There’s another thing that I find fascinating in “Salvos”. I mentioned “generals” before, but those are nothing like what we have here. Our generals command armies from a distance, aggregate intelligence in the command centre and issue orders. In the “Salvos” universe, the generals are the strongest fighters who lead the armies in battle. They inflict the greatest damage to the enemy, deal with the most powerful units, and increase their army’s likelihood of survival. The rest of the army follows, deals with the lesser units that swarm the battlefield, and support the general in battle.

The way they fight depends on their specialty. A Warrior, for instance, fights at direct proximity. He uses strength and toughness to break through hard targets and clear the way. A Mage works from a distance, avoiding close contact and firing off spells and Skills. Some Archmages with the ability to fly, like Clayton, Helena and Salvos, observe from a high vantage point and then deal with the priority threats. Rogues, like Orgaf and Salvos, use a combination of magic, speed and blades at close quarters to deal with enemies. Salvos is a combination of a Mage and a Rogue; she uses a combination of moving and observing quickly across the battlefield, and then closing the distance and destroying the target in close combat, using a combination of speed, brute force, creation magic, fire magic and even space magic. In the battle of Inor, Helena and Clayton provided support from the air, hovering on their clouds and occasionally teleporting to evade, while Salvos and Orgaf flew quickly around the enemies at close proximity, risking injury, but also dealing tremendous amounts of damage. The highest levelled fighters, the generals, are at the front lines of every major fight, and are dealing with the most powerful enemies who would otherwise easily destroy the lower levelled fighters. This creates a completely different battle scenario compared to what we have here. Here, if a general is killed, it means that the command infrastructure is disrupted. In the “Salvos” world, it means that the lower levelled combatants are left unprotected from the higher levelled enemies who can easily wipe them out if they are not harassed by someone near their level. So, here on Earth if a general dies, you promote a colonel and usually this doesn’t really mean anything serious. In the “Salvos” world, it’s like a tank brigade or a close support airforce unit being wiped out, leaving the infantry vulnerable. It’s a completely different way of waging war. For instance, when Mori Gladius and the Salvos clones were killed at Westshield, the entire adventurer army was left completely vulnerable and had to retreat in chaos lest it be completely destroyed. Without their powerful protectors, and exposed to lvl. 174 Levithus, they were nothing more than cannon fodder. But before that, Belzu was completely tied up by Salvos clones and Mori Gladius and couldn’t afford to lose focus because they would instantly kill him, so the army was free to evacuate the civilians and deal with lesser foes. But when Levithus arrived, killed Mori Gladius and the remaining Salvos clone, and wounded Belzu and forced him to flee with the remnants of his forces, the human army was left completely vulnerable. Here on Earth, if the commanders are wiped out, the infantry will hold its own just fine, because they are the ones who are actually inflicting the damage to the enemy. But on the Nexeus, if the generals are wiped out, the infantry is completely exposed to a threat they can’t deal with and it usually means either escape or instant death.

One would expect that this means that the infantry is a mere protected entity there and the generals on both sides could fight it out without their help, but that’s not how it works. You see, a solitary general can easily be overwhelmed by numbers if he has no support. His Skills will be exhausted if he has to deal with large numbers of annoying lesser targets in addition to the main enemy. When the Skills are exhausted, they are on cooldown and can’t be used for some time. This means that rushing into the hostile army without support that will dilute the enemy’s focus is foolish and deadly.

As a matter of tactics, someone like Salvos who has a temporary invulnerability Grand Skill might intentionally expose herself to the enemy and let them exhaust their Skills, forcing them into cooldown, and allowing the lesser units to deal with them more easily. She also lessens the problem of all the enemies focusing on her by introducing her clones who create chaos in the enemy lines, and provide multiple strong targets that draw fire away from herself. Her weakness is her tunnel vision, because she often gets in too deep without a way out, and she needs support from her companions in battle, because they tend to know when she needs to be pulled out because she ran out of Skills at just the wrong time.

So, the way Humans fight in the “Salvos” world is very specific, and they don’t have the concept of “acceptable losses”. They don’t have the concept of sacrificial troops you throw at the enemy in order to soften them for the general. The Human general goes first and cracks the hardest nuts, and then his support units take care that he’s not overwhelmed, that he can be quickly evacuated and healed if he’s wounded and so on. For Humans, all losses are avoided if at all possible.

But that’s not how the Demon forces of Regnorex fight. To Regnorex, everybody but himself is expendable. Everybody he sent to the Mortal Realm was sacrificial. His entire legions of slave Demons are cannon fodder that protects his stronger units. He talks a lot about salvation for Demonkind, but in reality, he’s just getting everybody killed for his crazy fantasy.

