Maeve stared at the sleeping Vritra, several questions and thoughts swirling in her mind, but living among demons for so long she had learned not to trust anyone easily.

Each person is covered by countless layers; on the surface he might be the protector of people but deep beneath, the same person could be a heartless sadist.

With a thought, a bluish butterfly appeared in the space, then disappeared.

This spiritual butterfly would carry her message to one of her most trusted subordinates but only by the time when her body gets better.

Then she silently waited for him to wake up.

After a long sleep, Vritra woke up. Yasmine's soul was already quite weak so he had sealed her deep within to stop it from getting damaged, otherwise she could have noticed Maeve's actions.

"Hoo, that feels a lot better." He sat up and looked at the countless stairs that didn't seem to have any end; then, stretching his body, he got up.

"Ready to leave?" Vritra questioned, the pain in his soul had completely disappeared.

"Yeah, we shouldn't waste too much time here. What if my condition worsens? We will both be in trouble," Maeve said, though her complexion seemed a bit better than before.

Without saying anything, Vritra just picked her up and put her on his back, tying a cloth tightly around their bodies.

"Hubby, don't overexert yourself. I don't like seeing you get hurt," Yasmine said, as Vritra removed the seal for a moment.

'Don't worry, wifey, I am not dying before giving you those spanks.' He said and once again sealed Yasmine and stepped onto the next stair, as Maeve created the two barriers.

The soul one only stopping around 30% of the damage, Vritra's body trembled as waves after waves of attacks struck his soul and the familiar messages kept popping.

[Soul damage detected.]

[Your soul grows stronger.]

[Your soul grows stronger.]

[Your soul grows stronger.]

…

Vritra was in no hurry; until he couldn't gain anything more from a stair, he wouldn't move up.

Vanessa and the others were safe outside, so it wouldn't matter if he stayed here a little longer.

Just like that, Vritra continued to climb one step at a time, stopping nearly thirty minutes on each as the power of the blow increased.

When he couldn't handle it anymore, he would take breaks and have a good long sleep.

Hours after hours, day after day, Vritra did nothing but climb the stairs, nurturing his soul through the pain.

It was growing at a terrifying rate.

On the twentieth day, Vritra had stopped quite close to the three hundredth stair, but he still seemed only halfway there.

He sat on a stair after a long relaxing sleep, his mind, body, and soul were at their peak. Taking out food from his inventory, Vritra began to devour the meat.

"Thankfully we have enough food, or with so much exertion on your body, we might even have starved here," Yasmine said, carefully observing the demoness.

'Well, I would still have been fine; we are carrying emergency rations after all.' Vritra joked, glancing at Maeve, who was staring at Vritra with hunger clearly written on her face.

"You want some?" Vritra asked, moving the piece of meat from side to side as the demon queen's eyes followed it around.

With her body being so weak, after so long she experienced just what hunger is.

Although her personality is completely different from what she had shown in front of Vritra, he had been working to make her more and more dependent on himself.

Though she would display her demon-like personality whenever she got angry, and fox-like cunning.

"Uh… Yeah." Maeve nodded.

She had gotten used to his way of talking, though she was still keeping track of how many times she was going to kill him later on.

"Hmm, are you still thinking of torturing me after getting better?" Vritra asked, eating up the meat piece, as Maeve became tense.

She didn't usually carry food around, since normally she could go without food and water for years.

"N-No, I am not…" she replied, acting pitiful.

"What a vixen, hubby, don't fall for her tricks." Yasmine said. For some reason, his first wife had a bad impression of this woman.

"Anyway, you haven't told me how am I to help you get better?" Vritra said, pulling out another piece of meat and turning dust into flames.

"Oh f-for that, you have to get me a nail of a person called Green Claw. I can manage the rest. Remember that green-robed man when we met?" Maeve replied, her gaze fixed on Vritra's neck.

To be honest, more than the meat, she was more hungry for his blood, but had no way of drawing it out now.

Vritra had allowed her to try it and no matter how many times she tried to bite his neck or wrist, she couldn't pierce through his skin.

"…" He certainly remembered that man, although he wasn't at the lord rank yet, but his strength was definitely higher than General rank.

"Well, let's talk about it later. First, why don't you ask nicely for the meat? Come on, or I am just going to start climbing up." Vritra said, swinging the grilled piece of meat in front of her eyes.

"Uhm… P-Please… damn it, cough… please, can you feed that meat to me…" Maeve said, with so much difficulty, as if someone had asked her to cut her own head off.

"Hmm?" Vritra tilted his head, waiting for her to continue.

"M-Master, please g-give it to me r-rawr~" Maeve's face had turned bright red as she spoke those embarrassing words.

"Good job, Foxie." Vritra patted her head and slowly fed her some meat.

After he was finished, Vritra asked: "Now, where is your thank you?"

"Mmm… Thank you m-master…" Maeve said. Even after doing it a couple of times before, she hadn't gotten used to it.

But Vritra quite enjoyed this whole thing; this was a demon queen who could destroy entire kingdoms within seconds, and here she was following his orders.

Again, the grind continued.

The power behind those attacks was now enough to shatter the souls of people at even the 7th or 8th rank, but Vritra wasn't affected.

And just like that, another twenty days passed.

Vritra climbed more than 200 stairs; the difficulty had increased immensely.

By now, he had finally arrived close to the top; only ten or so stairs were left to climb and in at most a day, he would arrive at whatever challenge lay ahead.

Maeve only covered her body with the soul barrier, and even she could feel the ripple caused by the powerful attacks. But Vritra, without any barrier, was standing as if he was enjoying a cold wind.

By this time, the attacks had grown strong enough to even injure a Lord rank person; even Maeve wasn't sure she could take so many attacks like Vritra.

While his presence was growing at a monstrous rate, his soul far surpassed the rank of a General and already neared the Lord rank.

Finally, a day later, Vritra had finished such a difficult challenge.

He had climbed around six hundred stairs, with Mutamorphis and all the suffering his soul growing extremely powerful.

❖❖❖

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