King of Swords 9-103 (ALLICIO)
“During the Universal war, it was theorized that placing an intact devil mask upon a living human, still containing some of that devil’s essence, could create a fused being – a devilskin warrior. The human would benefit from the devil as a sort of armor, the devil from the direct access to the human soul flame. Such a warrior could be pushed far beyond the limits of both devil and man, employing the strengths of both, and could eventually rival the demiurges in sheer power.
In practice, many attempts were made at creating such warriors, but in almost all cases, the human ended up mentally rejecting the devil, or the devil ended up quickly subsuming its host and burning out. Two powerful beings sharing the same flesh – one can only imagine the clash of egos that would take place, or the sheer mental control to fight with such a powerful body. The few that did survive became terrors on the battlefield but did not survive the war.
The practice still persists among devilkind in a more degenerate form, with the creation of ‘hollows’. Well-connected devils will go to great lengths to kidnap human chattel, which are ritualistically ‘hollowed’ out, personality and face alike, their life force preserve through arcane means until the devil may possess them at its leisure, without any inconvenience.
Both rituals are abhorrent in any case. Though I do wonder if any extant records of the practice exist…”
– Payapop Pritram
Holy Shit. This kicks ass
Boob-plate armor of Heavy Fortification +5.
The trans-dimensional tailors guild does good work, but they can’t be expected to pull off full coverage on unsanctioned, unprecedented magical transformations. If she wanted the full kit and wand she should have drawn her transformation out for at LEAST another three pages.
You don’t get the full sailor-moon sparkle set without an extended montage.
Traditionally this ensemble was usually worn with a, “Mad Hat,” but alas the last known Mad Hat Shoppe burned to the ground sometime during the late Hyperborean Age.
The late Hyperborean police suspect Arson; Arson the Cimmerianian.
I can hear Karolina Żebrowska laughing all the way from where I am.
FUUUUUUU-SION!
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Came here to post this.
Knew it would already be here…
will no one say
in the name of the moon
One
True
Symbiosis
I dunno, I like Cio-Son. Has a sort of Son Goku ring to it.
Alichoath could also work. Yabalison, not so much.
I love Allicio. Maa Kalir obotaron.
Ciocioson would have been my choice, ala Madame Butterfly.
Well, whaddayaknow. A giant woman.
A giant woman!
A. Giant. Woman.
We have the “Dom” sound when she takes a step.
A giant woman with extra arms and magical powers. Formidable.
All I wanna be is someone who gets to see…
She even has multiple arms and a thingy in her forehead
Uh… we don’t know that until we have something to compare them to. I mean, they could be short. We have nothing in sight but smoke.
It’s odd because, on one side, yeah, you’re right; but on the other, she FEELS like a giant woman. She could get shorter somehow and she’d still feel like a giant.
That’s what people call Great, I think.
Haha, I love this use of the plural. Gender is not in question here, but there ARE two of them. How clever!
Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak devils stronger.
You’re just mad ‘cos your single.
That’s like a twelve pack of abs.
… with new abs being discovered every day.
Damn.
The flame of YIS herself burns within this entity: no mere god-pretender can stand in its way.
Salami Dave is trembling in his sandals
Swolemon’s atum flame has become an innie.
All I wanna do is see you turn into
A giant woman,
A giant woman!
All I wanna be is someone who gets to see
A giant woman.
All I wanna do is help you turn into
A giant woman,
A giant woman!
All I wanna be is someone who gets to see
A giant woman.
Oh I know it’ll be great and I just can’t wait
To see the person you are together.
If you give it a chance you can do a huge dance
Because you are a giant woman.
You might even like being together
And if you don’t it won’t be forever.
But if it were me,
I’d really wanna be a giant woman,
A giant woman!
All I wanna do is see you turn into
A giant woman.
Allicio: “Oh shit, I forgot Zaid.”
*defuses*
Okay, but
Stronger Than You
Oh, she is.
That about settles it, does it not? Pack your bags. I have won.
I might as well step out and make a withdrawal of 3.8 bumillion Draco Nickels and put it towards a new rotating palace. All of your betting money belongs to me now; what happens next in this fight is a mere formality.
The Bank of the Degraded Thief can devour my cracked stony member. I don’t need that stepping stone any longer: I’m going to bribe my way back to my old job!
Hell yeah.
Come on, Brass Headhunters, grab your salts, let’s get the FUCK outta here.
Well, at least get closer to the way out so that when things go south a speedy self-preserving exit can be performed, without compromising the remote possibility that the stadium and its spectators might survive and collecting on the wagers in situ become necessary.
The Wheel of Fate is Turning
While I think you right, Wealth-Returned Banker, I am reminded of that old wisdom: never count your palaces before they rotate.
Formality though it may be, a gambler never commits until the bet is won.
(Laughs in the Black Tongue)
This design Fucks.
