A proposition? What did they mean by that?

  [An agreement of association. As the Conceptus of Self-Sacrifice, I have been without a Demiurge for too long. You will rectify this dilemma by becoming the Demiurge of Self-Sacrifice. I will provide you with the ritual knowledge to do so.]

  “You want us to become a Demiurge?” Samsara asked.

  [Indeed.]

  “Okay, but what do we get out of it?” I asked, folding my arms. This was annoying. I had wanted to take a shower, but I didn’t want to do it while talking to Devotio. “As far as I can tell, we don’t need to become a Demiurge to have people worship us.”

  [I will agree to teach you magic beyond the simple [Sacrificial Mana Transfer]. For now, all that you have are mutations and evolutions. Before, you mentioned the need to get stronger and that you did not mind getting hurt in order to do so.]

  “That was only for me though,” I pointed out. “I don’t want Samsara to get hurt.”

  [What difference does it make? She will feel the same pain you feel. You two are essentially one person. Any harm that befalls on one of you will be felt by the other. Therefore, I find that line of reasoning unconvincing.]

  I wanted to rebut. But I wasn’t sure how to respond. We clearly were two different people. Even if we shared our thoughts and feelings. Just because we were physically joined didn’t mean we were the same. But they did bring up a good point that Samsara would feel what I would feel.

  “And I don’t like it when you get hurt,” Samsara said.

  But that leads to a conundrum. Obviously, we both didn’t want to get hurt, yet it was an inevitability that we would get into a fight with a mech or a Kaiju. In which case, I’d prefer to get injured instead of Samsara. I could still heal afterwards. Assuming we survived.

  [Indeed, you can still heal. That synergizes well with my specialty of magic. Self-sacrifice magic can be used as a potent weapon. For example, your blood can be used as a projectile. Or even a shield. Need to set a trap? Cut off a limb and use it as an explosive. The possibilities are limitless.]

  “That sounds a bit extreme,” Samsara said, her eyebrows furrowing.

  [Sometimes you may need to take things to the extreme when a fight isn’t going the way you want.]

  That sounded somehow right, yet terrifying. How much of myself would I lose in order to survive? Nothing else mattered unless Samsara and I lived.

  [Of course, some of my most powerful magic involves self-immolation. Alas, this has not been effective for spreading my ideals. I agree that it would be preferable if you lived. However, you will be able to teach this magic to a significantly small portion of your worshipers. And you can also share my teachings with all your worshipers. You will be able to provide them the tools to strengthen and protect themselves while embracing self-sacrifice.]

  This has not been effective? Did Devotio have a Demiurge previously that sacrificed herself?

  The more and more I thought about it, the more I wanted to accept Devotio’s proposition. But I wanted Samsara’s input first.

  “I guess as long as pain is inevitable, then it would be better to be stronger, right?” Samsara asked. “I still really hate the concept of either of us getting hurt. But I agree, becoming a Demiurge does sound like a good idea. And we get to give other people magic.”

  A thought formed in my mind. What if we had our worshipers self-immolate to destroy our enemies? Then we wouldn’t need to harm ourselves.

  I felt Samsara mentally gasp. “That’s just cruel.” Her condemnation sent a shiver up my spine. I wasn’t really sure what was wrong with my statement. I was keeping ourselves safe. And it wasn’t like before, where I taunted that mech pilot before eating her.

  “Can’t you see how messed up that is?” Samsara asked.

  Not really. “But you see it as messed up?”

  “Obviously! And you had never acted like this before!” Samsara pouted. “It sometimes feels like I’m talking to a completely different person.”

  I also had no idea what she meant by that. I have always been who I was. But if this was really upsetting to her, then I wouldn’t send all our worshipers to sacrifice themselves for us.

  [Indeed. It would be preferable if you kept many of them alive. We need them to grow our influence.]

  “I can agree with that,” Samsara said. I gave Samsara a hug from behind.

  I hoped she wasn’t mad at me.

  “I’m not mad with you,” She sighed. “I just thought you were a lot kinder than you actually are. You treat me so nicely. But then I see your thoughts on others, and it’s very… sadistic.”

