Mind Demon's Path of Domination

"You two are weaker than that other guy," he said coldly.

The pudgy middle-aged man shouted, "Demon!"

"Correct guess, you get 1 point," Mark smirked.

He turned towards the pudgy man and the guy clenched his hand in midair.

The air around Mark seemed as if it was trying to squeeze him to death.

An ability that allows him to squeeze the air?

"No, you don\'t."

The pudgy middle aged man grew slack just like the woman beside him and Mark jumped down to stand between them.

Dona looked coldly at the duo.

"Be honored that you had been able to atleast break our Defensive Magic Skin," Mark said calmly.

Dona clenched her hand and bright, hot fire accumulated in her hand. Mark gently adjusted her hand to be more accurate.

She fired at both of the enemies.

Fwoosh!

Fwoosh!

The thrown fireballs headed at the enemy and the pudgy middle aged man immediately began burning.

He tried to resist using his ability to squeeze air but in the end, the fire devoured him. Screaming, he ran towards the rain with all his will.

It was of no use. A charred body fell limpon the ground.

Mark turned towards the fat woman.

She hadn\'t died.

She was looking towards Dona and Mark with a sweaty, pig-like face.

Mark looked at her.

She paled and squeeked as she backed away.

She said with fear, "You are an intelligent demon!"

"Correct, you get full marks. Now, die."

An invisible dome shimmered around the woman\'s body, and she no longer grew stunned.

She had a defensive ability.

Tier 1 Pinnacle Hunter Ability—Dome Defense!

"How long can you use that flimsy defense against me?"

The woman wanted to speak but Mark just spammed Dream Shock and soon enough, her defensive shield broke into shimmering translucent light. She had erected that with some remaining Mindpower in her hand and she no longer had any to cast another field.

Dona tried to burn her but Mark stopped the demoness short. Instead, he placed a hand over the fat woman\'s head.

"Don–Don\'t kill me!" she screamed. "I—I will serve you."

Cold golden eyes didn\'t even hesitate.

Alchemic Shapeshifting.

Her body began to morph in shape and Mark watched curiously. Indeed, her fat form began to reduce in size and her body became thin and more interesting to look at.

Her shape began to form into an attractive one that he had in his mind.

Maybe using Alchemic Shapeshifting on people were not that dangerous.

For a second, the woman looked at herself and then looked at Mark.

She had grown so thin.

Then, blood dripped from her orifices and she placed a hand over her face.

Argh.

She limped towards Mark and Dona.

"I… curse!" She raised her hand towards Mark.

Tier 1 Pinnacle Demonic Trick—Fire Shield.

A barrier made of fire appeared before her and the woman walked into it.

She began burning. Wailing. Screaming.

Soon, only a burning smell remained.

Outside, the rain had calmed down and the moon was visible in the skies through the broken warehouse roof. The air was slightly chilly but at the same time, nicely cool.

All over the place, tiny puddles stirred in the wind, and everything was wet. In some places, red and oily wetness of blood.

Mark took flight with Dona in his arms and moved through the air. He soon landed atop a tower made out of containers.

There was a good wind around. This warehouse was near a marine harbor, so he could see ships in the distance and hear their piercing horns faintly.

And Dona was pressed against him.

She smiled innocently and looked at Mark anticipatingly.

"As big as Mark," she said.

Indeed, now, Dona was as big as Mark. Her clothes had long been torn apart, and her light red eyes were bursting with excitement.

She put her hand diagonally on her eye level and calculated it against his eye level. Indeed, she was nearly his size—but his wings still dwarfed her if he spread them out a bit.

She pouted. "Mark still bigger."

"Don\'t pout," Mark said.

He smiled at her and wrapped her body which was around 4 meters in size with his wings. She comfortably closed her eyes and leaned against him.

She seemed anticipant and Mark knew why, now the woman knew she could handle the little monster in her mate\'s crotch. To its full.

No wonder she was so happy.

Dona gave him that cheeky smile and he leaned down and kissed her.

Until now, he had been too big to enjoy a normal kiss with her but now…

It was a long interplay of moist tongues warring within their mouths.

Both of them didn\'t stop until a truck honked beneath them—Mark covered her naked self with his wings and looked down towards Choi Sung.

The Hunter looked out the window at him.

"Have you collected all the treasure of the gang?" Mark asked.

"The Solar Gang has fat pockets," Choi Sung said. "It was a cargo full of gold, drugs, and bills. I connected that cargo to our truck. You two will only have little space back there now—it\'s cramped."

"It\'s fine," Mark jumped down with Dona. He asked, "Do you have any big clothes?"

"Big cloth? Why?"

He is still asking for your explanation, which means he doesn\'t see you as an absolute authority, Reol\'ran said, finally not so silent anymore.

Mark replied, Ignore him, I have other questions for you to focus on.

"Give the cloth to me if you have it," Mark said calmly to Choi Sung.

Choi Sung fumbled around inside the truck and threw Mark a long, white cloth with a frown. It looked like a curtain.

Mark walked towards the back of the truck, and Choi Sung could only wonder why the demon wanted that cloth.

Since you started enslaving him, it is better to go through all the way. A slave who questions his master is an unsheathed blade held near the neck. Do not underestimate the danger that a person near you could pose to you.

Mark nodded in acknowledgement.

