Vala

Vala is Cain's first demonic companion, a Wrath Demon created to combine frontline combat with party-wide healing and damage enhancement. Her unusual intelligence and initiative make her a trusted commander within the Darklight Host, while successive Companion upgrades carry her from a summoned assistant to a Mythic being who ultimately continues serving the guild by choice.

Biography

The first demonic companion

Vala is created when Cain opens an Ancient reward and gains a Demonic Companion tailored to his party's projected needs. She immediately identifies herself as a Wrath Demon and explains that the spell chose Damage Leech because Misha is the group's only healer, then added Demonic Wrath because Cain already commands many durable constructs. Although Vala initially describes a Companion as equivalent to a slave, she seeks approval for being useful and accepts Cain's promise to keep her active rather than treating her as a disposable summon. (Chapter 48)

That intended support role quickly becomes practical authority. Vala's spear attacks return enough healing to cover ambient damage, freeing Misha to concentrate on the tanks, while the System treats Vala as an extension of Cain for command purposes. She can therefore lead part of his golem force beyond his immediate sight, and she helps split the party's dungeon formation without sacrificing coordination. Outside combat, her binding interprets guarding Cain as a continuing duty: because she does not need sleep, she watches over him at night instead of pretending to use the bedroom the guild assigns her. (Chapters 49 and 52)

Her first major upgrade follows Cain's collection of additional demon forms. Recalled as a Greater Demonic Companion, Vala retains her identity and equipment but gains greater stature, Hellfire, doubled damage and health, a stronger Wrath aura, and nearly triple her previous self-healing. More importantly for her characterization, she begins selecting targets on her own instead of waiting for a direct command. By the time Cain's Advisor skill formally recognizes his Companions as Epic-quality summons, Vala has already reached that quality and routinely directs other summons in large engagements. (Chapters 66–67, 118, 131, and 137)

Warrior of the Darklight Host

As Cain's forces expand, Vala becomes one of the Host's dependable battlefield leaders rather than merely its strongest melee escort. During the confrontation with advancing Seraphim, Cain assigns her command of the demon contingent; she hides that force behind a dune to divide the enemy and personally defeats an Inquisitor needed for Cain's records. Her ability to operate without constant supervision also makes her part of the group's broader defensive structure, including guarding King James while he moves among his subjects in disguise. (Chapters 197 and 268)

Vala's most decisive independent command comes when Earl Mills attacks Blood Sands Castle while Cain is absent. She gathers the Companions, assigns targets, and chooses to strike the enemy summoners and commander before they can stabilize the invasion. She kills Mills, pressures the Forest Lord, and remains present even when a Null suppresses nearby summons; after Laura removes that counter, Vala executes the Forest Lord and ends the falling Null with a deliberately placed spear. The victory establishes that her judgment, not simply Cain's remote direction, can anchor a city-scale defense. (Chapter 327)

Her place in the group also develops through everyday friction and care. Vala initially and Evangeline largely ignore one another, their demonic and Seraphim natures producing a wary contrast, but Vala later protects Evangeline from an overwhelming crowd and advises her how to manage the attention created by her aura. Vala still cannot resist teasing her—once turning off her own discomforting aura and letting Evangeline be mobbed by admirers—but the antagonism becomes familiar banter, and the two eventually regard one another as friends. This social growth sits beside Vala's continuing loyalty to Cain and the other Companions rather than replacing her combative nature. (Chapters 206, 249–250, and 568)

Awakening and independence

When Cain removes the quality restriction from his Advisor skill, Vala and Laura become the first principal Companions to cross beyond Ancient quality. Vala's innate abilities register as Mythic, and Mythic Awakening reduces damage from sub-Mythic skills and beings by 99.9 percent. She nevertheless cautions Laura that access to Awakened regions means they may now be among the weakest local beings. Her later arena bout with Purrseus demonstrates both the scale and danger of the change: she regenerates deep wounds, spreads Mythic Pestilence by contact, incapacitates him, and then concedes because her wings violated the agreed restriction. (Chapters 360, 385, and 400)

Mythic power broadens Vala's responsibilities rather than isolating her from the Host. She accompanies Cain into Awakened territory, combines her Life Leech with his to survive while badly outnumbered, and uses Cain's group-granted summon access to field copies of Carnage against Mythic beasts. At home, she is one of the Companions present when Misha is taken through the barrier over her bed; Vala immediately alerts Cain and helps explain what happened. Later, as a defender of Port Nefheim, she intercepts displaced cultivators, establishes how many companions they lost, and guides the survivors to shelter rather than leaving them in the monster-filled forest. (Chapters 414, 445, 458–460, and 556)

