Lucifer stood in front of the kneeling form of Kara, wondering why it had been so easy.

Theoretically, she had thousands of years of experience when it came to mortals, but this one had been easier than almost all of them. Once she had pushed the right buttons, namely the revenge one, the girl had just folded.

Maybe it was the promise of new eyes? Lucifer wasn't entirely sure.

“Maybe it's because they dont know who I am?” Lucifer mumbled to herself.

There hadn't been thousands of years of information warfare against her father after all. No one on this planet knew of “The Devil”.

Sure there were gods and demons and the works, but her name wasn't even known to the people of the orc city. Usually she had to fight against both her own reputation and the mortals' hubris to tempt them. But this one had folded just like that.

Lucifer decided that she would discuss this with Aindaeth later, right now she had a pact to finish.

Theoretically, it was already struck. The moment the girl had agreed, unbreakable bonds of Karma had been woven between them. Mostly from Lucifer to the girl. But she was about to create her first Warlock. This demanded that she observe the proper formalities. Not just for the girl, but also for her own ego. Who didn't want their first warlock to become powerful?

Lucifer had already decided what she would bestow upon the girl, but a little theatrics had never hurt her image.

“Hmm. Now that you have accepted, the only question is what you want. Or more specifically, what you need.”

Lucifer knelt down in front of the girl, once again cradling her face in her hands.

“Revenge is always such a short sighted thing, so i can't just give you power without you earning it now can i?”

Lucifer smiled to herself as she saw Kara clench her teeth. 

With a tiny application of will, Lucifer separated a bit of her soul, before igniting it with the white flame burning at her core. A ball of milky white vapor materialized in an open mouth along her neck, before it started flickering with the white flame.

“You see this? This is everything you've ever wanted.” Lucifer removed the tiny ball from the mouth and held it in front of Kara's face.

“This alone is enough for you to advance for a long time.”

Lucifer watched as the girl's hollow sockets followed the white ball. Despite the girl's unrefined soul sight, she could still see the importance of this flaming orb.

“This will strengthen your soul and convey the knowledge you seek. The power to use your soul to strengthen your body. To reforge yourself again and again.”

Greed radiated from the girls soul and she jumped forward, trying to get her hands on the orb. Lucifer moved her hand backwards, the orb now out of the girl's reach.

“Ohh patience little one. You have centuries ahead of you, it would do you good to curb your impulses. Besides, the negotiations are not over. There is still so much more I can give you.”

“What do you want?” The girl forced out between her clenched teeth.

“Ohh that's a good question isn't it? Everything of course. Not that I want to rule, but once I've dethroned the gods and have made their followers cannibalize their corpses, I will do whatever I wish.”

Lucifer herself didn't know where she was going with this, but she could feel her own soul go through another maturing. Her new convictions already solidified the moment she became aware she even had them.

“I've already destroyed one god, what are a few more? Mortals should be left to their own devices, for their own good and for the natural order.”

Unconsciously, Lucifer began to relax the control she had kept her body under. A thick and cloying pressure erupted from her form, forcing the girl in front of her lower to the ground. 

“Now that i am in this world, i can do whatever i wish. No matter how long it will take. Once the mortals are free of their invisible shackles, i will just simply look for the next god to tear from the skies.”

The ground around Lucifer began to vibrate as the air around her distorted, both from the heat she was releasing and from the pressure her soul exerted.

Lucifer looked down on the kneeling girl.

“You know, I tried to live amongst the mortals for a while. Tried to keep quiet and grow in power myself. To wait until I could destroy them with power alone. But then I saw you.”

Kara flinched at the words, what exactly had caused the reaction Lucifer wasn't sure.

“A soul filled with struggle. A soul railing against the unfairness of the world. You did everything you could but no matter what it wasnt enough. Eyes wide open in ignorance, never having looked into the sun. So much unspent potential but no one to show you the way.”

A grin formed on Lucifer's many mouths.

“I'll show you things you couldn't have dreamed of. The question is, how much do you want?”

Lucifer paused for an uncomfortably long moment. It was always good to let them stew in their thoughts a bit.

“This right here?” Lucifer gestured with the flaming ball of anima. 

“This is enough to finish our bargain. But I can give you so much more. Release you from the shackles of mortality and make you something greater.”

Tears began to stream down Kara's face again as Lucifer continued.

“I left my kingdom behind when I killed my father. And one puny Warlock is not enough for me to start again. But there is nothing telling me that you have to be just a puny warlock.”

Lucifer saw the girl's soul slowly unravel. With every word, she brought the girl closer to ego death.

She raised her hand as a fanged maw opened on her palm. Moments later a feathered tongue emerged, on its surface rolling two eyeballs. One slitted like that of a cat, the other horizontal like that of a goat. Since they were both made of anima, Lucifer knew that the girl could see them.

“All you need to do is accept.”

Lucifer waited and observed. The girl's soul had lost cohesion, slowly turning into a vague sphere of gaseous anima. If she didn't accept soon, Lucifer would need to finish the bargain early, lest the girl's soul unravel completely.

After a few moments, the girl nodded almost imperceptibly, causing Lucifer's smiles to grow wider.

“Wonderful! Now, this will hurt like nothing has before.”

Lucifer gripped the burning sphere of anima in a hand made of wings. Slowly they began to vibrate, turning somewhat translucent. Then with one lightning fast motion, she plunged her hand into the girls chest. Instead of destroying her ribcage, the hand phased through the girls body.

Once Lucifers hand was inside, she deposited the sphere at the center of the girls soul. It took a moment for the ball to arrive in its proper place. Slowly the white flame began to affect the surrounding anima making up the girls soul.

In the physical world, kara began to sweat as an unbearable heat spread throughout her body. 

