Newly Summoned Demoness - Chapter 1 & 2 (Patreon)

I'm working on the rewrite for New Life of a Summoned Demoness. Those who have read it before will likely find it familiar, but there has been a considerable amount of changes to things.

The original story ended abruptly at 115k words; I estimate the rewrite will add about 50k words to that, improvements to the writing itself (After writing ShipCore and Sigma 16 I think my writing has improved a little...?) and hopefully a better idea of what the plot actually is and better pacing.

That's why this is a rewrite and not just an edited version.

I hope people won't be too mad that I'm doing this and not writing ShipCore or S16, but I have felt a bigger and bigger need to do this. It's always left me feeling bad that this story went on hiatus where it did. 

I plan on finishing the rewrite here on Patreon before posting any of it on RR or SH. I will be posting it as it comes available for all Patreon tiers.

Newly Summoned Demoness

By Erios909

Elania’s life is about to change in ways she could never have expected.

Summoned to a strange new world by demon-worshipping cultists, she flees before she is bound to their will by an unbreakable contract.

Forced to fight for her survival against creatures she thought would only exist in a D&D manual while adjusting to her new body, what can a girl do when status screens and system elements have the power to change her very being?

One thing is for certain.

She won’t give up her soul without a fight.

Chapter 1 – Summoned

Reality slowly coalesced into the painful throbbing of Elania’s temples. Each beat of her heart felt like someone was stabbing into her head with an icepick and she let out a groggy groan. Her thoughts stirred slowly as she tried to recall the night before. She’d pulled an all-nighter so she could finish a term paper for her history class.

Heat leached from her body uncomfortably, and she pressed herself off of the cold stone floor into a sitting position.

Wait.

Cold stone floor?

She was not in her dorm room. It didn’t even look like she was on her university grounds unless they had redecorated some basement into an 18th century dungeon. Candles cast soft flickering yellows throughout the chamber, but left swaths of shadow to fill her imagination with the worst possibilities.

She’d been kidnapped!

A coarse croak erupted from behind her. “She’s awake.”

She pushed up off the floor and onto her feet to whip around. Four cloaked figures stood wearing dark purple robes, two near the only exit to the chamber and the other two much closer, flanking a large lectern that had a massive skull adorned book.

“Send for the Bishop!” The second closest robbed figure shouted.

Elania felt the icy grip of panic squeeze her heart. She glanced around for anything that might help her. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she found that there was no sign of her clothes, or anything to use as a weapon. They’d chalked strange white symbols and lines around where they’d placed her in the middle of the room.

Being kidnapped and disrobed while unconscious was bad enough, but she had no idea what a cult would want to do with her!

“What do you want with me?” she asked in a shaky voice.

“Mistress, the Bishop should be here soon. He will explain everything.” The nearest robbed figure explained.

That did nothing to help her calm down. She did not want to speak to any Bishop, nor stay here any longer. The shadows seemed to disappear, and she confirmed that there wasn’t anything waiting in the darkness to grab at her, but that also meant there was nothing she could grab to use as a weapon. She glanced at the three remaining figures between her and the exit.

Those weren’t good odds.

Worse, as her vision in the dark improved further, she realized it wasn’t just white chalk that marked the surrounding floor. The grooved symbols on the ground were filled with thin pools of blood. Lots of blood, but no sign of a corpse.

Maybe they’d used a chicken? The white lines were marked with white chalk, right? Or was it…ground up bones?

A half step forward in panic caused a sudden dome of blue light to flash into existence like a cage. She slammed into it face first, hard enough to send her reeling backwards to fall on her ass.

“Mistress!” The voice was filled with panic. The man knelt down beside the circle and began to chant some in-explicable mantra that wasn’t in any language she had ever heard, but her focus had been snatched by the blue box that had appeared in front of her.

[A Demonic barrier is unbreakable with your current power.]

Her first thought had been they’d put some kind of invisible electric fence around her, but the screen hinted otherwise. She reached out and passed her hand through the screen. It wasn’t anything physically present and reminded her of some kind of holographic projection she’d seen on some sci-fi shows.

There was a familiar ‘X’ in the top right corner, and when she tried to press it the message flickered then disappeared. It was replaced by a new screen in a portrait orientation with a slowly scrolling list.

[Status Update]

[You have arrived from another world!]

[You have been granted the perk, ‘Summoned from Another World!’]

