Garius was like a cat, completely uninterested in your everyday happenings. He was basically taking a nap, lazily observing Heid working, giving a comment every now and again. But suddenly, he practically jumped out of his pants and hurriedly rushed over to Maria, kneeling down to grasp her little red shoulders. The excitement could be seen on his big red face as he held onto her shoulders tightly like some sort of Lolicon in heat, as a reddish aura emitted from him.

But the aura quickly vanished and he laughed, exclaiming, ”Good! Very Good! Maria, you are undoubtedly a prodigy, a truly, truly absurd genius! Hahaha, the Gods have yet to abandon us Heid!”

Heid looked over to Maria and with a look of disbelief, and replied, ”Yes, they might not have forgotten about us just yet, but Garius this could very well be a disaster in the guise of a blessing. For your own safety, I would advise you show the utmost caution around her. Don’t treat her simply like just another Lesser Demon, she could very well kill you one day. And the possibility that it could have even now exists.”

Garius retorted, ”Hmph, Heid, what are you so afraid of? Geniuses like her are rare, truly rare. But it is not that we have yet to see others with talent that matches hers. Even this is only a bit higher than our little misses. And even she has yet to put even a scratch on me.”

Heid sighed, ”Garius don’t be ignorant. She’s a Chimera!”

“So what?”

Heid looked frustrated. He moved his hand to the Latus Crystal on the desk and sent an arm immediately to go fetch a book. He opened it, and then began to read it aloud. ”The Soul is the most vital part of any living being. The Souls carries the Conscious and the Spiritual Body. And as Spiritual Beings we Demons are greatly affected by what type of Soul we have. They can be classified as: Fragmented, Reforged, Completed. However in some cases a Soul can change resulting in the Chimeras.”

Heid closed the book, ”Fragmented Souls were souls that were far too weak and couldn’t endure the transformation into a Demon as well. Reforged Souls are those souls that could hold out, but were still damaged. Reforged Souls are literally Souls who had to be Reforged. Complete Souls are souls that were strong enough that they could go through the transformation unscathed. Souls that are capable of transforming unscathed are rare, with only about one in every million or so can have a Complete Soul.Technically, Chimeras can be classified as a Complete Soul, but the chance of one appearing is less than even one in a billion.”

Garius looked starstruck. ”That’s even better! The rarer they are the greater strength they possess. You should understand why those berserker bastards are so strong don’t you?”

"That’s true, but look at this.”

Heid fetched another book, and opened it. He turned it around and there was a picture of a monster with a lion's head, goat’s body, and a snake on it’s tail.

“Chimeras are beasts made up of pieces of other beasts. You’ve seen plenty, haven’t you Garius?”

Garius replied, ”Of course, they're all over the place. They make a wonderful meal. You get to have all sorts of different meat with only one kill”

Heid continued, “Well Chimera Souls are just like the Chimeras themselves: a patchwork of thousands of destroyed souls regardless of the circumstances. But unlike normal Chimeras whose different parts that co-exist with one another, the thousands of consciousness in a Chimera Soul aren’t able to survive in a single, fragile, makeshift Spiritual Body. After all the souls inside should have already been damaged to the point that they could only rely on their primal instincts to stay alive. But all this fighting would cause the soul to burst. And this is happens for nearly every Chimera out there. But every now and then we have a survivor, but is it really possible for someone to stay sane after all of that?”

Heid looked at Maria, ”Most Chimeras lose a majority of their emotions, some lose some naturally-occurring sensations like pain, and some end up just as cripples. Along with that, Chimeras no longer have something that completely fits their soul, and it causes odd mutations and variations to occur. If it didn’t, how could this golden egg end up end up in a batch of imps! But one thing is certain in every Chimera. No matter how crippled, emotionless, or insane they are they have the combined might of thousands of different Souls, even if those souls only have a portion of their former strength. They are the most powerful one-man armies, and there are records of Chimeras having easily defeated those several ranks above them. Some have even killed Arch-demons at only the Mid-Demon level.”

Garius looked at Maria with a serious expression, ”I see... so you’re more of a monster than I thought…”

Garius silently stared at her for a bit, but then Garius just laughed. He let out a broken laugh. He looked to Heid and spoke, ”Isn’t that perfect!? So what if she’s a monster? That’s great! So what if I die? So what if she kills me? So what if she’s dangerous? How many millions of people die every day? How many thousands have I killed with these hands? I don’t mind, I’ll raise this child, and bring her to the pinnacle! Even if she will one day kill me, I couldn’t even care less. Because if she’s able to so easily do so, she will most definitely be able to reach heights even I couldn’t dream of! I’ve decided, this little one right here will succeed me. She’ll inherit my legacy! And the day I die, will be the day she kills me!”

