We were taken to a stark meeting room with a single, long table that had a chair on either end. Both the table and everything else about the room was pitch black, save for the torches hanging upon the obsidian walls. I contemplated why demonkind would want to make themselves look so actively evil, then recalled the Brutalism movement in architecture and decided not to be hypocritical.

Flare was restless on the way here, and her impatience exploded when she realized there would only be talking done here.

"Come on!" she shouted, pulling my arm. "Let's go fight! You said we could fight!"

I flicked my eyes to Xetra, who was taking her seat on the other end of the table without much regard for us.

"Er, why don't you go fight some of the fine demons here instead? Get some training in or something?" I suggested. I gave Xetra a look that said 'She will never stop whining, just accommodate her.'

Xetra sighed, pushing up her rectangular glasses. "Balthazar, go accommodate Princess Flare. Send men capable enough to not get eaten or burned to a crisp."

A demon in fine armor saluted, then walked off with Flare. She happily marched off with him; we had plenty of time to fight later, but it wasn't often you got to fight the Demon Realm's best. Or, well, the best out of those who had explicitly been left behind during an important invasion.

I took my seat at the other end of the table. No water or drinks were placed before me, and all in all this seemed like a pretty inhospitable place. Even the chairs were hard and made out of the same obsidian as everything else. That had to be a joke.

Xetra leaned forward, interlocking her fingers in front of her face in what was basically the Gendo pose. "I will cut straight to the point. Although I elected not to participate in this invasion as a last resort to protect myself, I will not use my people as a shield. Now that you have come, I will accept a personal duel."

I leaned back in my chair. There was a lot to unpack from that sentence.

First and foremost, Xetra remembered the Omega Fireball. That gave me some insight into her psychology, if nothing else; the immense display of overwhelming power must have affected her on some level, even if it wasn't quite as extreme as Flare's reaction had been. Maybe Xetra was used to dealing with weak men, and an overwhelming display of MANLY POWER had flooded the plains whether she liked it or not. I could hardly judge that, considering Demon Culture is all about honing one's strength for honor and justice and so on. There were probably troubling questions about the nature of falling deeper in love with someone seconds before their errant fireball literally killed you in a fiery explosion, but well, far be it from me to insult masochists. Maybe that was the key to all this: realizing Xetra is a masochist. Maybe one hard spank on the ass would give her a full love point. (Please don't be foreshadowing this time.)

Second and less foremost, this conversation was a medium-IQ plot to kill me. Xetra's biggest weakness was her uncertainty about the love point visions, which prevented her from making firm judgement calls. It was like how Sophia had just vaguely treated them as prophetic visions of her soulmate without thinking too hard about it or reading too much into it. As far as Xetra knew, she was just getting vague, blurry glimpses into possible futures, and a good general would hardly make sweeping decisions based on such unreliable information.

However, she could make small, personal decisions. She saw that Koh'rin was empty and Aeneas couldn't kill Flare (according to me), so she went with him. Then she saw that I went on a rampage in that reality, so she directed Aeneas to where I was and... kept her distance from me?

Wait, hold on. Pause on the plot-to-kill-me thing for a second. Why the fuck did she direct Aeneas to the dwarf hold? She saw a vision of a future where they won (by killing two of the princesses). Why not just tell Aeneas to get the hell out of dodge after killing Sophia and/or Rose? Why mix it up completely and spoil the victory?

I put a hand on my forehead and furrowed my brows. Xetra watched on, looking honestly a bit confused at how hard I was thinking about this, but seriously. There had to be an answer to this. Why did she abandon the victory...? Wasn't that her biggest goal? In what reality did it make sense? What was the answer?

Ah.

It came to me in a flash. I had told her, and I quote, "Don't hurt the people close to me. Come find me in DirIe Ilirad. I'll beat you there as many times as it takes." She had nodded vigorously, and subsequently remembered the moment well enough to prove it had gained a love point. In other words...

Deep in her soul, she didn't want to make me mad like that again. She didn't want that reality, where I was furious at her, to come true. So she sent Aeneas to the dwarf hold to fight me, as instructed, and then... hid out in the Demon King castle to avoid having to participate in trying to kill me? That made sense, given that after I killed Aeneas she just staggered away instead of trying to blow me up in a last-ditch suicide effort. She wanted me dead to break the prophecy, but already she loved me enough she didn't want to be actively involved with it (or risk more interactions with me, perhaps).

So she locked herself in the Demon King castle, and then whammo, she sees me from afar launch a blast of magic so powerful it wiped the Demon King's capital off the map. Perhaps she interpreted that as a punishment for avoiding me, but either way, her sheer awe of my heroic might was carved into her soul, and she remembered to wave a white flag of parley this loop to avoid being killed again.

Which brought us back to the medium-IQ plot to kill me. She had the suicide necklace, and if she knew about the nature of the visions, she would know I knew about it too. However, she thought they were just prophecies, and so thought I was still ignorant of it. Her plan, then, was to allow us to fight 1v1, then blow herself up just like loop one. It had worked before and she knew it, though she didn't want to do it if she could help it, since she naturally didn't want to die.

