Much ado about nothing?

In the end the big and important ritual was never completed. And neither did I solve my blessing problem. What a pain in the ass... I suppose I'd need to find another summoner with ambitious enough plan, but I'm not sure if I really want to. Not any time soon, at least.

Not that this was a complete waste. After Celica had dragged the necromancer to hell(?), I looted the other two's bodies. They had some curious magic items to be appraised later, but the demonologist woman's clothes were what appreciated the most I right now. Due to the extensive clothing damage the southern pole of planet Ais had been observable from many angles, so I changed into her only slightly blood-damp clothes asap. The very open necked dress suit me much better than her, by the way. Neener neener.

What else... Ah. Right, Silvana was here too. I take a look at the still unconscious elf.

"Oi."

Clang clang, I bang the blunt side of my swordstaff against the cage holding her.

"Are you alive?"

"Ngghhh..."

She awakens, instantly going from dazed to energetic when seeing me.

"Mistress! You came for me!!"

"Yes yes, we've been through all this already."

Unlike the last time, there's no ulterior motives for saving her this time. I probably would save myself lots of headache if I tossed her, cage and all, off a mountain... but I suppose that'd be tad brutish.

I dutifully break the rusty lock and let her down, and then proceed to peel her off of me when she tries to hug me like an elf suction cup.

"MISTREEEEES! "Bad Silvana. Let go. Let go!"

While she bounces excitedly while praising me, I begin to feel really weird...

This feeling, it's a lot like getting demonic essence, in fact. Did I actually get enough despite failing the contract?! No, not possible. This feels different from before as well. And my wings itch something awful--

*POOF*

Eh? Ehhh!?

"You could do that too, mistress!? Amazing!"

"Do what!? I didn't--"

Her cheerleading tells me nothing, so I bend to look at myself.

My previously half-dead bat wings suddenly turned... into white feathered angel wings.

...

What.

Alright, let's skip the bewilderment and look back a bit.

Before this I was in state of depleted demonic essence, a neutral point if I may. Because of the druidic blessing acting as a threshold, changing back would have needed great deal of demonic essence. I failed to get that, thanks to the Harmbringers having never had any intention of keeping the deal.

But, what if it can go other way too? Demonic essence, source of which is negative acts and emotions, isn't necessarily the only kind of essence then. So, continuing on from that, because I saved Silvana I got a dose of this alternative essence. A positive one to demon essence's negative, most likely. For lack of known official terms let's call it... angelic essence? Or maybe essence of virtue? I'm just guessing here, but whether it's intuition or faint recalling of some memory, I do think I'm right here.

But I did do something vaguely even good before this, didn't I? Like saving the city as a by-product of defeating the mages, for one. Why didn't this metamorphosis happen then? I'm not sure what the pattern here is. Did it not count because I was the one originally instigating the situation, even if unknowingly? Or does it need a mortal to experience 'good' emotions to became essence?

Wait, that'd mean Silvana, that effigy of lust in elf form, has wholesome emotions in her?! That's... unexpected. Snapping to look at the elf in question, I find her fingering my new wings in rapture.

"They are fluttering like severed eye lashes!"

Something about that figure of speech disturbs me... I jerk my wing out of the elf's grabby fingers, leaving her staring entranced. She seems to really like them.

"Truly, wonders of mistress never cease...! White as wings of a duck..."

Quack quaaack? Me, a duck!? Have you grown tired of living? I convey all this with one scalding glare.

"Awawaah, sorry! I'm sorry mistress!! Not a duck! Like... some other white bird's, like a... chicken's!"

It's just getting worse! But... since I'm now apparently an angel (or something like that), I'll refrain from my humble wish to strangle her.

"Sighhhhhh... Can I go back to being a demon now?"

Although, when you think about it, I suppose I should give this a try. It's not like being succubus particularly fit me either. In fact, instead of bruteforcing my way back to being a succubus, this has certain satisfying simplicity to it.

This is a valid solution to my problem too.

So, looking at it another way, could this even become a new beginning for me? This world has only demons and jerkass mortals to it, so I could actually manage to do something that matters here now. I could shed away my apathy and do... some benevolent stuff.

It's likely similar to demon in that I get essence by doing that. And to power up I could simply, say, give money to beggars. Charity is a virtue, right? ...But wouldn't my ulterior motive make it bribery rather than charity? I sure hope that won't cancel the effect.

