible beings took their time rather playfully.
"Uhm, starting from the basics, the terms for controlling ohr is strictly called 'Ohrmancy'!" Azel explained, still worried that they were approaching the source of danger instead of running away from it. "Again, the higher your existence is in the orders of Emanations, the more ohr you can access. And the more ohr you can access, the easier it is to bend and manipulate it, hence why you can naturally conjure it without much training.
"As for your reference, the speed of someone's growth in their height of existence is quite finicky, even if they are a Cultivator. Sometimes, a demon can reach Lvl 100 Malkuth with no effort, sometimes, it might take decades depending on the circumstances.
"But for my standard, Lvl 160 Malkuth is like one of the bars that I could barely reach," Azel sniffled. "I went on a journey for five years away from my homeland, and I only went from Lvl 6 Malkuth to Lvl 40 Malkuth…
"But yeah, for the average living being, it would take them more than a decade to reach Lvl 200 Malkuth unless they are a successful person or a very rich and heavily backed-up Cultivator."
Yroa raised one of his eyebrows, maintaining his amused smile. "I assume that demons are just innately better at Ohrmancy, since you're able to cast invisibility at Lvl 40 Malkuth."
"True, demons in nature are more conductive and perceptive when it comes to ohr than other vessels or species, hence why we can fiddle with it at low level of existential height." Azel saw Yroa performing a rather scary display of ohr control with his fingers fiddling around the pure ohr conjuration like it was nothing. She felt more intimidated with every moment passing by. "M-moving on! In the world of Ohrmancy, there are two primary branches that are well-known amongst many, or at least, known by me.
"The first is Spellcasting!" Azel energetically pointed out. "It's when the mind of a sentient being attempted to tamper the fabric of reality and its elements using ohr as the resources, which results in—Spells!
"Things like Invisibility Spell, where it commonly works by either bending or manipulating light around the target, effectively making them invisible to the naked eye, or by rendering the target invisible by blending them seamlessly into their surroundings!
"Or, or! You can even just straight up conjure a magical barrier around the target that prevents others from perceiving them, regardless of how light behaves, or even induce a psychological effect on observers, causing them to overlook or ignore the presence of the invisible individual!" Azel excitedly conveyed her most prideful knowledge of her mastery. "The same goes with Enhancement Spell, Elemental Spells, and any kind of spells that are able to be conceptualized by a sentient mind!
"And this is possible because the Tree of Life and the almighty source of ohr itself is connected to the very sentience and soul of an existence! So if a rock possesses enough Lvl and is sentient enough, they too can perform Spellcasting!"
"So all of the mechanisms exist in the mind. Hmm~ interesting." Yroa then proceeded to tap the burning well of ohr that was available for him to access, before conceptually converting it into something that he baked inside his imagination. "I wonder if this will suffice."
Without putting much effort, Yroa nonchalantly conjured a rather weird handgun of longer barrel with a dagger as a fixed bayonet.
"... Did I just see a Creation Spell being cast right in front of me???" Azel uttered with a blatant shock on her face.
"Is the Creation Spell supposed to be hard?"
"Of course it is!" Azel complained. "Not only do you need to possess a great understanding of the detailed elements that consist within the conjured material, you also need to possess a lot of ohr and precise level of control!"
"Huh, no wonder it took 90% of my reserved ohr," Yroa said before he chuckled, not really minding the inefficient ohr usage since there were still a lot of Mutual Ohr that he could access. "I assume that my ohr reserves will fill back in time."
One of the flying boulder debris just landed ten meters away from them, none of them flinched.
At this point, Azel didn't even know what kind of emotion she wanted to display on her face. "Well, you can manually draw the ohr from its source, as a last resort. This however, will result in a great spiritual and mental turbulent within the mind and the soul!
"As for the rate of your ohr regeneration, it is correlated to the height of your existence. Again, higher Domain and Lvl, means more ohr that you can access." Azel sighed, still stressing on the fact that nothing seemed normal anymore. "Also, just what kind of object that you created, Master? It's kinda similar to a firelock weapon, but not really quite…"
Playing around with the new handgun, Yroa answered his servant's curiosity, "So firelock technology exists huh. Well, this thing is a much more sophisticated and modern version of it, called a gun or firearm." One of the stray debris projectiles from the battlefield ahead went directly towards Yroa's head, only for it to be casually slashed down by the gun's bayonet. "A modified Glock 17 with 9x19mm Parabellum caliber. Unlike a firelock weapon, you can shoot 17 rounds in one go before you need to reload it~!
"My memories started to slowly come back, and I'm reminded of this one," Yroa lied, playing around with his fake background of being an amnesiac ancient being. "I'm curious so I decided to make it. It might not be the exact same as the original, since it has a bayonet and longer barrel, but I think it can still pack quite a punch."
After the pleasant walk, they finally arrived at the perimeters of the ongoing fight, finally getting a visible view on the fight between the four foreign warriors with a giant behemoth of a Natural Calamity.