Elania felt her blood turn cold. She’d watched enough isekai animes to recognize the wording. Heck, her favorite guilty pleasure was staying up late and watching cheeky OP ‘Villainess’ romance shows. More than a few times she’d spent an entire night reading web comics from that genre.

One thing she was sure of, she’d never met Truck-san, she would have remembered! She should have been safely tucked into her bed getting a few hours of sleep before turning in her term paper!

Why the heck was she here?

A giddy feeling filled her, and she started to giggle. The robbed figure stopped chanting and looked up at her, giving her a clear look at his pencil-shaped face. Why did he look more terrified than she felt?

“Wake up, wake up, wake up,” Elania mumbled to herself. She pinched her forearm hard enough for it to be painful before lightly slapping her cheeks.

The man began to shake, and that highlighted another issue. Why was she able to see him so clearly in the dark? Individual beads of sweat began to form on his forehead, and she could see it all in exquisite detail. She’d always worn glasses before, her eyes too sensitive to wear contacts.

Her whole body hurt from the barrier she had slammed into earlier. A cold breeze caressed her bare skin, causing her to shiver. She had never felt so vulnerable in her life. She took a deep breath and tried to force the feeling into a box. A small box that’d let her think and figure things out.

No clothes. Check. No weapon. Check. Stuck in some weird magic circle. Check. Some bastard called ‘The Bishop’ on the way to talk to her and possibly let her out… that seemed too good to be true on top of everything else.

If this was a bad isekai LitRPG thing, then wasn’t there some type of command or skill she should be able to use?

The earlier message had provided a hint. “Status,” she intoned.

A screen flickered to life in front of her obediently.

[Status: Elania Reyes]

[Level 1 Lesser Demon (Summoned Potency 9999+)]

[Karma: 12345]

[Power: 0/100]

[Skills: Locked]

[Perks: 1]

It was nice that she’d guessed right, but the second her eyes landed on the ‘Race’ line, she had a mild panic attack, not that it was hard to trigger one in her current predicament. She stopped trying to hide her modesty as she patted her forehead, looking for horns. They didn’t appear to exist. Her shoulder blades didn’t seem to have wings sticking out of them, and her tailbone was mercifully absent a tail.

Everything seemed to be perfectly normal. Maybe that would have been a disappointment to some, but she was perfectly happy to still be herself.

So why did it call her a demon? Plus, her level was absolutely weak… she was level 1, with no power, skills locked. Wasn’t she supposed to get a box full of cheat skills? That it provided no help getting out of the barrier and past the cultists was frustrating.

A clink of metal striking stone drew her attention away from the screen and to a new figure that entered the chamber from the hall. The new arrival caused her body to tense and her stomach to turn.

He was the perfect image of what she’d considered fit an insane cult leader. Half his face was disfigured, with oozing sores leaking pus. The other half was marked by deep age lines, his two glowing blue eyes lacking pupils. The long beard terminated in a sharp pencil point, and bones had been weaved into it at even intervals.

His attire fit the part, too. An antlered skull sat atop his head, while his black-purple shaded robes were embroidered in golden inlaid geometric symbols. The metal clinking came from a crystal topped staff that was sheathed in a silvery-colored metal that shimmered in her vision.

Two subordinates flanked him, both keeping their hoods pulled down and doing their best not to draw any attention to themselves. Three more bodies she’d need to somehow navigate around if she wanted to escape. Not that she had any idea on how to remove the barrier.

It was so ridiculous that she had to force down a laugh. If it wasn’t for the status message, she’d have given them props for putting on a good show. She wanted to believe that desperately, that someone would jump out and shout ‘surprise!’ and ask her how well their joke had fooled her. Deep down, she knew that wasn’t going to happen.

The ‘Bishop’ stepped forward and placed his hand on the skull bound tome on the lecturn while his lackeys filed out into a semi-circle around her. The three of them knelt down and began a low hum in harmony.

The Bishop turned to her and clanked his staff on the stone three times before opening his arms wide in a grandiose gesture. “Great Queen, we welcome you to Eladu! No cost was spared for your summoning, and we, your greatest servants, beseech your greatness to sign a contract with our order and lead us to victory against the Overworld!”

Elania felt her eye twitch. Everything was so over-the-top that she wanted to scream at them. A demon-worshipping cult had somehow brought her here and wanted her to lead a war with whatever the Overworld was?