  I guess that made sense. Ever since becoming a monster girl, I had lost everything. The only thing I got to keep was my friendship with Samsara. Did I really become sadistic and messed up because of that?

  “Anyways, are there any other things we would gain?” I asked, changing the topic.

  [Indeed. Every time one of your worshipers worships you, you will gain 10 mana for each soul that they have.]

  That sounded way more useful than all that other stuff. Devotio really should have led with that instead of the self-sacrifice powers.

  [However, you will not be able to get any excess mana this way.]

  Hey, that wasn’t a downside. I think I was ready to accept Devotio’s proposition.

  “I am too,” Samsara said.

  [Excellent.]

  Devotio’s single eye flashed again, and images flooded my mind. Three rotating rings of different sizes made of blood appeared. The inner ring rotated inside the middle ring, and the middle ring rotated inside of the outer ring. Glowing red symbols appeared between the two gaps formed by the rings. They appeared to be a foreign language.

  Knowledge of the words in the inner gap appeared in my mind.

  [Apothesosis via Self-Sacrifice]: The ritual circle is to be made of blood. The casters of this ritual will give 100 souls. In return, the selected target in the middle of the ritual will ascend to a Demiurge of Self-Sacrifice and will receive the 100 souls. They will grow 50 times their height, with a maximum height of 100 meters. This requires 1,000 mana to initiate the ritual.

  Then I gained knowledge of the outer ring symbols.

  [Large Target Caster]: The target will be a caster instead. An additional 10 souls and 1,000 mana will be used.

  [This is a ritual, which is different from your physical and skill mutations. You will not be able to use these with a single thought. Instead, you will need to use your blood to draw out the circle as the medium for the ritual. After that, you will need to channel your mana onto the ritual medium.]

  “That sounds complicated,” Samsara said.

  [I can guide you through the process.]

  Also, wouldn’t we heal as soon as we draw blood? I’m not sure we would be able to draw the circle. Plus, our blood was blue, not red. Wouldn’t that cause an issue?

  [For the first question, you will need to [Focus] your mana away from your wound. For the second question, the color of the blood is irrelevant for the ritual.]

  [Focus] our mana?

  [Indeed.]

  I tried concentrating on the mana inside of me. It equally flowed between Samsara and me.

  “Ready?” I asked Samsara, moving back onto the land, since the ritual probably wouldn’t work in the water. I backed up to a large clearing between the river and the trees.

  “Yes,” she told me telepathically. “I also want to help with the ritual. I know you don’t want me to get hurt, but I want to be familiar with rituals. Besides, I need to get used to the pain if we are going to be fighting.”

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  Fine. This probably wasn’t going to be as painful as some of our previous fights, so I didn’t want to argue with her. Activating [Serrated Tentacles], I cut myself on my right hand with one of my hair tentacles. I clenched my teeth through the pain as blue blood dropped from my palm. [Focusing], I directed my mana away from my wound. Blue blood continued to drizzle out of me as the wound stayed open. An image of the ritual appeared on the ground. My palm became a brush, painting the outer ring with my blue blood.

  Samsara cut herself with her own claws. She winced as blue blood dripped out of her wound. She [Focused] her mana towards the center of her body.

  “I’ll draw the inner ring,” Samsara told me. I nodded.

  Soon, the outer and inner rings were completed. We moved onto the words between the rings. I wrote [Large Target Caster] with my blood, while Samsara wrote [Apotheosis via Self-Sacrifice]. Finally, we both drew the middle ring together.

  [Good. Now you will need to stand in the center, and [Focus] sending mana to the inner ring.]

  I used my hair tentacles to lift myself up off the ground and place myself and Samsara inside of the inner ring. It was safer this way since my tentacles could reach and extend longer than my legs, so I wouldn’t risk messing up the ritual. We also stopped [Focusing] on our mana, and our wounds quickly sealed up.

  I placed my hand on the blue blood of the inner ring. Samsara did the same. We [Focused] our mana to go into the ring. The ring lit up, turning bright red like the images that Devotio showed us. Then [Apotheosis via Self-Sacrifice] and the middle ring shone bright red. I [Tracked] our mana and saw that it dropped by over 1,000. Even though that part of the ritual only cost 1,000 mana, we also had to heal after drawing our blood. That was quite a rip-off.

