Nobody is Worthy

"I too am interested in these… clothes. You really intend to start selling them?"

'She's interested? Huh? Why?' Titania thought in bewilderment.

It wasn't secret knowledge that Jörma never used her Enlightened Form. The Enlightened Form provided many benefits for Beasts but the most important one of them all was the ability to absorb Magical Energy from the air for their own use.

This could only be done in the Enlightened Form and wouldn't work if a Beast transformed back into their true form, so normally, by Jörma completely ignoring her Enlightened Form, what she was doing should be crippling her advancement speed, utter stupidity.

But how could Jörma, the publicly known strongest creature on the Continent, be stupid when it came to cultivation? Rubbish!

In actuality, because of her Sky Devouring bloodline, whether she was in her Enlightened Form or not, she would be able to swallow ambient Magical Energy like she was inhaling air, an ability that caused every Beast to go green with envy. But there was a limit to this ability, and that limit was essentially the size of her mouth and throat. See where this is going?

Jörma in her natural form had a very, very big mouth. But her Enlightened Form would be restricted to the size of a regular human's, and contrary to popular belief, Snake's do not and can not unhinge their jaws to open their mouths wider, so she wouldn't even have that as a 'species benefit' (species benefit being something like flexible bones for a Snake or wings on the back for Birds), so naturally, she wouldn't be able to swallow as much Magical Energy.

If she were to use her Enlightened Form to cultivate like others, she would actually be slowing down her cultivation speed. It made perfect sense that nobody had seen her Enlightened Form. So with all that being said, why oh why would she ever be interested in clothes?

They would never be able to fit her large body, impossible. The clothes her people made were made for the usage of normal sized Enlightened races (Humans, Elves, etc). Putting in more effort for the Elephant Beastkin who's adults were 3.6 metres tall on average was definitely doable, but Jörma? A colossal sized Snake? Ha!

Titania briefly saw the image of a huge black Snake wrapped in cloth and her lips twitched. No way! She definitely wanted clothes for her Enlightened Form, but why? Wait, maybe it was for someone else?

Either way, she had to speak before things became awkward. But she wasn't embarrassed by the fact that she had been stunned, others were definitely thinking the same things as her.

"It is true, Queen Jörma. Do you… wish to use them yourself?" She asked. A question that was on everyone's minds.

"And what if I do?" Jörma replied with a peculiar light in her eyes.

"No problem, no problem at all! It's just, as you can probably guess, we can only shape clothes for the Enlightened. Do you want the clothes for someone else, or…?" She was probably being a little too nosy but she really wanted to know.

"Hmph." Jörma harrumphed in apparent dissatisfaction. "You Elves really like to dance around subjects. Just be honest, you want to know if I have use for an Enlightened Form, right?"

Titania gave a slow nod.

With the introduction of certain politics in the Elven Kingdom, it was natural that those who intended to utilise it or hide from it became more 'imaginative' with their words. She wasn't ashamed of the way she spoke at all as it had provided her many benefits in conversations with other rulers, but she was a little peeved at the open disrespect.

However, what could she do? It was rare for the way she spoke to be identified, much less called out, but it wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last. Such a thing could only be expected from Jörma the Devourer, the strongest entity on the Continent. The pathway to power was filled with knowledge and the Devourer had definitely travelled it the furthest.

Well, at least that was what she thought until she saw the 9 Flame Queen. When she had arrived, she hadn't made an attempt to hide her aura at all and instead flared it for all to see, and it was definitely not inferior to that of Jörma's, which was quite the shock, even if she had been informed beforehand. She quickly glanced at the flaming bird before returning her attention to the giant snake, where she caught her rolling her large eyes.

"How could it be possible for me to never use my Enlightened Form? I refuse to believe that it's completely useless to me. Sooner or later I will need it and when that happens I would like clothes to cover my nakedness. Nobody is worthy of mating with me and thus, nobody is worthy of the sight of my reproductive organs."

Complete silence spread across the gathering as all conversations ceased.

'Nobody is worthy.' The statement resounded through their heads like a mighty slap. What arrogance! Nobody is worthy of seeing your body? Of all the males on the Continent, nobody was worthy?!

Of course, they understood the sentiment. By now, greater importance had been placed on the various erogenous zones of a biological body, and it had recently become disrespectful for a stranger to stare at them for extended periods of time without permission. At the very least, you were expected to give a compliment if you took the liberty. But sometimes, no matter how nicely you did it, if you were weaker you could be killed for it. This was especially prevalent in the Dragon race, particularly when looking at their females.

Nobody knew why their attitude towards relationships were so different and why their 2 different genders seemed to have such a predictable mentality, with 1 being mostly dominant and the other submissive, but that's just how it was.

But to bring things back full circle, they understood the sentiment of a powerful person like Jörma wanting to cover up her naked body. Most of them agreed that it was a tad bit inappropriate that the reproductive organs of a ruler can be so easily… gazed upon and fantasised… but to go ahead and say that NOBODY was worthy of mating with you? In front of so many great Kings and Emperors that lorded over entire races?

How could they NOT feel the phantom slap?! But what's worse was that there was nothing that they could do about it! They were really all weaker! Even the only other person in the vicinity who was on par with Jörma's might was also a female, so they couldn't even say something like 'What about so and so?' to get at least a little get back. Not to mention that this meant that the 2, no 3 strongest people they knew of were now all female.

Jörma, 9 Flame Queen, and of course, the Dragon goddess, Gaia.

What kind of joke was this? Where were the male gods? Where were the male supremes?