A long time ago, shortly after the end of the First War, there had been a pitiful doppelganger who couldn’t transform at all. The only form it could maintain was that of an old doll that a child had abandoned during the war. Despite its weakness, the doppelganger was a genius, but it had no way to express its intellect.

This failure of a doppelganger was the one known as Mae.

It had been on the Lower Continent, barely managing to avoid being attacked by the vicious monsters. The day that it met him was a fateful day, an auspicious day.

One day, Mae had been resting after a long day of walking, since it was a doll, even moving a mile took it hours, sometimes even over a day. Suddenly, a fearsome beast descended from the sky! The monster told Mae that it was a dragon, and not just any dragon, the fifth dragon, Erebus!

The dragon allowed Mae to travel around with him, saying that he was bored and that traveling was fun when he had someone to accompany him. And since the doppelganger was incapable of speaking, Erebus didn't have to worry about becoming annoyed.

A few decades after they had first met, the dragon offered Mae a piece of one of his scales, he wanted to see what would happen if Mae ate the scale.

Mae “evolved” for lack of a better word. She gained her first real and insanely power form, along with her own special type of magic「 Unique Magic: Gravity Control」.

Needless to say, the Dragon Council found out and was outraged, ordering Erebus to kill Mae since she was an unnatural creature. But Erebus revealed a shocking truth, when he allowed Mae to eat a piece of him, he also gained complete control of her soul. It was some convoluted reason that he had explained, but essentially, since he was immeasurably more powerful than Mae, her eating his scale lead to her being “absorbed” by his own soul.

So, they were bonded. She became a piece of him.

And because of this, he was able to place a restraint on her strength, along with killing her without even having to lift a finger. Ayirn and Azure were endlessly intrigued by this, so they made a bet with Erebus on how long they all thought Mae would last until she was completely devoured by Erebus’ soul and thus, died.

Technically, she wouldn’t die but become a piece of Erebus, but it was the same thing as dying.

Anyway, Mae managed to escape a death sentence. She and Erebus traveled together for a few more decades before splitting apart, only coming into contact with each other once in awhile. It was during the time of their travels that the two had met Triton, Erebus had been in his female form and thus Triton was overwhelmed by the two beauties and nearly exploded of happiness.

That was beside the point, not only had Mae gained her own power, she was also able to transform freely. Mae began to frequently change her name and appearance on a whim.

More or less, that was her story. And that was why in the current day, she was emitting such a terrifying aura.

“I wonder if you’ll be able to satisfy me,” Mae said to Lucifer, who had gone on his guard. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you.”

Lucifer narrowed his eyes, this woman was exceedingly dangerous, wasn’t she?

"Provide us with good entertainment," Erebus said, leaning back in his chair. "Ah... Stone use「 Defense Magic: Create Barrier」."

"Of course," the ginormous demon responded and activated his magic.

「Defense Magic: Create Barrier 」basically protected a designated area, any damage done to the nonliving surroundings would be reversed when the spell was completed.

It was a useful spell and commonly used during duels. Its levels of effectiveness were strongly reliant on whoever the caster was.

Lucifer ground his teeth. “Satan, will you deal with her? I am going to fight Erebus.”

“Seriously? You want to do that?” Satan clicked his tongue. “Fine. Just be glad if he doesn’t kill you.”

Lucifer narrowed his eyes. “Would it harm you to act with any type of dignity? You are aware that you are a Prince, correct?”

“What are you, my mother?” Satan retorted.

“Are you two finished?” Erebus intervened. “If you want to challenge me, I have no qualms against that, but, I can’t guarantee that you’ll live. I’ll try my best not to kill you, ‘kay?”

Since Rolut would yell at him if one of the Princes ended up dying, which would consequently tip the scales in favor of the angels. The Dragon Council was supposed to be in a position of neutrality typically except for in extreme cases, meaning Rolut would be angry.

Not to mention Rolut, but the others, too... They were all so loud, Erebus didn’t want to hear their mouths.

“Ah, but you have to wait until those two are finished, what’s the point of letting Mae fight someone if I don’t even get to watch it? I’ll deal with you later, so sit.”

Lucifer wasn’t sure why, but he found himself obeying what Erebus told him. There also wasn’t any real reason for him to not sit down, finding Laufeia would be done inevitably, and it seemed the only thing holding Erebus back from telling Lucifer where Laufeia was located was that Erebus wanted to see them fight.

So, he’d humor this fool and get on with it.

Now, Mae and Satan faced each other.

The former being overly eager to fight while the latter was quite reluctant. Satan loved to fight, undoubtedly, but he hadn’t prepared himself for this mentally, y’know?