From my perspective, it was kind of a dumb plan, but she didn't have all the information I did. And to be honest, even if she did, she would probably feel more angry than foolish. How could she beat a looper? The cards were stacked against her in an incredibly unfair way. The only way would to win would be to suicide instantly at the start of a loop, which was kind of shitty for her. (And also the reason why I would elect not to correct her misunderstandings or inform her of the nature of the love points.)

"Well?" Xetra asked, looking a bit uncomfortable. Oh yeah. I had basically just been silent for 10 minutes. That was probably intimidating and/or awkward for her.

I leaned forward. It was time for diplomacy. Thank god I was a genius and specced into SOC by natural virtue of my Chadness stat. Someone specced for combat would totally flounder here and try to solve a delicate diplomatic issue through rampant violence, like an idiot.

"Xetra. On what basis do you think the Goddess is evil?" I asked.

She blinked in surprise, then frowned. Her narrowed eyes matched the flat nature of her rectangular glasses. "A spade is a spade. Her evil is self-evident, and a blight upon demonkind," she said. If she was bothered by me calling her 'Xetra', she didn't show it. Suck it, Aeneas.

"Is that what you concluded yourself, or are you just regurgitating what your parents told you? I asked who I'm pretty sure is the foremost expert on hating the Goddess what her bases were, and she had basically nothing for me. Do you have any substance behind your hate?"

There was a pause.

"Do you mean to seduce me to your side?" Xetra finally asked. Yes, literally, but that's a separate issue.

"I'm just curious. Maybe you're wrong about the Goddess and this whole invasion is bunk. Have you ever thought about that?"

Xetra sat up straight. "You'll have to forgive me for not being interested in discussing the Goddess with her champion. I shall not be manipulated."

I held up my hands innocently. "No manipulation here. Just an honest conversation. Seriously, can you name even one concretely evil thing the Goddess has done? I can't, and nobody I know can either, aside from vague gesturing at a visual chain metaphor."

There was a pause, again, as Xetra mulled over my words. Her continued silence indicated she didn't actually have much of an answer.

"It is truth that has been passed down demonkind for millennia," she finally said. "I will not doubt my ancestors."

"But if you cannot speak of doubt, how can you speak of knowing?"

"What?"

"What?"

Silence.

"I mean," I continued, "Do you really feel comfortable causing mass chaos and destruction over a belief you don't even have any basis for believing in? The whole 'believing in your ancestors' stuff doesn't really hold water when the root source is so completely unknown. It might have been some buttmad elf spreading lies that he tricked a demon leader into believing or something. Meanwhile, I'm right here. You say I'm evil and will end the world, but I'm right here and we can discuss things. Want to hear about my domestic policy?"

"No...?"

"Do you really want to claim I would end the world with my evil without even discussing my domestic policy first? Here: I'll tax the top 1% of obsidian barons that have a stranglehold on the poor mining community, then use the accumulated wealth to build stronger infrastructure and schools that will help with upward movement for those looking to get out of said communities. What do you think about that?"

Xetra sniffed. "Taxation is theft."

I looked around. We were in a huge-ass, very regal castle. "How did this castle get built if not with taxes?"

"Slave labor."

"And that's better than taxation...?"

She shrugged. "Humans don't have rights."

I pointed at her. "Okay. Come on. That's clearly way more evil than anything I've said or done. Are you sure you aren't the one who would bring the end of the world, not me? I don't think a demon-led world would be a very happy one."

She waved a hand. "You will not convince me to change my core principles on moral grounds. Demonkind is strong due to our beliefs and faith in our ancestors."

"But come on. You can't just wage a war against me for being evil while not even considering your own beliefs. Is that really honorable? As far as I can tell, you've decided to stop thinking entirely. You call the Goddess and me evil on no meaningful basis, then refuse to look at the moral nature of your own actions. Does that really seem right to you?"

Xetra eyed me carefully. She thought it over, then leaned forward. "Very well, I am listening. Tell your tales."

"Gladly."

From there, we engaged in what was quite possibly the most intelligent and in-depth conversation of all time. It went on for hours, and while Xetra seemed to be doing it only out of obligation at first, she got increasingly into the conversation. She was a princess, after all, and one bred to lead. She was interested in governing as much as she was in combat, and my original not-stolen-from-Earth-without-credit ideas stimulated her thinkpan. Her flat frown turned into a smile, and by the end of the conversation, hours later, she was grinning and leaning forward as we talked. Food was brought out, and someone even politely put a lit candle between us. How thoughtful.

"To think that First Past The Post voting is such a flawed system!" she exclaimed. "I never would have identified the flaws before gathering data for years."

I nodded. "It stifles true freedom of choice and almost inevitably creates a two-party system which results in mass homogenization, killing the point of democracy in the first place. The alternative vote system isn't perfect, but it preserves freedom of choice much better."

"I must say, Heir, you might be a better leader than I thought. To think you were an intellectual as well as a warrior!"

"Heh, what can I say? My INT grows exponentially."

"What?"

"Sorry, I just needed to give a system-based explanation to maintain humility. People get really mad at other people who think they're smart; it feels like a challenge to point out everything dumb they do and 'prove' they're not smart after all. It's weird."

