by J. J. Pavlov
It meant that much like Cadrienna, she came from a species that didn't nurse their babies with mother's milk. But much like the squid demon commander of Pontis Daemonis, surely this arachne had other erogenous zones.
Pondering such matters half-seriously, Asoko gestured for her to raise her head.
"Did I interrupt something?" Smiling with amusedly curled lips, she glanced at the moth girl again. She was slender but looked closer to Chialdara in body type. Now that she had wriggled her way around inside the web to face her princess, it became clear that her arms were impossibly skinny as if only made of bones.
That's when Asoko realized that she had an extra pair of arms. They were covered by exoskeleton just like the arachne's, and each sported only two fingers and one thumb, ending in sharp claws. Interestingly enough, the lower pair of arms seemed to be mirrored to the upper pair, with the thumbs pointing downward rather than up.
"I was just punishing Anthera for her mistakes during the day, Chaos-sama." The spider girl tried to make herself smaller than Asoko by nearly setting down her body on the ground, but explained in a professional tone.
"You seemed to be enjoying it." Suppressing the urge to laugh, the Crawling Chaos glanced at the spider threads tied around the moth girl named Anthera in what appeared to be bondage. "What is your name?"
"I'm Zalnee. Please, excuse my earlier insolence!" As if taking the question for her name as an indicator that her disrespectful greeting would be reported to the maid leader, Zalnee lowered herself even further.
"It's alright." Waving her off, Asoko turned to take a closer look at Anthera again. Through her slightly parted bangs, she could see her eyes, which had human eyelids but were of a uniform gray with many facets on them - compound eyes. Otherwise, her face was human, although it appeared to be covered in a thick layer of powder as if to hide her skin. "What did she do to deserve punishment?"
"She scattered her scales everywhere after we had cleaned the room." Zalnee explained, still with her head lowered. Asoko only half-listened to her, as she extended a finger to touch that powder in fascination. "We had to evacuate those who breathe the air unfiltered."
"Hm?" Turning to look at the arachne, the Crawling Chaos realized what she just said. "What do you mean?"
"Anthera's scales are toxic." She looked up, at which her human pair of eyes widened in shock. "Don't touch her!"
Jumping at an incredible speed, Zalnee grabbed Asoko's wrist and pulled her away with unexpected strength in her slender arm. However, the violent motion caused them to stumble, with the arachne propelling her princess into her own web.
"I-I am so sorry!" She apologized profusely while using her sharp-clawed hands to cut Asoko free again, but the latter didn't mind.
"So, that's not powder but her scales?" Looking up at Zalnee leaning over her while snipping the threads around her hair, she asked absentmindedly. The feeling of a giant spider looming over her was an incredibly visceral experience. It strangely stirred something inside her.
"Yes, her whole body is covered in it. She can normally control when to scatter them, but she's an airhead and forgets her surroundings quite easily." Zalnee explained before moving back after finishing her work. But Asoko quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her in. Unsurprising for an eight-legged stance, she didn't budge an inch and stared at her princess in wonder. "Chaos-sama?"
"Right now, I'm more interested in learning about your body instead, Zalnee." The Crawling Chaos used a softer approach by easing Zalnee toward her with a light pull. Lowering her upper body over Asoko without even realizing it herself, the arachne found herself embraced.
"C-Chaos-sama! A-Anthera is watching!" She complained in a pitch an octave higher than before, sounding almost hysterical. But her words and expression both suggested that she wasn't trying to stop her.
"Is that so?" Glancing sideways at the moth girl still held in bondage, Asoko signaled her that she should watch carefully and maybe learn something. "Even better."
"What did you come here to do?" Ninlil's scornful voice pulls Asoko out of her thoughts before she can get to the best part.
She seems to have walked around half the castle in a mostly unconscious state and found herself at a corner of the outer wall. There, the catgirl is lying curled up on a parapet, not in the least worried about the nearly fifty meters drop on the other side.
