But Luo Shuangyue had forgotten to consider one thing: Demons weren’t like cats or dogs.
Their inherent aggression meant that within every hundred pounds of soft flesh, there were a hundred and twenty pounds of rebellious spirit hidden.
The Monster Girl she was currently holding captive wasn’t even one of her own Royal Guard, so her loyalty to Luo Shuangyue was pitifully low.
So if this Monster Girl found an opportunity and suddenly bit her, it wasn’t exactly an unforeseeable outcome.
The only reason she hadn’t tried earlier was because Luo Shuangyue had been on her guard, and the girl felt her chance of succeeding was slim.
But when the night deepened, with Xia Mo and Taya having fallen asleep fully dressed, and only Luo Shuangyue sitting on the floor spacing out, the Monster Girl decided her chance had finally arrived.
First, she imitated Xia Mo and Taya, closing her eyes as if asleep, all the while secretly watching Luo Shuangyue’s every move.
When she saw Luo Shuangyue begin to doze off as she kept watch, looking more like a statue than a living person, the rebellious thoughts inside the girl could no longer be suppressed.
Although her strength had been sucked almost dry—barely enough to keep her body stable—if she could just bite Luo Shuangyue, she might be able to turn the tables!
Her chance to overthrow the hierarchy had come!
With that thought, the girl suddenly opened her eyes and, without hesitation, rolled the short distance—barely half a meter—toward Luo Shuangyue.
Then, she opened her mouth and bit down hard on Luo Shuangyue’s calf.
It was tough—she had to use all her strength to finally break the black skin on Luo Shuangyue’s leg, and then, with considerable effort, she bit and bit, finally tearing off a small piece of black skin from Luo Shuangyue.
She swallowed her hard-earned prize, and instinctively began to digest the power within.
You have to eat food one bite at a time—eat too much at once and you’ll get a stomachache. She understood that much.
But the tiny bit of Demonic Energy she extracted from the black skin immediately made her eyes go vacant.
The mouth that had clamped onto Luo Shuangyue’s calf loosened, and her entire consciousness was subdued by the power contained in that trace of Demonic Energy.
It was as if she saw a god standing high above in the sky, as if she had seen the end of her own life.
Just that little bit of magic made her feel like her career as a Demon held no more regrets.
“Did this kid get too high?” Moving the now completely frozen Monster Girl to the side, Luo Shuangyue stared at the bite mark and drool on her own calf, her expression a bit strange.
She really had been spacing out just now, using Phantom Scythe as a microphone to chat with Phantom Thorn, but as soon as the Monster Girl lunged at her, she snapped back to her senses.
She’d wanted to see what the kid was planning, so she didn’t stop her.
Then she watched as the girl bit her calf and struggled with her sock for ages before making a hole.
If Luo Shuangyue hadn’t lowered the sock’s defenses out of pity, the kid wouldn’t even have gotten a taste of Demonic Energy.
After all, this kid had already been drained by Luo Shuangyue—her bite was no different from an ordinary girl’s.
Luo Shuangyue had absorbed her power, raising her own physical defenses to Demon-level.
Let’s just ask: have you ever seen a normal person bite through a Demon’s hide with their teeth? Luo Shuangyue certainly hadn’t.
“Letting lower-level Demons actively absorb your power is also a way for higher-level Demons to control them. Of course, you have to be in control—you can’t actually let her absorb your magic.” This was information Phantom Thorn passed to Luo Shuangyue through Phantom Scythe.
When it came to being a Demon Emperor, Phantom Thorn was quite experienced, and she knew a few ways to control lower-level Demons.
But the method she was teaching Luo Shuangyue wasn’t one she’d used often herself.
After all, Demons were born rebellious.
Even if you beat them half to death, they wouldn’t necessarily behave.
So when Phantom Thorn secretly developed Demon subordinates, she usually used more direct methods.
Beat them half to death and brand them with a Magic Energy Brand.