I need to test this all. Both small and big things. Like... mirror demon contracts by showing up to guide someone instead of making them fall? Spirits of Christmas kind of stuff? Sounds like real pain though, never mind horribly ineffective. Maybe I should just RAIN HEAVENLY FIRE ON THE IMPURE MORTALS or--

Wait wait wait, too extreme! Whose thought was that? I do sometimes get vivid thoughts from previous incarnations, but that one was just... weird. Almost like that time I thought druids had manipulated me... But it's not like I can have a conversation with 'them', since 'they' are all just layers of me.

Ugh. This is just too many things happening all at once...

"..."

"Mistress, are you alright!?"

"Yes. Everything is peachy. Just experiencing voices in my head, that's all."

"Me too! Squeeeee~! I have something new in common with mistress!!"

Did I just heard something worrying from her, again? My mental breakdown is tad more urgent right now though. Calm down me...! This won't help at all--

Drip.

As I tear at my hair in frustration, the wound in my hand made by teeth of one of the monsters (a disturbing half-rotten horse-headed snake, I think) opens up. As if in slow motion, I watch one a single drop of blood fall away.

Did you know that unlike usually pictured, falling drops of water (and blood) don't actually look like classical droplets when in mid-air, but are rather shaped like beanbags? However, it's not the droplet itself, but the place it's heading to that I'm dreading. Almost as if to mock me, it falls just inside the ritual circle.

The circle that needed demon blood.

...But there's no way a single drop of not-anymore-demon blood would trigger it, right? Actually, the Harmbringers probably didn't even set it to trigger with the blood anyway, right?

Nope and nope.

The circle lights up with a whoomp like an industrial light.

"Leave it to the mistress to be so fearless! I would never have activated such a dangerous looking summoning circle."

"..."

Grrrrrreeat. I suddenly turned into an angel, and now this.

The light snakes through the markings of the circle gives strong impression that a lot is happening during these short moments. In the center of the circle, just in front of the stone which held Celica earlier on, the light of summoning appears. Unlike a normal demon summoning, this ritual glows with bright cold light that at the same time corona of almost profane reddish glow around it. The 'Great Destroyer' is coming.

Oddly calm I for this situation - accidental summoning of someone called 'Great Destroyer' - I consider the implications here. Like how the lack of mages' oversight and sacrificial demon blood will change this. It could summon a mere corpse. Or, since this is a mythical figure that likely doesn't even know how to die properly, something way worse might enter.

"Mistress, something is appearing!"

In the middle of the light, a cone-shaped figure emerges, with drops of light shedding from it.

"What is... that?"

I realize that those lights are actually falling shivers of ice lit by the fading light of the ritual. But the rest... No, I can't say what it is with all this ice. Whatever it is, standing still like a statue the ice coated figure is either dead or unable to move.

I decide to wait without interfering. If it is as powerful as the mages believed, running away now wouldn't mean much. And if it isn't, then there's no reason to bolt now. Panicing is pointless now.

But this ice... the mages did say the target location of the summoning was 'Frozen Battlefield' in far reaches of hell. I didn't pay attention to it back then, but now something comes to mind... It'd make sense that the 'Great Destroyer' were the very reason for the 'Frozen Battlefield' to exist in the first place... It must have been submerged inside that lava lit glacier--

Hmmm? They didn't say anything about lava though. Yet an image of lava pits inside a transparent glacier spreading reddish light in the otherwise stygian dark landscape comes to mind. When did I see that?

At the same time as this yet another piece of stubborn memory refuses to come to light, Silvana grabs my elbow and points at the summoned being.

"It's moving!"

Why do all my epiphanies come at the worst possible times?! Quickly now, before I'm interrupted... Remember!!

More ice sheds away. Something grey can be seen beneath.

It was... back when Celica and that boob-spider whose name I forgot were inside my... dream? There I... Celica and that other demon were scared of my... scarred hands? At the end of that dream I had scarred hands. Wait, that's not helpful!

Last bits of ice fall, and the figure opens its dark grey feather wings that had been covering its body, revealing...

"Oooh."

Nice, round rack. Not overtly big, but just right size to go with the slim body. Perfect shape and balance, just like mine. 10/10. Oh, and the same scarred hands I saw in my dream.

No no no, the hands or breasts are not important, it's the face!

"...Mistress, am I seeing right? She has..."

"Yes."

The expressionlessly staring 'Great Destroyer' has my face.