"Thank you, Lord Zaar," she said as the energies of the orb swirling around her went back to it. "I hope it will help you greatly in the battles against the Grimms," I said with a smile. "It definitely will," she replied and put the orb into her storage. She is powerful, to begin with, but with this orb, she will become even more powerful; it will erase the need for her to be close to water elemental energies. The orb contains a colossal amount of powerful type of water elemental energy; with its aid, her moves will become even stronger. "Get familiar with it, Lady Atkins; you might need to use it very soon," I said and walked toward the teleportation formation. If I had not been in a hurry to meet Marina, I would stay and talked to her for a few minutes, but I did not. Marina is the most important thing in my life, and I will not be able to calm myself till I see her condition with my very eyes. Buzz! The teleportation formation lit up, and I disappeared; a second later, I appeared in her personal lab. As I appeared, I saw the marina and couldn't help but be surprised when I saw her; a layer of green mist was covering her body that one could not even see her eyes. She is wearing a band, a powerful artifact given to her by her sister a few months ago. It covers one with mist, making it hard for the senses of one to see her, but that is that Grand Lord and below class. With my power, I could easily break through the cover of mist, but I did not. "Marina," I said softly as I appeared beside her, and to my shock, she tried to take a step back before stopping herself; this involuntary reaction from her couldn't help but shake me to my core. "What happened?" I asked softly, with my voice barely more than a whisper. The reaction of she had said many things, that now when I want to touch her, my hand is shaking, refusing to move. If my closeness had gotten this reaction, then I couldn't imagine how she would react when I tried to touch her. "I have become a monster," she said after nearly a minute; the raw pain in her voice nearly broke me. I had never heard such pain in her voice, and now, hearing it, I felt broken, and at the same time, deep bubbling anger rose in my heart that I was barely able to control. "You are not a monster and never will be, no matter what happened to you," I said to her, trying to get close to her but stopping myself, fearing the reaction she would have. "Really?" she asked with her voice full of self-deprecating mirth; I opened my mouth to reply to that when she touched the bracelet, and mist began to evaporate, and a moment later, she revealed herself. She is not the marina I had left in the pyramid, at least not physically, but in heart, she is still my marina, looking at me with those beautiful irises, searching for any sign of disgust she might find on my face. "Beautiful," I said and finally touched her face; her whole body shook involuntarily but did not resist my touch or get away with it and instead leaned into it, with the tears welling up in her eyes. "Really, are you not seeing me as a monster?" she asked, "Why should I? You have become more beautiful, and you know, I always had a thing for horns," I said, and that put a small smile on her face. Saying the marina had changed would be an understatement; she had transformed, and those who only knew her barely will not be even able to recognize her. She now has beautiful purple skin and glittering amethyst scales covering her legs and two curved horns that seemed to be carved out of bright yellow amber with a hint of gold and had vibrant-green rings of vines over them. pand(a-n0vel.c)om Her ears have also changed; they turned pointy, and her eyes now bore two different colors; one is green while the other is golden amber. The golden amber eyes are slitted, while the green eyes, which were natural eyes, form crystalline outlines at the end of the irises. The thing that surprised me the most was her tail, which was green scaled but had a triangular shape spike made of amber. It felt sharper than my sword. She now has also become taller, nearly as tall as me. "You have become even more beautiful," I said softly and moved my face toward her, and soon our lips touched, and I could feel her quiver, but she did not resist, nor she stepped back. We begin to kiss, and it is just as I remember, though clearly her taste has become even sweeter, like nectar, and I am not saying metaphorically. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖 At first, our kiss was gentle, but soon it turned aggressive, and it was not me who was being aggressive; marina became aggressive as if wanting to validate she was not the monster and I still loved her. Hun! We were kissing passionately when suddenly I noticed something which made my eyes widen in shock, but despite noticing the shocking thing, I did not stop and continued kissing her with the same passion she was kissing me. The kiss lasted more than five minutes before we separated, and I finally saw a smile, a true smile. "Thank God, you are kissing me. If it had been any other poor soul, you would have killed him," I said to her with a smile, but her eyes went wide in alarm, and she tried to step back, but I stopped her and pressed her against me. "I said, some poor soul, your poison is not strong enough to harm, and even if it had, I would have been able to deal with it; you know that better than anyone else," I said, directly looking into her eyes. It may not seem on my face, but I am deeply shocked by the poison, not only by the poison's powers but also by how easily it spread through my body, and I did not even when it had spread through my whole. I was able to detect it right before it was preparing to strike me. It would have been one thing if she had been a Grand Lord class, but she is a Grandmaster, not even a High-Grandmaster, but that poison of hers could kill anyone below the Grand Lord class. Just what happened to her? "I am changed, Michael; I feel like I have turned into a monster; everything about me seemed to harm people. I have nearly killed Grandmistress Charline a couple of times," she said shakingly. "You are not a monster; the thing happened to change you to the most fundamental level. It will take you some time before you will be able to control your new powers," I said to her and held her even tighter. I could only imagine what she must be going through with such a huge change; many people would have broken down by it, but she stayed strong, and I couldn't help but feel proud of her for that.