Hell-no!

[Cult of the Black Candle wishes to make a contract with you!]

[Do you wish to see the contents of the contract? Y/N]

“No way.” She waved her hand, and the screen obediently disappeared. “Send me back.”

Chapter 2 – Complications

The prostrating followers immediately straightened up and looked at her in shock. They began to speak in unison.

“N…no!”

“Please, mistress!”

“Don’t abandon us!”

The pitiful outcries almost made Elania feel sorry for them. She had no idea how they managed to put in such a pleading inflection to their voices while she was standing there stark naked in front of them all. But the keyword there was ‘almost.’

Maybe if they had provided her with something to wear, she’d have felt more lenient.

Unlike the others, the Bishop remained silent, but he couldn’t disguise the pained expression on his face either. One of his sores began to ooze a green liquid even, and she had to fight to keep her expression impassive.

“Great Mistress, we did not summon you unprepared. We have much to offer you. Besides our loyalty and obedience to your will…” The man’s words trailed off as he gestured to a dark wooden chest near the room’s entrance. Two cultists rushed into the room to lift it, and from the strained look on their faces, it was heavy indeed.

But the revelation that stood out to her was that there were two more men she somehow had to bypass to escape. The wooden chest clunked loudly as they lowered it onto the ground. The Bishop gestured again, and the men lifted its lid then heaved, dumping the shining contents across the floor.

Gold and gems spread out in a cascade, the clinking sound of coins filling the otherwise quiet chamber. She had no reason to doubt that it was real gold, and the gems sparkled with their own internal light like nothing she had ever seen before.

Although her second thought was a pragmatic one; they’d make great flashlights. Something that would be really helpful when escaping a dark, dank dungeon. Each one had a slightly different hue, and the lights seemed to rotate slightly, the imperfections in the stones creating little soft shadows that danced across the ceiling and walls.

Despite the sudden display, she kept her neutral expression. The Bishop seemed taken aback by her lack of response and stuttered over his next words.

“G...Great Mistress, we know this must seem paltry considering the great wealth and abundance of mana shards in the demonic realm, but this represents years of our preparations, so you might empower yourself quickly here on Eladu.”

Elania frowned. She wasn’t sure what her position really was, and she desperately needed more information. With no other options, playing the role seemed the only way forward, but she was tired of standing in front of all of them in her birthday suit and covering herself with her arms and hands was a lost cause.

“Remove the barrier and give me some clothes, and I’ll consider it,” she finally replied.

Surprise registered on all the cultists’ faces. Each one of them turned to their leader as if they were seeking clarification. The Bishop was just as shocked, and he stared at her with a furrowed brow. The silence that fell in the room was deafening.

Eventually, the Bishop cleared his throat. “Great Mistress, I am your humble future servant, but I have to ask… what is your name?”

Elania cursed silently to herself. Had she somehow given herself away somehow? Not that she had dedicated much time or effort to pretending to be the person they had ‘summoned’ yet, but it was still troublesome that her act died from the very first sentence. It also hinted at just how little she understood what was going on.

So much for her improv acting classes. “Elania. My name is Elania.”

She watched for a reaction, and—much to her surprise—they all looked relieved or excited. Especially their creepy ass looking leader.

The Bishop nodded and lowered his head. “I’m sorry for doubting you, Dark Queen Elania’onbe’tila. I beg your forgiveness. There is no way for us to release the barrier without you signing a contract.”

A mix of confusion and irritation welled within, but before she could react or respond, a voice echoed from the hallway entrance, interrupting any further dialogue.

“I can help with that,” announced the new voice confidently.

All attention swiftly shifted towards its source. The tall figure stepped forward calmly, donned in a radiant silvery-white plate armor adorned with gold trimmings that glowed in the dungeon's dreary atmosphere. His open visored helmet, sculpted with stylized wings at his temples, cast a shadow over his face and somehow shrouded his features despite her improved vision in the dark.

He pointed his drawn sword straight at her. An ethereal blue glow flared to life, painting dancing shadows on the stone walls, but what caught Elania’s breath was the blood—a vibrantly fresh crimson liquid that slowly dripped from the blade’s pointed tip.

The disoriented cultists found their bearings, and a chorus of disparate chants filled the chamber. The flickering hope that the armored figure was there to help quickly evaporated.

