I stood in front of the daemonium semideus, circulating mana from my core throughout my entire body. With my new dragon-sized mana pool in use for body enhancement, I could see each twitch of its muscles and pick out each individual jeer from the crowd. Its face was twisted in the same smirk these demons always wore. It didn't see me as a challenge. It was little surprise; I was unarmoured, my finest crafted centipede and silk armour offering no more protection than my nightie in the face of this thing, and unarmed, given that my sword would just snap against its skin.

The gong sounded. Fragments of rock broke away from the arena floor as its clawed feet tore into the ground. I saw it arrive in front of me, striking out with its left tail, as it always did as its opening move.

I sidestepped, watching the tail zoom past me. The scorpion demon's face flickered with surprise, but it didn't let my unexpected evasion faze it, striking out with a second tail. I punched out at the first tail with one arm, while twisting and guarding against the second with my other. There was a crunch as my draconic strength shattered its exoskeleton, while the viscous spike on its tail scored the scales on my forearm in a high-pitched screech, leaving behind a line of green gloop that hissed and steamed but failed to eat through my defences.

The demon jumped back and stared. "How unexpected," it commented, its tail clicking as its damaged plating shifted and reformed. I'd come out on top of that exchange, but the fight was far from over. I didn't have anywhere close to the regenerative ability that it did.

Wanting to take the initiative, I unleashed a cone of flame, my new draconic power skill both reinforcing it and letting me keep it up for far longer than the ten seconds my original mana pool could manage. Appraisal showed the damage I was doing was negligible, so I switched to acid breath, which again seemed to have little effect on it, but did start eating into its swords and demonite armour.

I wasn't the only one with melting-armour problems; it applied equally to my enemies, too.

The scorpion demon countered with fire magic of its own, which I ignored, being completely immune, merely storing my nightie for a moment to avoid another indecent display. It closed the distance again, but this time attacked with its swords instead of its tails. Weakened by my acidic breath, they shattered against my draconic scales.

It was my turn to counter, launching a heavy punch at the torso that projected from the scorpion body, pulverising the acid-weakened armour and scoring a direct hit to its solar plexus. A loud and echoing crunching hinted at multiple broken ribs, and appraisal showed that I'd scored the most damage of the match, but it didn't slow down the demon at all. Two tails came at me from both sides, while the four arms gestured and the human head chanted, obviously casting some sort of high level spell.

Having never survived the first tail stab before, I had no idea of the magical capabilities of this thing beyond the appraisal results of 'lots', but from the feel of the mana, I guessed ice affinity. After seeing that fire didn't work, he must have decided on using the opposite.

Perceive mana advanced to level 17

I moved to parry the twin tail attacks, but the third decided to join the party, launching an overhead stab. Trusting in my shiny new scales, I devoted my attention to catching it, twisting my torso to receive the attacks from the other two in the hopes of turning them into glancing blows. It half worked, with the damaged left tail scraping against my natural armour, the damaged exoskeleton catching and a section being torn off in a spray of green blood. The right-hand tail had more luck, the point catching between my scales and tearing a few off in turn, my own red blood mixing into the spray.

I caught the middle tail, my strength exceeding the demon's, and twisted. There was another crunch as the exoskeleton snapped. The demon's eyes flashed with pain, but its chant did not falter. I gave it another dose of acid breath to the face while I yanked at the tail, trying to tear its tip off completely, but the demon finished its spell, a white orb appearing in each of its four hands, mist condensing around each one as the moisture in the air froze around them.

It threw the first, and it impacted me in the shoulder. My scales did an excellent job of weakening the magic, and my cold immunity took care of what was left.

It threw the second, and it impacted me in the head. The cold seeped into my eyes and my ears, killing my senses. I didn't care; I still had my olfactory perception, which worked fine despite my new scales.

It threw the third, which impacted my chest, striking right where his tail had torn off a few scales. The chill flowed through me through my wounds, instantly cutting my health bar in half, and doing horrible things to my internal organs.