Xetra nodded. "Truly. One might say Demon Realm culture is so focused on physical might because it distracts from the lack of intelligence behind it all. There is no questioning how hard one can punch, after all. Which reminds me. What do you think about th—" she began, only to be interrupted by a door being flung open.

Aeneas trudged in, his armor covered in blood and his shoulders slumped with exhaustion. "Xetrathia, the invasion of the dwarf hold was a failure. Queen Daiya was too strong, we couldn't get close to conquering the palace," he said.

The grin was wiped off Xetra's face in an instant. She grimaced at him, angry at how he had interrupted us, but soon washed it over into a perfectly flat expression. She pushed up her glasses. "I suppose it was only expected. They knew the invasion was coming."

"We did get six of the beastkin, but..." Aeneas began, then noticed me. He jumped back. "What's he doing here?! Nergal didn't mention the Heir was here!"

Hide yo daughters, hide yo wife, the Heir's NTRin' err'body out here.

"Hi," I said, standing up. "The name's Malcador. You killed my waifu. Prepare to die."

Aeneas drew his sword. "So be it."

"Stop!" Xetra shouted, standing up as well. "Aeneas, you can't win. Let me handle this, like we discussed."

He gave her a pained frown. "But Xetra, you..."

She shook her head. "It is the only way now."

If I hadn't know about the suicide necklace before, they were basically broadcasting it now. Real subtle, folks.

I lifted a hand. "That won't be necessary. I'll see myself out."

They looked at me, with the kind of eyes that said 'Do you think we'll let you out alive?' or something, but I just covered my mouth with a hand and muttered "Quickload."

From there, I initiated Operation "Make Xetra Fall In Love With Me But Through Normal Interaction And Discussion Not Any Creepy Brainwashing Stuff."

To be honest, I didn't really want to 'gamify' the whole love process, but when my explicit goal was to get Xetra up to max love points and end the invasion, there wasn't much else to do. Besides, I had already more or less gone through the same song and dance with Daiya. The process only felt artificial if you wanted it to be. Realistically, even love on Earth could be viewed through a gamified lens, love points or no. Give your girlfriend flowers, +1 love points. Go out of your way to have a riveting candlelit discussion with her, +1 love point. Did those interactions become any less real just because you were meta-aware of her appreciation? Because you hallucinated love points and worked specifically to earn them? No. Otherwise, anyone who picked up a book on romance or thought carefully about their actions would cease to be capable of true love. Meta-knowledge does not poison things, it simply informs your actions, and it's your intent that always matters the most. What mattered wasn't that you based your decision to give your girlfriend flowers on the meta-knowledge she would appreciate it, what matters was that your intent was to make her happy. It's far more meaningful to judge the actions of others by their intent than by their nature, much like in language it's important to judge the intended meaning of words rather than the strict surface-level denotation of the specific words used.

Really, meta-knowledge only became a poison when it led one to subvert the meta simply to be different. That was when intentions became dishonest; like if you read a book on romance then explicitly avoided doing anything it said just to avoid being "fake," rather than doing what you actually want to do. Viewing subversion as inherently better than non-subversion runs the risk of being hypocritical, since it rejects alternative actions while often falling into the same trappings as what it's rejecting, such as someone saying that acting with meta-knowledge is insincere while simultaneously basing their actions on rejecting meta-knowledge rather than on what they actually want to to do (which in itself is equally insincere). It's more sincere to gift your girlfriend flowers while knowing she'll like it than it is to specifically avoid gifting your girlfriend flowers because you know she'll like it and you don't want to be insincere by acting with meta-knowledge in mind. As another example, there's a trend of people getting 'bored' of tropes, and starting to seek things that specifically subvert tropes, but in reality, trope subversions tend to be equally shallow/repetitious as the tropes themselves - it's just that trope subversions tend to hypocritically proclaim themselves to be superior. Not all subversion is hypocritical, but one must always be careful to use it as a tool for good instead of blind rejection.

In conclusion, one needed to be a Knight of Faith and act according to their will regardless of any subversive considerations. Your intentions always mattered the most, and here my intention was to show my honest love to Xetra, and hope she loved me back. I knew with meta-knowledge that my actions here would likely earn love points with her and solve the loop, but my desire to be with her was sincere nonetheless, and it would actually be more insincere of me to specifically avoid being with her just because I knew what the end result would likely be.

Indeed. I was willing to say I loved Xetra too. My heart had grown three sizes over this journey, and like a proper hero, my heart was now big enough to hold at least five women. She was startlingly intelligent beneath her stodgy exterior, and she didn't try to hide her emotions at all like Rose did. She was also hot, and there was nothing better for stoking the flames of love than that. If there was any issue with this, it was just an issue one would have with all forms of polyamory, but only now did I see how truly rational that polyamory was. More love equals more happy. It's just that simple. As Flare would say: "Just do what you want. Don't make it complicated!"

