Now that I was no longer in my master's presence, all the feelings of needing to submit cleared at once. I growled in irritation and shame as I equipped my gear again. I pulled up my map and located the Hell Gate. I headed that way silently after summoning 2 demon warriors. I glared at them for a moment but realized that the night before they had just been obeying the commands of their summoner’s master. We made our way to the giant orange portal and stepped through it without a second thought. I found myself in a town that looked remarkably similar to the one I had started in. Things were a bit more dark and drab, but overall it seemed pretty much the same. The biggest change of course, was the Demonspawn walking around. 

As I made my way through town, each of the players I passed looked at me with awe. It wasn’t long before I had amassed a large crowd of low-level players around me, and I lost track of the amount of party invites I received. If this wasn’t a non-combat zone, I would have grabbed my sword and cut down the lot of them. I rejected all the party invites and turned off my party system. If only I could lose the noisy crowd of players around me as easily… Suddenly, an idea occurred to me. I summoned 10 more demon warriors, 6 demon mages, and 3 dark priestesses, and commanded them to make a wide circle around me, preventing any of the players from getting close to me. I smiled as my army kept the swarm of players at bay. I walked slowly, making sure that my army could keep up with me and made my way over to a large bounty board. Due to the large number of low level players, most of the bounties weren’t even worth looking at. I considered grabbing a few that were level 14 before finding one that finally caught my eye. It was listed at level 25 and suggested party members be levels 25-35. The bounty was for a lesser demon lord known as Scalander and his army. As I grabbed the bounty, it flashed red in my hand. I read the bounty again and realized it called for a minimum of 2 players in a party.

“Well… shit. So much for doing this solo.”

I looked around at the players still attempting to make it past my demon army and sighed. I pulled up the active players list and sorted it by level. The second highest level near me was a level 13 Demonspawn Mage. I set a goal marker on them and made my way through the town. I arrived at a small tavern, and I told my army to wait outside and prevent anyone from coming in. Once inside the tavern, I walked over to a table of four other players, plus the one I had been searching for. They ignored me for a moment, until one of them looked up and saw a level 24 standing behind them.

“Holy shit, Em! Look!”

They each turned and gaped at me, looks of awe and disbelief on their faces. One of them stood up and towered over me despite my impressive height. He was easily 8 and a half feet tall and judging from the heavy mail and the large axe on his back, he was a warrior class. He leaned in towards me and inspected me closely.

“What are you? You’re not like any Demonspawn I’ve ever seen. You barely look human.”

He turned towards the group at the table and shrugged.

“I bet I can take her. Stupid bitch probably cheated her way to get that high and has no real skill to back it up.”

Despite the fact that he was partly right, I knew that I was a competent gamer who was confident enough in her own skills to play solo more often than not. With my in-depth knowledge of RPGs and the insane stats and gear of this character, I knew that he stood absolutely no chance. I looked back at him and rolled my eyes as I saw his level; 11. As he sent me a very public invite to a PvP duel, his friends laughed.

“Ten gold pieces says she kicks your ass in less than a minute, Bray.”

I looked at the person commenting, and saw that it was the level 13 mage I had been seeking. She was a spritely little thing, probably standing just a bit taller than my real life 5’2. She was quite a bit more shapely than my real body especially up top, and she wore her raven hair short in a pixie cut. She was actually really cute, and I found my body becoming aroused.

Not now. Not now. Not now.

“I’ll make a wager with you, Bray. If I can beat you without attacking you, one of your party members joins my party instead and helps me with one of my bounties.”

He scoffed at me and shook his head.

“And what do I get when I beat you down?”

I moved close to him and placed my gauntlet on his chest plate.

“If you beat me, I’ll let you do whatever you want to me and give you my armor and weapons.”

“Oh shit, now this I wanna see!”

One of his group shouted out and the rest of them cheered in agreement. I motioned with my head towards the exit, and I walked out of the tavern with the small group in tow, and the rest of the players in the tavern behind them. I pulled one of my dark priestesses close to me and spoke down into her ear.

“I’m going to duel this moron. Make sure to tell my army to keep back and let me do the fighting, but also to prevent any of the other players from interfering.”

She nodded and made her way through the circle of demons. Bray looked at the large circle of warriors, and realization showed on his face that I may not be as much of a cheater as he claimed. I accepted the dual invitation, and a 30 second countdown started.

“I’ve instructed my army to let me do the fighting, so they will not interfere in our duel.”

“Yeah, whatever cheater, this will be over before you even know what hit you.”

I sighed through my nose and looked at my inventory screen. I unequipped my sword and shield, but realized my defense was still probably too high for him to do enough damage for what I had in mind.. I unequipped all the pieces of my armor except my circlet and stood in my chainmail shirt and leggings.

“What the hell is she doing? Why did she take off her armor? Is she crazy? She has no weapons? Did she say she wasn’t going to attack him but she’d still win?”

