15 Chapter twelve
Lucifer opened his eyes to watch the familiar view of his inner world, but it all seemed...dimmer?
The usually bright stars of his soul now seemed to have lost their sparkle, the overflowing miasma of demonic power felt almost sluggish as it floated through his inner world.
"Fuck.." Lucifer startled as he watched his Demon Core, its usual magnificence and kaleidoscopic colors of runes were all now a dull grey color, their previous lazy rotation in the planet-sized core were now slowed down to what seemed to be snail's pace.
"I underestimated the strength of that beast huh..." Lucifer sighed as he fully took in how his very being was apparently being slowed down by that damn sloth´s aura.
'And it could have all been prevented if I had some form of defense against this' the gnawing feeling of discovering another unaccounted for weakness made Lucifer grind his teeth,
The fact that he hadn't even thought about something as essential as Occlumency made him curse himself for the complete stupidity that must have been involved for him to have ignored such a crucial facet of his power.
Lucifer's eyes snapped open as he felt an agonizingly familiar feeling, his bond with Shiro was slowly weakening!
"No, no, no!" Lucifer's eyes widened in desperation as he struggled to force himself to wake, but to no avail. His body was still dead asleep from the sloth's ability and no matter how he forced it, his mind just wouldn't wake up his body.
The fear for his beloved familiar almost drove him mad as he could feel the link grow weaker and weaker, once again due to his own rashness and weakness.
"Fuck my human weakness..." as he whispered the words in defeat, almost certain that his new adventure would be cut short, his dead snapped up!
Because he realized something that he had been unknowingly suppressing!
He no longer was the same old human that he was in his last life, living in a world where he as an individual didn't matter, No he was in the world of magic and dragons as a motherfucking Devil!
He had been suppressing his devil side by still clinging on to his last vestiges of humanity, constantly acting as if his weakness was a given as if he was the weakest link in this strange new world.
Because a human could never contend with giant magical creatures, a human would never be able to not only survive in this hellish dog-eat-dog world that he had found himself in. A human could be forgiven for giving up in such a hopeless situation...
"But I'm no fucking human! IM A GOD DAMN DEVIL!" He roared into the void of his inner world, his breakthrough in his understanding of his Devilhood, conviction, and pure unadulterated rage swept through his inner world.
The once-dead world swept to life in a fury, as the Demonic miasma flew towards him, rotating in a tornado of demonic might. The stars of his soul exploded in light as they ignited the previously dull demonic runes into their full former splendor.
His whole inner world answered to his call of fury as it shrugged off the slothful effect it had previously been trapped in.
Lucifer himself roared in pain as the Demonic power of his inner world started getting sucked into him, filling up his body with an utterly insane amount of demonic power, he could feel his very being filled to the brim.
he knew he would explode if he didn't do anything as the torrent of power didn't let up, so he did the one thing that his instincts were screaming at him to do.
He let go...
Shiro struggled to stay awake as he assumed the position of his master's protector once more, but this time there wasn't any filthy dog that threatened his master.
Its ruby red eyes locked onto the hulking figure that stood before it, its giant brown form laying lazily in front of it with its long limbs lying lazily beneath it as it stared lazily back at him.
The beast was the very same that he had seen when it was but a small kitten in his master's arms, but there was no sanctuary to find in his master's arms this time.
Shiro flexed its jaw as it let out an earth-shaking roar at the sloth, his intent clear that he wouldn't be moving from its spot separating the sloth and his master.
Not that he could, as the only thing preventing him to give in to the blissful allure of sleep was the knowledge that his master would truly be defenseless then. but Shiro knew that it wouldn't be long before his body gave in, and how embarrassing was that?
Being defeated by a beast that hadn't moved from its spot from start till end, just blasting that accursed aura and watching patiently for it to take effect.
Both the sloth and lion both flinched as an overwhelming sense of dread engulfed them both, the pure malevolence and power behind it making their animalistic instinct scream at them to flee, but neither did.
Shiro out of pure loyalty towards Lucifer and the sloth steeled itself in confidence in its slothful aura being able to bewitch the source.
Both turned their heads to the source and were surprised to see the prone body of lucifer dissolving into black mist, the oppressing feeling kept going as the final bits of lucifers devil body disintegrated into the same malevolent black mist, said mist started swirling into a tornado as it started to take shape.
The swirling mass of demonic power first raised to the height of 14 feet, then started to define itself as two hulking arms took shape, then two long legs took shape supporting the now clearly established figure standing before them.