Asoko's aim was to find Ninlil, so maybe she was standing around without saying a word after she arrived before her. She doesn't even know how long she has been there.
"Oh, I finally found you." Asoko acts as if she only just arrived and approaches the catgirl, whose body tenses as she watches her with a predatory glare.
"What do you want?" Throughout the journey to Arkaim, the two of them barely talked to each other. After all that Ninlil was put through by Asoko, it's no wonder that she hates her.
"Why are you so cold? Aren't we travel companions?" Ignoring the warnings signs of a cat about to pounce, Asoko bridges the distance with two quick steps and picks Ninli up. In the next instant, she has eight claw marks that run across her face. "My eyes!"
But of course, it's all an act, as she quickly repairs the damage by rebuilding her face. Making Ninlil think that she was hurt works to her advantage, as she's expecting her to take a respectful distance now.
"An opening!" Asoko flips the catgirl around and grabs her from behind before saying her line. In fiction, people always make the mistake to say it before moving, which alerts the other party to one's attack. Struggling in the embrace of the Crawling Chaos, Ninlil hisses. "Hey now, play nice."
With these words, she nibbles the catgirl's ear, upon which she squeals in surprise before going limp like a puppet with its strings cut. For a moment, Asoko wonders what happened and very nearly lets her down to look at her face. But just before she does it, the back of Ninlil's head hits her in the nose and breaks it squarely, causing her to stumble back in surprise.
"Don't you ever do that again!" Landing on her feet, Ninlil curls her fingers with her claw-like nails extended while glaring at Asoko with murderous intent. However, her face is flushed red, as if overcome with a fever.
"Oh?" Fixing her nose with but a thought, the Crawling Chaos looks at her wide-eyed. Then a broad grin spreads across her lips that causes the catgirl to flinch from the bad premonition. "Even though you talk like an old lady, you have an unexpectedly cute side."
"Old-... wha- cute?!" Stumbling over her words, Ninlil blinks her eyes repeatedly as if that would help make her opposite vanish on the spot. "Speak anymore, and I'll break your neck! I know it won't kill you, but at least that will shut you up!"
"Why so angry?" Spreading her arms as if trying to catch her, Asoko slowly inches closer. There's nowhere for Ninlil to go, so she bares her fangs and claws like a cornered animal.
"Go away!" She roars and hisses, but to no avail.
"Come here, kitty~"
Asoko forgot what she sought Ninlil for in the first place.
Chapter 94 - Space Diving
I don't know how long it has been since I left Mundia. According to Karina, one moon day is twenty-eight days, and the same goes for night. None of us sleep, and we don't become tired either, so there's no sense of the passage of time. Still, we're on our first moon dawn by now, and since we arrived when the shadows were long, it must have been a little over a month.
The Cube is only partially illuminated, with many places lacking energy. Even though she had many centuries to repair the station, the Witch of the End isn't versed in her ancient technology. Being one of the Old Humans doesn't automatically make one a godlike existence capable of everything.
Karina is keeping me here so that I can learn to harness the power of the Old Humans. According to her, every human can access it, as long as they're aware of its existence. Since I can make myself genetically human, I'm able to do so as well. But for now, her training only includes what any champion of the gods learns.
The first step was to cast magic without inc
antations and a catalyst. I learned that the vast majority of champions never get beyond the first of those two, but I've been casting spells without using a catalyst from the start.
Her instructions regarding how to achieve incantation-less magic weren't very helpful. But after much trial and error, I've succeeded in casting all the spells I know without having to speak. At first, it took me closing my eyes and concentrating for a while to envision the shape I wanted the magic to take, which was far slower than just speaking the words. Without an incantation to focus the images of the spells on, it was the only way to give form to them.
Soon, I became able to throw fire, summon winds, create water, and move earth with simple motions of my hands or feet. Apparently, I should be able to achieve all that without even moving, but that's still beyond me.
