Battle Admin System 8

8 - Demonic Arm Bond

Alden of House Springsmith watched the savage display from the tree tops. He made note of the script circles and the demon standing undisturbed during the horrific slaughter. The entire massacre surrounded the demon and pooled blood up to the creature’s knees.

Simple answers came to mind.

This was a dark and evil ritual of legendary proportions.

And he was wrong about Lillea Moonstrider. Horribly wrong.

But this knowledge could be fortunate if used correctly. He saw most if not all of her abilities. He knew the church was in favor with the royal family right now. He only needed to tell the right person the right things, and House Springsmith would rise again.

Carefully, Alden climbed down from his perch. He ignored the heavy stench of corpses. He fell amid carrion eaters gorging on excess bodies tossed out of the glade.

Into the night, he ran, channeling mana into his armor’s camouflage. A compass pointed the way back where he’d come from. He tried not to rush. But turning his back on a giant and a demon sent chills along his spine. Like a small animal fleeing from big predators. At least he was getting away–

“Lord Springsmith!”

Alden nearly had a heart attack. He covered his mouth with one hand to keep from screaming.

“I know you’re here, little lord!”

Lillea’s voice sounded from right behind him. He turned, tripped, and fell. He searched the dark and found himself alone. Her voice was so powerful it sounded from closeby, as if she was right over him.

“You shouldn’t have followed me. What will you do with all you’ve learned?”

Alden crawled under the raised roots of a giant tree. He dug in with bugs as large as his hand. Or larger. They wriggled and squirmed all over him.

“You’ll have a head start. Then I’ll have to catch you. I can’t let you sell this information to the church.”

Indignation and rage flared. “You’re an enemy to mankind, monstress! It’s my duty to tell the church! The Adventurer Guild! Everyone!”

Silence returned. Alden felt even more horrified.

I foolishly gave her what she wanted. She’s going to find me! He wanted to say he could defeat her. But something about her was stronger than what her levels and noble rank suggested.

She played us like fools. She was holding back this whole time! And she had a demon while engaging in dark rituals.

Alden crawled out of his divot. He ignored the bugs all over him and crept away. He clenched his spear shakily. He yelped when Lillea’s voice boomed through the forest again.

“I think I’m willing to fight your church if I must. But I would rather not. So let’s cut to the chase, as you humans would say. Your house is hurting, Alden. You’re in desperate need to find more fortune than you could hope for. Your debts to a greater house transcends generations.”

How does she know that? Alden froze. Why does she know that?

“You’re a scoundrel of a lord. You come from a long line of scoundrels. Getting in debt. Leveraging debt. An endless cycle. You need a mountain of fortune to break free. Fortune like that is hard to find. Unless you have me.”

Alden loosened his grip on his spear.

“Come to the glade, Alden. And we’ll make a deal. Run away. And I will hunt you. And I will catch you.”

She’s the key to Cold Tooth’s riches. She can turn my house’s misfortune around. Even if I go to the church, House Springsmith will remain in debt.

Besides, plenty of lords and ladies used demonism for extra advantages. The game was to afford secrecy and not get caught. One could say Lillea was playing with the same rules like a lady.

But what he’d seen in that glade was nightmarish. It harkened to tales of the dark times when giants the size of hills trampled men. Stole women. And ate the meat off children like eating drumsticks.

Alden considered those dark tales of evil man-eating giants. He weighed what he could gain. Then he remembered the indignity of being ignored and belittled for an entire week. While everyone else served at the giant’s beck and call.

Alden ran away.

***

I don’t want him to run. Lillea dropped from the top of her hill and flopped in front of the boundary. But I’m so weak he could kill me. Damn it.

Her mana channels pulsed with pain. Every thought came to her sluggishly. She felt more tired than ever before.

She had some reassurance of staying alive because of Ravenous Survival. It used a low amount of mana. But her channels were so overdrawn, she could barely pass through a trickle.

Everything was agony.

Sleep. Let me sleep.

No more mind enhancer. It had been a temporary solution, anyway.

Lillea felt the darkness coming. She pressed her right hand down and pushed up. She looked dizzily at the Prideful Shadow.

“I’m going to rest. We’ll finish up after. Here, food.”

She pushed the lightest morsel into the boundary. Then Lillea crawled into the middle of a corpse pile. She shut her eyes.

When she awoke again, daylight blurred her vision, hurting. Lillea groaned and tried to cover her face when she saw someone was standing on her chest.

It was the demon. A string of shadow extended from her hand to around Lillea’s neck. The demon had her.

White eyes looked arrogantly into Lillea’s eyes. They beheld each other for a moment. Then the demon withdrew the string and released the giant’s neck. She left a little scratch and no more.

