The sight of the powerful, three-meter-tall beast with crimson skin caused Liselotte to forget absolutely everything else in a fraction of a second.
The girl leaped from Elarienne's hips so violently she narrowly avoided tearing her stockings on the edge of the elf's robe.
The frantic clatter of her twelve-centimeter stilettos echoed rapidly across the altar stones as, her ruby eyes wide with awe, she ran straight to Nyssara's feet.
"My Mistress... oh heavens, my Mistress!" she squeaked breathlessly, circling her like a wound-up toy.
Her small hands simply couldn't remain still.
She touched the hard, hot skin on the Empress's calves, ran her fingers over the massive, armored muscles of her thighs, and, rising onto her tiptoes, stroked the cool, scaled edge of her immense, draconian wings. Her demonic tail whipped wildly in the air.
"You are incredible! You look so terrifying... pure, absolute power! Even your claws are perfect! You could crush me with a single hand, and I would still thank you!" she gushed with unconcealed, genuine adoration.
At the same time, Elarienne slowly stood up from the stone dais.
She raised her hand, which still gleamed with a wet layer of saliva from the servant's lewd play, and without a shred of emotion, wiped her fingers on a fold of her robe.
Her emerald eyes flared with a bright, almost phosphorescent green for a fraction of a second as her innate talent scanned the giant standing before them. After a moment, the glow faded, and the elf brought a hand to her chin, studying Nyssara with deep, analytical curiosity.
The Mistress, however, paid no attention to the maid scurrying around her feet. She focused entirely on her new body.
She clenched her massive, black talons into a fist, feeling the unbelievable density of her muscles, then executed a few slow, experimental arm movements. The air around her hummed with a hollow, dangerous whistle.
Every single fiber of her being pulsed with pure, primal strength.
She shifted her gaze to the corner of her vision and summoned her panel.
Her burning, vertical pupils dilated as new values flared to life on the crimson pane:
[TRUE DEMON EMPRESS]
[HP: 420 / 420]
[MP: 240 / 240]
[Strength: 42]
[Agility: 24]
[Constitution: 42]
[Spirit: 24]
Nyssara scrutinized the numbers for a long moment. Finally, she nodded in mute understanding and issued another mental command.
Black-and-crimson tongues of fire swirled around her massive silhouette once more.
A flash of light illuminated the grim ruins, and the gigantic wings, horns, and massive muscles retracted deep into her essence. When the glare faded, her slender, statuesque, humanoid form stood on the altar once again.
The Mistress looked at her hands, then back at the interface. The disparity was striking.
In her demonic form, her physical strength and endurance had literally exploded - both skyrocketed from a baseline of twenty-two all the way to forty-two points, rocketing her health pool to an imposing four hundred and twenty.
However, the price for this overwhelming power was a severe penalty to her mental parameters and mobility: her agility plummeted from thirty-eight to twenty-four, and her mana reserve shrank by nearly half, to a mere two hundred and twenty points.
Put simply: her demonic form was a highly specialized, brutal machine designed exclusively for tearing enemies apart in close-quarters melee combat, whereas her human form offered vastly superior flexibility for casting spells and significantly faster reaction times.
For Nyssara, however, the choice for daily operation was glaringly obvious - in her previous life, she was entirely accustomed to standard, bipedal proportions, not to towering as a three-meter titan whose wings clipped ceilings.
I wonder if this form will grow even larger as I start gaining more levels... she thought to herself, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly.
She was snapped out of her reverie by a quiet, flustered rustle of fabric.
Liselotte stood before the Mistress. The girl was no longer sprinting around like a maniac.
She shuffled nervously in place, her hands clasped over her lower belly, twiddling her fingers and shifting from foot to foot on her lacquered stilettos. Her long ears twitched in embarrassment.
Nyssara arched an eyebrow, looking down at her.
"Since you clearly have something to say, simply say it," the Empress offered with a calm smile.
Liselotte flushed with a delicate blush, raising her eyes.
"Well... it's just..." she began shyly, making an exceptional effort to refrain from any filthy interjections. "I just wanted to say that your demonic form was truly breathtaking... but you look unbelievably beautiful in your normal form as well, my Mistress. You possess such natural grace that it's difficult to look away."
Nyssara laughed quietly, her voice sounding surprisingly warm.
"Thank you for the compliment, Liselotte. It is genuinely refreshing to know you are capable of appreciating something without immediately inserting a reference to the bedroom."
Elarienne stepped closer, leaning on her staff.
"Is there a significant disparity in the stats?" the blonde asked matter-of-factly.