Thus, I spent several loops conversing with Xetra. Long discussions of philosophy, politics, and war over candlelight. Had I brought a Plato of my own with me rather than dumb-as-rocks Flare, the dialogues might have gone down in history on a level equal to the Apologia Socratis (Apology of Socrates), but alas, I had no scribe, and the dialogues died in the obsidian meeting room of the Demon King's palace. Oh well. Things were going well, in any case. She was becoming more open to more progressive domestic policy, and she had been forced to admit her hatred of the Goddess was pretty unfounded.

And I knew things were going really well after about the fifth time I set down at the terrace of the Demon King's palace.

"Mal!" Xetra exclaimed, stepping forward as I disconnected from Flare. She almost extended her arms in what looked like the start of a hug, but caught herself and let her arms fall back to her side. "Finally!"

I looked her over. She was wearing a body-hugging black dress with no sleeves, leaving the entirety of her red arms bare and accentuating her sizable bust. The full suit of plate armor had been hiding an incredible body just like Rose's, but her boobs were maybe three sizes bigger, taking them from "perfect' to "noticeably large." Her butt was equally oversized, and even just the protrusion at the back of her dress screamed the word 'juicy.' I spent a full second looking her over, flabbergasted; I had expected good things, considering how pretty her face was, but wow. The transformation wasn't taking off her glasses after all. It had been taking off her armor. (That was an allegory as well. Think about it.)

"Wh-What? Do I look weird?" she asked, pushing up her glasses and blushing a red so dark that it managed to stand out against her naturally red skin. Her silvery hair fell over her bare shoulders as she shifted nervously.

I leaned to the side and glanced at the guards behind her. They were exchanging confused looks, and more than a few looked genuinely concerned. I leaned back.

"Not at all. You look stunning." (Generic romantic line, but that was only bad if you look at it with a poisoned meta viewpoint, which I did not.) "Want to go discuss me not nuking the city or whatever?"

"R-Right. Yes. Shall we go?"

And so we did, back to the usual meeting room. There was already a lit candle on the table. Flare went off to fight random demons as usual. I had kind of expected her to get annoyed at flying me here every time, but it didn't really take much to satisfy her. As long as she could swing her axe around she was fine. Even the flying was fine since she just liked being near me and chatting a bit, apparently. They say that true love is when you enjoy even silence with a person. Perhaps Flare enjoying one hour of flying with me whether we spoke or not was a sign of the truest love of all.

Anyway, Xetra sat down at her end of the table and smoothed her dress. I sat down at my end and realized the table had been swapped; instead of a long rectangular table, it was a normal square one, putting us fairly close to each other. She had really pulled out all the stops for this. What had I said last time that stuck such a deep chord with her? Or was it just a steady accumulation of points every conversation?

There was a reasonably long period of silence with neither of us saying anything. Xetra was kind of awkward when you got down to it, and couldn't quite think on her feet when the moment arose like Rose, even with a full hour or so of prep time.

"So," I said.

"Yes?" She learned forward, eager to converse.

"What are your thoughts on love?"

She jumped in her seat, then calmed herself. "For demonkind, love is something earned," she intoned, speaking in the serious voice she always gave when speaking on important demon matters. "You hone your body, then earn love through feats of strength. You hone your mind, then earn love through feats of wisdom. Someone who doesn't try or put in any effort doesn't deserve any love. A saying from the ancient demon Suicufnoc has been passed down for generations: 'To love another, you must first love yourself.' Because how can you love others if you can't even love yourself?"

"Suicufnoc certainly was wise," I replied with a nod. Had I loved myself when I first came here? Not really. It made sense, then, that I hadn't been capable of trusting or loving others. I hadn't finished step one: loving myself. But now?

I looked down. Rippling muscles contained within gleaming armor. A heart big enough for the world. A mind, keen enough to quote Kant. Maybe loving myself wouldn't be so bad. To not love myself would be to disrespect Rose, Sophia, and everyone else who loved me. It would be to insult them, to call them wrong, to bind myself to darkness. Because, after all, to love oneself was a choice. It was a decision one made. We all had our reasons, but in the end, we made the decision ourselves. The excuses were nothing but things we came up with to prop up that decision.

I looked back up. Xetra was eyeing me carefully, no doubt attempting to ascertain the exact reason why I had asked that. There wasn't much mystery behind her answer; obviously, I had earned her love, as was proven time and time again through the love point system. Earned it through beating her in combat, through beating Aeneas, through my mastery of the Elemental Arcana, through my knowledge of politics and economics, etc. At every turn, I showed her I was 'worth it', and as a demoness, there was nothing more she could ever ask for.

I felt a bit bad for Aeneas. In retrospect, it was clear why she didn't care for him. He was not exactly one who went around earning things. She had mentioned once that he never beat her in any duels, which was basically a death sentence for a demon male. Sure, from his perspective, he just admired her more and more as she repeatedly displayed her strength, but from her perspective, each loss from him proved more and more he wasn't worth it. He wasn't earning anything. It was rough for him, but them's the breaks. You couldn't just coast on a childhood friendship and expect love to be delivered on a platter. You couldn't just hope the flames would passively burn. You had to stoke them. Love was no less sincere when you put work into yourself to earn romance. That was a fundamental part of it.

