“Hey.” With no particular surprise, Emergias looked up to see a woman hanging upside down above him. Though her face was perfectly androgynous, the contours of her upper body made it clear that she was closer to being a woman. She wore no clothes or the like. Instead, her skin was covered in small, delicate scales here and there. Her eyes were deep black—not even a speck of white to them—and a long, thin tongue stretched bright and red from her mouth.
However, her most memorable feature was her lower body. Unlike her very humanoid upper body, her lower body was thick like a tree trunk, covered in scales, and stretched on for seemingly forever.
This was the Devil of Envy, Jiiria. Her strange appearance had left Emergias quite spooked during their first encounter, but he was no longer a child who had yet to come of age, jumping at every shadow he crossed in the Abyss. Emergias looked up at her entirely unfazed.
“It has been ssso long... How long exactly? Five hundred years?” Jiiria said, laying a friendly hand on his shoulder.
“It’s only been fifteen years in the material world.”
“Really? Only fifteen?” Her eyes blinked in surprise before narrowing. “How nice it must be. The material world sssounds ssso nice. If my body wasn’t ssso long, I would join you on the journey back. If only, if only...” she said, winding down from her perch.
Jiiria wrapped herself comfortably around him, only using some of her length.
“Anyway, you ssseem to have grown quite a bit.” She grinned, inspecting him from many different angles before she started gently stroking his hair. The way her smile revealed wickedly sharp fangs, the way her tongue writhed back and forth, made her flattery fall somewhat flat, but Emergias nonetheless let her do as she pleased.
“I have a request for you,” Emergias said.
“Oh? What sssort of request?”
“I want as much of your authority as I can handle.”
Jiiria’s hands froze.
Fifteen years ago, Emergias had come here to consult with her about why his power wasn’t growing. He had hoped to find a more efficient means of gaining power. Normally, even when a demon made a true pact with a devil—a contract which aided a demon’s magical growth—they left room in their soul so they could take on other devils as familiars. Jiiria had suggested she pour her own power into that empty space. Breaking a sealed pact was impossible, but it could still be strengthened. Emergias had accepted, granting him a sudden explosive growth in power...but now he had started to stagnate again.
“It’s still not enough.” A slight boost in efficiency wasn’t going to cut it. He needed more. More power.
“I’m sssorry to sssay, but you don’t have room for any more,” Jiiria said with a pout, resting her chin on her own scales. “Your sssoul is already filled to its limit with my power. If I gave you even a drop more, you would never be able to return to the Abyss.”
“That’s fine,” Emergias replied, eyes glowering. “I don’t care if I can’t come back.”
For a lengthy moment, Jiiria simply stared at him. “Ssso, getting a sssmidgen of power is more important to you than ever ssseeing me again.” She flicked her tongue, evidently displeased.
“That’s not true.” But Emergias grabbed her shoulders and pulled her closer, unbridled desperation in his expression. “I don’t want a mere smidgen. That’s not enough!”
“Like I sssaid, your sssoul—”
“I don’t care!” Emergias’s shout was finally enough to clue Jiiria in that her contractor was no longer of sound mind. “I don’t care what happens to my soul. I don’t care what happens to me! I don’t matter anymore! So give me it! As much as you can! Fill me with your authority!”
Despite Emergias’s raving, Jiiria turned a bored expression as she sighed. “You know, you aren’t the first one to ask that of me. If getting ssstronger was that easy, everyone would do it. Fill sssomeone up with more power than they can handle and then...pop! They’ll burst. That goes for everyone. Everyone. Including you.”
“I’ve already accepted that possibility.”
“Are you sssure? It’ll be excruciatingly painful. A thousand times worse than you can imagine.”
“What difference does it make? I’ll be dead by then. I’m basically already dead now.” Emergias’s hand tightened into a fist, tightening more and more. “You can do it, right?! You can give me power beyond the limits of my soul! That’s what I want! I want to take this useless person I’ve become and obliterate them!” And then he clapped a fist to his chest. His desperation was earnest but at the same time depressingly comical, like a child throwing a tantrum.