Once branded, they could only obey her orders.
But that method would turn the branded Demon into nothing but a Puppet, which conflicted with Luo Shuangyue’s current intentions.
What Luo Shuangyue wanted now was to extract the rebellious streak from the Monster Girl, let her grow naturally, establish her own understanding of the world, and see if she was different from other Demons.
She just needed the Monster Girl to be less aggressively hostile.
Phantom Thorn admitted Luo Shuangyue had given herself a real headache: if you want Demons to lose their aggression, you can only make them truly and sincerely accept you as their master.
The simplest and most reliable way was to let the low-level Demon eat your Demonic Energy, then use your power to subdue her.
So Luo Shuangyue began thinking about how to use her own Demonic Energy to conquer the girl’s heart.
But this silly girl simply lunged for her sock and, after just one bite, went completely blank.
“So… what am I supposed to do now?” The situation left Luo Shuangyue feeling helpless. Plans never keep up with changes, so what now?
“Her Demonic Energy should still be under your control. While she’s still out of it, seize her Original Magic Power!”
Original Magic Power?
Luo Shuangyue had her doubts—would directly targeting the girl’s Original Magic Power distort her consciousness? But she trusted Phantom Thorn enough.
She didn’t understand this stuff—just follow Phantom Thorn’s advice!
She placed her hand on the Monster Girl’s belly and sensed the fragment of her sock that had already reverted to Demonic Energy.
Then her fingers slowly moved upward, guiding her Demonic Energy through the girl’s body, inching closer and closer to the girl’s chest.
A Demon’s Original Magic Power moved all around their body without a fixed location.
For example, Luo Shuangyue herself didn’t even know where her own Original Magic Power was.
She just knew she had it, and she could use it, but could never pinpoint exactly where.
The Monster Girl was a textbook Demon—her Original Magic Power also usually wandered throughout her body.
But this time, it was especially well-behaved, obediently sitting where a human heart would be.
Inside a Demon’s body, the Original Magic Power wasn’t the usual black crystal seen by others, but rather a mass of energy much like ordinary magic, except it carried a Demon’s soul wave.
Right now, the Monster Girl’s soul was in a daze, the perfect time for Luo Shuangyue to seize the opportunity and leave a deep mark on her soul.
“Why do I feel like I’m some kind of villain brainwashing an innocent girl right now?”
If you ignored their roles and just looked at what Luo Shuangyue was doing, she was practically the big baddie from those unspeakable little games.
Using a shameless sneak attack to defeat an enemy girl from an opposing faction, stripping her of resistance with underhanded methods, then tricking her into eating something strange that made her completely lose it, and finally branding her consciousness, turning her into her possession.
Hey, this kind of thing, written out in detail, could probably fill tens of thousands of words, or even become a manga volume.
But what could Luo Shuangyue do? She couldn’t just do nothing and let a completely rebellious Demon wander at her side, could she?
Proper preparations were a must.
And according to Phantom Thorn, all she was doing was making this girl obedient, not erasing her self-awareness.
It was delicate work.
Luo Shuangyue spent over ten minutes blending just a bit of her own Demonic Energy into the girl’s Original Magic Power.
She’d carefully calibrated the amount—too much and the girl would become a total Puppet, too little and the girl might occasionally ignore her orders.
Finding that sweet spot wasn’t easy.
Once she’d finished, Luo Shuangyue finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The girl still stared ahead with vacant black eyes and a slightly open mouth, looking completely played out.
She still hadn’t recovered from that taste of magic.
“Had enough?”
“What do you mean, ‘had enough’… Xia Mo? Why are you awake?” Luo Shuangyue reflexively replied, then suddenly realized something was wrong.
Right now, the only ones awake should have been herself and the Monster Girl, so who just spoke to her?
That wasn’t Taya’s voice, so the answer was obvious.