And thus, it was completely true + legitimate love that I had earned from Xetra.

"And as for you? What does love mean to you, Mal?" Xetra asked. We used nicknames with each other now like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I looked up wistfully. "I grew up thinking it was fake, to be honest."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. My parents were always fighting. My siblings had terrible relationships. Even my grandparents were stony with each other. Everywhere I looked, people who said they loved each other clearly didn't. I started to ask, well, where's this love everyone talks about then? It must be fake. Nobody has clear answers. They just see it in storybooks then think it's real even though it's not. Heh. I thought that for a long time."

"Thought," Xetra said. "Past tense. And now?"

"Love is what you make of it," I said. "If you think love has to be earned, it has to be earned. If you think love is fake, it's fake. If you think love is just what you feel for someone stronger than you, then that's love. It's all real. It just depends on what you accept."

She frowned. "That seems wishy-washy."

"What can I say? I'm unfortunately a philosopher now." I laughed. She didn't. Well, not every joke can be a winner. "The point is, I've met a lot of people with different understandings of love." Rose's attachment to sincerity. Sophia's attachment to smells and a prince in shining armor. Daiya's blank slate she had to develop on her own. Flare's lust for strength. And now, Xetra's philosophy about earning love. Not to mention the 'love is fake' belief I had at the start. "Each one is just as real as the other. I don't want to reject any kind of love, or reject love itself. I want to believe in all forms of love. I want to play the same game as everyone who comes to me with the intention to play."

"But that doesn't tell me what I want to know. Do you lo-.. I mean. How do you feel?" she demanded, not quite going all the way and saying "How do you feel about me."

"Well. If you want to know my personal definition of love." I looked into her eyes. "I might have to confess that I love girls as beautiful and lovely as you."

What can I say? If that came off as embarrassing, it was just because honesty could be so blinding that one cringed when blinking away the light. We liked to think love was something deep and profound, like I said, but it didn't have to be that complicated. True love wasn't 'more true' when you had fifty axioms and requirements for emotional and intellectual fulfilment before you loved someone. Love was just as true even when it came down to "I love hot girls who are nice to be around." It sounded shallow. I know it did. All of the cultural brainwashing that forced a romanticized ideal of love upon us screamed that it was shallow. But it wasn't. My fire burned just as bright as anyone's. I loved Xetra with the same intensity as one might love a soulmate, because I stoked the fire and let it course through me. I defined my own love, and it was just as strong. It was what let me feel this strong love for five girls at once: the simplicity, the honesty, and the firmness of my belief. If one got wet feet about their definition of love, it would all sizzle out in an instant. Nothing killed love faster than doubting the love was real, and ultimately deciding it wasn't. My conviction, however, was firm and unending. It was strong and direct enough for me to stoke the fire for many at once, because I knew exactly what I wanted.

Xetra opened her mouth, then shut it, then opened it again. She blushed bright red. She knew she was one of the Five. She knew the implication of "girls as beautiful and lovely as you." But love only involved exclusivity if you wanted it to, and the love I had earned from her was far stronger than that. Ultimately, she stood up abruptly.

"Heir," she said in a formal tone, the candlelight casting shadows over her tight dress. "Let's settle this once and for all."

"How so?"

"I challenge you to a duel. If I win, you'll submit to the guillotine and let the prophecy be ended. If you win, I'll... I'll..." she trailed off, stammering. "I-I'll stop trying to break the prophecy, and let you have your way with me."

I smiled on the inside. Xetra was being as awkward as ever. She knew from her very first love point memory that she couldn't beat me in a duel. She wanted to lose here. All this about "settling things once and for all" was just her awkwardly not being able to propose to me directly. Just like she had sent Aeneas after me since she couldn't handle killing me herself, she was now pushing the decision onto me. 'I-I didn't propose to him, h-he just beat me in a duel and I had no choice! My honor demands it!' Honestly, I liked that about her. She put on a hard exterior with her rectangular glasses and armor (visual metaphor), but once you peeled off the layers, you had an awkward but loving girl who struggled to express herself. That was probably why she had strung Aeneas along for this whole time. Unfortunate.

"Sure. I accept the duel," I replied. Relief immediately washed over Xetra's face, like she had been afraid I would refuse, but she quickly blanked it out and pushed up her glasses dutifully.

"Good. I'm glad you're taking this seriously. Let's... Let us go," she said. It kind of sounded like she was struggling between unleashing the full brunt of her girlish excitement for the duel and maintaining a stony, honorable demon exterior. Her intentions here were pretty much anything but honorable.

We arrived at a nearby training room. Xetra went to a side room to get changed into more battle-ready clothes, while I surveyed the carnage in the room itself. Flare had taken down... twenty guards? Thirty? There were literal piles of (unconscious) bodies as she beat the crap out of yet another dude with her fists. I noticed Balthazar (one of the higher-ups in the military or something) sweating bullets, like he was slowly realizing that if Flare wanted to go on an actual rampage, nobody would be able to stop her. Aeneas's Dragonslayer was pretty key to taking her down, but he had left with it.