"Significant," Nyssara explained, briefly summarizing the point shifts. "The demonic form doubles my health and strength, but drastically slashes my mana and agility. It is a purely offensive mode."
The elf nodded in understanding, then turned her gaze toward the black monolith pulsing with faint light in the center of the ruins.
"I noticed something else when I activated my talent to observe your transformation," Elarienne noted. "My gaze inadvertently fell upon this altar. According to the system intelligence, this is a Sovereign Nexus. The very heart of your territory, absolutely essential for any form of development or base expansion."
"Oh?" Nyssara looked at the ebony stone with renewed attention.
As a Demon King, she possessed a general outline of its functions in her mind, but Elarienne's words explicitly confirmed it.
The Sovereign Nexus was the absolute foundation of the entire faction. Its primary role was the summoning of subordinates. The specific type of units depended directly on the Bloodline and the level of the monarch - an Orc Demon King primarily spawned various iterations of orc warriors or shamans, whereas she would eventually gain access to demonic servants.
Every single summons, however, required Dominion Coins.
In turn, upgrading the Nexus itself and unlocking higher tiers of the army demanded skill points and rare raw materials. And the only method to acquire these most precious resources that Nyssara was currently aware of was actively hunting Heroes and draining their essence in the form of Champion Souls.
Because of this, both factions were natural, mortal enemies.
Heroes amassed wealth and glory by hunting Rulers. Demon Kings, conversely, had to lure them into traps, crush them, and march over their corpses to accrue enough power to conquer the world.
Liselotte scratched the tip of her nose and sighed heavily.
"So in short: right now we have neither the souls of these so-called Heroes, nor any gold for units," the servant summarized with a sour expression.
"Everything is difficult at the beginning," Elarienne replied with stoic calm. "We have no army, so we must proceed step by step."
"Precisely," Nyssara agreed, a decisive fire flashing in her eyes. "Before we begin constructing anything, we must thoroughly understand our surroundings. We shall scout the area."
The Empress turned abruptly toward the blonde and took a step toward her.
"Prepare for a short flight, Elarienne."
The elf only managed to blink in surprise before the air around them exploded once again.
Before the blonde could retreat even an inch, Nyssara grew rapidly, assuming her three-meter demonic form.
Before the dust could even settle, the Mistress's massive, muscular arm wrapped securely around Elarienne's slender waist, effortlessly hauling her to her side. The elf's delicate body was unceremoniously pressed against the Empress's hot, rock-hard abdomen and her massive, crimson bust.
Before Elarienne could choke out a single word of protest, Nyssara's gigantic dragon wings beat the air with a deafening boom.
The shockwave blasted the dust off the altar, and both women shot vertically into the sky!
The sensation of ascending into the heavens at such staggering velocity could only be described with one word: incredible.
The wind tore at Elarienne's robes and whipped her long blonde hair wildly, while the massive, rhythmic beats of Nyssara's wings carried them high above the black, jagged edges of the Gloamreach Vale cliffs.
Far below, the ruins shrank to the size of a miniature model.
"Can you perceive anything with your talent from this altitude?" Nyssara called out in her deep, vibrating voice, hovering stably on the air currents.
Elarienne tightened her grip on the Mistress's shoulder, desperately trying to overcome her vertigo, and focused her gaze.
Her emerald irises flared with an intense green as she activated Hidden Insight.
Her gaze swept the horizon - left, right, down, and straight ahead. Pale system text began to stream across the elf's field of vision.
"There is a cave to the west," Elarienne began her report, shouting over the roar of the wind. "Empty, standard deposits of gray stone. On the northern slope, there is a belt of dense timber, suitable for harvesting basic construction wood."
The elf narrowed her eyes, looking deeper to the east, where the mist grew thicker and took on a sickly, greenish hue.
"Further out, a swamp begins," she continued with intense focus. "The system warns of a massive population of venomous lizards and marsh serpents. On the other hand... it is a highly valuable source of alchemical raw materials: venom, hides, small quantities of rare herbs, and minor sources of potable water."
Thanks to her talent, they were saving entire days of grueling, blind exploration. They didn't have to risk blundering into lethal traps or squander their energy on barren wastelands.
Suddenly, Elarienne's gaze locked onto a massive, boundless sea of green stretching out to the south of their gorge.
"There," she pointed with a slender finger. "That location is designated as the Green Forest. It is the absolute largest, most resource-rich region in the entire Wildshade Expanse. My talent indicates massive deposits of high-grade timber, wild fruits, and exceedingly rare medicinal flora. Furthermore, it is teeming with game: great-footed avians, cervid unicorns, and timber wolves. If we are searching for meat, pelts, and foundational materials to begin, the Green Forest is unparalleled in every conceivable metric."