Luo Shuangyue turned her head slightly, and saw that Xia Mo, who’d been sleeping a moment ago, was now sitting up, her eyes focused intently on the hand Luo Shuangyue had pressed to the girl’s chest.
Following Xia Mo’s gaze, Luo Shuangyue had to admit that her hand placement was, well, a little suggestive.
“Ahem, Xia Mo, don’t get the wrong idea, I was doing something serious!” Luo Shuangyue quickly withdrew her hand, earnestly declaring her innocence.
For anyone to be interested in the Monster Girl’s body, they’d have to be the kind of degenerate who’d kill their catch on the spot, and Luo Shuangyue was obviously not that kind of person.
“I’m really not into that, seriously!”
“I believe you. So, care to explain what happened to your leg?”
“She snuck up and bit me when I wasn’t looking—she even tore my sock! See, there’s still a drool stain here.” Luo Shuangyue pointed to the dark, damp patch on her sock, complaining like a schoolkid tattling to a teacher.
I really was completely passive this time—the kid pounced on me and gnawed on my sock, then collapsed like she was high. I’m just taking good care of her, right?
But Luo Shuangyue also knew that leaving her sock all chewed up looked pretty bad, so she gently rubbed the torn area, using a touch of Demonic Energy to repair the damage.
She could now use some Demonic Energy for daily chores—fixing clothes was no problem.
“So what’s with her looking all spaced out now?”
“Uh, maybe my magic was too tasty and she got lost in the flavor?”
Xia Mo’s gaze sharpened as she leaned in, closing the distance between them to just a few centimeters.
Luo Shuangyue could clearly feel Xia Mo’s faintly sweet breath on her face.
Those eyes—dark with a hint of purple—locked right onto Luo Shuangyue, and Xia Mo didn’t say a word, just stared at her.
She knew Luo Shuangyue was lying, knew she was hiding something.
So she interrogated Luo Shuangyue with her eyes.
She wanted to know what Luo Shuangyue was keeping from her.
“…I just did a little trick, to keep her from causing trouble,” Luo Shuangyue said, eyes wandering. “It’s pretty common among Demons.”
She felt a bit guilty—not because she thought what she’d done was wrong, but because brainwashing others wasn’t something she wanted kind, good Magical Girls like Xia Mo to know about.
Let me bear the darkness. Xia Mo, you can remain the carefree Magical Girl under the sun.
That was probably her thinking.
Xia Mo kept staring into Luo Shuangyue’s eyes.
She knew Luo Shuangyue still wasn’t telling the whole truth.
So she chose a slightly more aggressive way to show Luo Shuangyue her feelings.
You don’t have to carry the burden alone. You don’t need to be some lone hero, because you’re not alone—
I am here by your side.
Even if the whole world hates and fears you, I will not abandon you.
Even if you’ve become a Demon, I will still embrace you and offer you my passion.
“Hmm?”
At such close distance, and with Xia Mo’s sudden move, Luo Shuangyue had no time to react.
By the time she realized what was happening, Xia Mo had already pried open her mouth and launched her own invasion.
Wasn’t this a bit too domineering? Luo Shuangyue’s mind went blank—she felt as if Xia Mo had two personalities: gentle and soft most of the time, but incredibly aggressive when she acted.
Clearly, Luo Shuangyue should have been the one on the offensive, but it seemed like Xia Mo always took the initiative, launching attack after attack, leaving Luo Shuangyue utterly defeated.
Luo Shuangyue tried to resist a little, but her feeble struggle was more like a kitten batting at its owner with soft paws—just making the cat lover even happier.
Ten minutes later, a slightly flushed Xia Mo finally released Luo Shuangyue’s head.
“Now do you understand my feelings for you?” she whispered.
Feelings and all… they’d definitely come through, but Luo Shuangyue still couldn’t figure out why Xia Mo had to go about it this way.
Isn’t there a chance that, if you just stared at me a bit longer, I’d spill everything to you anyway?