"Flare," I called. She punched the dude she was sparring with in the face, sending him flying back and crashing into a wall, then turned to me.

"Yeah?!"

"Xetra and I are going to borrow this place to duel. Could you, uh... Mind taking a break or something?"

"I believe that would be wise," Balthazar interjected. "Princess Flare, if you would be so kind, would you come with me? We have... er, a meal of raw meat ready." It seemed he had been hashing backup plans in case of an emergency. Wise man.

"Okay!!!" Flare declared, then stomped out of the training ground. The unfortunate souls she stepped on did not have a good time, except one, who smiled as the soul slipped out of his mouth. RIP.

Balthazar ordered the bodies dragged out, then hurried after Flare. Good luck, soldier.

I went to grab a sword, but realized all the weapons nearby were scythes, not swords. I had never actually seen a wooden practice scythe before, but I assure you they looked quite comical. I picked one up and swung it in the air a few times. It took no time at all to realize One-Handed Blades applied to them as well; I felt like a master of scythe combat, and the scythe itself was already like an extension of my body. Sweet.

Xetra soon came out, wearing her usual armor. I had been kind of hoping to see her in a tight tank top, since her extra-large boobs would have doubtlessly strained against them in the most intoxicating way possible, but alas. Only Rose properly understood the glory of tank tops here.

We wordlessly took positions at either end of a circle in the center of the room. There was a pause.

"En garde?" I suggested. Maybe this time it would work.

Xetra inclined her head in a nod, then rushed forward. The duel had begun.

I'll be honest. I underestimated Xetra. I thought she would not try at all, and lose on purpose. She clearly wanted to lose, that was the whole purpose of her suggesting this, but she didn't let that corrupt the duel. In the end, it was like she said. Love had to be earned. It wouldn't be earned if she let me win. It would only be love to her if I won.

This was, I thought while deflecting her scythe with my own, remarkably similar to Flare. And Rose, with our sparring sessions. It was like a running theme. I really was surrounded by women who valued men with personal strength and the courage to demonstrate that strength. I also had noticed something of a submissive streak in them. They wanted to be beaten, then dominated in bed, while still maintaining their pride and independence during the day (more or less). In a way, it felt like there was something profound connecting them all on some deep level, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Anyway, as was obvious, Xetra couldn't put up much of a fight for me. There wasn't much of the fight worth describing. I was literally twice as strong as I had been the time I beat her by the tree, and even with a scythe, keeping up pace with her didn't even require 10% of my power. It was smug, but also the truth. I never asked to be overpowered. The world made me this way.

We crossed blades for about a minute before I ended it. She swung her scythe in a wide arc behind my neck, then tried pulling it to cut right through, but I just ducked and swung at her feet. She was forced to jump, and by the time she landed, I had already pivoted the swing back into a normal blow. It hit her on the chest, and she was flung back; her armor dented, and the scythe dropped from her hand.

I walked over, then reached out a hand for her to grab. "I win."

She looked up at me, panting as she lay on the ground. There was a pause, but eventually she grabbed my hand and pulled herself up. "Y-You do win," she said with a stammer. She smiled, then frowned, then half-smiled, then grimaced. A storm of emotions, namely "Hell yes time to get dicked" and "Oh no I lost to the prophecy fuck" were crashing through her mind. Understandable, but I would help her through this troubling time.

"Any beds around here?" I asked.

"Th-The barracks," she stammered. She was stammering so much it was almost like the return of old Hilda.

"Lead the way."

I walked after her. She walked in a weird gait, continually alternating between pausing in disbelief that this was really happening, and walking faster to make it happen sooner.

We reached the barracks soon enough, which had rows of about five solo beds each. She stood near one awkwardly, turning around.

"W-Well? We're here."

I nodded. "So, Xetra. I won the duel."

"Yes," she said, voice assured.

"That means you agreed to join the prophecy."

"Yes?"

"So, does that mean you're joining my quest as a hero?"

"What else would it mean?" she asked, seeming confused by this point.

Companion Unlocked! Princess Xetrathia of Demonkind, Ruler of the Demon Realm across the sprawling Wastes, has joined your party!

"Just making sure."

Admittedly, I felt slightly weird here. For all I had said about love, I still wasn't especially good at expressing it. I never really got emotional about anything. My heart could be burning like fire, but I still just acted like my usual self, joking around and not taking it too seriously. Maybe that was something to work on. But for now, I couldn't help myself. I really wanted to do something. It was a dick move, but I really, really could not help myself.

"You know, we humans are really fussy about something called consent. We really don't like making people do things under duress."

"So...?"

I stripped off my armor, getting completely nude, then got on the bed. I rested on my back, facing the ceiling along with my erect dick. It pointed to the sky like a proud monument to mankind's glory and arrogance.

"What are you doing...?" she asked, trying to look away, but failing.

"Nothing. I won't do anything. What happens next is entirely in your hands." I continued staring at the ceiling, resolving to say nothing else. I shifted, my muscular torso causing the bed to creak

At first she just stared, biting her lip. Minutes passed, ten minutes. Her eyes trailed from my chest to my dick, and there remained locked onto it. More minutes passed, and she began rubbing her thighs together impatiently. But I was resolute, and firm.