Nyssara looked in the indicated direction, and her demonic eyes gleamed with deep satisfaction.
"Excellent," the Empress rumbled. "We have our first objective."
Meanwhile, several hundred meters below, on the cold slabs of the ancient altar, an absolute personal tragedy was unfolding.
Liselotte stood with her arms crossed under her breasts, pushing her lips out into a pout so massive her cheeks nearly ruptured. She craned her neck toward the sky, glaring at the two rapidly shrinking silhouettes.
"Oh, sure..." she mumbled resentfully, furiously stomping her lacquered stiletto against the stone. "They left me! She just grabbed her under her arm and flew off! And what am I, a fence post?!"
When she saw the sheer ease with which Nyssara held the blonde against her massive side, she ground her teeth together in pure envy.
I'm the one who should be hanging from her arm! she thought furiously, swishing her tail nervously. My boobs should be the ones pressed against her stomach right now! Why does that elf get all the privileges?!
Liselotte took a few deep, calming breaths, trying to stop her chest from trembling.
"Fine... Since they're ignoring me and would rather look at some boring trees, I'll just entertain myself," she snorted under her breath.
She waved her hand, opening her inventory.
She began rifling through the contents of the gigantic collection she had purchased during character creation. After a moment, she pulled a thick notebook, bound in soft, bright pink leather, from the virtual stash.
Embossed in gold letters on the cover was the title: Quest Log.
Immediately afterward, she reached for another item.
From the dimensional pocket emerged an elongated writing instrument crafted from shiny black material. Its shape was so brazenly phallic that it was virtually impossible to mistake it for anything else - the shaft tapered slightly, and the very end was crowned with a rounded, smooth bulb bearing a tiny nib at the absolute tip.
Liselotte pressed the instrument to the paper, but the nib left absolutely no mark.
"What the...? Is it jammed?" she muttered in surprise.
She turned the item over in her fingers, and only then did she notice the system notification for the item. According to the description, the magical mechanism released ink only when exposed to saliva.
The maid blinked, and then a quiet, highly self-aware little smile bloomed on her face.
She brought the object to her lips, stuck out her pink, wet little tongue, and slowly, sensually ran it over the rounded tip.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
The warm nib instantly flared with a faint, purple light, and black, magical ink bubbled within the shaft.
"Ha! It works," Liselotte giggled, then sighed with mild embarrassment. "By the way... since I was already spending those points in the creator, I really could have at least read the description for all these toys, instead of just buying absolutely everything blind..."
She quickly shook off the reflection, placed the notebook on her knee, and, with a zeal worthy of a far better cause, began to write.
Her handwriting was tiny, round, and absolutely littered with little hearts.
On the first page, she scrawled:
Fly in the arms of my Mistress.
She read it with approval, then without hesitation, added directly below it:
Fly in the arms of my Mistress while simultaneously squeezing Elarienne's tits.
"Oh yes, that sounds significantly better," she muttered to herself with a wide smile.
The pen began scratching across the paper once more:
Receive my own, official collar from Mistress.
Liselotte paused her hand, biting her lower lip.
Dozens of different collar models sat in her inventory - from soft satin ribbons, to studded leather belts, all the way to heavy steel rings with chains. But that simply wasn't the same. She desperately wanted Nyssara to personally select the one perfect collar that pleased her the most, and snap the padlock shut around her neck with her own two hands.
A warm shiver ran through her body at the mere thought of it. She hugged the little pink notebook to her chest, swaying her hips with a dreamy expression.
After a moment, she opened the log again and added another point:
Be utilized as Mistress's personal footstool.
Liselotte giggled quietly, visualizing the scene.
"All this planning and talking about resources is terribly boring..." she purred under her breath, tapping the tip of her pen against her chin. "Next time, I'll just lie down on my stomach on the stones and ask my Mistress to sit on my back while she discusses some trivial nonsense with Elarienne. She'll have a comfortable chair, and I'll get to feel her weight..."
Her ears burned a thick crimson, and a quiet sigh escaped her lips.
Suddenly, the massive whistling of air being violently cleaved echoed from above.
Liselotte flinched, instantly snapping out of her trance. She looked up at the sky and spotted two silhouettes descending toward the ruins at breakneck speed.
Before Nyssara's wings could kick up a cloud of dust over the altar, the maid slammed the pink log shut with a lightning-fast motion, shoved it and the pen back into her spatial inventory, and smoothed down her latex apron.
With a wide, radiant smile on her face and the rapid clatter of stilettos, she ran up to the landing duo.
"My Mistress! You've returned! I missed you every single second!"