Evolution conditions met: Cold immunity ranks up to cold absorption

While less common than its opposite, fire, ice magic is still a relatively common choice, largely due to its simplicity. Or maybe magic wasn't the problem, and for some reason you decided to go adventuring mid-winter while naked. You have survived the ice of an aranea regina, major internal frostbite, the chill of the blight, the chilling breath of a daemonium grando, freezing magic of a daemonium vindex, the frozen lance of a daemonium veneficus, an icicle storm from a daemonium praecantator and the ancient ice spell 'frozen moon', cast by a daemonium semideus. Combined with the effects of a potion of resistance mastery, it was enough for this upgrade from immunity to absorption. This skill allows you to thrive in the ambient chill of any natural environment and to absorb mana from ice based spells.

It threw the fourth, which again impacted my chest, topping up my mana and doing no damage at all. I was wondering which skills my potions of resistance mastery had hit, given that the quantity made it impossible to tell. Apparently, cold immunity had been one of them.

Cold absorption advanced to level 41

Having survived the ice barrage, I punched again, driving its broken ribs further into its chest. Whether it had vital organs in there or whether everything lived in the scorpion part wasn't something appraisal had told me, but it certainly did some nice damage to its health. It was a shame I didn't have dragon claws to go along with my scales.

The second blow was enough to stun it, and I took the opportunity to grab its middle tail again, this time spreading my wings and dragging the scorpion demon from the floor, spinning in a circle and throwing it as hard as I could. It slammed into the arena wall, but it was the wall that took the most damage from the collision. Unfortunately for it, I was following, my mana reinforced wings propelling me to a ridiculous speed. I impacted foot-first into its carapace, sending shards of its demonic chitin raining over the arena. I also snapped my leg.

Not letting up, I fired my ice breath directly into the wound, repeating what it had done to me with its frozen moon spell.

Its expression changed. No longer was I prey to toy around with, but a serious threat. Its realisation had come too late, though. My ice greatly hindered its regeneration, and the damage had robbed it of mobility. It blasted me with lightning magic, wind, then water, but I had maxed out nullification skills for each, and its spells were focused on speed instead of power. None did significant damage. Attacking from above, I was able to get a grip on its head and twist.

The demon fell, dead.

It was my victory. By no means was it a perfect one. I'd expended half of my draconic mana pool, my leg was snapped, and some of my scales were damaged or missing completely. Nevertheless, I'd won, taking out the strongest monster this world had available.

No, third strongest, I reminded myself. The pair of dragons were stronger. And the black dragon was based on the demon lord I was supposed to be fighting. Was I strong enough now?

I held a dozen more battles, winning eight of the twelve. I did win the last five in a row though, so I felt I was still improving, despite running out of skills to level. But perhaps that just came from my increasing familiarity with my opponent, an advantage I wouldn't have against the demon lord.

I spent my winnings on high end armour and weapons. Even if they didn't last, it wouldn't do any harm, and it wasn't as if I could spend my money in a different world. I bought all four of the high end armour sets, but wore the leather bodysuit first. I was likely to need to do a bunch of sneaking, and it hadn't been a skill I could train in the arena, so the skill bonus would be helpful. I also picked out a dozen high end daggers, long swords and spears, hoping to overcome durability concerns with pure numbers. I took one particularly special dagger with an insidious poison enchantment, and a long sword stacked with elemental enchants.

Beyond that, I filled my item box with as much chitin as I could. I could manufacture armour and shields for myself. Maybe not as good as the high end stuff, but again, I could win on quantity.

And that was all the preparations I could make. I visited the other me, storing her mind safely within the ring until I could find her a new, unblighted body. I met the fox-kin in front of the window. They didn't have a lot with them, but it wasn't as if they were leaving anything behind. Their belongings had all burned with their town.

"Looks like a wall to me," complained Sru'taklin. "You had better not be taking the piss."

"I'm not," I said, running my hand along the wall, letting my fingers intrude slightly into the Void between worlds, the resulting ripples visible even to the fox-kin. "I'll open the door, then everyone pass through. Spread yourselves out as much as you can widthways, because the time dilation means there's going to be a crush on the other side. There'll also be a drop, so try to roll forward or something to get out of the way of those..."

My safety spiel was interrupted by a scream, and I span around just in time to see a child vanishing around the corner. As if the screaming wasn't enough, the fact that the child was on her stomach, clawing at the stone as she was pulled backward by a white rope around her tail, indicated that the event was not consensual.

