Demons were hated, loathed, and reviled across the multiverse. That wasn’t true of literally everyone. The multiverse was a big place and as long as there were crazy, horny people in it then at least one caste of demons would always have its fans. The rest were hated and Akashic understood that. She accepted it. She had no wish to change it nor could she have changed her kind even if she did.

  Demons were often seen as monolithic but they were no less so than any other species. There were major castes, minor castes, and separate tribes. Life in the demonic netherworld of Hell was not kind nor was it easy. Those who survived did so by being strong, clever, or both… or by serving someone who was. Of the descriptions and appellations demons were given by one another and by mortals, the one that they were never credited with was intelligent.

  A demon could be clever and conniving, sure. Some demons were duplicitous in the extreme and capable of seducing, tempting, or manipulating mortals in a variety of ways. Some had centuries of experience at it and skills to let them be masterful about it. Those demons weren’t dumb. No, they were smart in a way and Akashic acknowledged that. They just weren’t what she wanted to be.

  Most demons wanted to be the best. It was a simple goal only made slightly more complicated by the caste the demon belonged to and specifically what being the best entailed. Many goals were simplistic—gain levels, gain powerful skills, and slay your enemies. Over the centuries, demons had gotten stronger. Their whole society was built on gaining power so that was inevitable. What was more nebulous was the notion of her people becoming smarter. To put it bluntly, they weren’t.

  Few thought about why the System behaved the way it did beyond a superficial level. Most didn’t actively try to manipulate it to plan their class advancements or levels. Really, demons were a testament to throwing millions of spawn into the pit and seeing which ones survived. Some would make really good decisions with class and skill selection, get lucky, or a combination of both. Maybe there was some thought on the individual’s part but Akashic didn’t see it. She saw statistical probability at work and little else.

  Now, the angels had figured it out. They’d experimented for centuries to come up with the perfect warrior template then trained their angels in roughly the same way to have roughly the same classes and skills. The result was that every angel that appeared in battle had a good blend of power, healing, utility, and more. It was predictable but strong. The problem was that the angels stopped after that. They never expanded their horizons, delved deeply into other types of magic beyond the usual suspects of wind, light, healing, and holy. They walled off so many other types of magic that it became a collective blind spot for the whole race. They didn’t see it that way but those among Akashic’s kind who gained true power could defeat every angel in battle because once one had the script to defeat one, it could be applied to every other angel.

  Brivaria was a product of her environment every bit as much as the demon spawn were of theirs. Prior to recent events, she’d had no individuality and little capacity for planning and foresight. She’d fought in a lot of battles and she had the knowledge from all of those encounters but the angel had a script that she read from in battle. She spoke all her lines correctly and played her part. Years of battle left scars on the body and soul. They forged and reforged a creature into something harder and stronger. Brivaria bore none of those scars. Despite her history and previous level, she was no more a combat veteran than the deer.

  Every time the angel tried to brag about her past, the demoness had wanted to vomit. It frustrated her to be chained to someone so naive and simpleminded. Yet, for all the angel’s foibles, she now had powerful allies. The snake, the cat, the deer, and, shockingly, the dog were strong. Their presence increased their likelihood of survival. More importantly, the angel had one trait that the demoness actually did like.

  Brivaria was creative. When she was forced to go off-script, as Akashic thought of it, the angel could use her skills and spells in ways that most others would not. Using her wind power to speed up the slime amalgamation was something few demons, if any, would think to do. Most would have fought the slimes head on and likely died. It was that creativity that the angel showed time and time again that Akashic wanted to harness. There was potential in the angel to be something greater than any other of her race. Perhaps that wasn’t saying much, given Akashic’s view of their collective stagnation, but it was saying something.

  Maybe that was why she kept helping Brivaria. That tiny glimpse into what could be tantalized the demoness. Or maybe it was something simpler like fulfilling her original purpose in implanting the seed into the angel. Or perhaps her motive was simpler still—Akashic didn’t want to die. The original was dead. She was all that was left—an incomplete echo of her old self. It was a life and it was better than nothing.