Salvos is the exact opposite to that mentality. She initially learned to fight together with Haec, and the goal is that both of them survive and grow stronger. The fighting was very calculated and tactical. The intent was to survive and avoid injury first, and everything else second. When she got stranded in the Mortal Realm, she was accompanied by the adventurers, and the goal of the adventurers is to get rich and famous, not get killed doing foolish things. The only adventurer who got people killed and barely survived doing foolish things was Edithe, who then had a hard time getting over that later. As a rule, the adventurers are careful, calculated, and only go into a fight if the odds are good that all of them will come home. They don’t calculate on taking losses, and no losses are acceptable. Losses are a tragedy. Losses are a sign that you’re a shitty commander. It suited Salvos perfectly, and she was easily convinced by her companions to become an adventurer, because what’s not to like? She gets to kill wild things, bandits and nuisances and even gets paid for it. So, the adventurers don’t fight like an army. An army would stand their ground because they have orders. The adventurers are more clever about it; apparently less disciplined and organized, but only apparently, because they are trained in getting shit done while keeping themselves and their companions alive. That’s why an adventurer army looks like a disorganized mob, but it’s incredibly hard to kill and usually gets shit done with minimal losses. The adventurers fight in teams, and those teams are like special forces guys who are used to living in forests and killing dangerous things. They know exactly how to work together and get results. They don’t look as impressive as the marching columns of an army, but that too resembles our special forces and their small tactical teams. An adventurer army will disperse into small fighting units that will deal with specific tasks, but the appearance of chaos hides a deeper truth: they get paid to kill shit, not to look fancy.

So, the fact that an army is helpless and unprotected without its main generals is a reason why the fact that Salvos just left her five million army of Demons is so significant. Before, Haec would force them into battle with Regnorex, counting on Salvos to do the heavy lifting, and provide means of escape if the strategy fails badly. But without Salvos, he was forced to face the reality: that “army” is merely a protected entity, a mob of freed slaves that would run in all directions if attacked. Higher levelled Demons are there to survive, not to get killed on his foolish errand. Literally nobody will follow an order to go and fight Regnorex for him, so he’s forced to stop and do nothing, which saved their lives. It’s literally the only move they could have made that would not get them instantly wiped out, and Salvos forced them into it by not being there to mask their lack of a plan with her ability to win fights against incredibly overpowered opponents. The best thing for the survival of that massive group of Demons is if they can’t be seen by Haec as an army, because Haec learned from Regnorex. He has emotional attachment for Salvos, but he thinks like Regnorex. He has the concept of acceptable losses. He thinks of an army as something that charges into battle. Salvos thinks of them as a group she needs to hide in order to protect them.

So, now we wait to see what happens when she comes back and the concept of leading five millions of Demons into battle where they all get killed is no longer on the table.

I’m returning to “Salvos” because there are several things that I find both interesting and funny.

For instance, there’s the “Princess Salvos” running gag, which started in the second book, when Salvos discovered that Nobles and Royalty exist, and she liked the idea of being better than everybody else and addressed with respect, obeyed and so on, and she also liked how fancy Saffron looked, so she started playing a Princess, especially when they saved Rachel from the brink of being used as a human sacrifice to summon demons; essentially, Salvos, at her estimated two years of age was of similar emotional maturity as the little girl at the age of eight or so. The “Princess” thing was initially embarrassing more than either credible or cute, since she always had her clothes torn and dirty after having finished some battle or another, and she was also permanently broke. As she continues calling herself a Princess, after having prestigious Titles, achievements and levels, the thing becomes credible enough that people like Rowyn Ino, the Emperor of the Inorian Empire, doesn’t bat an eye on it and just assumes it’s literally true – after all, she is a nigh-Elite super-Mage, a Diamond ranked Secily’s Sentinel, who single-handedly mopped the floor with multiple Archdemons and Diamond-ranked Warriors and Mages, looking so overpowered while doing it that she didn’t even break a sweat. That she would be a Princess of some kingdom sounded quite reasonable in context. The funny thing is that her companions basically go after her and correct her, thinking she’s making a fool of herself, as she in fact was initially, but as time went by, the joke started sounding like the real thing… and then at lvl. 150 she evolved and her subspecies was “Angelic Devil Princess”, giving her an actual claim to the title… and then later, in the Netherworld, she finds out that her adoptive father is actually Samuel the Devil King, of the First Demon Kingdom, fifty thousand years ago, and she, as his daughter, is an actual Princess. It’s no longer a game – but nobody in the Mortal Realm knows it. They have various ideas about it; her companions think it’s all fake, while others think it’s true, but she must be the renegade daughter of the Demon King, meaning Regnorex, which is wrong, but actually closer to reality than her companions know. They still think she’s messing around and playing a Princess without an actual claim, while she in fact has the oldest claim in the world, older than all the human kingdoms and empires.