“Fine, I get it. This is just a fancy way of killing yourself, isn’t it?” Jiiria raised her hands in surrender, then started to grin. “If you insist ssso ssstrongly, then I’ll do it. I’ll give you more power. With this being our final meeting, ssseeing you break in my arms isn’t the worst way to end things.” In the blink of an eye, Jiiria’s endless coils began to constrict, tightly wrapping around Emergias.
“Whoa...?!”
“This is my last chance, ssso allow me to sssqueeze you a bit. It’ll help you last longer too.” With Emergias trapped in place, Jiiria draped herself over him from behind. “Okay then, let’s begin.” Then she opened her mouth wide and sank her fangs into his neck.
Emergias gasped. He could feel it pouring into him. The Devil of Envy’s authority was a poison that corrupted the heart. Though his mouth opened wide, his scream was silent.
The icy power deep within him suddenly exploded outward, filling every crevice of his being. He felt himself growing to many times his own size. Blood filled his eyes, and something began to pour out of his mouth, nose, and ears.
As he started to sputter weakly, Jiiria’s grip on him only tightened, both her arms around his shoulders and her coils around his body. While he was being crushed on the outside, the incessant torrent of power flowing into him made it feel like he was on the verge of bursting on the inside. With nowhere else to go, that power began to destroy Emergias himself.
Bubbles formed across his skin, as though the blood beneath the surface was boiling, drops of it squeezing through the pores all over his body. His blood vessels writhed like countless tiny snakes, and his skin began to snap as it ripped apart.
At this point, he was beyond feeling pain. Now he just flailed mindlessly. But Jiiria didn’t stop. After all, this was what Emergias desired.
An unnerving creaking sound resounded from within him. At last, Jiiria withdrew her fangs from his neck.
“Goodbye, Emergias.” She kissed his neck, then bared her fangs again—
“I...!” Over the wet popping sounds. “I am...Emergias Izanis...!” Emergias muttered as if in a daze. “The future...ruler of...the demonic...kingdom...!”
Whether he was even conscious or not was hard to say. His whole body pulsed with a regular rhythm, like it was being rocked by a tremendous heartbeat.
“What a brave young man.” Jiiria lovingly smiled down at him. “But this is the end.”
She once again sank her fangs into him, making way for more power to pour in. With that, he finally surpassed his limit.
With a loud bang, Emergias Izanis exploded. Dark blue fluid sprayed everywhere, drenching Jiiria’s upper body. The lump of flesh that had once been Emergias hit the ground with a thud.
And then it began to groan.
“Oh my.” Jiiria blinked in surprise, leaning down to scoop up the mess. With his skin ragged and falling off, he almost slipped out of her hands. She stretched out her tongue, licking away some of the dark blue blood covering him...
“Incredible. You actually sssurvived.”
Beneath that blood was not the pale blue skin of a demon, but small, tightly woven scales. He had undergone a complete transformation. Reptilian scales had taken the place of his skin, the whites of his unseeing eyes were now solid black, and he had vertical slits for pupils. The most unnerving change was how lithe, how flexible, he now was. It was like all the bones in his body had been ripped out. Like a snake...
Emergias moaned again, thick black fluid pouring from his mouth.
“Oh, you poor thing. It ssseems it reduced you to nothing but a fool.” Jiiria looked down with surprise, before her face broke into another smile. “But I sssuppose this means we can ssstay together forever. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you.” Stroking his blood drenched head, Jiiria went back to coiling her lower body around him.
“Ugh... What...happened...to me?” But then Emergias’s mind came back to him.
“Oh?” In her surprise, she released her hold on him. And just like that, the light of consciousness in his eyes was snuffed out once more, a soft groan leaking from his mouth. She repeated the experiment a number of times, gripping him tightly and then letting him go. Whenever she held him, his mind would return to him. But if she let go, he would become a thoughtless lump of meat.
“Stop it... Stop playing with me...” Emergias finally managed to muster while she squeezed him.
“Looks like you’re awake.”
“I don’t even know. When you move away, my head goes blank...”
“It appears it was too much for you after all. You no longer have a grip on your sssense of ssself.”