Her status called her a demon. He was wearing a getup that screamed ‘Paladin’ to the high heavens, and the cultists had balls of fire and other elements forming in front of their outstretched palms.

She desperately wanted to cling to something that would reveal that this was all some kind of joke or dream, but everything looked, felt, and sounded so real it was impossible to ignore.

A chaotic barrage of elemental orbs launched themselves toward the knight from every direction. Flames, ice shards, bolts of electricity, and globs of sizzling acid—all collided uselessly against his shining armor that seemed to absorb the strikes as if it was eagerly gobbling them up for a snack.

She was trapped, defenseless, and naked in an arcane circle while insane religious cultists battled it out with what appeared to be a classic holy knight. Fear gripped her as she looked around her feet for something, anything, that would help. There was nothing.

The glowing sword cut a swath through the air, creating a wave of blue light that arced straight for her. Elania yelped and held her arms up to protect herself, but the energy slammed into the invisible bubble that was trapping her. It sizzled and sparked, but didn’t seem to have any effect.

She’d have almost thought that it might have been to help her except where the wave had struck the dungeon walls, it had blackened and charred the rock to the point of crumbling.

It seemed like she was forced to root for the ‘bad’ guys and hope the contract thing was something she could come to terms with, not that she liked the idea.

The Bishop seemed unperturbed by his crony’s futile attempts at stalling the knight’s advance. He finished his cryptic incantation and pointed his staff at the intruder; its crystal top began to glow ominously in response. Darkness seemed to seep out from under him like ink spilled on parchment, enveloping the surrounding light before coalescing into a dark purple-hued tentacle that rose from the floor.

The appendage lunged forward without hesitation to strike at the knight, who continued his steady approach, unfazed. A split second before the shadow struck, the man raised his sword and cleaved through the ethereal limb with an uncanny precision. The shadow seemed to fill the air with an alien shriek as the blackness dissolved into the air.

Elania’s summoner wasted no time. A subtle movement of his staff sent a second shadowy tentacle streaking toward the knight.

It was hewn into two pieces much like the first, but then was followed up by a third and forth in rapid succession. Each one was sliced through with ease, leaving a thick layer of dissolving black smoke along the knight’s path.

The distance between the two figures shrank and then didn’t exist anymore. The Bishop’s staff came up to meet a heavy overhead swing of the glowing blue sword, sending a gout of ethereal flame and sparks through the air. Multiple clashes sent more sprays of magic randomly through the surrounding air, one stream landing on one of the chanting cultists.

The man’s black robe caught fire, and he ran screaming, bouncing into her prison before collapsing a short distance away. A smell of burnt flesh reached her almost immediately and Elania turned to dry heave on the floor. The shrieking suddenly cut off, and she realized the man was dead.

The cultists began to move away from the two colliding figures in a hurry as their weapons locked together, sending a constant spray of sparks towards the ceiling, covering it in a layer of lights that shone like angry stars in the night sky. It would have been pretty if they weren’t locked in a deadly clash.

Elania clenched her fists. That the frail-looking Bishop stood firm against the Paladin’s overpowering strength was almost as shocking as the fact that the magic they were using was real. Or as real as this was real. She held her breath as she watched as the lower-ranking cultists tried to help their leader by throwing useless spells onto the Paladin that continued to go unnoticed.

He obviously had some cheat gear or skill that nullified their magic.

Just when she thought that maybe—just maybe—the Bishop would hold his own against the invader, a gauntleted fist broke free from their deadlock. The blow landed squarely on the Bishop’s face, sending him flying backwards violently; he bounced off the uneven stones before crashing with an audible thud and crumpling onto the ground.

For a moment, silent shock reverberated around the room as everyone took in what had just occurred; one moment he was standing tall, defiantly pushing back against the knight…and then he was sprawled helplessly on the stone floor. His horned headwear had gone flying across the chamber and landed near Elania’s feet.

He didn’t just have cheat skills or equipment; he had super strength, too. She knelt down and scooped up the horned helmet as he turned on her. A quick toss of the object at him was battered away with a contemptuous swat with his oversized longsword.

His stride was slow, but unyielding. Elania stepped back as far as she could without shocking herself, but the distance felt like a futile attempt to slow the impossible. He swung his blade toward her, swiping from the side.

The sword caught in the invisible barrier for a moment before a bright light flared up from the indentations on the floor. The blood in the channels vaporized into a glowing red mist before dispersing into nothingness, and the light died completely.