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He wasn’t psyched up for this duel. He had absolutely no interest! Well, she did seem insanely powerful, so it’d be one of the rare times he got to fight without holding back.

“Whatever... I don’t care anymore.”

“You’re not going to use any weapons?” Mae asked Satan.

The redhead shook his head. “And you?”

“Nope. Could it be that we were destined opponents? Actually, you’re kind of cute. Why don’t you stay the night?”

“Hopefully not,” Satan responded bluntly. “Besides, there’s no way I’d take such a dangerous woman like yourself to my bed.”

Mae smiled bitterly. “What a shame... Well, let’s get started, shall we?”

With a silent agreement, the two engaged each other.

Their bodies were moving so quickly that only Erebus, Triton, and Lucifer could keep up, while the others, especially the young Xaltiq and Wolf, could barely tell the difference between Mae and Satan.

For those who could tell, it was obvious to see that Mae was actually overpowering Satan. It wasn’t that she was physically stronger, but rather, she used her versatile magic to increase the strength behind her punches right before they landed and she also used it to weigh down Satan so that he didn’t move as quickly.

On her face, there was a fearsome smile that seemed to stretch from ear to ear as she and Satan fought.

“Come on now,” Mae taunted. “This can’t be all you’re capable of. Don’t tell me you’re holding back... that’s such a naive thing to do.”

“I’m not holding back at all,” Satan responded easily.

Despite the fact that he was being pressured by Mae, Satan remained calm. Mae took this to mean that he was hiding something or else he would seem to be more strained.

“Liar.” She delivered a roundhouse kick which Satan attempted to block against. Instead, he was sent flying into the edge of the barrier. The force of him hitting the force field caused a large crack to appear before it patched itself up.

“Go easy on me,” a voice rumbled in the background. “Lord Erebus, hold my hand... Eh, why did you grab my hand instead? I wanted a love-love moment with my master!”

The azure man who had been in the corner had raced over and grabbed Stone’s hand. “I couldn’t hold myself back any longer.”

“Eii! Don’t taint me, I’m still pure, I’ve kept my chastity for Lord Erebus.”

“What? You too? Hmph, too bad, I have first dibs,” the exquisite woman next to Erebus spoke up, puffing out her chest.

An incredibly annoying conversation continued on in the background, not at fitting with the current scene.

Satan had grabbed Mae by her ankle during one of her kicks and swung her into the ground. The ground collapsed from underneath the two and they fell onto a lower level.

From the throne room, Satan and Mae breaking through the floor multiple times could be heard as the castle rumbled and shook violently.

“Stone... you didn’t apply the barrier to the floor?”

“I may have forgotten.”

“You get to be used in one of his experiments then.”

“Aiya! Lord Erebus, you wouldn’t do such a cruel thing to me, would you? Vy--he’s so heartless, how could you allow him to use me in such a way?”

“It’s too late, it’s been decided.”

Outside, Mae and Satan had somehow managed to leave (break through) the castle and were now fighting each other out in the grassland.

“You’re stronger than I thought you’d be,” Mae remarked, wiping the blood from her mouth.

Mae’s body was originally weak, so she wasn’t able to completely harness the powers she had been granted. And since her body was still unstable, using her powers to this extent did have adverse effects on her body after prolonged usage. She had been under the impression that she would win quickly, but she was greatly mistaken.

Well, Satan wasn’t a small fry. The Four Princes being considered to be on the same level as high-rank dragons wasn’t an exaggeration. Since Mae was also on that level, it wouldn’t be wrong to say they were evenly matched.

“The same goes for you,” Satan responded. His knuckles were cracked and bleeding profusely, and he had also incurred multiple wounds from Mae.

Both of them were bloodied and bruised.

“I’m sorry... but, I’ll have to cheat, there’s no way I would be allowed to live if I lost against you,” Mae said with a wry smile.

Satan was about to respond, but he found himself unable to open his mouth. An unseen force was pulling and pressing him down, soon enough, his knees buckled and he fell to the ground, his face glued to the grass.

His muscles bulged as he summoned all of his strength in a desperate attempt to counter the pressure, but it wasn’t enough.

Mae walked over, her shadow looming over. She raised her foot, completely unaffected by the gravitational pull, but then as if fell, she increased the pull on her foot greatly causing it to fly down and slam into Satan’s head.

She didn’t strike with enough force to kill him, but, he was rendered unconscious almost instantly. Mae silently transformed back into the cat-earred blonde and patted the head of Satan.

“My victory, nya~”

Mae grabbed Satan by the scruff of his neck and carried the man back to Erebus throne room.