Chapter 344: Gods Work in Confusing Ways

"What are they doing?" Muttered Belladonna, as she stared out at the war-camp that they discovered.

The camp itself was down a small slope, giving the party a high ground advantage to scope out the enemy, even if they did still have to deal with the flying Eye-Spies.

A group of demons had gathered around one of the stone-frilled lizards, were shouting at it or each other as they dealt with it. Although, they weren’t trying to kill it, from what they could see, or if they were they were doing a terrible job of it.

One of the demons, a Roider, was holding two chains with its hands, with each chain attacked to a harpoon that had been lodged into the lizard’s frill, keeping it open and forbidding it from closing it. The lizard was nowhere near any tunnel that could have been its hunting ground.

As for the other demons, they were gathered around the beast as they lashed at it with whips, this time made out of leather and not bone, and kept trying to get close to the beast. Whenever they tried however, the lizard would whip back with its own tail, or swipe at them with its claws.

That was the cause of the shouting, as they exchanged blame and encouraged others to step forwards and be the next to try.

Upon their ridge, the members of Fate Breakers kept low and watched with a mix of confusion and interest. Throughout this entire dungeon the demons had showed very little intelligence, and displayed almost robotic mentality towards attacking them. It was just like any other NPC in a normal game.

So whilst this wasn’t odd outside, it was strange to see here.

The only one that showed any adaptability had been the boss, Vi’fer, but even she was locked into her patterns when it came to the fights.

Speaking of fights, the demons had finally made progress. One of them, a classic red and horned demon that they didn’t see in the wandering groups, had managed to dart past the lizards defences and leap onto its back.

The demon wrapped its arms around the lizards neck and wrestled it to the ground. The shouting increased, as one of them threw a brand to the wrestler, a brand that immediately heated up from stone cold to red hot as soon as it was in his grasp.

The lizard screeched and its flesh sizzled as the brand was pressed against the nape of its neck, before finally its struggles died down with one last weak tail lash.

The Demon’s cackled and joked with each other as the lizard’s entire body grew relaxed and limp and as its eyes glazed over.

Saige shuddered in a deep and primal disgust at the sight of that. His eyes followed the brand that the demon was currently waving around, as his fur stood up on end. Every single part of his boy, especially his mana, was boiling and bubbling in a mixture of disgust and rage at what that brand represented.

"They’re enslaving it..." He muttered, finally giving Belladonna her answer. "We have to stop it, now."

"What? Why?" Belladonna couldn’t help but ask.

Saige glanced at the enslaved lizard as it was led back into the camp and towards a bundle of cages containing similar glass eyed lizards, before looking back at his sister with utter disgust and hatred.

"Because it’s wrong. It’s disgusting, on many personal levels. But it also goes against everything that is natural and holy with the beast god.

If I turned my back on this, I could be smited by the Beast Lord or simply abandoned by them. But that’s not why I want to do it."

Figg frowned deeply, tilting his head in confusion.

"Wait... So your God is okay with us slaughtering a bunch of them for loot... but not for capturing them? And what about that one?" He asked, gesturing to Gaia who was laying on her back, enjoying Lilith’s belly rubs.

"That’s different." Saige scoffed, "That is a bond. Mutual, consensual and can be broken by either party if things get too bad. The same goes for familiar bonds. They work both ways, each benefits from it.

It’s Symbiosis. It’s natural. Slavery... Slavery is none of that. It is forcible, unnatural submission that only leads to abuse and taking advantage of something. And that kind... that kind strips everything away from something, and turns it into just a mindless drone.

It’s disgusting and unholy."

Belladonna stood up as she sighed heavily. She stretched her arms over her head, bending right back to crack her back, and performed a few more stretches.

"Alright, Alright. We get it. But you have to admit, your God’s rules are kind of weird. But so long as we don’t get in trouble for killing, they can work in whatever confusing ways they want. Guess that’s the benefit of being a God."

She laughed, before rolling her neck and starting to bounce on her toes.

At the very least, this was a good time to test out the improvements she had made to her body. Although the Berserkers scroll was not useful on its own, Belladonna had cannibalised some of the glyphs that it used to create its power.

A Glyph was now carved onto her chest, right above her heart, and four more were carved onto her limbs. One on each of her biceps, and one on each of her thighs.

This resulted in her own, more controlled version of the Beserkers Scroll. One that would enhance her body, and keep her mind intact. A power boost that meant she didn’t have to always rely on her transformation to boost her, and could reserve that for the real threats.

This boost didn’t rely on anger or bloodlust to power it, instead it drew out the body’s own secret power up juice. Adrenaline.

The body did not naturally use 100% of its power. If it did, you could easily kill yourself on accident or seriously harm yourself. Hysterical Strength was the body being forced past the natural, subconscious limiters that the mind put in place to stop this and use that hidden strength in a moment of crisis.

By pouring mana into her heart glyph, it would mimic the effects of the natural jet fuel and pour that into either one or all of her limbs, granting her an extended hysterical strength.

At the moment, Belladonna’s talents didn’t get her quite hit the 100% mark, and over using it could exhaust or damage her. But despite all of that, as she churned the mana into the mark, her muscles bulged and veins wriggled beneath her pale skin before she took a single step and disappeared with a whisper.