While we’re at Regnorex and his kingdom, it turned out that his kingdom is a thousand miles across, which makes it the size of Motharis Mountain Range. Considering how the humans believe that his kingdom encompasses the entirety of the Netherworld, it’s actually funny how small it is. He’s by no means a planar ruler. Samuel, however, was. His kingdom spanned the entirety of the Netherworld, and all its layers… before the fall, and the end of the world. Samuel also hinted that Regnorex is a fake king, which made me think – at the Primeval evolution, the Demons with Grand Skills and special achievements get a Hellprince/Hellprincess evolution; Salvos thus got the “Angelic Devil Princess” unique evolution, and also a second species of a Lesser God. What if Regnorex got a “King of Demons” or “Hellking” evolution at lvl. 200, and took it too seriously in his megalomania and conceit? What if his “kingdom” is merely a Domain? After all, when Salvos entered it, the notification said Now Entering [Demon King’s Domain]. It didn’t say “Now Entering [Demon Kingdom]”. When she entered her father’s fallen kingdom, the notification said Now Entering [Dungeon: Remnants of the First Demon Kingdom]. A logical conclusion, assuming Melas didn’t make an accidental mistake here, and I don’t think he did, would be that Samuel the Devil was the actual planar King, while Regnorex is merely an extremely pompous wannabe and an upstart; he’s no more a King than the “King of Chimeras” is a King. Basically, -King suffix is merely how the System calls the subspecies of Primordial Demons who have Grand Skills and special achievements.

Also, there’s the implication that he owes his entire career to a fortunate series of events and little to no achievements of his own. We know that Focalor, one of Samuel’s old subjects, refused to give up hope that his beloved King would return, and sent his enslaved Primordial Demons to either defend the position against the end of the world in the lower layers, like Hydra, Frenzied Basilisk and, apparently, Belphegor, using his soul magic Skill; also, he sent Paimon the Slave, lvl. 203, to kill all Demons at the cusp of the Primordial evolution, apparently so that Samuel wouldn’t lose his Title. Paimon apparently did so for a while, until she got so disgusted at her role in this senseless murder, that she refused to kill Jofis, committed assisted suicide allowing him to level from her death and become a Hellking, if only he promised to kill Focalor, which he of course did. The next thing we know is that Focalor, chained, wordless and enslaved by Regnorex, defeats Jofis easily, and Jofis loses his Title, his Evolution, and becomes a Disgraced Hellking, while Regnorex takes over and assumes the position of the Demon King.

This, however, is all highly suspicious, for several reasons. First, Regnorex doesn’t allow his subjects to evolve to Primordial and kills them if they do; this is very different from Samuel, whose followers (de facto ministers) were mostly all Primordials, and not only was he not threatened by that or lose his Title, but they all worshipped the ground he walked on and would never even consider deposing him. The fact that Focalor killed all pretenders to the throne ten thousand years after the fall, and Belphegor kept working on delaying the end of the world in his doomed tomb, dreaming of his King and the old times before the fall, says enough. Regnorex lives in constant fear of his subjects, because he rules by fear and an iron fist. Samuel ruled through respect, love, admiration and freedom, and was one of the best – if not the best – rulers Nexeus ever saw. Also, I have a hunch that Regnorex might be weak.

You see, we never learn his actual level, and Manos the Executioner, lvl. 197, one of his main generals, admits he doesn’t know Regnorex’s level. This is highly suspicious, because if his level was great, Regnorex would show it for the sake of intimidation. Since he doesn’t, and instead hides it with magic, there must be a reason for that, and the most obvious reason would be to hide how weak he actually is. So, how would that work? Well, my reconstruction goes somewhat like this. Regnorex evolved to Demon King evolution at lvl. 200, or even 195, because the Devil punks him about something related to lvl. 200 and ascending to a Lesser God at 200, and it seems to strike close to home, making Regnorex annoyed, but since we don’t know the underlying facts we also can’t appreciate the joke. So let’s say Regnorex evolved to Primordial, and then Focalor himself came to deal with him, cursing him with something like “shut up and be my slave”, firing off a Skill, and apparently Regnorex is one of those Demons of Wrath who as a matter of their biology rebound all offensive magic back to the sender, and so the curse rebounded at Focalor, making him both mute and in chains as an outward manifestation of his enslavement, and Regnorex, to no particular credit of his own, got himself a tool of conquest, and we see him use Focalor to fight all his important battles while he just looks stern, cruel and self-important. Focalor must be extremely high in level, since he was a Primordial fifty thousand years ago. He’s probably as high in level as Belphegor, who is higher than the Great Agarus, because Salvos can identify lvl. 225 Great Agarus, and can’t identify Belphegor. Haec, too, couldn’t identify Focalor. This means that Regnorex likely owes all his fame to this fortunate turn of events, and if Salvos manages to break Focalor’s curse, Regnorex is fucked, because I can imagine Focalor not liking his eon-long enslavement. If, however, Salvos can’t break Focalor’s curse, she’s in much more trouble than she suspects.