My training then moved on to melding - the combination of elements to achieve new effects the individual parts wouldn't be able to. The truth is that the entire system of affinities is only a creation by the Old Humans to keep humans weaker than they could be. For somebody who has already internalized the concept of affinities, it was best to continue down that route.
That reminded me of Luna, who combined elements even before she joined the academy. She must be exceptionally talented, especially since she was self-taught even back then. I used to silently mock her casting speed, but after she undergoes training under Alkupera, she might come back shooting laser beams and throwing plasma orbs all over the place without having to speak a word.
That's a terrifying thought.
"This means I can finally use the dragon breath." I speak to myself more than directed at anybody, but Karina overhears it.
"What do you mean?" She asks, her gate-like eyes turned toward me. Even after all this time, I just can't get used to them; unlike the amethyst galaxies in Kamii's irises, these are like holes into another dimension.
"Ah, it's just that I gained the template of a dragon recently." Glancing at Aurelia, who has been watching my training from the very beginning, I try to word it carefully. After all, said dragon was her only company for all the time she spent in exile until I came along and killed him.
"Let me see." Karina demands with a neutral tone, but I can feel a hint of impatience in her demeanor. Once again, I glance at the Golden Queen since I remember that she was quite angry when I took that form.
"Do not mind me, Chaos." Waving off my concerns, Aurelia shows me a wry smile. It's not that she gets over losses quickly, but that she has come to accept them as part of the grand scheme at the end of which she will have redemption.
My Japanese upbringing taught me to properly express when one feels apologetic. Still, Maou-mama also taught me that as a member of royalty, I shouldn't overdo it. Considering she's my mother from my previous life in Japan, it's ironic. Still, she lived in this world for thirty years before I came here and learned a lot of things about it.
Thus, I nod once to acknowledge Aurelia's approval and begin my transformation into the dragon template. Due to the mass I gained from ingesting the failed and imperfect beings left over from Orthum's experiments, I have enough to replicate the golden dragon in full.
Filling a large portion of the training hall with my giant body and wings, I curl myself up to face Karina, who looks up at me with her unfathomable eyes. She does seem to express a hint of surprise, but one can never really tell with her.
"Kiamedras." Her whisper breaks through the silence of the room. It's no wonder that she would know him when he used to be Kael's lapdog. Karina thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. "Never show this form to Elaine. He was her favorite."
"Who is that?" I turn back into my human form and tilt my head in surprise at the mention of a new name.
"Theasol, the Eye of Light. She is the one who created all the dragons." Karina replies with a glance at Aurelia. Or at least I assume she glanced at her, as she doesn't have eyes one could track the movements of.
Since the Eye of Light is the sun goddess Verdenslys, Theasol must be the Imperian name for her. The revelation that one of the Old Humans created the dragons doesn't come to me as a shock. I already suspected it when I learned about the ancient technology and that all the demons were created by Orthum.
"Is Elaine her name from before all this?" Both Karina and Elaine sound like regular names rather than Urslit or Verdenslys, but maybe I'm just ignorant of foreign languages and naming traditions.
"Yes. Nobody from this age knows our real names. Except for you now." The Witch of the End replies, once again seemingly glancing at Aurelia. In front of the Golden Queen, she had introduced herself as Fimbria, although I can understand that it was to be more easily recognized.
"What is Orthum's?" I'm interested in this one in particular, as I want to call him that before killing him.
"Alexander." Karina seems to hate him from the bottom of her heart, as the tone she says it in makes it sound like a curse. Considering her title of Witch of the End, she was made to act as the Mage of the Beginning's foil. They must have had a bad history with each other even before calling themselves gods.
"What about Phasmantus and Precanta." Aurelia suddenly asks, inquiring about the real names of the two who were most directly responsible for the death of her beloved Vanadia.