A few pages later: “‘Thank you Allicio! But Zaid is in another castle.”
Allicio: “…I can’t say I’m surprised.”
Princess: “We found Zaid!”
Allicio: “Huh, now I can.”
Ah, my lovelies.
You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you.
Yabalchoath got another Key, woohoo!
This time yabbie gets ALL the keys, through the power of friendship!
Damn son.
You know that at some point Allicio is going to say THIS ISN’T EVEN MY FINAL FORM! And then we will have White Allicio.
She still has to absorb White Chain and the Parade of Fools.
Well, and the entire cosmos, since the Wheel is the Divided body of Yisun.
but those first.
Alternately, Cio could turn red.
You know, she has probably had many an opportunity to advance if she wanted to, but she hasn’t, not even going full Yabalchoath has spontaneously advanced her. So, I suspect that she is happy where she is.
It does beg the question whether a devil can spontaneously advance when they don’t want to. Princess spontaneously advanced in part due to not wanting to ‘die’ while ‘so diminished’.
We’ve also never actually seen the normal or more usual way that devils advance.
Ultra Instinct Solomon David vs Merged Super Saiyan Blue Allicio
If the name of that final form is not “Aliccio in chains”, i will cry down in a hole
“Hey, maybe we should try fusing a devil and human that actually like each other and have common cause?”
“What? No warrior or devil worth fusing would ever be content to *spit* COOPERATE!”
“Oh… sorry… just an idea…”
-Apprentice Soul Engineer Distal, not long before being demoted to Apprentice Janitor and perishing in obscurity
Cio is the only devil we’ve met so far though whose chaotic nature and inner wickedness presents itself as mischievousness and not “I want to eat your soul!”
Except maybe for her Yabalchoath past, which has manifested itself at times.
Cat Master and Lucky seemed at least somewhat honorable.
Lucky Felicia isn’t a devil. She’s human. ;
Cat Master wasn’t a human, though.
Luckycat when.
See, it’s perfect. One is a cat-loving devil, one is a cat-themed human. Surely this fusion would put poor Allycio to shame, steal all the spotlight, and redirect the plot away from the supposed protagonists.
Whoa, slow down there Ken Penders.
Well, Felicia did get away with the money.
… inflation must have made all that cash kinda worthless, though.
A three-armed fusion? *shrug* eh, why not.
Eh, Princess seems to get along perfectly well in society. Sure, she’s got a wildly powerful sorceress, a damned angel, and Al-YISUN riding herd on her, but she’s caused no troubles since being brought into existence/knocked down from Ebon.
And given the number of devils we see in background shots, there’s probably plenty of honorable ones. You just wouldn’t hire them for something like the heist on the vault of Yre.
Actually, judging from Payapop Pritram’s analysis, it sounds like even the most familiar and amiable of human-devil partners would have serious trouble with this, simply due to the unconscious & biological conflicts that would erupt from the sharing of one body between both Perceiving and Destroying souls.
For a human to successfully control a devil’s flame without burning themselves into nothingness, they would need to have extraordinary power all on their own, combined with nigh-Angelic levels of restraint. The devil in the partnership, meanwhile, would need to have qualities of both great humility and far-reaching empathy, neither of which are…particularly common in Devils, to say the least.
It’s hard to imagine where and when in all the Wheel such a confluence of beings and relationships could occur so perfectly as to create a stable Devilskin warrior.
@Abaddon, minor verbiage point: “extant” = “existent”. So _”I do wonder if any *extant* records of the practice *exist*”_ sounds a little redundant.
I believe Pritram was attempting to address the question of whether any contemporary references to the practice existed.
This translation, at least, does seem to fumble a bit.
“THAT’S A SPICY MEATBALL!”
-Jim Carrey, The Mask, 1994.
This design has something of a Shiva (or maybe Kali) Destroyer of Worlds vibe going.
I’ll also note that at first glance the second pair of arms look like they might be Yabalchoaths, but they aren’t spiny or exoskeletal looking.
Also, I’m willing to bet that one or the main differences between this and the past attempts is the relationship between the two and that they are cooperating rather than fighting for control.
I’m gay
Hello, DB, welcome to the club; here’s your membership card, you don’t have to show it if you don’t want to, bathrooms are over there, and if you want you can get your Allicio poster in the quartermaster’s office, huge fan of hers…
*Considers joining just for the poster….
A small voice at the back of my mind is trying to remind me i’m bi, but this image is screeming to me that i’m hella gay.
INCARNATE
Is it just me, or is Allicio in Metaconstant two mugs clinking
Hadn’t really noticed, but the symbols do kind of look like that, yeah.
Hrmm… either that or they spell the word “CHIMP”. I’m gonna go with “cheers” / two mugs clinking instead though.
Ha, monkey eats fruit.
So it begins.