So, after the level of the Matriarch Centinel was revealed to be an incredibly high lvl. 238, we still don’t know the levels of the Beast, Regnorex, Focalor, Belphegor, Devil, Spirit Lord, Fairy Queen and the Archangel. I would cluster most of them between 240 and 250, but that’s merely a guess.

So, the list of things her human companions don’t know about Salvos is substantial. They don’t know almost anything about her being the Devil’s daughter, the extent of their actual relationship, and especially the fact that he’s the former King of Netherworld, and that this makes Salvos an actual Princess. By the time she returns to the Mortal Realm, that might make for some funny conversations.

As for her return, her point of return used to be her lair, but this was thoroughly nuked in the opening salvo of the fight between Sally and Matriarch Centinel. However, Sally opened a link to Salvos through the Dreaded Goblet, so I suspect the Goblet is currently the endpoint of the link Salvos can follow to the Mortal Realm. Sally gave the Goblet to her clone along with the gravely injured Rachel, and they all managed to return safely to the Mavos Academy, where Sally’s clone died along with Sally, Rachel is in deep shock because she got Sally killed, Clayton is in deep shock and barely responsive because he saw Matriarch Centinel use Corruption to disrupt the magical barrier, he saw the Endlands in her mind, and he saw the Edithe/Archangel hybrid appear and fight, and he basically lost his shit temporarily, and the Dreaded Goblet is on the ground. I don’t actually expect any of them to pay attention to it, but it’s the obvious point where Salvos opens a portal to the Mortal Realm, because she had a live link to Sally through it.

I expect Salvos to come to the Mavos Academy as soon as she’s physically able, and I expect her to bring along a few very high levelled Demons, and a very high levelled Hartia the Fallen Fairy. After the initial shock, I would expect them to get along nicely with Clayton and some other humans, but we already know that a lot of professors there hate Demons enough to deface the monument to Salvos and others who were lost defending agains the Demon invasion. I would expect them to resign, and the vacancies to be filled by Demons. Bertrugil, for instance, already looks very much like a professor – lazy, snarky and irritable. He could teach the history and structure of the Netherworld, as well as the biology of Demons and their evolutions. Hartia could teach space magic, being a major expert at the subject, and also being snarky, irritable and unpleasant enough to be a great professor material. But if Manos the Executioner gets a tenure, I’ll lose my shit. 🙂

Samuel and Belphegor are currently in an incredibly vulnerable position, right next to the Wall of Infinite Corruption, also known as the end of the world. If Regnorex’s sacrificial ritual for breaking the structural wall between Netherworld and the Mortal Realm indeed breaks the Nexeus, or at least contributes to the Corruption, those two will find themselves facing something that can no longer be contained, and they could actually die, which would be a shame, because Salvos loves both of them and cares for them a great deal. Their loss would be tragic, after all they had to endure.

As for Regnorex being a joke, we learned that he wants to live in the Mortal Realm like a Mortal, and the only thing he can think of is go there, kill everybody and “netherform” the place to look like a barren wasteland he came from. Essentially, he wants to escape the Netherworld, but he carries the worst aspects of it with him wherever he goes. Salvos, on the other hand, developed her kindness, empathy and sophistication in her relation with the Mortals to the point where she befriended a few Elves and Kobolds, and progressed in her rank within the human society to the point where she’s a decorated honorary Noble in the Vaun Qieur Empire, she is friendly with lots of Kings and Nobles, all the Vampire Nobles see her as one of their own, she is allied with Hadrian’s company, and was one of the leading generals of the army assembled to fight the Demon invasion. She’s seen as one of the Elite adventurers, one of the Archmages, not to forget that she’s as wealthy as a small country and her name instantly opens all doors.

Basically, Regnorex repeatedly failed to win with violence and terror what Salvos won with goodness, diligent work and saving people’s lives from all kinds of evils, Demons first and foremost. The irony is, she didn’t even have to try directly. She just protected the people she cared for, and levelled by killing harmful things. Where Regnorex tries to break open the doors, for Salvos they open effortlessly. She can visit the Kobolds, the Elves and the Humans any day, and she will find friends there. Her track record is so incredibly positive, that even her enemies can’t find anything to object, and instead make shit up. Basically, she appeared in the Human Lands, and immediately killed a rampaging Demon. Then she destroyed a den of Cultists. Then she made the first report of Belzu gathering an army, and assisted the Valiant Dreamers, who are known for their kindness and optimism, which says a lot about her character. Then she goes to the Plaguelands, levels to Diamond rank, and kills the Lich, becoming instantly famous. Then she goes to Mavos Academy and studies advanced subjects. She kills an Ancient Centinel in the Bloodied Gulf and gets the Title of Secily’s Sentinel, with two Grand Skills and Divinity. She kills a horde of Demons in Elutra. Protects the Noble Families against Demons who try to kill them. Kills most Demons sieging Alyras. She fights Belzu, multiple times, eventually wins. Fights a Hellabomination lvl. 180. Recruits Clayton Skyshredder to the war against the Demons. Wins multiple crucial battles in the war against overpowering foes. Saves everybody by sacrificing herself in the end. Essentially, she’s the brightest star and the most heroic figure they have ever seen, and the account of her deeds would seem like embellished fiction were it not verifiably true. And the fact she revealed herself to be a Demon made everybody lose their shit. The entire civilization is in turmoil over her. How can a Demon possibly be such a heroic figure?

