Maria had been a little bummed out because the stats that had been lost thanks to Pride’s siphoning hadn’t returned to her even after she ate the Sin Devil’s Life Essence. She had checked and double-checked back when she was still in the trial dimension but was dismayed to see them not returning to their original values. It was a large blow to her because her combat power mainly came from her overpowered stats despite her being at a low level.

  However, after reading through the notifications and seeing all the changes to her status screen, Maria no longer cared about those lost stats since she had gained a lot more back and then some.

  “I’m stronger than ever!”

  She was still at the same level but possessed even more points in all of her 4 attributes than before. The EXP requirement seemed to have doubled though but that didn’t matter. Her stats were amazing so needing more EXP to level up was fine for her.

  “I’ve become a Nephalem, but what the heck is that? Is it the same as a Nephilim?”

  Maria wondered if the two were the same or not because honestly, she didn’t want to be in the same race as that crazy girl who attacked her in the Realm of War. From the looks of things, however, it didn’t appear that they were the same.

  As a Nephilim, Hecate and Ophelia had a literal half-angel half-devil body. Maria, however, appeared fully human in her normal state while in her other state, she had the mixed appearance of an angel and a devil–though, from the looks of it, her appearance leaned more towards the devil side rather than the angel side. The only angel part of her other state was her feathery red wings and crystalline red halo. Other than that, she appeared mostly devil-like.

  After going through her [Status] screen, Maria opened her [Skill] menu and noticed that quite a lot of her skills had changed or disappeared. Her [Nightmare] skill had changed from an active skill to a passive skill that could be toggled on and off. Its name had also changed into [Metamorphosis]. Other than that slight change, however, the skill’s effects remained the same though there were some minor upgrades to the effects. When she tried toggling the passive skill on, her wings appeared and she transformed into her angel-devil form.

  “Oh! So that’s what it was!”

  It was a bit weird now that she had two different forms but this was fine. [Nightmare] had changed into [Metamorphosis] and had a complete overhaul. Now, it was much more powerful than before and there were no longer any detriments to its abilities.

  Maria was quite happy with the change since it made her skill even stronger. Only her racial skills, self-created skills, and class skills had experienced any major changes while a few of her other skills received name changes though their effects were more or less the same as before. After reading through all of the changes, she took note of the ones that had the most significant changes other than her [Nightmare] skill.

  First of all, her [Angel’s Rage] had become [Rain of Terror] and had its area of effect and damage enhanced. There was now a small cooldown per activation but it was more or less better than before.

  [Fallen’s Cruelty] became [Soul Drain] which was much more powerful than its previous form and finally, her [Gehenna’s Eye] became [Nehaplem’s Eye].

  Maria particularly liked the enhanced effects of Nephalem's Nihility because, with the activation chance’s increase, it was highly likely she could now regularly see the effect trigger when she was hunting monsters on the field. The effect would hardly ever trigger when she used it on higher leveled monsters because of its abysmal activation chance but now that it was 25%, 1 out of 4 chances, Maria would be able to see the effect activate.

  Fighting against lower or equal leveled monsters was something Maria hardly did so the effect of [Gehenna’s Eye], which was now [Nephalem’s Eye], would hardly ever activate. She had never even been able to use the skill’s buff on herself and steal a monster’s attributes before.

  She really wanted to test things out so she was impatient to get back on the battlefield where the rest of her army was to fight her enemies. Of course, she wouldn’t be actively participating in the fight but she could go monster hunting in the nearby area.

  “Alright, Ash, I’m done eating. Let’s head back to the frontlines and on the way, fill me in on what’s been happening,” Maria said as she stood up from her ‘vampire chair’.

  “Y-Yes, my Lady.”

  https://www.patreon.com/xxAlter

  https://discord.gg/WnA94tauVP