'Title acquired: Ouroboros! Status readjusted: Dead! Current spiritual trail: Unknown!' Waking up to a flood of announcements in his head, Haruki couldn't make out anything through his blurred vision.
"You woke up?" The gentle voice of an angel called out to him. Feeling a hand running down his face, he tried to focus his eyes on the radiant being. "Are you okay?"
As his vision cleared up, the sight in front of him was shocking, to say the least. Sitting across him on a table, was the angel form of Asmodia seeming genuinely concerned by Haruki's dazed condition.
"Who are you?" He asked before looking around the dark room.
"The same person you just killed," she replied.
Akin to the abyssal chamber, the place Haruki was wasn't all that different. The only visible difference he could find were the bright edges in the room that shined in the colors of the rainbow. Swiftly looking back at Asmodia, he wondered if this was all a dream.
"Where are we? Is this another illusion?" He asked, getting out of the white chair.
"We're in purgatory, your body needs time before your soul can return to it," getting out of her own chair, she turned around and started moving away from the table. "As for me, I'll soon be consumed by the collective consciousness of the cosmos."
Holding her hand forward, she revealed a dark frame of a door. Staring into it, Haruki saw a translucent white path looming atop a sea of stars and leading over to a bright source of blue light. Like a star at the end of the bridge, the collective consciousness laid at the extreme center of the cosmos. Moving closer to get a better look, Haruki noticed countless souls flying right into its flame, while numerous others tore from it like dandelion seeds and ventured down through an ever-stretching river of souls.
"Then what?" Haruki asked, turning back to Asmodia.
"Haven't I told you?" Moving away from the doorframe, Asmodia ran her hand over Haruki's arm as she passed him by in the opposite direction. "I've been longing for death, that's part of why I allowed a measly blade to kill me."
Following behind her, he grabbed her by the arm. That's when he noticed something striking about himself. His hands seemed unfamiliar for a moment, but then he realized that he was back in the same body as when he was a human.
"What the…" Muttering to himself, his hands let go of Asmodia.
"Your soul remained human, so here you are in purgatory as your true self," offering him a brief explanation, she moved back over to the table.
Peering back at her, he felt bemused when applying the same logic to her current appearance. Moving closer before voicing his doubts, he sat back down across her.
"So I'm supposed to believe you're an angel by heart?" Haruki asked, not at all convinced.
"As my brother says often, it must be a glitch," blinking her eyes, she forced Haruki's screen of stats open in front of them both. Scanning through his abilities, skills, and strength, she landed down at the very bottom. "He helped me build this stupid system for you, absolute depravity he called it, I never liked that name, but apparently it sounded cool."
"You really think this is the time to be reminiscing about this?" Slamming his fist on the table, he managed to lower back onto him. "If you're gonna die, and I end up as the emperor's puppet, then what the fuck was the point of everything we'd sacrificed and achieved so far?!"
Leaning back into her chair, Asmodia simply glared at Haruki with not a hint of emotion in her eyes. The silence between them loomed in the air for a while, but then finally she spoke out once again.
"You think I'm done?" As she tilted her head to the side, the halo above her head burned off with a violet glow. In its place came a pair of sprouting horns, and the rest of her body soon turned into that of a demon lord again. "I crave death, but not before I get rid of that fucking idiot!"
Placing her hand underneath the table, she flipped it towards the door frame leading the cosmic consciousness. Trashing into it, the table destroyed Asmodia's only path toward everlasting slumber. The sudden change in demeanor threw Haruki off, and while his head was still turned towards where the table had landed, he felt Asmodia's hands grabbing him by the collar.
"Ughhh, look at me!" To his surprise, instead of the regular violet glow in her eyes, she had waves of tears streaming down like a river. "That fucker, I-I waited for him…I gave him my everything, I even went so far as to become a demon to correct him on his path, and what do I get out of it?!"
Knowing less than half of what she was talking about, Haruki moved her hand from his collar and moved away from the screaming banshee. At a slight distance, he looked her up and down before giving her the question that she was waiting for.