And, also, she doesn’t look or feel anything like a Demon. All the Demons, even the Changelings who can look like very beautiful Mortals, make people’s skin crawl, because they have an aura of cold malice and evil about them. Salvos, on the other hand, was always beautiful in her human form, but not only did she become completely indistinguishable from a Human, even bleeding human blood when injured, but her aura is that of uplifting courage, inspiration and kindness. She’s not someone who creeps people out, she makes everybody inspired and uplifted, and leaves a trail of positively changed lives and people who look up to her. Sure, she also annoys a few fools, but that is always inevitable if you’re virtuous. Also, unlike other Demons, people are not afraid of her, sometimes to a fault, because Amanda needs to be taught a lesson after being a bitch with Salvos too many times. When she suddenly arrives to a fight, people feel relief and gratitude, not sudden fear. Wherever she goes, she’s a great force of Light against whatever Darkness that happens to threaten. She’s someone who first brought the Frost Wyverns to the brink of extinction when they threatened the Human Lands, but then adopted three baby Wyverns as her own children and protected them. The System evaluated her role and Titled her the guardian of the continent of Secily, and for good reason, because the description is apt. She would say that she doesn’t care about anything but herself and her companions, but that’s not what it looks like. To the outsiders, she’s someone who fights high levelled Kobold invaders and then saves a little girl from a magically frozen house and brings her back to her mother. She’s someone who spent a dozen Platinum on educational tools when tutoring struggling students at school. She’s someone who flew into a war zone to save her roommate’s family, and then ended up fighting Belzu, the nigh-invincible calamity destroying the country, to protect their retreat. She’s someone who comes into a desperate situation and her arrival means you’re saved. She might have other interpretations for her actions, but from where other people are looking, it looks very much like she’s some kind of a Guardian Angel of Light, and her Title, Subspecies and second Species confirm this. Secily’s Sentinel, Angelic Devil Princess, Lesser God. You don’t get those for being a selfish person, which is how she thinks of herself; but her selfishness always turns out to be defence of something or someone she loves. The mortally wounded Belzu told her they are similar – both guided by selfishness, and she countered – no, because I am Salvos, while you are Belzu. Her selfishness means protection and care, and his selfishness means murder and pillage.

And so, now Regnorex intends to break the walls of the Mortal Realm so that he can freely invade it with his horde that knows so little about being a Mortal that they wear pants on their heads because they heard that Humans wear clothes, while the person with the Title of Enemy of the Demon King is such an expert on the Mortal Realm that she taught the ancient lore of the Kobolds to an assembly of the human Elites.

That’s going to be fun, when they meet.

I’m not done yet. 🙂

I know it’s a projection. I like the series because I identify with the main character and I project a future for the character that I hope to have personally. It’s fucking obvious, after all. I mean, you have a character who wakes up as a demon larva in a total shithole, and understands that she needs to get stronger if she wants to be more of herself, and I project a future where she gets her old memories and self back, only upgraded by her new experiences. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what I’m doing here. Of course the main character is nothing like me in many ways, but I don’t care as long as I see the main trend of similarity; basically, someone threw you into a pit, you have no memories other than the desire for something you feel you should be but can’t access, and it powers all your efforts to dig yourself out. And, of course, the stronger the soul, the stronger the drive.

Also, I somewhat envy the simplicity and clarity of the system. To Salvos, you just need to kill progressively stronger enemies, and you level. Of course, you need to make choices that determine what kind of a person you end up being, but still, it’s incredibly straightforward. Here, it’s all vague, unclear, indistinct, and the actual method of spiritual evolution is hidden under seven veils and I had to figure it out myself; everything everybody thinks is superficial and more harmful than useful. So, it’s much harder than merely killing monsters 20 levels above you, which is why I envy the system from the books and this envy feeds the appeal.

