Meanwhile, amidst the baroque skull-filled architecture of the Demon Lord’s throne room, three figures stood around a massive, freshly-drawn magical circle and discussed important matters of state.

“So, last I checked there are two methods for turning someone into a demon. The first is sex, and the second is total evisceration followed by resurrection. Which are we using with Diane?”

That remark earned Rixu withering glances from Metokai and Nyze alike. “Much as I enjoy eviscerating people,” the baphomet gruffly explained, “it won’t be necessary in this case. We merely need to bring Diane’s soul into contact with demonic mana; I’ve modified a simple soulsight spell for the task. The process should be painless.”

“And pleasure-less,” Rixu observed drily. “Can’t we just take her to a demonic brothel and…”

“Rixu,” Nyze said flatly while fixing a warning glance on him, “if you’re so determined to get Diane laid, we can always use this circle to turn you into a demon and then you can go have sex with her. I’m sure Tess would be happy to give you some tips.”

Rixu mulled over the prospect of having that conversation with his new fiancé and decided the awkwardness would be too much to bear. “Er… suggestion withdrawn. More importantly, why set up a triple-casting circle for soulsight? Isn’t that overkill for such a simple spell? One caster could handle it easy.”

“Normally, yes,” Metokai said, her eyes scanning the silvery leylines for errors, “but the Hero’s Blessing is a god-tier enchantment… seven lines at least, and encoded in very archaic runes. We’re putting forth our three most powerful mages casting in tandem to ensure we thoroughly smash it. Even if our tool is a bludgeon, the wielders must still be masterful.”

“Those ‘three most powerful’ being yourself, Psytalla and Nyze?”

Metokai nodded. “Psytalla is the most powerful mortal being alive today, and my own magical skills are second only to hers. As for Nyze…”

“As for me?” Nyze inquired, leaning forwards as a carefully neutral yet coiled smile spread across her face.

“…Innovation is your strength,” Metokai continued, not missing a beat. “Your innate feel for the rhythm of magic allows you to react instinctively to circumstance changes that would stump any other mage. That, combined with your own prodigious mana through-rate, means we’ll be relying on you to keep the spell balanced even as Psy and I adjust the finer details.”

Nyze clapped her cheeks and mock-gasped. “Wow. Magical praise from Metokai? I might faint.”

“Please do so after we’ve completed the spell,” Metokai shot right back, smirking. “Everything looks good to me. Nyze, are you satisfied?”

The lamia gave the circle a final once-over before affirming. “Yeah. I think we’re ready.”

“Very good. Now all we need is Diane.”

******

Many sets of curious demonic eyes prodded at Diane and Psytalla as they made their way to the throne room, but neither paid much heed. Indeed, Diane had far greater worries on her mind.

“Do you think the Hero’s Blessing will be destroyed completely?” she asked, her brow creased with worry. “Or will it reincarnate into another as the scriptures prophesy? Will I be condemning some young babe to suffer as I suffered?”

“Dunno,” Psytalla responded. “Ask Skellish. If another Hero is inevitably born, it will still be two decades before they’re fit to fight. Plenty of time to find them.”

“And continue the cycle anew…” Diane muttered glumly.

“Once I slay the Nameless God and bathe in his blood, the cycle will be broken for good,” Psytalla stated with absolute confidence.

“Right..” Diane trailed off into awkward silence, searching for another conversation topic to distract from foreboding. “So… I don’t get to… like… pick my demon form or anything, right? Is it random, or…?”

“That’s a good question,” Psytalla replied cordially, grateful the conversation was moving in a lighter direction. “The goddess Skellish is the one who designed the process, so I consulted with some of her imp priests a few days ago to see if they had any insight. Their only response was ‘Diane will be pleased.’”

“That’s… vauge,” Diane grumbled. “And ominous.”

Psytalla agreed. “Creepy too, considering I hadn’t even mentioned your name to them. Suffice to say, Skellish appears to exercise some conscious control over the process and takes the subjects’ desires into account when crafting their new form.”

“But she doesn’t take requests?”

Psytalla glanced back at Diane over her shoulder. “Do you have a request?”

“Oh! Not really,” she responded sheepishly. “Just curious, I suppose.”

“Fair enough,” Psytalla said with a fading half-smile, returning her eyes to the corridor ahead. “Well, even gods aren’t infallible, as those hateful Thirteen constantly demonstrate. If you don’t like the end result, I know plenty of shaper mages who do good species change work. Here we are.”

The Demon Lord pushed open the doors to her throne room, which parted with the horrifying inhuman shriek expected of all well-oiled ceremonial doors in the Demon Realm. The skull-tinged expanse beyond, cavernous and aglow with eldritch light, brought to mind the last time Diane had been here. She shuddered involuntarily.