"Sure lay it on me, what did you get out of it?" The moment he spoke her crazy eyes widened further. Moving closer to him again, she grabbed his hands and held them tightly in between them both.
"Nothing, he went ahead and fucked a goddess that wouldn't care in the least if our world crumbles and dies!" Her hands squeezing him tightly, she stared into Haruki's eyes. "I can't pass on from purgatory just yet, I need to see that bitch dead, and the bastard who betrayed me too!"
"You feel cheated and that's why you want to kill not one but two gods?" Shrugging off a laugh, Haruki pulled his hands away from her. "As if you haven't done enough damage already, why would I even help you anymore? I'm no longer bound to you through that covenant."
Following Haruki as he tried to step away, she stood inches from his face with her eyes still staring into his. Getting at the top of her toes, she crept up a smile as she continued on peeking like a crazed stalker.
"You'll help me because otherwise, those demons you've left behind, and even those companions of yours, they'll all be hunted and slaughtered like animals," grabbing his face between her palms, she leaned herself even closer. "They can't survive too long without us, they need your guidance, and you need my strength."
Hearing her reasoning, the image of his companions being killed flashed before his eyes. The very thought of it made him flinch and turned back to the demon in his sight.
"As if I'll let that happen, the moment my body recovers enough, I'll give my best efforts to keep them safe," even though he knew full well that it wouldn't be as easy as he made it sound, Haruki wanted her but mostly him to believe it.
"Come on," biting her nail, she gave him a playful smile. "Do you really think he'll let you do whatever you want once you've recovered? If anything, he would keep you on a tighter leash than all the other dogs that hang around him."
Once again, he wanted to push her off, but the truth in her words didn't let him do it anymore. Frowning his eyes, he returned her glare, however, as his mind gave up on trying to come up with an alternative, he was forced to agree with what she'd just said.
"What do you want?" His eyes shut closed in frustration, he added. "And I don't want any half-measures like last time, if this covenant binds me into becoming a puppet once again, then I'd rather die right here than ever wake up."
Feeling a gentle poke on his nose, Haruki opened his eyes. In only a few seconds of him looking at Asmodia smiling in front of him, she pushed her face closer and locked bright violet lips with his. Surprised beyond reason, Haruki had no idea what to do. Should he pull away or let her be comforted from the heartbreak she'd been through moments before? How could he tell? Especially when he knew that it was the first kiss of her life and perhaps even the last she could ever feel.
Breaking off the kiss after a while, she placed her arms around him. Pushing her head against his chest like she'd done with Atlas before, Asmodia let her mind be calmed by the flesh of a man against her own.
"I can't come back to the real world without a body, a new body that is, like your daughter," peering up, she seemed slightly troubled by her thoughts. "You may not have recognized it yet, but she had the potential to be a god. And I need a similar vessel to aid you, and to make sure that she gets to live a long fulfilling life instead of being slaughtered by the emperor's generals even before she can differentiate between left and right."
"If you're asking to use her body then forget it," without a second thought, Haruki made that clear.
"No, not hers," getting up on her toes once more, she caressed Haruki's face with one of her hands. "There's an arrogant goddess with a god brewing up inside her, if you get me that child's or that goddess's body…"
Reaching down Haruki's belly, Asmodia wrapped her fingers around his two jewels between the legs.
"I'll become the only god of this world, whom you can easily kill if we add it to the covenant," offered with quite a solid plan where he would be the only one in the position of power, and all of the gods, including Asmodia will be gone, Haruki was tempted to accept the bond, but not before he read through the fine prints.
"How long do I have before my body pulls me out of purgatory?" Haruki asked.
"Long enough for us to figure out everything about this contract," Asmodia replied before pushing their lips into a kiss. "And perhaps we really hurry, you can show me what a man's body feels like as well."
Teeming with bottled-up lust, she pushed him back and started crawling up on Haruki's body.
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