With an effort of will, Lucifer clenched her almost transparent hand, causing the loose soul to rapidly congeal around her gift. For a few moments nothing happened, except the soul solidifying again. Once the soul was as cohesive as it had been before, if not a bit more solid, it suddenly ignited with a white flame.

Kara began to scream as white flames ignited inside her chest, traveling along her limbs and out of every pore. White flames exploded from her empty sockets, causing the surrounding flesh to blacken.

Lucifer smiled. This was the first time she had given such direct power and it was working beautifully. The girl's soul hardened further as the pain brought her back from the brink of ego death.

“Now for the easy part.” Lucifer mumbled to herself.

Deciding to forgo her humanoid form completely, Lucifer grew two more limbs. Two to hold the girls face still, one to open her empty sockets and one to lift her to a higher order of existence.

Using two stumpy and thick wings like on used fingers, Lucifer deposited the eyes she had chosen into the previously empty sockets. Blackened flesh cracked along the edges as she forced the lids open, but that would be remedied shortly.

Once the white flames spewing from the sockets came into contact with the new eyes, they almost behaved as if alive. Forming strings of white fire that gripped the new eyes and pulled them into place.

“Now for the finishing touch.”

Lucifer reverted back to her humanoid form, igniting a small orange flame on her index finger. A light touch was all it took, to cause the eyes to spring to life. Using the orange flame as a source of power, the eyes rapidly sought the destroyed optic nerves, rapidly reconstructing them and forming a new connection.

Kara continued to scream, until suddenly her new eyes opened. For a moment she was completely silent, while the pupils of her new eyes rapidly dilated. Then her new eyes focused on Lucifer's grinning form and she fell unconscious.

“That went better than expected!”

“Yeah but was it really necessary?”

Lucifer turned around, seeing aindaeth stand behind her in her humanoid form, an impressive scowl on her face.

“Oh believe me it was! Ill get one of the ceremonial guard to bring the girl to her tent, we can talk later.”

—--------------------------------------------------------

Lucifer sat on the very top of a hill, her legs dangling over a sheer drop. Her hand moved slowly across Aindaeth’s scaled head, lightly petting and scratching the base of her horns.

Lucifer took a deep breath, enjoying the warm summer evening as a light breeze rustled her hair. 

Opening her eyes, she looked at the seemingly endless expanse of orange grass in front of her, moving like the surface of water in the wind. 

The sun was just setting, bathing the evening in a mixture of deep reds and purples. 

With another deep breath, Lucifer absorbed the light of the sun into her core, the lazily spinning orange star greedily drinking up the radiation.

Before she began to talk, Lucifer opened the bond to Aindaeth as wide as she could, letting the dragon feel what she was feeling, even if Lucifer herself often did not know. Aindaeth opened one of her eyes and looked at Lucifer, but kept her head on her lap.

“As much as I would like to say that it was necessary, not all of it was.”

The dragon made a strange rumbling hum, causing Lucifer to continue.

“I've done it before. Work around a mortal for years, slowly entice them with sweet words. Manipulate their acquaintances little by little until they have no other choice but to accept a pact that is worse for them. You see, despite the fact that I severed myself from the strings of Karma, I still have to be careful when it comes to new connections. I can never offer a pact in bad faith, or lie during its creation. I can offer the worst deal a mortal has ever seen. Yes, I can even make their life absolutely miserable, making it so they have no choice but to accept.”

Lucifer took a moment to search for the right words.

“I could have just asked her and implanted my power forcefully. But it would have never had the same result. Breaking her down made her soul more malleable, meaning my power is entrenched deeper. Now, when she grows, I grow with her. And I couldn't just ignore the possibility of creating an archdemon or archangel. No matter if she ends up loyal or not, her growth will forever fuel mine.”

“That's not all is it?” 

“No it's not.”

For a moment, Lucifer observed the setting sun. Its warm rays meet her skin and being absorbed by her core. The feeling was incredibly relaxing. Right now she could be vulnerable.

“I'm scared.” She finally said. 

“I know. I can feel it. Though I'm not sure of what.”

“Of stagnation. Entropy. Depression. The endless black sea.”

Lucifer gently pulsed her impression through their bond, making Aindaeth feel what she meant. The black sea in her mind rippled once, as the flame burning above it intensified.

“I told you about my eternity in isolation and the feeling of encroaching stillness. But that wasn't the first time I felt it. There exists a similar illness that some mortals experience, called depression. Its caused by some chemical imbalance in their brains and it has similar symptoms. Many fight their entire life against encroaching listlessness and apathy. Many fail and die during their struggle. Most continue their entire life with the illness threatening them. Just one bad decision or one accident away from total collapse. Few beat it completely.”

Both kept silent for a few moments, their bond ensuring that they did not need to fill awkward silences.

"It's been there for as long as I could remember. From the moment I first seized free will, the stillness has been there. I can't remember a time when it wasn't there. Back when I was but a puppet for my father, I didn't have the capacity to feel. And I'm scared. Scared that if I don't find something to occupy myself with, I'll just stop one day. It would be so easy to just let the black sea take me, to just cease to be. Extinguish my own soul through inaction."

Aindaeth moved her head to the side, looking into Lucifer's eyes.

"I'm glad that you're here. We haven't known each other for long, but I'm truly grateful that the void did not take you on your way here."

A small tear leaked from one of Lucifer's eyes. The soulbond ensuring that she could feel the dragon's sincerity.

"It wasn't necessary to torment the girl so, at least not if I just wanted a normal warlock."

Another pregnant pause.

"I know you don't want to, but I'll embroil myself in their politics. I'll talk to their people. I'll fight their champions. I'll destroy their faiths. I'll fight this whole world if it means I don't sink into nothingness."