“I will let you live and have the honor of being my mistress.” The demon looked around while standing haughtily on Lillea’s chest. “It’s been three days. A monster broke the scripts last night. I killed it. I grew bored so I unburied you.” The demon hopped off. “Everything’s rotten and smelly. Let’s go somewhere else.”

Lillea tried to assent but an unintelligible croak came out instead. She stood shakily to her feet and lumbered after the Prideful Shadow.

The demon submerged into shadows and resurfaced further ahead. Everytime Lillea reached her, the demon submerged and resurfaced with her shadow powers.

She leered at the weary giant but held her tongue. This went on for hours until they stopped at a river.

Lillea drank a little to quench her thirst before washing her face. Layers of blood and filth dropped away. She could use a hot bath.

“I was thinking of how to bind myself to you.” The demon kicked through the water. “I want the metal arm. I can fix it. And make it stronger. And it’s separate enough for me to still be me.”

“Okay,” Lillea croaked.

The demon shot her a distrustful look. “That’s it?”

“I thought the same.” She pointed at the Prideful Shadow and then at her metal arm. “Should work. The arm needs to be strengthened. You need a good home.”

Lillea smiled.

The demon nodded slowly. She pointed up at the giant.“Your name is Lillea of the Moonstriders.” Then pointed at herself. “I am Solo.”

“Solo?” Lillea questioned.

“Short for solitude. I like being with myself. I’m usually the best.” Solo looked away. “But I see there are others who are the best. Like you. But! As a mistress of mine, you must be better than the rest. Stand solo at the top.”

“Lillea Solo Moonstrider.” The Moon Giant smiled. “Our name.”

“Our name.” The demon nodded in agreement.

***

Lillea needed four nights under moonlight to repair her mana channels. Any other way was too excruciatingly painful and slow.

Mana channels were hard to break. But they were easy to wear out. Under critical conditions, they needed preferential mana sources.

As a Moon Giant, Lillea preferred moonlight or the darkness of the night. Night mana was adjacent enough to moonlight. The moon could appear anytime, but it shone the greatest at night.

Before the ten-day death gauntlet, never had Lillea pushed herself so hard while so limited. Those ten feverish days of gory and wild combat had felt like a test of everything she knew.

Yet, she couldn’t help but feel she was still in transition. She wasn’t leaving behind the last five years of pain and preparation or her Moonstrider life from before. She was moving into a different phase, accelerating her climb to the top.

She saw this through her levels.

Your experience leveled up from 263 to 275!

You’ve gained 1 System Point! You have 2 System Points!

Lillea smiled ear to ear. For other races, it would’ve seemed like her earnings were slow. For a giant, this was extraordinarily fast. She even picked up some new skills to add to her pool.

You’ve gained new skills in your pool: Seismic Sense (Level 1), See-Through Vision (Level 1), Fire Resistance (Level 1), Relentless Onslaught (Level 1), Corpse Hill Fiend (Level 1).

During the daylight hours, Lillea would rest or hunt for fish. She went back to the glade to dig around, strip teeth, talons, or bestial materials from the corpses, and retrieve her bag and things. The Prideful Shadow would fight nearby monsters and show off her skills.

When they sat together at the river bank, Lillea explained some of the skills she had pooled to her new companion. The further she explained, the more weird looks she received from Solo.

“Why do you have so many skills?” Solo asked in alarm.

“Oh, it’s because I wanted to try out different powers and elements.” Lillea blinked. “And Moonstrider Learning remembers with depth.”

“But you have well over a hundred!”

“A good number of them are weapon proficiency skills.”

“How many weapons can you use?”

Lillea shrugged. “Just about all of them, which should be normal for a Moonstrider. It doesn’t even have to be a traditional weapon, either.”

Solo looked at her strangely. “So that’s why you ripped off the bird beak and used it like a weird knife during the challenge.” Newfound respect glinted in the demon’s eyes. “It will be beneficial for you to absorb me, after all.”

Lillea noticed how Solo made the future pact sound like it was the demon’s idea. She didn’t correct the demon, of course. Their growing trust was more than she could ever hope for. But this also raised a new headache.

“I can’t test out different skills anymore. Once we do this, I will have to settle on my build.”

Part of Lillea’s slow growth came from swapping out different skills of various elements and styles. But she’d learned considerably from this practice and felt flexible enough to work with almost anything.

Once Lillea and Solo committed, Lillea’s skills would follow a certain path. This was called a build. Her role as a battler made it so she generally acquired skills for battling. But a battler’s build could vary from person to person, creature to creature.