The invisible dome around her turned into a brilliant orange and then shattered into a thousand shards that disappeared into nothingness.

That was the moment she had been waiting for; Elania jumped backwards and backpedaled away from the man rapidly.

He didn’t seem concerned, stepping forward slowly before coming to a stop over the empty circle. “Demon, you can show your power before I send you back.”

Well, that was just fucking polite of him, wasn’t it? Except she did not know what the fuck her ‘power’ even was. “Leave me alone. I have no fricking clue who you are!”

He flashed forward, somehow moving faster than she could even see to appear an arm’s length away. Elania tried to dive away from him, but his sword smacked her in the side, sending her into a rolling fall.

She reached down to pat herself where she’d been hit, expecting to find a slash or hole, but there was just a sore bruise. Her self-inspection didn’t last long as he fell on her and slapped her with the metal again. It was like being thumped with a hard stick, and it hurt. She crawled away as fast as she could, only to have her bare ass smacked again.

He didn’t follow her mad scramble into the room’s corner, and when she turned to face him again, she wasn’t sure if it was the litany of expletives and curses that had given him pause or if he’d realized that for whatever reason his sword had gone defective, despite its sharp edge she was covered in a mottling of future bruises without a single scratch.

The confusion writ on his face certainly led credence to the latter as he uttered a name. “Eziel?” The shadows that had hidden the man’s face had disappeared and confusion was writ on his face. Brown stubble gave him an unkempt, uncared for look that was at odds with the shiny metal armor.

“I didn’t do anything. I don’t know why you’re attacking me!” Elania hissed.

It was the wrong thing to do because it seemed to break him from his inner conversation and he stepped forward, cutting off escape from the corner. He jabbed her with the point of the sword, thumping her in the rib. That hurt, but it was clear he was expecting more. He swung again, but this time she grabbed the blade to stop it.

The blue flames licked at her hands, but it didn’t burn. Neither did it cut her hands, and she wasn’t sure which one of them was more shocked by the display. She tried to push it, and him, away, but it was like trying to push a solid wall.

A purple tentacle appeared, wrapping around his middle and yanking him and the strange not-very-sharp-sometimes sword away. It slammed him into the ceiling and then the floor before tossing him into the wall across the chamber.

Elania patted herself down, checking for injuries. She could feel small tremors shake through her body as the threat of mortal peril had lessened. Being bashed with a metal stick hurt even if it hadn’t eviscerated her. She glared at the growing cloud of debris and dust from the Paladin’s impact sight with vindication. He totally deserved what he had got.

Across the room, cultists stood up and began to cast their magic attacks into the dust cloud. More tentacle arms appeared from the ceiling and floor, especially where the light was weakest.

She spotted the Bishop who had gotten back on his feet and was waving his crystal-topped staff around.

“Kill the Light-bringer!” the old man shrieked hatefully. The efforts of his followers seemed to redouble and tentacles smashed into the opaque and glowing cloud of destruction.

Elania glanced at the entrance and only exit. She had well and truly overstayed her welcome and she needed to get the fuck out. No one was paying attention to her anymore, and she was no longer trapped in the barrier.

She took off toward the exit, crossing by the chest of spilled valuables. She stepped on one of the crystals and it bit into her foot painfully, causing her to nearly hop to a stop so she could more carefully pick her way through. On impulse, she reached down to grab one of the larger shining stones.

A wave of blue light crashed into the wall in front of her, causing her to look over her shoulder. The Paladin had somehow survived the impact with the wall and was fighting back against the cultists again, but his attention and gaze was locked on her.

There was no more time to dally. She approached the hallway, speeding back up to a sprint.

One of the lower-ranking cultists jumped in front of her and spread his arms out to the sides. “Stop, Mistress! We—”

She didn’t hesitate to smash the glowing stone in her hand into the man’s face. She had expected it to off-balance him enough to slide around him, but he crumpled like a sack of potatoes.

Worse, a blue screen appeared in front of her, nearly causing her to trip.

[ ???? - Human - Lvl 33 has been defeated!]

[You have gained multiple levels!]

[Improvised Weaponry Rank E has been unlocked and slotted.]

She waved her hand, and the screen flew away. Elania didn’t look back as she dashed into the hallway, leaving the cacophony of explosions and violence behind her.