Opening the truck\'s backdoor, indeed, it was cramped and full of treasures but he had no interest in such mundane things.

Mark jumped up first and helped Dona enter it, then, he closed the doors and sat down along with his mate.

It was a shadowy container.

"Mark," Dona called.

"Let me see what you have become first," he said.

A violet screen blurred within his mind.

==•==

[Dona]

[Tier 1—Lower Demon]

[Physique: 100 (Pinnacle)]

[Mind: 100 (Pinnacle)]

[Cultivated Powers: Soul Sense (100 Meters), Defensive Magic Skin (T1).]

—

[Traits]

[Soul Seizer—The trait allows a demon to seize the Soul of anyone they kill into their Soul Space naturally.]

[Dungeon Heart Seed Bearer—has a Dungeon Heart Seed inside her body and thus, a dungeon extends from her body outwards. The World Wills of the Other Worlds cannot find her.]

—

[Bloodline: Flame Bloodline]

—

[Demonic Tricks]

•> Soul Devourer.

•> Fireball (Pinnacle).

•> Fire Shield (Pinnacle).

•> Delayed Explosion (Pinnacle).

•> Fire Seal (Pinnacle).

—

[Resistances]

• Fire Resistance (Low) (Tier 2).

• Physical Resistance (Pinnacle) (Tier 1).

• Mental Resistance (Pinnacle) (Tier 1).

==•==

Mark grinned at her new stats. Indeed, now both he and Dona were pinnacle Lower Demons!

"Now we just have to evolve, don\'t we?"

So, he turned his question inward.

Reol\'ran, how can a Lower Demon evolve and become a Middle Demon?

Reol\'ran was silent for a while, and Mark felt that she was mentally walking around inside his mind. The truck began moving.

"Well, do you trust me enough to follow what I say now?" Reol\'ran snorted.

"I do know you have no malice towards me at least. And there is not much reason not to trust you."

"Evolving through tiers is not that simple a thing," Reol\'ran sneered. "You are underestimating the Path. Becoming a Tier 1 from Tier 0 is a child\'s game but it progressively grows harder to evolve as it goes—and the Tiers also grow progressively exponential in strength, too."

Mark was slightly annoyed. "Tell me how to evolve and I\'ll decide if it\'s hard or not."

To evolve from a Tier 0 Demonling to a Tier 1 Lower Demon, all he had to do was to sense his Soul Space, and to do that, he just had to have an intense desire to grow stronger and that was easy.

What condition did evolving to become a Middle Demon as a Lower Demon require?

Reol\'ran continued, "In one way or another, every Race has a different system of growing stronger. Well, since I am not a demon, I am not well-versed in how a demon can evolve. But I do know some basics. And I am sure... as you are now, you will never be able to evolve."

"Why?" Mark frowned.

"You are too loose. Too rough on the edges. Like, look at you—you can\'t even use your existing demonic tricks to perfection. You have Alchemic-whatever as an ability but still fear to use it on yourself because you know it will not work well. Do you know what that means?"

Mark blinked. He was somewhat prideful but he knew not to argue back to an expert when they were sharing wisdom.

"It MEANS you are very, very half-assed for now. You don\'t even know how to use what you already have to its limits but your focus is still on gaining more powers. Like some child hoarding candies. It\'s not a bad habit but…" She mind-shrugged. "Without having full control over at least some of your powers, don\'t even hope for evolution or you will be disappointed."

Mark said with irritation, "I am a newbie, of course, I am not so good with all my tools."

"No, Mark, don\'t get defensive. You are not even using Heart Input at its best. You just spam it to get the enemy to lose all their Mindpower."

"So what should I do according to you to most efficiently grow stronger?"

Mark had a feeling that Reol\'ran had mind-nodded.

She said, "A warrior\'s most powerful tool isn\'t their blade, but the edge of their mind. A child can hold a blade, too, but they won\'t have the same edge as a hardened warrior. Why?"

"Their subtle control over their weapon?" he guessed.

"Not wrong but not right either. A weapon is not the entire equation—their body, their tactics, their way of handling themselves in stress. Their weaknesses. Its all part of the equation. Your mind, on the other hand, is narrow and loose. Not to mention a warrior, you are not even a proffessional fighter.

"And that\'s, not GOOD for you because you have no chance of surviving the Six Sufferings as a half-assed weakling!"

"How did you use to train?"

"Me?" Reol\'ran laughed smugly. "I was introduced to the blade when I was two years old. My teachers used to cut a small wound on my tender hand every day to teach me what a blade can hurt like. Then, I practically grew up with a blade as my third hand. I killed so much now I hold a blade in my heart more than hand—that\'s the edge you lack.

The refinement that only someone who had trained repeatedly would have."

Mark chuckled. "So are you going to train me?"

She shrugged. "It is a long and precise process. First of all, control your Alchemic Shapeshifting to the level where you can easily change your appearance into whatever you want it to be. That scientist girl—Yuri-whatever—can help you do it."

"I\'ll have to put some effort in, then."

Mark sighed and caressed Dona\'s head.

So, for him to evolve to become a Middle Demon, the first condition was to control his own abilities to a limit.

He needed more practice. More experience. More edge.

As Reol\'ran had said, he had to become edgy, and for that, he had to shed his untrained self.