I heard questions buzz all around me, but I closed my eyes briefly and then reopened them as I focused on the clock in front of me. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.  Bray charged forward like I knew he would, and I moved to intercept him. Instead of striking him, I moved my body in front of him and made myself a wide-open target. I knew that this was going to hurt like hell, but it would end up hurting him even more. He swung his axe in a wide arc over his head and brought it down on my shoulder. I felt it cleave through my arm and stop once it met the bone of my ribcage.  A look of triumph on his face was quickly replaced by one of horror as the jewel on my circlet glowed brightly and a lance of flame engulfed him. He screamed loudly and fell back, his entire body burned to a charred black. Exposed meat and bone could easily be seen through the tattered remains of his armor, and he wailed from the pain. I looked at my HP and gritted my teeth. He had knocked me down to a fraction of my health with one swing, but he had paid dearly for it. I motioned for my dark priestesses to come over, and I gave one the instruction to heal me, while the other healed the idiot laying on the ground.

“I don’t cheat, asshole. I had to go through a lot of shit to get this high and I have the experience and gear to prove it.”

A hush had fallen over the crowd, and as Bray stood up, he had a look of awe painted on his face.

“I um… I’m sorry. That was fucking awesome! What the hell did you use for that?”

I smiled at him and offered him my hand. He shook it vigorously and the rest of his group surrounded me. I equipped my gear and smiled at each of them. The level 13 mage stepped forward and introduced each of the members of her group.

“I’m Emelia. I’m the group’s destruction expert primarily focusing on Ice Magic. This is Jade. She’s our healer slash necromancer. The tall skinny guy is Scythe, he’s our dark paladin who uses heavy armor and enchantment magic. The short guy in the back is my brother Aeryn. He’s playing a dark paladin commander, ‘cause he couldn’t figure out which specialty to go with, so he picked a one that uses all three Paths. And… you’ve already met our meathead warrior, Braylon. Or… Bray as we like to call him. That was… fucking epic. I’ve never seen someone win a duel like that. I’ve… also never seen someone with as high of a level as yours either. You must have grinder like crazy since the game came out to reach that level, and then some. What class are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”

I swiped my finger over the character reveal button, and I displayed my character screen to the small group.

“What the heck is a Demon Paladin Commander.”

I sighed and figured if I was going to get help in my quest to level up, I would have to start making new allies.

 “Let’s go back into the tavern and I’ll tell you.”

We walked back inside the tavern, and my army resumed blocking the crowds from entering behind me.

I told them about all the events that had taken place since I started playing the game, what it was like being an Angelspawn, chasing after that super evasive enemy, the confrontation and eventual corruption of my original character, and then everything that my master had put me through.

Emelia sighed through her nose and looked at me with a slight frown.

“While the results of it all are… awesome… I’m sorry about the whole ‘master’ thing. Do you think he’d let you join a clan?”

I thought for a moment and shrugged.

“I don’t think he cares one way or another. He did say I’m free to do what I want as long as I… service him… but I’m not sure how he’d react. I mean… What's the worst he can do, really? If he kills me… I’ll just revive back at the castle and be forced to grind my levels up again. But that wouldn’t make me a very good servant, so I don’t really foresee him doing that. I mean… he already made my demons gangrape me… so… I’m pretty sure he can’t do anything to me that I haven’t already been through.”

I smiled as a clan invite popped up on my HUD, and I cocked an eyebrow at Emelia.

Would you like to join The Lost and the Damned?

I clicked on the yes button, and the group around me let go of the breath they had been holding. I also accepted the party invite, and their names appeared on the side of my HUD.

“Welcome, Allexus. We’re a small clan, but we are pretty bad ass. Well… some of us who don’t charge blindly into battle are anyway.”

“Hey! How was I supposed to know she was a fucking demon queen of fire and death?”

I laughed and smiled at the enormous warrior sitting in front of me. As I pictured something about him I probably shouldn’t have, a question popped into my mind.

“Hey, do you guys have Corruption Meters? I know as an Angelspawn I did, but… how would that work as a Demonspawn?”

“We have Redemption Meters. Getting hit with Holy Weapons or being around Angels or Angelic creatures causes it to go up. If it maxes out, we lose our powers and become completely human. I’m uh… not sure what happens if our corruption maxes out though, if that’s what you’re asking. Why? Thinking of offering us up to your Demon Lord?”

She laughed and playfully kicked my shin with her toe. She shot me a flirty grin and ran her foot up my leg.

“No, nothing like that… just having naughty thoughts of my own. But… before we get down and dirty, let’s talk leveling. How would it work if I took you guys into this level 25 bounty with me?”

“Holy shit… level 25? We’d like… get slaughtered instantly. Well… the rest of us would anyhow. If we somehow managed to survive though… we’d gain assloads of XP. I may not be able to do much beyond hiding behind your Demons, as much as it pains me to admit, but I’m still game.”

Bray gave me a thumbs up and punched me in the arm gently. The others nodded and turned towards me.

“Well, Demoness Allexus, lead the way.”

You have been promoted to Party Leader!