I also like that the author doesn’t sexualise it. In lots of modern stuff I encountered everything seems to be about sex, and everything else looks like merely ways to package sex. It’s boring, and it hides absence of actual ideas. Here, this part was marginalised and this brings everything else to the surface – the way characters think and feel about all sorts of things. Conversations aren’t merely a way to get to the romantic part; they are the actual point. When someone like Orgaf admires Salvos, he does so because of her achievements – she killed the Lich of the Plaguelands. He saw her fight a Hellabomination that was an evolution and over 40 levels above her. He saw her turn back time in order to land a hit on Belzu, he saw her endure and keep fighting after almost getting killed, and after he himself almost gave up. He saw her kill Ira, whom he fought and lost badly, barely surviving the casual encounter. He saw how she spent the last drops of her potion of regeneration to revive him after he was almost killed, and they were in a rough spot at the moment, where he knew her secret and it wasn’t certain to her that he would protect it; it would have been so easy for her to just let him die or finish him herself; instead, she had him nurtured to full strength and left Willy to care for him. The characters are admired for their actions, and when a meritocrat like Orgaf, who spent his entire life killing monsters in various dark dens, searching for treasures to loot, and who is known for speaking about lvl. 100-149 people as “those useless Diamonds” is fangirling over Salvos, you know he has good reasons for it. Also, when Helena Warshade (I internally call her Helena Ravenclaw for obvious reasons), who is Clayton’s equal in magical power and one of the two highest ranked human Mages, and who actually doesn’t like Salvos very much and is very skeptical of her, teams up with Orgaf and Salvos to deal with shit, you know it’s been earned. There’s no stupid artificial sexual tension or jealousy or rivalry interposed in the plot to cloud the important matters. I mean, sure, it exists, in case of Amanda who has a crush on Daniel and is jealous of Salvos and it’s completely obvious, but it’s very localised. It has a function within the plot; the plot isn’t a mere instrument to sell you the sexual content. That’s very realistic, in fact, despite the modern opinion that sex is the main thing people are concerned with, and everything else is merely a way to package it. I am honestly glad to have found a piece of modern literature that contextualises sex and romance properly, instead of drowning everything in it, the way processed food is drowned in sugar. It’s there because somewhere in the margins Edithe is having a romantic relationship with Hadrian, Daniel has a crush on Salvos which she takes nine books to figure out and only with Amanda’s help, and so on, but it’s one thing among twenty, and prioritised below top ten. The important parts aren’t when someone had sex, they are when they figured something out, overcame something important, when something was revealed that changes everything, or when someone saved a friend from mortal danger at great cost and hazard to themselves. The scenes when Salvos is half-dead from pushing a Skill too far and is completely incapacitated and in excruciating pain, and her companions carry her, protect her and deal with shit for her are much more important and telling. For instance, the journey of Edithe from “Demon! Let’s kill it!” when she first met Salvos, through hostility, guarded tolerance, cautious friendship, to profound friendship that developed in the Plaguelands, where Salvos kept saving her life every moment of every day and twice brought her back from the brink of death and mortal danger at extreme cost to herself where she lost her wings, an arm and almost her life fighting an almost unkillable foe because he had Edithe hostage and was going to kill her the way he killed all those other redheads over the centuries. It starts with Edithe being very reluctant to put Salvos on guard duty, because Demon, to Edithe carrying the wounded Salvos in her arms and protecting her with her life. It’s stuff that develops over nine books of material, very gradually. You don’t get cheap stuff here – no easy rewards, no deep emotions that develop overnight for no good reason. You have deep history between the characters who don’t start as friends. Things don’t just happen. Salvos’ roommate in Mavos Academy wants to kill her when she finds out she’s a Demon, and it takes quite a lot of work for Salvos to get past the dangerous point, and after that there’s lots of suspicion before they get to the point where Saffron would throw herself into fire for Salvos. It takes multiple books to get there. They get to know each other and become friends in book two. By book nine, Salvos is the point of inspiration of Saffron’s entire family; they all look up to her and try to live up to her example, after she saved their lives multiple times with acts of outright heroism. It’s not cheaply earned acclaim; it’s someone flying into the heart of the worst battle in the world at that point to save your family from certain death, and then gets you all out and stays to deal with things, and then things like that keep repeating until you all owe your lives to her ten times over. It’s earned, it’s solid “show, not tell” writing style over multiple volumes. Salvos didn’t just accidentally get famous over one event. It’s multiple instances where she fought, lost, fought again, and barely won, saving people who watched and told stories later. For instance, there’s a group of three adventurers she meets in the second book, and whom we follow through the books at the margins of events, who are so inspired by her that they keep looking up to her and doing more daring things to rise up, because next time they meet, they want her to be proud of them; she, in return, saves their lives on multiple occasions because she remembered them.

Also, there’s the sophisticated arc with the Devil, who looks like a crazy person alleviating his eternal boredom by messing with people when we first meet him; dangerous, deranged, nigh-omnipotent mythical being. He first takes notice of Salvos, then gets to like her, then as he mentors her he develops true feelings for her and adopts her as his daughter, and she’s first annoyed by him but respects him, and then as he helps her develop two grand skills and twenty levels, she feels true gratitude and love for him, and that has so much power that it starts to heal his broken soul, eventually succeeding, and she’s the first person in 50000 years that actually reached him. Also, it’s an arc from book two to book eleven. It’s not some cheap trick, not something that just happens because reasons. She begins by being his dupe, and ends up being his true family.