  Whatever the reason, Akashic knew she had to find a way out of this mess and she had one idea. Unlike the angel, she knew what Sronyan meant. Sronya was the original demon name for the Between and Sronyan was the name for the inhabitants of the Between, specifically those that entered other universes much like demons did. Long ago, a group of demons had become so infatuated with the Sronyan Gaunt that they tried to become the things they idolized. This created the demonic caste of the Hell Gaunt and they had taken on the name Sronyan for themselves.

  Two races which gave mortals nightmares fused together into something far deadlier. They were a small caste but they were incredibly dangerous wielding unholy magicks in ways that surpassed their kin. Over centuries they had grown more reclusive and more powerful to the point where they were alien even to other demons. Every so often a war party would decide to erase the hell gaunt. That war party would never be heard from again.

  Given this knowledge, Akashic had only one idea for saving the angel. If the gaunt would kill anything that wasn’t of the Between then they had to make Brivaria into a creature of the Between and they had to do so in a hurry. The angel had the parts to do it, it was just a matter of convincing her to utilize them and hoping that they worked.

  You have gained the skill Affinity (Unholy).

  Defensive Bulwark has been upgraded by Affinity (Unholy) into Spiteful Aegis.

  Healing Touch has been upgraded by Affinity (Unholy) into Dark Caress.

  Spiteful Aegis (Active)

  Raise your shield to block an incoming blow, reflecting the force back upon the attacker. Over the next minute, the attacker will suffer wracking pain and begin taking damage equal to half the amount you would have taken from the attack. Mitigation and reflection scale with physique, endurance, and spirit.

  Dark Caress (Active)

  Channel this skill while touching another creature to restore health to them or steal health from them. If you injure the creature and cause them pain while channeling this skill, the amount of health restored as well as the amount of health stolen are increased. Theft scales with arcane, restoration scales with spirit, additional bonus from suffering scales with presence.

  Brivaria stared at the System messages in horror. They were horrible perversions of her old skills designed to cause pain and suffering. More than that, she knew as soon as she selected the skill that it had done something to her. Neutral affinities like Giselle’s Affinity (Strength) were harmless but ones like these she had were not.

  “Now, use Twisted Reflection,” Akashic said, jolting the angel out of her momentary stupor. Brivaria focused on the gaunt and activated Twisted Reflection. The mana cost was higher than she liked despite the bonuses from Corrupt Shapeshifting. That was all she had time to think before her world disappeared.

  Temporary skill gained from Twisted Reflection.

  Temporary skill, Cycle of Violence, obtained.

  Cycle of Violence (Passive)

  When you kill a creature, you gain one temporary level. You may only gain up to 20 temporary levels from this skill and they expire after a period of time. If you have temporary levels and kill a creature then the duration of all temporary levels is refreshed. Skills which grant temporary levels do not stack, only the highest is used. Temporary level duration scales with presence.

  The System messages were the only things Brivaria saw once the transformation began. A sleek silver sheen encompassed her body and her wings grew enormous claws. Tendrils burst from odd places all along her form. Her head and hair vanished into a smooth, silver oval. Almost all of her senses went away. Sight, sound, taste, and smell vanished. She couldn’t breathe and didn’t need to breathe. Her entire way of perceiving the world around her shifted. She suddenly understood where she was in relation to everything around her including the ground and rapidly approaching gaunt.

  The way she perceived herself and other creatures was bizarre. It was like Talver was barely there. Only when he let out a particularly ragged breath was she able to locate him and only then because she knew he was there and knew where to look. It was like he was a candle flame flickering in and out of existence. Immediately she understood that he didn’t belong in this place, not like the gaunt. They were beacons of sensation in the universe around her. She could feel their existence and also feel their senses rubbing up against hers like tangible things. They were examining her just as she was examining them.

  Brivaria felt the hostility turn to curiosity then turn to something else. It wasn’t anger or hostility but something approximating disapproval. It radiated from the lead gaunt and she had to fight back her natural reflex to take a step back. Her body was foreign and unnatural but not enough so that she did not know how to move it. The tendrils that writhed over her were like a security blanket. She could touch herself, feel her body, and that grounded her or it did right up to the moment the gaunt spoke.

  No, speaking was the wrong word. The gaunt didn’t speak with sound, Brivaria learned. They communicated via concept through a form of telepathy. It was strikingly similar to how angels communicated in their true forms as beings of energy. It was a more complete form of communication where nuance and understanding were transferred along with knowledge. It was like projecting one’s entire thought process along with the thought. What the angel wasn’t prepared for was how invasive the gaunt version was.

