Page 48 of The Misfit Mage and His Devilish Desires

“Wow.” I gulped. “I’m not sure I wanna, um, test that theory.”

“It won’t kill you. Not one so strong, one who clawed his way out of Oblivion.” Lilith strutted by me. “Not an easy feat for a devil. Retrieving our demon spawn, sure. But ourselves? Broken and no longer in existence. It’s fascinating the Walter Alden devil managed such glory.”

She heard about that? When I’d fought against Eligos, it took everything I had, including devouring Diabolic essence, which sort of overwhelmed my body, and since I’d ended up so entangled with demonic substance, I kind of unintentionally fell into the demon afterlife. Not that Oblivion was much of an afterlife, merely a dimension devoid of everything except the slumbering consciousness of every fallen Diabolic entity.

Still, it wasn’t exactly something we advertised, but I supposed. in theory, anyone in Oblivion could’ve known about my brief time spent there. And, of course, Lilith’s demon prince Corson was in Oblivion at the same time as me. Once she pulled Corson out of that nothingness afterlife, he could’ve told her everything. I mean, that was why he got assigned to deliver the invitation to begin with, since heencounteredus at the villa.

“How about I unveil a layer at a time?” Lilith pursed her lips; the plump pink turned black as the soft peach skin of her face transformed into a deep purple. Flesh became scales. Essence coated her arms, and her fingers stretched far with seven nimble knifelike digits.

“Still humanoid, but I can see elements of something different.” It was difficult to form into words, almost as if a phantom shape of Lilith’s true body glimmered beyond the portrayal she slowly unraveled.

She peeled away her glamour delicately, but I carefully observed, ready to turn my gaze if I felt my insides ready to explode. I wasn’t exactly sure what would happen, but it was safe to assume it’d be a painful reaction prior to being obliterated from glimpsing too closely.

“I knew someone of your caliber would be able to see a god queen in all her glory,” Lilith hissed, the words slithering around me, coiling tightly and dancing against my skin. Each syllable sent a different sensation.

“Yeah, about that,” I said, sidestepping from her intangible voice that seemed to follow me no matter where in the room I moved. “You still haven’t clarified how I’m different from other devil hybrids.”

“There are no other devil hybrids.”

“That doesn’t make sense. I’ve met some.” Bez was a demon fused with devil essence. And now, I’d met or seen another Diabolic who’d consumed a piece of their fallen devil. “So, why am I classified as a hybrid whereas Satan would only be a demon in possession of devil essence?”

“Ah, yes. I heard you were an inquisitive devil. Few devils are curious of things outside their realm,” Lilith said in this matter-of-fact tone. No condescension or contempt in her comment, which was something my curiosity often received over the years. “You differ from Satan and other Diabolics like him because they can never transcend with essence they take from a devil. Too much, and it’d overtake them, allowing the devil to be reborn in a meager body. Too little, and the power is futile, like what Satan possesses. Just a demon playing pretend.”

Like how Bez pretended to be Beelzebub.

“The main difference is that while essence can remain intact inside a demon, it is merely a piece of power.”

“That’s not any different,” I said. “I ingested a small portion, not too much to overpower my body, so it fused with my being.”

“Not even remotely true, Walter.” Lilith swished her clawed fingers back and forth in a ‘no’ motion. “The tiny piece of devil essence you merged with has swelled and grown. It’s merely a fraction of a fraction right now, hardly noticeable or anything a lesser being would distinguish. But in a few centuries or a millennium, the evolution of your hybridized essence will spawn a new type of devil. A truly devastating force.”

“W-what?” I trembled at the idea of a millennium of living. Of life.

I knew it was a thing. It was something always looming in my future with Bez, even when I shared his essence before acquiring this piece of a devil, but the idea of forever was a lot to comprehend. Who would I be in a thousand years? Who would I be if the devil essence inside me evolved and changed? How much would it change me?

“In all the eons of my existence, there has never been a new type of devil.” Lilith circled me, always circling me as she evaluated me down to a cellular level. “Every single one of us was birthed into the universe identical in our structure and design, merely created with differing levels of capability. Even that was more by chance and training than anything else.”

“That’s fascinating.” I meekly smiled. And bizarre, which I held back because explaining to a devil why their unchanging, unaltering, uniformed essence seemed unhealthy.

“Something about your lowly, feeble design as a mortal or a mage or both has culminated in something truly spectacular.”

“Thanks?” I quirked a brow.

“It is a true honor. Something such as yourself would have never caught my attention, but now you’ve intrigued me, enthralled me, left me desiring my curiosity to be sated.”

“Um…I don’t know what to say.”

“I suspect your lack of Diabolic origins plays a pivotal role in making the essence more malleable.” Lilith placed a hand on my shoulder. “I wonder what type of demons you’ll create.”

“I doubt I could make any.” I searched my insides, trying to quantify the amount of actual essence stitched throughout my cells, wondering how much was required to create a demon. “Plus, I don’t really know how procreation works for devils. I’m assuming it’s sort of like parthenogenesis—basically asexual reproduction—but instead of biology finding a way to keep a species moving forward, it’s more of a magical quantifier established based on the vast array of Diabolic versatilityin emulating and imitating other forms of existence while simultaneously maintaining its individuality in structured…”

I paused. I was talking a lot. Too much, probably. Possibly. Potentially.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Lilith said. “I look forward to consummating our bond.”

“W-w-what?” I choked on the question.

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