"What now?!" I yelled, spreading my wings and leaping over the crowd of fox-kin, trying to navigate the tight corridor at high speed without crashing. Grunts from behind me indicated the warrior commander was following.

I burst into the shrine room in time to see the child propelled into a wall, the screaming silenced by the impact. The spider queen, sitting comfortably atop the statue, followed up with a thick burst of webbing, gluing the child to the wall as she flopped forward, unconscious. I positioned myself between the two, staring at the queen and wondering how the heck she'd breached the barrier. The shrine wasn't damaged; it had let her through.

"Too slow, little dragon," she said, chittering to herself in her amusement, as Sru'taklin burst in too. "Why such anger? You had no issue with my diet when we first met, yet now you disapprove? Remember that I was aiding the fox-kin only to ensure my future food supply. Since you've spoilt that once more, I'm sure you can forgive me snatching one last morsel."

"No, I can't," I replied. "I'll be taking her back."

The spider queen continued to chitter, proficient empath sharing the glee she was feeling. "As I said, you were too slow. Your anger has left you unobservant."

What was that supposed to mean? The girl was still very much alive. She had some nasty scrapes on her stomach, and the crash into the wall wouldn't have done her any good, but her life wasn't in danger. I glanced backward, keeping the spider queen under close watch with my olfactory perception, and saw the black veins spreading from her neck. The kiss of death.

"Not only death, but pain too," continued the spider. "That impact shall not leave her stunned for long. Leave her with me, and I will ensure she will never awaken again to experience that pain. Take her back with you, and the last half hour of her life shall be agony."

As if I hadn't been angry enough with myself already. I hadn't needed to deal with the spider queen. I'd watched her eating people, while I used her for resistance training, and I hadn't cared. Why was this child different to the two from back then? What a difference a shift in perspective could make.

"Sru'taklin, get that child back to the others. Feed her this," I said, pulling an antidote out of my item box. "Meanwhile, I have a spider to hunt."

The chittering stopped. Apparently, queeny hadn't expected me to involve myself.

Sru'taklin was angry, and I didn't need an empath skill to know it. Nevertheless, he hadn't immediately charged at the spider in rage. He held himself back, grabbing the potion from my hand then stepping to the girl, sword drawn to cut away the webbing. Just one more way in which I'd been wrong; he was actually a good soldier, when not being deliberately misled by dishonest subordinates.

I felt the impact of a powerful decay spell, but the spider queen no longer had any weapons that could harm me. I was immune to ice, poison and corrosion. Her fangs or spear-like legs couldn't penetrate my scales. Draconic might allowed me to tear apart her webbing with raw muscle power. So she didn't target me. The decay had been a distraction, and I missed her aiming a rain of icicles at the child. I used my body to offer whatever shielding I could, and the warrior commander did the same, but one slipped through, striking her in the side. She stirred, the new wound sufficient to wake her, then spasmed, eyes wide and head jerking back as she cried out in agony. The queen hadn't been lying about her kiss of pain.

The warrior commander vanished around the corner, carrying the screaming child, several icicles sticking out of his back, but not letting that slow him down.

"How sick are you, to do that to a child?!"

The spider queen radiated indifference. "As I said, had you not interfered, the child would never have felt any pain."

I'd seen the state of her stomach. Being dragged like that would have hurt enough already, without the need for the spider queen's venom. I was angry.

"Well then, come and claim my head," said the spider queen. "I know you want to. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but since it has, I don't intend to resist. Or rather, I know I can't resist. At least I'll die with the knowledge of the pain I've caused you."

"Ha. As if your attacks work on me anymore."

The queen chittered once more. "Of course not. I know your strength. You are a being far beyond me now, which is why my attack wasn't physical. Perhaps that strange bottle of yours will save her, but it doesn't matter. You ask how sick I was to do that to a child? When you return to the fox-kin, ask that same child how the pain she feels now compares to that of the blight. How it compares to the pain of losing her parents. Being attacked by them. Bitten by them, even, as they were reanimated and their corpses forced to attack their own daughter. And I know you didn't even ask, but her name was..."

The spider queen's monologue was interrupted by a decapitation, with me using the full force of mana manipulation to boost my speed.

I wasn't sure I'd be able to cope with learning her name.