“Relax,” Psytalla said softly, extending her hand. “You’re not an invader this time. You are entering my hall as a guest, Diane.”

Diane gulped, nodded, and took Psytalla’s proffered hand. The Demon Lord guided the frightened girl to the very center of the magic circle, then took her place at one of its tripartite corners. Nyze and Metokai did likewise.

“Diane, this is a basic soulsight spell,” Metokai announced, lit from beneath by the silvery glow of the argentum leylines at their feet. “Us three will be triple-casting with the additional redundancy of a magical circle to firm it up against any divine interference from your Hero’s Blessing. We plan to push through the spell until the blessing is shattered, unless you ask us to stop or appear to be in physical, spiritual or mental danger. Does this sound good to you?”

Diane nodded, her jaw tightly set.

“Then let’s begin.”

Parallel casting was a complex art. It required anywhere from two to thirteen mages working in tandem, and they had to perfectly balance their mana’s output, color balance and frequency with each other while also mentally collaborating on speaking out the spell itself. If these mages were not perfectly synchronized, the spell would collapse as a result. Fortunately, the Demon Lord and her two companions had become quite close as of late, and consequently they wove mana in perfect tandem.

For this particular parallel-cast, everyone played to their strengths: Psytalla provided a huge amount of raw mana, Nyze controlled its flow through the spell circle and Metokai retained mental command of the spell, speaking the words aloud.

“The mystery of the inner self beckons!
Grant us the eyes to see what is hidden,
So that we may glimpse the beauty of spirit.”

As she spoke, sunrise-yellow spiritual mana bubbled from the ground, drifting upwards like miniature ethereal dandelion seeds. Diane felt one of them pass through her hand, then another through her chest; they left behind warm trails that throbbed in time with her heartbeat. The sensation was calming enough to pull up the corner of her lips into an almost-smile.

“SOULSIGHT!” Metokai proclaimed as she finished the spell. At once her eyes began to glow bright yellow, as did those of Psytalla and Nyze; Diane felt the warmth push into her core, reaching further and further…

Only to be suddenly repelled. Absolute cold gripped her heart and she yelped involuntarily.

Metokai ground her fangs. “The Blessing is resisting. Psytalla, please increase output.”

Psytalla obliged with a thrust of her hands, and the trio’s eyes glowed all the brighter.

“Almost… there…” Metokai grimaced, her eyes rapidly gyrating from one leyline to the next as she tweaked small aspects of the spell mentally. “Give it a big blast. Everything you’ve got.”

Psytalla let loose, and the whole room flashed neon. In that moment Diane felt the cold grip on her heart shatter, and warmth filled her every pore.

“It working!” Metokai exclaimed excitedly. Diane groaned and sank to the floor, her flesh beginning to ripple and morph…

Then, quite suddenly, the whole room was gripped by ice. The spell circle shattered in an instant, and Diane’s humanity reasserted. Before anyone could speak a word, the universe cracked open, and a booming voice erupted from within.

“THIS HAS GONE FAR ENOUGH!”

There was a spacetime explosion that hurled everyone, including Diane, backwards into the walls of the room. As their vision returned, they saw a massive human-shaped figure, easily towering over any giant and exuding incredible power. The entity was blindingly white and featureless, an outline of form rather than form itself, and it filled the room with its oppressive, chilled florescent glare. The sheer authority of his presence seemed to bend the laws of physics to his intolerable will.

The Nameless God had arrived.

******

“Gah!” Vynn shrieked as a piece of the ceiling very nearly beaned her. “What the shit was THAT?!”

Gary looked out with schooled impassivity on the shaking room as dust fell from the rafters. “Earthquake, maybe? Or a nearby volcano?”

“V-Volcano?!” Tess gasped as she clutched her drink in a white-knuckled grip.

“Either that or the giants are having a wrestling match in the basement again. I wouldn’t worry,” Gary said in his most soothing voice as another shock shook the room.

“A-Are we in any danger?” Tess pressed, with a wide-eyed Vynn nodding along to her question in time.

Gary tried to sound confident. “This castle has strong fortification enchantments. It will take more than a bit of shaking to bring the roof down.”

It’s a bartender’s job to make his customers feel at ease, Gary thought as the two nervously returned to their drinks. But seriously, what the hell is going on?

******

“You shall not violate my Hero any further! Return him to me at once!” the Nameless God shouted, every word causing the castle’s very foundations to rumble.

Psytalla rose to her feet and dusted off her armor, then drew her sword and pointed it at the god. She spoke, clear and controlled and strong.

“No.”

Nyze tried to stand as well, but found herself trapped by some icy, invisible pressure. Neither Metokai nor Diane seemed to be able to move either. It was as if they were seized in a great unseen iceberg, frozen to the marrow, wanting to shiver but unable.

Psytalla stood in front of them all, shielding them with her body.