  Angels were kind and patient in their communication. Things were transferred at a speed all parties were prepared for. Gaunt simply flooded one another with thoughts. It was a rapid fire thing which Brivaria struggled to keep up with. It was also extremely difficult to resist because the gaunt didn’t just send the thought process of their questions but inserted a process to form the reply. The angel found herself, both mind and body, automatically responding to the queries. If she did nothing, her own mind would surrender any information the other gaunt requested.

  The angel fought to exclude her past, Barton, and Talver from anything she sent back to them. As a result, her responses were incomplete and broken. In less than a second, they’d decided she was damaged which she instantly knew because she knew everything they knew. The only secrets kept here were her own. She received a complete understanding of what the purpose of this patrol unit was, what areas they were tasked with patrolling, and everything that occurred on their patrol.

  Just briefly there was a dark urge to let them fully interface with her mind and join them completely. Brivaria hadn’t felt this connected to anyone or anything since her time in Heaven. Despite her deceit, she seamlessly became one of the gaunt. They accepted her instantly like she was a gaunt, like she’d always been gaunt, and like she was supposed to be a gaunt.

  Everything was going completely according to plan. Her disguise was working perfectly and Talver had all but disappeared. It was only when she felt the discordant screaming of Akashic inside her head that the angel realized something had gone wrong. She was just starting to rise into the air to return to the cradle to assess and correct her damage when the demoness started going crazy. Brivaria didn’t understand the problem. This was standard for an injured gaunt to be healed and for all abnormalities corrected before resuming their tasks.

  “You are not a gaunt. You are not a gaunt!” Akashic shouted in Brivaria’s head and the angel was forced to communicate with the rest of her group that she would need some time before returning. As they departed, she tried to calm Akashic down. While this was happening, she also detected an anomaly. A foreign object was present in the space. It registered on her senses and she raised her claws, preparing to dispose of it, when the pieces started falling back into place.

  Realizing that she couldn’t completely shift back to her demon form or risk pulling the gaunt back to her position, Brivaria tried for a partial shift. Her head melded back into place with the dark hair and black horns of her demon form. While her face and neck looked normal with her usual skin color, the rest of her body looked like she was wearing a form-fitting black suit. Thankfully, it took on a feminine shape so it was slightly less alien. The tendrils snaking around her body remained but her feet went from the strange two-heel configuration to one though she kept the talon on the back, giving her slightly more height than previously. It was the best she could do for the moment.

  “Talver?” Brivaria asked, looking at the frightened man. The word was strangely foreign on her tongue and so much more primitive than the way the gaunt communicated.

  “What happened?” he replied. “You turned into one of them. Are you one of them? You looked like you were going to attack me for a moment there.”

  “Yes, what happened?” Akashic broke in, “one moment you were behaving normally and the next it was like your mind was not your own.” The demoness appeared, standing next to where Talver sat on the ground. All six of her arms were folded and she looked equal parts angry and… worried.

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. One moment I was me and the next I was one of them. I didn’t even realize the change occurred. I don’t think I’ll be doing that again,” the angel said shakily. “Do you still know where our exit is?”

  “Yes, it’s just over there. Are you going to be alright?” There was genuine concern in Talver’s eyes, fear too but mostly concern. He’d been worried about her. Brivaria wasn’t certain she was going to be alright but she nodded.

  “I’ll make it. Let’s find our way home.”

  Name: Brivaria

  Race: Angel

  Class: Sronyan Valkyrie

  Level: 43

  Stats: Health 66/85, Mana 84/166, Stamina 39/112

  Attributes: Physique 70, Endurance 42, Arcane 79, Spirit 83, Awareness 42, Presence 87

  Active Skills: Current Control, Dark Caress, Spiteful Aegis, Twisted Reflection, Wind Formation

  Passive Skills: Alternative Form, Corrupt Shapeshifting, Infernal Seed, Inventory, Lesser Flight, Lingering Decay, Natural Weapons, Rest, Traits (Angel)

  Magic: Light of Decay

  Affinity: Corruption, Decay, Unholy