"Xing and Yuna." If Karina thinks anything about the Golden Queen's question, she doesn't let it show on her face while replying. The names sound Asian to me, but it makes sense that there are similar-sounding names to those from my previous world in this one when considering how many other similarities I've noticed.
"I shall remember those." Nodding her head with an aloof expression, Aurelia hides her emotions. But I know that she must be burning those two names into her mind. While Orthum - or Alexander - was the one who committed so many atrocities against life itself, these two are her true enemies.
"Regarding the dragon breath that you mentioned..." Karina changes the topic and addresses me again. "What was the problem?"
"When I transformed into Kiamedras, I couldn't breathe fire or plasma, so I thought it was maybe a spell I didn't know." I explain while turning back into my human form. Then I transform my right arm into a dragon head - though I make sure not to use the features of the golden dragon. It would be disrespectful to play around using his template like this.
"Kiamedras was unique in that he could breathe plasma. Maybe Elaine was unable to achieve that through biological means." Tilting her head slightly, Karina considers the matter.
So he was the only dragon that could use that breath? It does relieve me to know that the other dragons out in the wild can't use such a destructive move. But once again, sadness overcomes me at having had to kill him.
"So, you don't know either?" What I gather from her answer is that she can't help me learn how to use the plasma breath. But if I continue on this course, I'll eventually get to melding the elements and recreate it myself. That's why I'm not especially disappointed if she doesn't know the principle behind how Kiamedras could achieve it.
"Can you breathe fire?" Karina suddenly asks instead.
"No, I couldn't do that either." Surely, breathing fire should be a biological thing for dragons. "Is that also magic rather than biology?"
"No, dragons have a large sac filled with highly flammable gas, which they ignite upon shooting it out." The galactic witch explains. "If you could not do that, your gas stores must have been empty."
"That does make sense." I admit while stroking my chin. When I tried to breathe fire, it just felt that there was nothing. Back then, I was in the middle of my fight with Aurelia, so I didn't have time to explore what exactly that sensation meant.
"Kiamedras has the ridge of bone plates along his back, which lights up before his plasma breath." Karina begins a thought but pauses, and I wonder what she wants to say. It was how we decisively defeated him, as I placed an explosion inside him right as the energy charge traveled up his ridge. "Maybe that is how he discharges it."
"I'll have to explore it
some more. I only ever tried to use it once, and it was in the middle of a tense battle." I make sure not to glance at Aurelia while saying this. After all, that battle was against her, and she was enraged about me taking on the form of Kiamedras.
"You have all the time in the world here." The Witch of the End spreads her arms in a grand gesture. The training hall may be a little cramped if I grow to the full size of the golden dragon, but the walls were able to withstand even the biggest fire explosion I threw at them. "Practice to your heart's content."
"When will I be able to go back?" I don't share her enthusiasm, as her delivery does lack feeling.
"When you can transmute gold." Karina closes her eyes at this statement as if to say that Aurelia is the measure of magical expertise.
"What?" Swiveling my head around to the golden girl, I blink my eyes. Does she even have any other magic than gold transmutation and manipulation?
"For now, practice melding." With these words, the galactic witch returns to her usual demeanor and floats away with a disinterested air about her.
"What are you thinking about?" Aurelia approaches me from behind and asks in my mind. That's because I'm standing outside the half-buried cube and watching Mundia from the surface of the moon. There are countless stars once one looks far enough away from either the sun or the blue planet, but my eyes are focused on the place I want to return to.
The shadows have grown long, and the sun is about to set. I haven't been out here since noon a few Mundia-days ago when I tested the plasma breath at its full power. The channel-shaped crater filled with hardened glass left in its wake is my permanent mark on the moon - until maybe one day, a meteorite impact overwrites it.
Since then, I've learned gold manipulation but not transmutation. Turning one matter into another is still a concept beyond me. Thus, all I can do is levitate and somewhat move gold that Aurelia created from moon rocks to show me how it's done. And as expected of a genius who had the power from birth, she can't explain how to do it.