Amaya

I opened my eyes and stared at the snout of a dragon.

"Hi Kira, what did I miss?" I asked as I sat up. Apparently I had been lying on the ground. I spotted Lucy next to me. Ohhhhh…

"Your people are evolving, somehow." Kira replied. She sounded a bit, annoyed? Jealous?

But I was distracted. "Lucy is growing a new tail! Hehehe." I was reluctant to touch it during her evolution but I could imagine the increased fluffyness. By now she only used magical clothing which could properly change shape to accommodate her tails. This was her fifth, only four more to go!

"You are drooling." Kira pointed out.

I wiped my mouth and started looking around. Next I noticed Lily, also lying on the floor.

"She is evolving as well." I stated the obvious.

"She is becoming a demon lord. A demon lord. How?" Kira asked.

I looked at the dragon. "Devour magic became snackification!" I replied.

"What?" She asked.

"My spell, devour magic, has been a bit greedy lately. I finally figured out what was wrong with it. It tried to evolve me further by accumulating more power. But there was no more room for me to grow, so I found a different use for the mana. I poured it into the link with my maid knights. Everyone got a snack!" My eyes widened. Oh, Kira was not connected to us. The poor dragon got nothing.

"Your spell consumes magic and uses it to evolve you? And now it's doing the same for your people?" Kira asked, sounding slightly overwhelmed.

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"Yes. This ritual had a lot of power. It won't do much if I devour a small spell. But this ritual had a lot of sacrifices, in addition to a juicy demon lord." I replied.

"Are you… are you going to consume them all?" Kira asked.

"What? No! I am not a maniac. I won't slaughter people to consume their power! The spell does not consume someone anyway, it would simply remove their ongoing spells. No, if Ashmedai hadn't connected his soul to the ritual he would have been fine. He really should not have messed with soul magic." I replied.

"But… but you could do it? You could force someone into a ritual and consume them?" Kira asked.

I pondered that. "In theory, yes. I have not studied that particular ritual but I will not sacrifice people for power. If they don't come after me and mine they have nothing to fear. And even if I meet someone in battle, I will not capture and sacrifice them." I felt like that would be a step too far. I did not want to go down that route. But I would not decline a meal if they turned themselves into one.

"If… if the world learns of this… I have no idea what will happen. I don't think a lot of immortals will like the idea." Kira replied.

"Relax, you are my friend, my student. I am not going to hurt you. I am sharing this freely because I trust you. We will have to see what we do with this information. It's not like the fleeing demons really know what happened." I stood up and stretched. "This was exhausting. I could use a nice bath and a drink. But I suppose we will need to deal with Ashmedai's stuff and territory first. I want to see what knowledge he had. Maybe we can find some of his lieutenants and interrogate them."

"If I… if I became a maid knight, I would get snacks too? In the future, if they happen?" Kira asked.

It made me feel bad again that she had missed out, but there was nothing I could do about that. "Yes. But don't feel pressured. I can't guarantee that something like that will happen again. The normal spells I devour will not have such a big impact."

"I will consider it." Kira replied.

Kira

For the first time I started to realize just how big the gap was between a new aura user and a real ancient. She could absorb magic and feed it to her soul. Was this the true secret among all ancients? She seemed so casual, maybe they all knew? Maybe they all used the same method?

The ancient dragons just grew powerful over time. Or at least, that is what they said. I had been a prodigy, a talented dragon. My growth exceeded that of all the other ones in my clutch. Was there more to it than age, training and experience? It was known that many creatures had bottlenecks, or ceilings even. They stopped growing after some time. They lacked the talent. Were the ancients just beings who found a way to break through those? Or had they truly reached their heights with talent alone?

I looked at Lily. A new demon lord, yet she was still a maid knight. Would she resent her position? Would her new status make her demand freedom? So far she had seemed very happy serving Amaya and Lucy. Did she know all along that she would receive the power to evolve? Amaya made it sound like this was a new thing. Did she lie?

I pondered that. Amaya was not lying, usually. She was surprisingly open about everything. Maybe becoming her maid would not be that bad? If the head maid was a demon lord, maybe I could join as well. I should talk to Lily, once she woke up.

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