"So…" Picking up the steaming cup of tea laid before her on the table, Helga looked at Asmodia through her iron visor. "When are you planning to take the walk?"
Her eyes covered under the iron visor of her feathered helmet, she gave her a cold stare while bringing the tea cup closer. Pressing her cherry lips against it, Helga took a light sip of the dark liquid before lightly wincing at the horrid taste.
"Don't make that face," Asmodia retorted, sipping on her own cup with her legs leisurely crossed over each other. "As for when I'm joining the flow of cosmic consciousness? As someone in everlasting purgatory is it not up to me to decide when I want it to end?"
Setting the cup back on the table, Helga turned her gaze to the far corner of the room. Piled up inside the space was a bloodied edge with bodies of her own soldier stacked like trophies. Turning her head back to the inquisitee, she washed the angry frown off of her face. Hidden inside the adamantine helmet, even Asmodia couldn't read the mood of the queen of Valkyries.
"You have the right, but," moving her armored arm on top of the chair's recline, Helga gazed away toward a wall to not be swayed by the tricks of a demon lord. "The creator wouldn't allow such an abomination that you've become to exist longer than it should."
"And you know how?" Not wasting a second's time, Asmodia shot back. "Besides, if so, wouldn't his own son be subject to his first smite with all the blasphemy he's committing?"
Her sound rebuttal shut Helga's mouth in an instant, and although she wanted to reach for the sword swaying by her hips; she refrained from drawing it out as enough Valkyrie blood had been shed for one day.
"I don't speak for our late creator," Helga replied, not wanting to engage the topic further.
Swinging her body forward, she laid her heavily ringed fingers on the table and peered right into Asmodia's gaze.
"As for Atlas, the boy's this world's new god and he has the right to direct it as he pleases," leaning back into the chair, the queen kept her eyes sternly fixed on the demon lord in front. "But you on the other hand are no more than a pest, a pest that needs to be purged before it rots the world more than it should've ever been allowed to."
Setting her cup down as well, Asmodia smiled cheekily at Helga. She knew the queen of Valkyrie was strong, but judging the limits of her strength herself would've been any passionate warrior's dream.
"Inferno would've loved you, and even though I would love to take you on myself," leaning on the desk, Asmodia kept on smiling to irk the queen further. "What can you really do to me?"
Contorting into a look of frustration, Helga seemed visibly offended by the demon's agitation. Thus, reaching for her scabbard she drew out a blade of flaming white light and gently set it on the table.
"Perhaps, you remember what this is," eyeing the blade, Asmodia felt an eerily familiar presence coming out from the laden sword. It sent her back to a time when the great creator was alive, but the presence inside anthesis to her master. "Destinia's father, the traitor who killed our lord…I made this blade from his body, and the flames burning over it from his soul."
Baffled by the explanation, Asmodia slowly turned her gaze back to Helga. Her lips pressed together tight, she leaned back into the chair before asking her a question.
"How did you get your hands on this?" She mumbled.
Saying nothing at all, Helga kept staring into Asmodia's eyes as she put the sword back into its sheath.
"How else?" She finally replied in the form of a question, and the demoness in front of her knew it was rhetorical.
'She killed a god…' Having underestimated the Valkyrie, Asmodia took a deep breath to calm her racing heart.
"The answer's still no, I'm not taking the walk to the collective consciousness, and if you try and force me, there will be a lot more blood and bodies," standing her ground, Asmodia didn't show her emotional turmoil to Helga.
Upon hearing her response, Helga shut her eyes close and got out of the chair. Standing before Asmodia, her hands slowly reached back to the blade, however, stopping herself mid-air she opened her eyes again.
"If you weren't dead already, I would've killed you for massacring the souls of those Valkyries," looking to the side, her iris began glowing a golden glow and a portal of gold flames opened next to her. "I'll give you a while but when that time is over, you better be gone or I'll turn your soul into fuel for another sword."
From the edge of her eyes, Helga glared at Asmodia. Returning a stern gaze, the demoness continued to stand her ground.
"Farewell," Helga uttered before disappearing into the portal.
With the Valkyries gone, Asmodia sat there in the looming silence wondering how long it would take for Haruki to get her a new body. While those thoughts roamed inside her mind she tried to pick the tea cup back in her hand, but the moment she reached forward the nervous jittering of her fingers hit her with the realization of her fear.
'There are beings in this world you have clue about, Asmodia, don't play with them or you're bound to be burned.' Warning herself about the dangers of other cosmic as well as angelic beings, she swore not to test Helga's patience next time.
"One of the strongest, my ass! Some of this is just not fair," after just a few days of her staying in a realm beyond the mortal plane, Asmodia had begun to wonder just what kind of monsters lay in wait in the overstretching stream of the cosmos. Most of all, however, she had learned that despite being one of the strongest in Atlas, her strength was fickle when compared to these creatures.
"Dammit…" Slamming her fist on the table, she decided to rest and regain the strength she'd lost after fighting off hordes of Valkyries.
***
Although she'd managed to uphold her vows as a knightess, the female guard stationed outside Haruki's room was still flustered even after washing off her body with a stream of cold water. Returning to her station, she noticed that all the other guards were gone and for some reason, the number of moans coming out from inside the room at once had increased two-fold.
Most suspicious of all, the other two female guard's armor was laying around outside. Gulping in fear and anticipation, she moved closer to the walls to check on things more clearly. The moment she pressed her ears against the doors, she heard the voices of her two female companions while the men were nowhere to be heard or seen.
'Did they succumb to an incubus?! No way!' She thought gently creaking the door open to peek inside.
What unfolded in front of her in the room left her aghast and questioning whether she was dreaming. The two female guards who'd taken the oath alongside her were riding on top of two versions of Haruki, all the while the male guards were knocked out cold at the other corner of the room.
What threw her off further was the frame of Nabe coiling her tongue with Haruki. The moment he saw her doing so, a loud gasp left her mouth, and before she knew her vision went dark and her body was left limp. By the time she wakes up next her memories of the night would've been replaced by an eventless night by Nabe, while in reality, she'd spend the time joining her companions in pleasing Haruki's body.
Waking up, Haruki wasn't too crystal with last night's memories either, in fact, the only thing he could remember was him and Nabe getting intimate and throwing out the information exchange part completely out the window.
"What the-" Sitting upright on the bed, he looked around at the empty room with nobody but him present. For a moment he wondered if he'd dreamed it all up, but upon checking the status of the carnal curse which had been lowered back to level one those doubts were quickly washed off.
'Hopefully, I didn't mouth off about my contract with Asmodia or anything.' With his mind now cleared, he swore not to let Nabe manipulate him into action on impulse.
Before he could gather his thoughts, a sudden knock on the door jolted him up to his feet. Instinctively assuming it to be a threat, he got ready with a pair of magic shields hovering from both of his hands.
"Who is it?" He asked in a commanding voice.
"I'm royal guard Selena! The emperor has ordered me to get you!" Stripped off of her memories from last night, the peeping knightess was about to act as Haruki's guard.
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