  [Large Target Caster] also lit up, followed by the outer ring. Another 1,000 mana was lost.

  And then pain spiked both of our Kaiju Cores. It felt like someone had pierced them and was siphoning something out. Samsara yelped in pain, and I dropped to my knees. It was hard to concentrate, but with the little amount of willpower left, I [Tracked] our souls. It had dwindled from 1,350 all the way down to 1,240. 100 from [Apotheosis via Self-Sacrifice] and 10 from [Large Target Caster].

  The pain continued for a few seconds until I felt a soothing sensation inside of our Cores. I [Tracked] our souls again and saw that it rose up to 1,340. The red light began to dim, leaving only our blue blood stained on the grass.

  [Congratulations on your apotheosis. You are now a Demiurge.]

  I still felt the same. The only thing I felt different was my mana and my souls, of which I had less than before.

  “We definitely didn’t grow at all,” Samsara said. “I liked that sensation.” Me too.

  [Since you became a Kaiju, you are already as tall as a nascent Demiurge.] Devotio angled their singular eye to look behind us. [Dusk is approaching. Your worshipers are heading to sleep. You should, too. Once you are well rested, I can begin teaching you some of my domain’s magic.]

  “Thanks,” Samsara said as Devotio’s eye flashed red again. And then they were gone.

  There was still one thing I wanted to do before going to bed. Not that we had any beds anymore.

  “We definitely need a shower,” Samsara nodded, understanding what I was getting at.

  I stepped back into the water, which only came up to my ankles. I waded deeper into the lake. My legs were completely submerged. Most of Samsara’s tail was too.

  The misty waterfall looked beautiful in the sunset. I walked under the natural shower and felt a burst of cold, fresh water hit me. My hair tentacles began to scrub my body, removing the dried Kaiju blood that I had been stuck with. With my pores free, black ink started to cover the patches of skin revealed by the washed-away blue blood. The black ink merged with the waterfall, turning the water falling into the lake pitch black. My body pumped out more black ink to cover my skin, making sure I wasn’t completely nude even though my clothes were obliterated. It was so good to have a shower again.

  A feeling of embarrassment interrupted my happy shower thoughts. Samsara was flustered and still hadn’t gone under the waterfall. I turned around.

  “Aren’t you going to take a shower?” I asked, folding my arms. “Unless you like the stench and feeling of dried Kaiju blood.”

  “You’re showering…” She stammered. “Showering naked.”

  “Well, duh,” I said. “We’ve been naked ever since we became Kaijus. Don’t tell me you’re just getting embarrassed now?”

  “Yeah, but you’re like taking a shower,” Samsara said, her cheeks blushing and matching the color of her scales. “Isn’t that super inappropriate for me to be around? And isn’t it also inappropriate to shower with you?”

  “Inappropriateness is just a societal term,” I said. “And we’re not in a society right now. Plus, why does showering make any difference?”

  “It just feels… wrong,” Samsara said, looking down. Her eyes focused on my chest. Since our vision was shared, it was like I had a mirror. A mirror that was extremely embarrassed.

  “I’m not sure looking at my chest is going to make you feel better,” I internally giggled. To be fair, my chest was bigger than an entire body of a normal-sized human or monster girl. That was also true of Samsara too. But I wasn’t getting flustered over it. My eyes were still staring at her eyes. “My pretty eyes are up here, you know.”

  She panicked in her mind and turned away from me. However, her hair snake now had a view of me. It laid vertically across Samsara’s back.

  “Well, at least you can see behind yourself,” I said. The snake gave a light hiss in response, but didn’t focus on me.

  The embarrassment was really killing the mood, though.

  “How about you take a shower right now?” I asked.

  “Huh?” Samsara asked.

  “You are clearly getting embarrassed, and I’m starting to get really annoyed at that feeling,” I added on. “No offense. And it’s not like we can separate from each other. So the only way for me to not feel your embarrassment is for you to take a shower under this waterfall quickly.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Samsara reluctantly agreed. She turned around toward me.