Eventually, she bent, unable to wait any longer. She began undoing her heroic plate armor. Beneath she wore simple underclothes that hugged her body tightly. There was the boob-straining I had yearned to see, though perhaps the real star of the show was slightly below. Her juicy red demon butt begged to be slapped to submission, and I could see the jiggling from here. The intellectual look her rectangular glasses gave truly provided a sharp contrast with just how outrageously hot and bred to fuck she seemed to be. It was a reminder not to associate sexuality with a lack of intelligence, for sure.

The underclothes went off next; I was surprised to see a thin, black demon tail popping out from the top of her butt; it ended in a heart-shaped protrusion, which made me question whether she was a succubus, but I could ask about that later. Her red, thick thighs were already slick with juices, and her pink nipples swelled atop her sizable red boobs.

In a way, this was no new sight to me. I had spent weeks waking up to hot babes stripping in front of me. But Xetra doing this after so firmly putting her foot down about not becoming 'mine' definitely added a spice. My powerful dick throbbed powerfully, and Xetra found herself staring at it hungrily, fresh juices streaming out of her crotch.

"What was all that about not being mine?" I asked.

She blushed a red so dark it was visible even against her naturally red skin. "Th-This is just because you won the duel. It's honor. I keep my word."

And then, she did something that surprised me. She took the necklace across her neck, presumably the exploding one, and tossed it far aside with the rest of her clothes. Whether she did that as a symbolic gesture, or just because she was intent on getting her red body completely naked, I had no idea, but it was a powerful gesture nonetheless. She really was done with all this invasion business. Death wasn't even on her mind anymore. There was only a life with me, and she wasn't about to give it up just to spite the prophecy.

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Xetra climbed on top of me such that she was sitting in the air above my crotch. She positioned her pussy directly above my dick, and I felt the juices dripping onto my dick like drool from a hungry mouth. The hot, sticky juices clung to it and provided a pleasure all on their own. She waited expectantly, as if she thought she needed my permission, but I wasn't about to let her absolve responsibility. I had no part in this. I was just lying in bed casually.

In the end, she lost her patience, and tossed aside the last shred of hesitance she felt towards this. She lowered her hips all on her own, and dug my dick into her steaming hot demon pussy. Her walls expanded around my girth, and I felt her moan in pleasure from that alone. She paused briefly upon reaching her hymen, but then forced my dick through it with a hard push down. Her juicy ass slapped against my hips from the force, and her rippling ass fat accentuated the feeling of my dick going so deep inside her it pushed up against her womb.

Love Point Gained! Xetrathia +1

Xetra looked down at me behind her glasses, pierced upon my dick. She traced long, red fingers over my muscular chest. "I never knew the Heir would be so manly," she breathed.

"If only you had known ahead of time, eh?"

"Yes..." she sighed, and then bent forward, kissing me passionately. I kissed her back; she was inexperienced, if she had any experience at all. There was no advanced tongue-sucking theory or anything. But her hunger for me was apparent in her kissing, and as I kissed her back I felt her demon pussy squeeze tightly around my dick. It was the unmistakable pussy-squeezing of true love.

She started bouncing her ass on top of me while kissing, both her hands stroking my cheeks as she devoured my mouth. My initial plan was kind of to just play limp the entire time as a joke, but sex remained my greatest weakness. It never actually got old, and it never stopped feeling amazing. The feeling of convulsing, tightly squeezing pussy walls; the feeling of their lower lips squeezing around my shaft as they bounced her hips; the feeling of their soft lips as they desperately kissed me in hopes of conveying a fraction of their love... None of it ever got old. And I got the feeling, it never really would, as long as we kept loving each other this much.

Eventually she sat back up to catch her breath; she arched her back and put her hands on her cheeks, this time, stroking her own face as the pleasure of each bounce shot through her. Her already swollen nipples got even harder, and I noticed that her nipples were pretty above average in size. I reached up and stroked each of them between two fingers, causing her to arch her back and shudder in orgasm from the electrical pleasure. The thunderous clapping of her ass stopped as she reveled in the feeling, then continued as she recovered, not wanting to waste a second of the time she had with my dick.

Her boobs bounced as she rode me, and I let go of her nipples to start squeezing them. Her sweaty, red flesh clung to my fingers; I could feel their heat just from the touch. She was literally burning up with arousal and lust. If she wasn't a succubus by birth, she was certainly a succubus in practice. Her tail curved into a heart shape on top of the already existing heart-tip at the end of the tail; an unconscious reflection of all the true love exploding in her heart, no doubt.

I would have been fine just cumming straight up into her, but her horns gave me another idea. I let her keep riding me for a bit, then moved to the next step. I wouldn't let this end so simply.

I grabbed her toned waist and lifted her up off me while she was bouncing upwards. My dick popped out of her pussy despite its best efforts to clench and keep me inside, which resulted in a spray of juices from her inner walls clamping so tightly. She wiggled in the air unhappily, already feeling a sense of loss, but I just stood up and tossed her back onto the bed. Pomf!

"Wh-What are you...?" she asked, but I just shook my head.