I’ve grown so accustomed to preparing and being flexible that it feels weird to select a certain path. Am I ready for this fastrack to power?

Lillea wanted more power. But it felt weird being on the cusp of achieving it. Like she was losing something in the process.

“Hey!” The demon dangled upside down  above Lillea’s head. With only a dark string around a tree branch. “There’s no going back.”

“I know, Solo–”

“Then stop being moody. I know you had plenty of options from your big skill pool. Well, shadow skills are flexible! And the best. Have pride in that.”

Lillea nodded graciously. It was a little embarrassing for a demon to tell her off. She was going to absorb and master the demon, but the giant appreciated Solo’s attitude.

Is this what humans call nervousness? I suppose I can be affected, too. At least I know which skills must stay.

Moonstrider Learning V leveled up from 263 to 266!

Moonstrider Athleticism V leveled up from 260 to 275!

I’m both happy and unhappy. My athleticism is strong. But my learning fell behind again. Oh well.

Expert Hunter’s Perception III leveled up from 248 to 260!

Force Manipulation III leveled up from 232 to 245!

These two are big supporters. I’m proud of them. Simple as they are, they can’t be underestimated.

Lillea paused and realized there was a single remaining skill that concerned her.

Ravenous Survival leveled up from 198 to 229!

I can’t deny this skill’s usefulness. She was tempted to raise it to Tier III now that she had 2 system points. She held back, though.

Solo’s powers might cost points. Lillea wanted to maximize her gains from the demon absorption.

Other than that, the remaining skills were replaceable.

***

It took all day to inscribe the proper rune scripts for the demon absorption ritual. Lillea took breaks to preserve her mana channels. She was also aiming to complete the ceremony at night with the moonlight.

Solo attacked wandering monsters ferociously. The closer the ritual came, the more animated the demon became.

She caught wandering beasts in shadow webs and strung them taut until the victims fell in pieces. She wrapped herself in thick shadows and lunged at monsters head-on. Her shadow-empowered claws tore into their skulls until she was swimming in their brains. She reveled in her power and came running back to tell Lillea in detail about her fighting prowess and creative shadow uses.

Lillea believed the demon to be nervous. The Moon Giant smiled and listened and steadily wrote each rune.

The night soon arrived. The moon shone fully. The scripts awaited for the sorcerous words, Solo standing in the middle.

Moonstrider Learning V leveled up from 266 to 268!

“It’s time.” Lillea knelt on top of the script. The runes would be fine. They could endure her weight.

She moved her damaged arm with difficulty and laid it next to Solo, forcing her to lean forward. With a deep breath, Lillea concentrated. She brought forth the ancient words that hadn’t been recited in over five centuries, breaking the Moonstrider agreement and human laws against demonism.

“Demon of Pride and Shadow. Child of the Moonwatcher. We are two who must become one. Let the nightly elements merge us. Let the nether combine our vices. A bond of metal and power and shadow. We will rise together, under the witness of the ancients, so all will whisper the name, Lillea Solo Moonstrider.”

The runic script shone with a powerful gray. The ritual pulsed with humming waves. Nearby trees swayed from the rippling power.

The demon’s body dropped. It hit the ground as a withered female corpse. A shadowy mist outlined with shining white light hovered in the air where the body once stood.

Lillea clenched her jaw. She felt her entire being open in ways she barely could understand. The demonic mist hovered near Lillea’s broken left hand and hesitated.

Lillea’s heart hammered, scared. Then her heart pounded with joy when the demon mist seeped into the broken metal hand. The transformation happened fast.

The Prideful Shadow spread throughout the arm. Her energy circulated through Lillea’s channels. The channels burned. Lillea endured. It could be worse.

Her metal arm shivered. The hand twitched. Shadow smoke seeped from the gaps before covering the entire arm. Metal melted and reformed under the power of the demonic bond. Lillea’s mana channels fused with the demonic energy and became tougher.

The Moon Giant let loose a bestial moan. The rune scripts flashed brighter and pulsed harder. The nearby forest and river trembled from the activity.

Then the ritual winked out.

Everything became still.

For a stretch of time, Lillea didn’t move. Only her ragged breaths and shudders broke up the stillness.

A curious Misbegotten Night Fox slunk out of the woods and up to the knelt Moon Giant. It drew close enough to pose its teeth near Lillea’s neck.

A flash of movement caught the fox by the throat. Cold metallic claws extended from the end of five digits.

Lillea’s new hand squeezed.

The beast scrambled to escape.

It ripped away.

Without a throat.

The fox dropped dead. The Demonic Moon Giant rose to her feet. She was made anew with a windfall of points, skills, and choices. She was better than ever before and filled with new potential and power.