Affronted by her defiance, the Nameless God wasted no time laying down his demand. “I will tolerate your impudence no longer, Demon Lord. The Hero Diarn is my property, and his destiny is mine alone to decide. You shall not corrupt him further.”

“Diane’s destiny is in her own hands,” the Demon Lord retorted, carefully emphasizing certain words. “She is under my protection. And your appearance in the physical realm is a clear violation of the Pact. Leave, now.”

“Bah! I will not have my Hero playing at being a woman OR a demon,” the Nameless God scoffed. “As for the pact…”

He raised his right hand, then brought it down to smash Psytalla. The Demon Lord swung her sword to block it, and seconds before the impact…

There was another spacetime explosion.

The Nameless God hurled backwards, yelping in pain as his giant form smashing through the wall of the chamber. Between him and Psytalla stood another divine figure of equal stature, with ashen blue skin, flared leathery wings, flaming red eyes and blackened horns.

“Get away from my Demon Lord, you WRETCH!” the eighty-foot-tall Skellish growled as she flexed her claws. She exuded an aura of darkness that swallowed up the Nameless God’s all-consuming light, and a mighty heat that cracked apart his ice. Suddenly Nyze found she could move again.

She immediately coiled protectively around Diane, who was trembling. Metokai clambered on top of the coil and cast her most powerful shield spell, which encircled all three of them in a defensive red glow.

“You are in violation of the Pact, you miserable excuse for a god,” Skellish barked. “Physical divine manifestations are not permitted on Goezia so long as our war continues. Leave, NOW.”

“You violated it first!” the Nameless God replied, suddenly sounding like a petulant child instead of an authority figure; indeed, too much of his authority depended on uninterrupted presentation. “You’ve been conspiring to subvert my Hero from the start. If I cannot have my direct representative, the Pact is meaningless!”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Skellish said dismissively. “If you hadn’t mistreated Diane, she’d…”

“HIS name is DIARN,” the Nameless God interrupted.

“You SHUT THE FUCK UP before I GUT you,” Skellish spat back back, which stunned the Nameless God into silence for a moment. “YOU failed to support Diane. YOUR CHURCH abused, used and dumped her. They excommunicated her! You have no claim here.”

“I never end-” the Nameless God began to protest.

“I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!” Skellish roared, her booming voice causing the entire castle to sway unsteadily as if caught in hurricane-force winds. “You’re really pissing me off. You want to fight right now? I don’t care if this whole universe is destroyed in the crossfire. I will OBLITERATE you.”

The Nameless God wasn’t sure if she was bluffing. An all-out divine battle between them would almost certainly rend this reality and its inhabitants in twain, but the blood-fury in Skellish’s eyes seemed very genuine. He decided to remain silent, albeit seethingly so.

Skellish folded her arms. “I didn’t think so. Now, scamper on back to your White Moon, coward.”

“Fine. I’ll leave… but I’ll never release him,” the Nameless God growled. “Diarn will be mine until he dies. And you can’t erase his Blessing, Skellish, without violating the Pact yourself.”

“You think that will stop me?” Skellish said, quirking one of her eyebrows. “Listen up, you sanctimonious hypocrite. I’ll be reporting your violation of the Pact to the Divine Mainframe. Furthermore, if you ever try to lay hands on one of my Demon Lords again, I will end you. I will erase you from existence so completely your friends won’t even remember to mourn you. Now LEAVE!”

The Nameless God shot a final featureless glare at Skellish, then cracked space open once more and vanished through. The room fell silent, except for a quiet sobbing coming from Diane.

“Harumph!” Skellish huffed, then shrank herself down to Psytalla’s size. “My apologies, dearest demons. Such an intrusion shan’t happen again.”

Psytalla sheathed her sword. “Thank you, Skellish. I had no doubt you’d protect me, but…” she held Skellish’s gaze, and silently indicated in the direction of Diane with her chin.

Skellish nodded and floated forwards, not bothering with gravity. She placed a gentle hand on Nyze’s shoulder. “May I see her?”

Nyze nodded and loosened her coils a bit, allowing the bleary-eyed and terrified girl to gaze upwards at the Goddess of Entropy.

“I’m sorry you had to witness that,” Skellish said gently, patting Diane on the head. “That man’s behavior was inexcusable, and his actions bring shame to the whole Divine Pantheon. Nevertheless, do not despair. I have a plan to free you from the Hero’s Blessing and transform you into a demon… one that lunkhead of a god won’t be able to interfere with.”

Diane blinked, and looked up at her blearily. “Y-You do?”

Skellish stood up straight, cocking her hip and flipping back her hair in practiced fashion. “Yes. It’s a quite brilliant and elegantly simple plan. You see, all we need to do is kill you.”

Diane wiped her eyes and stared back at the Goddess of Entropy, blinkered. “What?”