“Oh! Brother, is that really you? what a coincidence meeting here, did those idiots also summoned you?”

The naked girl nonchalantly talked to me with leisure while grinning like a little child. To tell the truth I am surprised to see her talking so calmly and adding to that her words made no sense. Bother? for starters, I am a girl and second, this is the first time I meet her. Looking carefully the black and purple markings that covered her body have disappeared. Instead, I could clearly see some thin silver markings moving like snakes through her skin.

“Who are you? I believe this is the first time we have met”

“Oh? could it be that brother failed at taking control over his vessel?”

Her eyes had a dangerous light to them. Those pupils that shined with silver light on the deep dark background of the rest of her eyes gave a sense of absolute superiority. We kept silent for a while until she gave me a playful yet dangerous smile. I could feel my body tense up for a moment. This person is dangerous and strong.

“Well, it’s not like I would care. To think these idiots would dare to summon me in such a weak vessel. It’s already crumbling after such an insignificant attack. Truly disgraceful”

She held her right hand in front of her while saying this. The arm is burnt all the way from the hand to the elbow and it looks painful. After inspecting her burnt arm for a while the girl sighed before talking once again.

“Are you planning on not presenting yourself? I believe you should have introduced yourself by now”

“I believe it is proper to introduce yourself before asking for someone else’s”

Once again her eyes flashed with a dangerous light while her lips curled up into a seductive smile. My body tensed once again as I could feel the danger that such a smile represented. For some inexplicable reason I felt an odd familiarity towards her. It was this familiarity that told me how dangerous she could be.

“A feisty one are you? Fine I will tell you about this great me! I am the most powerful being the top of everything I am the devil Pride! Now tell me your name”

Her tone held such power despite sounding calm. The volume of her voice had a slight increase too but it felt as if she had shouted it to the seven winds. To make things worse is the fact she called herself the devil of pride! I may not be knowledgeable but I do know there are devils in this world. Beings of pure miasma that live in a separate dimension known as Hellmundi. These devils are the representation of everything wrong within any sentient living being and their power is something to be feared. Thankfully they can’t appear in the overworld without a proper vessel. And the most powerful of these beings is the devil known as pride!

“My name is Amelia Bellevie. I am a human adventurer”

“Oh, I see. Well, Amelia, I commend your strength. To be able to control and absorb my brother wrath you must be truly powerful. Perhaps you could have been a proper vessel for me but alas it wasn’t meant to be”

Wait a second. Wrath? That wrath? The second most powerful devil in existence? When and how did I control or absorb wrath? No thinking about it perhaps that voice filled with such anger would be wrath. Not to mention it call this person his sister. Things do click in place but even so, this is unbelievable.

“Hey, let’s make a deal. This body is too weak to hold my power, at most, it will last a day or two. It has been so long since I came to the overworld that I would like to enjoy it for at least a week before going back. Let me drink your blood, it has a lot of life force. With that, this body should last that amount of time or maybe more. In exchange, I will get rid of that curse you are shouldering. How about it?”

“You said that but with your power, you could kill me and take it by force. Not to mention you are asking for my life force, in other words, my very life. It is a bit hard for me to accept you know?”

In an instant, this devil began laughing uncontrollably. She laughed while holding her belly with tears in her eyes. After a while, she managed to calm down.

“Yes, I could take it by force with my full power but that would defeat the purpose. If I were to use my full power this vessel will die instantly. That is why I have asked for this deal. One more thing. It looks like you are not aware but me taking your life force is in no way detrimental for you. Unlike normal humans, you have a power that is inhuman. I will even dare to say that you are dangerously close to holding the power of a god”

What nonsense is this devil talking about! Me holding power close to a god!? What a stupid joke. I am strong amongst my kind I know that but there are others that are far stronger than myself and even those are nothing against gods.

“You better explain yourself because all you have said sounds like absolute nonsense to me”

“Then I will do just that. From what I can guess you believe your soul ability allows you to increase your body’s capabilities depending on how much mana you use but that is nothing more than a sub-product of its real effect. Your soul ability creates life! it creates life force from mana. Normally a living being creates their own life force through a painstakingly slow process. This is why living beings can heal wounds and continue living. When the body can’t keep up with this slow process living beings age and die. You, on the other hand, transform mana into life force through your soul. You and you alone hold power which makes even me, Pride, jealous”

What the hell is that about! That is something that I refuse to believe. I already knew the thing about living beings creating their life force through that slow process but what the hell is this about my soul ability creating lifeforce through mana!

“I know you might not believe me but what other proof do I need aside from that curse that has nested in you? Only by creating enough life force through that soul of yours could you negate its effects. Did you think your body somehow managed to contain it through your soul ability? Don’t make me laugh! Curses aren’t half-assed like that”

“Then let’s assume you are right. Will you really remove the curse?”

“You insult me! I am Pride! How could I, Pride, ever go back on my word!”

I decided to give it a go if this pride tries anything funny I will fight here. What if she is the strongest devil? She said it herself, that vessel is not suitable for her. I just need to evade until she self destructs. With that thought in mind, I cut my right arm vertically allowing a stream of blood to flow out. With a sly smile, Pride took my arm and began drinking wholeheartedly.

Suddenly I felt dizzy something I haven’t felt for a really long time. That is when I realized that Pride wasn’t just drinking my blood. She was suctioning my life force at a tremendous speed through the wound and my blood. I tried to resist but before I could pump mana into my soul to replenish the lost life force I lost consciousness.

I had a dream. In it I was happy, Lizz was still alive and she had married Dan. Diana had retired from being the guild master and went back to adventuring. I continued having fun days at the guild. Talking with adventurers and teaching them a trick or two. Going shopping with Lizz and other female adventurers. Eating good food in different restaurants. Then I woke up.

Looking around I saw the still naked Pride sitting beside me. She had a slight and satisfied smile. Her body had been bathed in what I assume is my blood. However, it didn’t look gruesome. Instead, for some odd reason, I can’t explain, it highlighted her beauty even more.

“You finally woke up. Such a lazy person to go take a nap for four hours”

“And who’s fault is that! You took so much life force you knocked me out! If it wasn’t because I don’t sense any killing intent from you I would have tried to behead you”

“Well, I had to in order to complete our deal. I drained you of all the infected life force in your body and then took my share”

Wait for a second! That should have killed me! this curse infects life force and expels it from the body. In other words, all my life force should have been infected. If that was the case and she removed all life force that should have killed me! However, I can guess why I am still alive. My soul ability must have replenished my life force faster than it was being infected and taken.

“Whatever, since we are done here I will be taking my leave. What about you Pride? What are you planning on doing?”

“I think I will indulge myself on playing with those poor souls over there before leaving”

She pointed at the kidnapped people that were still tied to the different torture machines. Well, it’s not my problem. These people have already gone through hell. What will a few hours or days of torture will do? they are already broken, breaking them a bit more before their deaths will change nothing.

“Fine by me, I will be taking those corpses though”

“Do as you please”

With that, I walked towards the corpses of the mages. I will need proof of their subjugation so I took the head of the one I beheaded. and dragged the whole corpses of the others since their head was gone. I also took a few miasma crystals. If they don’t believe me with this much I will just kill them and move to another city. With those thoughts in mind, I began going back while killing the annoying monsters that tried to stop me. At times like this, that bunch of idiot adventurers could be useful.