Its demonic figure easily reaching 14 feet, its features were just a mass of chaotic and swirling demonic power in the shape of a horned demon-like human. Its eyes were simply two glowing white vertical slits and its mouth seemed to be twisted into a demonic smile of jagged black teeth framing a white maw.
Lucifer stared down at Shiro from his new towering height, the relief of seeing his beloved familiar was quickly snuffed out in confusion as to the proud lion usually happily looking at him was now a shivering mess as it stared up at him.
His confusion was quickly solved as he raised his arm towards Shiro to comfort him, only to see that his usually pale slender hand was now replaced with a hulking arm of chaotic demonic power, his usually elegant fingers replaced with long, sharp, and brutal looking claws that looked like they could tear through titanium.
A quick once over showed him that the rest of his body was in the same condition, somehow he was now inhabiting a body of pure demonic power.
"Strange..." Lucifer's eyes widened in surprise as he heard how his voice came out truly sounding demonic, Lucifer wasn't the only one reacting to his new voice, as Shiro let out what sounded awfully like a pitiful whimper at his master's voice.
Lucifer started to move his body and felt that the slight delay that usually happened when his mind commanded his body to move was nonexistent, as the very second he wanted to move his arm, it was already at its destination.
"Oh this will be fun!" Lucifer grinned what could truly be called a demonic smile as his jagged maw spread impossibly wide, showing off the light abyss his mouth had become.
The sloth started to feel its confidence drain away as it noticed its aura have no effect on the creature behind the Lion, it raised its body from the ground as it stared at the strange creature walking towards it, its eyes steeling as it chose to fight instead of flight.
Lucifer couldn't help but feel gleeful at how light his body felt, the absolute ease with which he felt he could exert his full unrestrained demonic might was truly exhilarating.
"I AM THE APEX PREDATOR, NOT YOUR PREY!" He roared in his demonic voice he vanished from his previous position, swiftly appearing behind the giant sloth with a long furry limb in his hand.
"You are not even qualified to be my prey, just some plaything" the utter glee his demonic voice emitted made the now one-armed sloth shiver in terror as it started regretting ever coming to this strange clearing, Its mind freezing in utter terror when he suddenly was face to face with the horned demonic head of Lucifer, His Form was floating in front of the sloths face with the very same demonic smile still plastered on his chaotic form.
"Flight truly is such a beautiful thing isn't it?" Lucifer couldn't help but feel happy at the innate ability he had discovered,
"But it seems inappropriate that I be the one to come up to your level, don't you think so?" Lucifer cocked his head in what would have been a cute gesture on anyone else but him in that form.
Shiro stared at his Master floating in front of the hateful sloth, his large demonic hand slowly rising above the now shivering sloth's head as he brought it down in such brutal fashion that even he flinched.
The sloth now lay with its head buried in the forest floor, as Lucifer hovered above it with a gleeful grin on his fearsome face.
He slowly descended as he felt the insignificant push against his form from the sloths. aura weaken considerably.
"Not dead yet?" Lucifer marveled at the sloth's endurance, as his feet landed on the back of the felled titan. The utter ease at which he had defeated it was intoxication as he clenched his clawed ebony hand in glee as he watched the soil the sloth's head was buried in slowly turning red from the blood leaking out.
Lucifer turned away from his fallen foe as he looked at his familiar, now being significantly taller than the hulking form of his albino lion, he could clearly see the fear plastered upon its feline face.
"It's me, Shiro! Lucifer!" he tried cooing at his beloved kitten, but all that came out was a nightmarish howl of his sentence.
Shiro shrank further into himself as the terror he was feeling only intensified at the voice of the being.
Lucifer sighed as he realized he must be underestimating the fierceness of his figure if he terrified the fearless Shiro this much, he closed his slit eyes in concentration as he tried recalling the demonic power into his inner world.
Shiro observed as the hulking figure dissolved into mist and condensed into the familiar figure of its master, only now his master sported ebony-colored draconic horns twisting out from the side of his head.
Lucifer opened his eyes with a deep sigh as he felt the demonic power settle into his inner world, the previous feeling of natural power gone as he was back to being restrained.
He gazed over at the now slowly calming down horse-sized Shiro as he giggled at the previously shivering form of the brave lion.
"I feel that I deserve cuddles, don't you Shiro?" His response was being slammed onto his back as the giant cat pounced him.