"On all fours," I said, and she instantly complied with a hint of eager lust on her face, revealing her masochistic heart. She got on all fours, lifting her bright red ass up for display. She, too, swayed her ass unconsciously; a seductive sight meant to allure me in, with thick streaks of pussy juice being flung each way. But I didn't grab her ass this time. Oh no. I got behind her and leaned forward, then grabbed her goat horns.

She gasped, first in surprise, then in delight. I stroked the horn, and she cooed in pleasure; they were erogenous zones, as expected. It was an ancient law of the land that horns were handles to be used during fucking, and the best horns gave as much pleasure as nipples.

I dug my dick back into her pussy from behind and started going to town, pulling back on her horns like horse reins to keep myself steady. She bucked beneath me, bouncing her ass in rhythm to my thrusts while bending her head back from the force of me pulling her horns. Ride'm cowboy. Fucking girls from behind really never got old; they way I just bounced off their fat asses, then got pulled back in by their tightly squeezing pussies just never stopped feeling incredible. The brief gasps of air my wet dick got before being plunged back into their hot, meaty depths was a cycle of contrast that prevented me from ever getting used to it.

The jiggling of her ass with each thrust drew more and more of my attention. It was just so big and red and inviting. Eventually, I couldn't help but let go of one horn to slap her ass, hard. Her pussy clenched and juices sprayed out while she let her tongue hang with utter bliss.

Love Point Gained! Xetrathia +1

Yeah, okay, that wasn't surprising in the least. Anyone could guess that such a red ass would love getting spanked. I spanked her again, and again, and again. The abuse made her cum harder and harder; light orgasms, all of them, but all hard enough to squirt out more juices. Before long, her ass was even more red than it had been in the first place.

Love Point Gained! Xetrathia +1

Love Point Gained! Xetrathia +1

Love Point Gained! Xetrathia +1

Love Point Gained! Xetrathia +1

Love Point Gained! Xetrathia +1

I looked up at Xetra. Her glasses were half-off her face, but she didn't have a dumb look in her eyes. She had the intellectual look of someone using every one of their brain cells to fully process the pleasure that was destroying them. The light in her eyes was as strong as ever, but in this moment, it was dedicated to maximizing pleasure and happiness. Same here, really.

I grabbed both horns again and prepared for my final thrust. I always had to choose when to end things, thanks to Cum Control, and while I found it hard to resist the idea of just pounding her from behind forever, that could wait just a bit. We had a prophecy to fulfill, first.

"Do you want my children?" I asked. I had never asked before; I usually got so lost in thought during sex I never said much, and the girls were certainly so absorbed in moaning that speaking didn't come naturally. But I wanted to hear this from her voice.

"Yes! Yes!" She moaned, "Cum inside me, please! Cum inside my slutty pussy! Impregnate me! I want your babies!"

Which came first, the sluttiness or the sex? A true mystery. Maybe her highly intelligent brain just told her calling her pussy slutty would encourage me to cum inside of it. And she was totally right.

I thrust forward, hard, flattening her juicy ass against my hips while simultaneously pulling back onto her horns. My dick pierced through her like a stake, with my grip on her horns preventing any escape. I came just as she screamed in orgasmic pleasure; my cock head dug into her cervix, then unleashed the violent flood of cum directly into her demonic womb. It filled her up, and her orgasmic screams turned to blissful moans as she felt my warmth fill her up; as she felt, perhaps, her egg get pierced by proud little semen.

I remained arched over her, locking her in place with her horns while unleashing wave after wave of cum. We remained stuck in place for maybe five minutes, until cum was flooding from her pussy like a river, mixed in with her streams of love juice. When I finally elected to let go of her horns, she plopped right onto the bed, twitching and convulsing with pleasure even after my dick popped out of her pussy.

Love Points Gained! Xetrathia +941

Love Cap Reached! Obsession has become True Love!

Your souls have become one.

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I fell over, such that I was lying beside her. I wrapped her in an embrace, and for all her twitching, she managed to get on her side and wrap her arms around me as well. We kissed again, more slowly this time, and she pressed her huge demon tits against me in hopes of fusing our bodies together. I had earned her love, and now she offered me her everything, just as I offered her my everything.

Eventually, we pulled back. She panted and gazed at me. Her constant blinking showed me she was processing the flood of memories from past loops.

"So, are you furious? Mad at the world for giving you an impossible challenge?" I asked. It wouldn't be hard for someone as smart as her to deduce that she had no chance of beating a looper.

She smiled. "No. I'm not mad. It gave me you. How could I be mad?"

With that, I couldn't help but observe that neither she nor Flare had broken out into tears over killing me in a previous loop. That had been a pure Rose thing. Kind of cute in retrospect.

"Well, I guess you know what I'll want you to do next, then."

She nodded, then leaned forward to kiss again. I obliged, feeling the warmth of her thick demon body against mine. All in all, as far as 'win conditions' went, this was up there with the best of them. It wasn't flashy, and there were no dramatic explosions (that weren't made of cum), but that was fine with me. There was nothing more powerful and moving... than true love okay sorry nevermind.