As I said, “Salvos” is not what one would think it is. It’s deep stuff packaged in shallow nonsense, not the other way around, as it unfortunately tends to be the case with much of literature.

I want to return to the “Salvos” series because I don’t think I’m done with it here.

One of the reason why it’s so good is that the characters break their own mould; they belie expectations. For instance, you would expect that Salvos, as a Demon of Pride, would act in ways a typical prideful person will act, but she’s actually humble. When Willy berates her and she knows he’s right, she will just bow her head, take it and apologise. When Lux Golmi berates her for breaking into its home to kill it for body parts she needs for a potion, and accuses her of being wild, she actually stops, thinks about it and feels shame, because she can understand the “monster’s” perspective and it isn’t flattering. She then offers a compromise and there ends up being no violence. You would expect a proud powerful person to laugh at such criticism, act arrogantly and just take what they want, but Salvos never does. When Haec berates her for hiding corruption from him and doing things behind his back, she again bows her head and apologises. So, her pride is not what people usually mean by it; arrogance, rejection of all criticism, being convinced of your own superiority despite evidence. For Salvos, pride means being great and doing great things and then soaking up deserved praise. Pride is being loved and trusted by worthy people because you are worthy. Pride is not allowing threats to harm what is yours. But when she fucks up and someone gives her a piece of their mind about it, you would expect her to act like those people we all know, who would just arrogantly tell you to fuck off and it’s not your place to say anything. Not Salvos. Salvos believes in reality over everything else. If you believe something about yourself, you have to prove it. If you fucked up and somebody proves it to you, you need to accept your mistakes and do better. Defending your flaws isn’t her kind of pride. Her kind of pride is not having flaws in the first place, and then being admired for it. So, since that’s what she loves, she works on not having those flaws. She doesn’t like being looked down upon for being weak, so she works on being strong. Essentially, she has a constructive approach to things; see what you like, and become the kind of person who deserves it.

Also, one would expect that her pride would demand her to always want a leadership position, but that’s not the case. She’s perfectly satisfied to be the most powerful person in a group, and have someone else lead; whether it’s Helena or Clayton or Haec, it doesn’t matter. She’s more interested in getting things done. On a superficial level, she likes the concept of a cheering crowd or having minions who worship her, but she would get bored of it very quickly, and she usually prefers a much different environment – a company of equals who each have a say, who have opinions, fears and desires she acknowledges and accommodates. She doesn’t want power in order to be a tyrant like Regnorex; in that sense, she’s very much like Samuel, who made a kingdom of equals, people who were joking and messing around with each other and who all had great power, but nobody saw the power of others as a threat that needs to be controlled, the way Regnorex doesn’t allow his minions to evolve to Primordial because he fears being deposed. Samuel’s kingdom was full of Primordials, and they absolutely loved him. They worshipped the ground he walked on. He gave them safety, purpose, peace and hope where there used to be chaos, despair and death. When Trico betrayed them and everything collapsed, including Samuel’s heart, they hoped for 50000 years that he would return to his kingdom and lead them all again. Samuel didn’t need fear to rule, and neither does Salvos.

Even people who barely know her, like Bertrugil, trust her and feel safe with her because they see how she deals with things. They feel safe enough to whine and complain to her. Nobody feels safe with Regnorex that way. People walk on tiptoes around him and constantly bow in submission to appease his ego. Nobody does that around Salvos; instead, Aemula feels safe enough to complain that Salvos doesn’t believe her when she says she can see solid ground, and Salvos is careful not to hurt her feelings. Mind you, Aemula is a lvl. 108 Archdemon. Salvos is at that point a lvl. 165 Lesser God. They are all in Salvos’ pocket space, travelling between the folds of Nexeus, and everybody feels perfectly safe. Aemula whines about not being taken seriously and then rubs it in Salvos’ face when she turns out to be right, Bertrugil sleeps, Taburas broods, Haec is having his evolution in peace. They are all within a construct of space magic created by a Lesser God and they are not walking on tiptoes around her. For a supposed Demon of Pride, Salvos has almost none of what people would call “ego”. Sure, there’s pride in her own achievements, there’s a desire to be great and to be seen as great, to be admired by worthy people who see her greatness and acknowledge it, the pride of truth being said about it and this truth being high praise. Most of it, however, is constructive. She did have some detours into the pathological, such as when she was tutoring other kids and it went into her head, but for the most part, it’s pride of the kind where she doesn’t allow people she loves to be harmed, where she doesn’t allow there to be a power higher than herself that could take all she loves away from her. That’s why the character and the writing are interesting; you don’t expect the Demon of Pride to act mostly as a Goddess of Love.