“Garius….,” Heid sighed, “Just what happened to you? Just what did you see in the Infernal Spire?”

Heid recalled the prideful demon from thirty four years ago, he remembered the foolish brute who foolishly said he would become one of the Great Kings. The one who said he would topple the Great Emperors. The prideful demon, who would never surrender himself to death no matter any circumstance and still come out on top.

And then he looked at the demon in front of him. A broken shell of his former self. A demon who wouldn’t mind even if a child killed him.

Garius looked up at the roof illuminated by those bright balls of light dejected, he answered, ”True Strength…”

Heid looked at Garius, and then told Maria to go on. He put her page back into the tome and motioned for the next imp to come up. And unfortunately for them the next imp was Satou

...

“So there was something like that…”, Satou was listening in on Heid's lecture on souls. And began to wonder what would be the outcome of his test. If Souls can greatly affect the result, than what can this immortal soul of his do for him.

Heid looked towards Satou, but Satou who was stuck in his own world completely ignored him. So Heid promptly sent one of his arms flying in the general vicinity of Satou’s face.

'ROCKET PUNCH!' Words that someone probably might have said out loud if this were some sort of fighting game, if Heid’s arm weren’t just bones.

But the punch did manage to hit Satou right in the face and knock him right off his feet.

“Ow that hurt…” Satou got off of the floor with his already red skin becoming a little bit redder.

Garius watching this whole thing unfold, laughed, "Kid you better hurry up. Your lucky that Heid’s nowhere near as ruthless and Nevil.”

And like that whatever tension in the atmosphere was broken, and luckily not Satou’s face.

Satou walked up to the desk after getting a push from Garius’s massive hand. He gave his hand to Heid and who as usual took his finger and poked a nice little hole in it.

“Ow, this hurts way more than a flu shot or those times I had to go get my blood tested…kind of like...now”

The blood was once again used to fill the seal, and when Heid lifted up his finger, Satou noticed the incision had already been healed, leaving behind only a bit of blood. Heid moved his hand to the Latus Crystal and allowed it to suck his life force.

All of a sudden sense of fatigue hit Satou and he began to feel extraordinarily lethargic. It was like his bed whenever he woke up on a Saturday morning, it sucked away all his energy leaving Satou wanting to do nothing more than to do what he would normally be doing in that sort of situation: absolutely nothing.

Satou, who was now drowsy beyond belief, slowly wandered into dreamland as he dozed off. But experiencing the process of having his lifeforce drained he couldn’t help but think of the previous imps reactions.

“I imagined this to be a painful experience with all that screaming and all. But now that i think about it what’s her name didn’t scream at all. What were those guys panicking about then?”

Having gathered a sufficient amount of life force, Heid let go of Satou arm and allowed him to step back a bit. He went to fetch the paper and looked at it, while Satou did whatever he could to try and keep himself awake.

Satou stared at Heid and wondered,”Why isn’t he giving me my score?”

Heid looked at the piece of paper puzzled, he mumbled,“This is odd?”

He threw the paper away, and it burst into flames slowly turning into ash as it floated down onto the floor. let the paper go, and it burst into flames in the air quickly turning to ashes. He went to the Tome on his desk and ripped out another page. He gave it to his one of his arms to put back on the machine and move his arm to the crystal instructing it to print out Satou’s information.

Heid looked at it once again puzzled. He turned to Garius who asked, ”What’s wrong Heid?”

Hied answered,”Well you see…..”

Heid sighed, and looked at Satou. He threw the paper to Garius and it flew towards him, covered in a blue light.

“We have more than just one prodigy, but if anything I’d say he’s just a lucky bastard," Heid continued.

Garius puzzled, grabbed the piece of paper floating towards him, ”This is!?”

Heid recited the results from memory, ”Rank 1, Lesser Demon. Race: Blood Imp. Nameless. Sinless. Soul Complete. Potential: Clear, Indeterminable. Anti-Seal Rate: 99.99%....”

Garius laughed, and then in disbelief asked, ”Aren’t these results more frightening than a Chimera?”

Hey Guys! Editor is back! Well anyway here's a bit longer of a chapter! Now just sit back, relax, read it and imagine a big brute kneeling down grasping a cute little girl, with a big ole smile on his face as he breathes heavily! And by the way i refer to Maria a lot as if she was a girl, but i didn't give Maria a gender technically. It is a feminine name, but you never know hehehe....

Well, anyway enjoy. As usual point out any mistakes. If you guys feel like it Mr. Proofreader/Editor has made changes to prior chapters so i'm putting those in. And do any of you guys want any Teaser of sorts? Cause i post slowly, so i don't mind giving you a teaser of the next chapter.