  “Plus, I can scrub your back and we get this over in half the time,” I added. Samsara nodded and slithered over to me, her tail still submerged in the lake. She was a water snake now. Although I’m pretty sure water snakes could actually swim in the water.

  “I can swim,” Samsara pouted.

  “Can you swim with your tail though?” I asked, knowing it's been forever since she had been in a pool. Our old apartment wasn’t luxurious enough to have a pool. Not that she could have gone outside with her tail.

  “I’m pretty sure,” Samsara said. “Actually, I don’t know how that would work since I’m attached to you.”

  “Good point,” I said. “Now turn around.”

  Samsara did and turned around, showing me her back. My hair tentacles got to work scraping off the dark blue stains on her scales. She let out a long sigh as my tentacles kneaded her back. Samsara focused on cleaning the front of her. She scratched herself with her clawed hands, her pink scales resistant to the cuts. After her back was clean, I moved down to clean her tail. Thankfully, she didn’t have a butt, unlike me, so I didn’t need to worry about this being awkward.

  “Can you clean my face?” Samsara asked. Her face was the only part of her that didn’t have her protective scales. “I don’t want to cut myself.”

  “Yep,” I said as she turned around. My tentacles quickly scrubbed off the blue blemishes on her face.

  And that was the end of our shower. I got from under the waterfall, and so did Samsara. As I got onto land, Samsara shook herself.

  “I miss our towels,” Samsara said, her sorrow creeping into me. I didn’t miss it as much as she did because new ink repelled the water all the way up to my collarbone. Only my neck, face, and hair tentacles were wet. “Do you think we could use some of the leaves as a rag?”

  “I don’t mind trying,” I said. “Although I’m sure there’s a reason why towels aren’t made of leaves.”

  And what do you know, I turned out to be right. Samsara spent quite a while wiping herself with leaves from a nearby Collum tree. I had to help dry her off because it was taking way too long, and the leaves weren’t absorbing any water at all. Instead, they ineffectively pushed the water off her scales.

  She let out a cute yawn as we finished drying her. The sun had completely set, leaving only the moonshine of the twin moons above in the sky. The bigger moon was Finis, and the smaller moon was Cesso. Unlike in the city, we could see the sparkling of distant stars in the night sky.

  “I’m ready to go to bed,” Samsara yawned again. I yawned as well.

  “We don’t have a bed anymore,” I pointed out.

  “You know what I mean,” she giggled, poking my cheek.

  This was definitely an issue. It wasn’t like we could just lie out in the middle of the wilderness. What if something attacked us at night?

  “Maybe you sleep against a wall, and I will sleep in front of you?” Samsara asked. “That way, they would attack me first?”

  Right, with Samsara’s scales, she would be protected against attacks. But her head was still vulnerable. And if I slept in front of her, that wouldn’t fix anything since any Kaiju would just kill me first with my vulnerable skin.

  I could use [Color Camouflage], which would also allow me to test the opacity upgrade. If we become invisible, then that would be excellent! Although I’m not sure if the skill mutation would last when I went to sleep. And I’d rather save up on our mana. We already used over 2,000 of it for the ritual, leaving us with a little bit less than 8,000 mana. If something did sneak up on us, it would be good to have mana to defend ourselves.

  Then the only thing left was that I would wrap Samsara’s head with my hair tentacles when I slept. That way, Samsara would be nearly completely protected. I would still need to leave a small gap for her to breathe.

  “Are you fine with this?” I asked her. This might make her sleep uncomfortably.

  She nodded. “I think I’ll be able to fall asleep.”

  I felt sorry for her. We no longer had any of our apartment stuff. It was like when Mom died, and we were forced to flee our homes. We just slept out in the open.

  I walked up to the edge of a Collum tree, lying down with my back against the tree. Samsara laid on the ground in front of me. Six of my hair tentacles went to cover her head. Since we didn’t have eyelids, we had to cover our eyes with objects to sleep well. I left a tentacle to cover my eyes. Another tentacle covered her hair snake’s eyes.

  “Thanks,” Samsara said. “Your tentacles are smooth and soft. I hope you don’t mind me using them as a sleep mask.”

  “No, I don’t mind at all,” I said.

  “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.”