That, among other things, is why the humans in the Mortal Realm are currently losing their shit over her. They have an expectation of what Demons should be like – Lucerna who rampaged across Nixa, destroying towns and killing people. Belzu who did the same but more effectively, killing millions and razing entire countries. Servants of Regnorex who invaded Inor and Elutra, destroying everything and sacrificing the population to bring in more Demons and eventually the Demon King himself. The fact that the carefree girl who kept destroying all harmful creatures, who was known for killing the Centinels, the undead, the Demons and the cultists who created mischief, who did so many protective and good things that the System gave the Title of “Secily’s Sentinel”, making her essentially the official protector of their world, who fought so hard to defeat the Demon invasion that she brought them all together and didn’t rest until they all focused their efforts to defeat the threat, and was one of their greatest generals and arguably the person most responsible for the victory, the fact that she turned out to be a Demon herself, and not just any demon, but a Primeval Demon who was also a Lesser God who radiated Divinity like the Watcher, Mori Gladius and the Immortal King Alexander – they didn’t know what to do with that. Some tried to argue that it all had to be some deception, but it made absolutely no sense. The alternative was that a Demon can be good, and not just good, but the best person in the world, and that broke their minds even worse because it contradicted everything they knew about Demons. Demons aren’t supposed to have angelic wings, radiate Divinity and make the world safe from threats and evil. The Demons aren’t supposed to have the “aura” Salvos has – something that makes you mildly euphoric, something that makes you want to rise up, earn greatness, leave fears and limitations behind you. Demons aren’t supposed to inspire, elevate, and bring knowledge and peace. Clayton knew she wasn’t human, but his first guess was that she’s a Spirit, because that’s what she feels like. There’s an aura of levity, kindness, protectiveness and inspiration around her, and his suspicion was that she’s either a rogue Spirit, or the Spirit Lord is up to something. Even when he met the Devil in his human form, he felt nothing like what he would expect a Demon to feel like. I honestly can’t imagine what he would have thought; there’s a being that’s extremely powerful, throws one of his professors out the window to prove a point, and then calmly allows Clayton to lead them out of his school without offering resistance, and all the while Clayton is probing him with Identification and who knows what Skills and learns only that he’s the equivalent of a human Elite, but nothing more. The combination of power, mischief and benevolence makes him suspect Spirits, because that’s what people would logically think. Their experience with Demons consists of either Regnorex and his minions, or rogue but evil Demons like Belzu, whose idea of levelling is to raze towns and kill people. When they encounter a Demon whose idea of levelling is to find some wasteland full of wild creatures nobody will miss and kill them, and then go to school to learn magic, their experience offers no guidance that would explain this. And yet, she’s not as unique as they would think; it’s just that Regnorex has been shaping Demons into what they are now for the last 10000 years. The Humans don’t know about the First Kingdom of Samuel the Devil King, who ruled with inspiration, kindness and vision, not fear. Salvos is merely someone who would fit right in with Samuel’s old people, to the point where he ends up actually adopting her as his daughter, and she instantly befriends his viceroy Belphegor when they meet. Humans think Regnorex and his Demons are typical, but they are merely a pathological branch that’s been developing for a long time, and they have a short historical memory.

Humans call the Demons a scourge of the Nexeus, but the Demons used to hang around freely with Spirits, Dragons, High Elves and ancient Humans. They explored sophisticated magic, participated in sophisticated world politics and were seen as merely another species. In fact, Kobolds see Demons as not much different than Spirits; Elves have little to no idea about them, and no prejudice. It’s just Humans that have a problem with… well, everybody except the Spirits, in fact. So, if something is alien but good, it must be a Spirit. Humans, in fact, have a thick wall of prejudice against Demons, that Salvos has to overcome each time with them, but which doesn’t exist with any other species. She befriended a Fairy, a Kobold, multiple Elves, a Spirit and multiple monsters, but with Humans it’s always “Demon! Let’s kill it!” at first. Centina has a similar situation where everybody hates the Centinels, but in both cases, you can’t say the prejudice is unwarranted. The Centinels just kill everything and are completely irrational, and Demons occasionally pop up in the human lands and just kill everyone indiscriminately. Both species are terrible pests that ravage the Human lands. So, why would there not be prejudice against them? There’s 10000 years of history behind the prejudice, and no known exceptions. And Salvos has to concede that. She hates being looked down upon for being a Demon, but when she sees what other Demons are doing there, she can’t blame the humans for drawing the obvious conclusions. Instead, she turns her rage at Regnorex, whose fault it truly is. She’s not stupid the way humans would be, and ask not to be discriminated against as if it were a right. No, she puts real effort into making things right first, and then hopes to be judged fairly.

So, as you can see, it’s this complexity and nuance of the whole thing that I find fascinating.