Vala's defining change occurs during the battle against Morgeth's forces, when anti-magic repeatedly dismisses Cain's summoned troops and prevents her from entering the field. Cain uses Useful Dolls to free every permanent summon and puppet, giving Vala an independent existence while preserving her level-500 Mythic status. She and Victor immediately test that freedom by entering the anti-magic battle as living beings, fighting back to back through the enemy mages. Her first act after release is therefore not departure but a freely sustained defense of Cain and their allies. (Chapter 558)

Ancient ally

Freedom removes the command bond without erasing the relationships Vala formed under it. Shortly afterward, she joins the other former Companions in confronting Cain about his habit of reshaping societies and punctures his excuses with the reminder that he accidentally conquered a continent and inspired a cult. She also continues her long-running exchange of demonic taunts with Evangeline, now explicitly described as a friendship. These scenes establish that Vala's loyalty and blunt familiarity survive as personal choices rather than enforced behavior. (Chapter 568)

By the final supplied arc, Vala and Evangeline have turned their combat experience into an ongoing protective role for the Darklight Host. Luna explains that the pair function as law-enforcement officers, responding when guild members or merchants report bandit attacks. This is the latest confirmed position of the original Vala: an independent Mythic being who remains attached to the community that grew around Cain, applying her preference for direct violence to a defined responsibility instead of waiting for a summoner's order. (Chapter 702)

Appearance and personality

Vala first appears as a pale-skinned, tall-horned demon with cloven hooves and leathery wings. Her initial red plate and black chain ensemble leaves her equipped as a heavy warrior; the Greater Companion upgrade makes her about 180 centimeters tall, gives her bright green eyes with horizontal pupils, curls her black horns above her ears, and armors the bones of her white wings with bladed black steel. At Mythic quality she is later described as over 190 centimeters tall. She can also use a shorter, wingless disguise with burnished bronze skin, her own face, and black cornrows or dreadlocks bound with gold. (Chapters 48, 66, 246, 400, and 403)

She is direct, observant, and openly delighted by difficult combat. Her emotion sense helps her recognize what will please or anger others, but she often uses that insight for dry teasing rather than diplomacy. Vala is also practical about responsibility: she destroys sensitive correspondence, corrects threats to the guild, watches Cain while he sleeps, and takes charge when no superior is present. Her humor can be cruel and her fighting style deliberately dirty, yet she can concede under an agreed rule, protect frightened outsiders, and maintain friendships across the supposedly irreconcilable demon–Seraphim divide. (Chapters 48, 52, 70, 249–250, 400, 556, and 568)

Skills and class features

Vala is a close-combat Wrath Demon whose Companion-derived features combine personal durability, battlefield command, area attrition, and party support. Her capabilities are tied first to Cain's Demonic Companion spell and its recorded demon-form thresholds, then to the Epic Advisor framework and Mythic Awakening. Her release in Chapter 558 preserves her level and quality but ends benefits that specifically depend on the active Companion bond. (Chapters 48, 66–67, 137, 360, 558, and 652)

Companion bond and command authority

The original spell creates Vala as a lifelong assistant who can retain equipped gear between summons. Because the System recognizes her as an extension of Cain, she can command his golems beyond his presence and divide his summoned army into independently operating groups. Cain's duplication ability initially destabilizes her, but dismissing and recalling her resolves the interaction by producing two synchronized Vala instances. Greater Companion status then gives her enough autonomy to select targets, while the Epic Advisor skill grants Companion summons Bonded Forces of their own. (Chapters 48–49, 54, 66, and 137)

The bond has genuine restrictions: even after developing initiative, Vala says she may be unable to disobey an order, and the Companions can at most exploit loosely worded instructions. Merger and duplication also mean many scenes feature a cloned instance rather than a second independent identity. When Cain frees the permanent summons, Vala stops being dismissible and can cross anti-magic suppression as a living being, but she loses Bonded Forces because that army was an Advisor benefit. Cain can later summon new Supporter copies based on her template; those derivatives are not the released original and do not establish her personal advancement. (Chapters 66, 444, 558, 648, and 652)

Damage Leech, Life Leech, and Demonic Wrath

Damage Leech converts part of Vala's inflicted damage into healing distributed to the party. Her early spear attacks do not replace a dedicated cleric, but they cover steady environmental and area damage, and equipment that adds a flat amount to each heal makes frequent damage ticks disproportionately effective. At Greater Companion rank her self-healing nearly triples; later descriptions call the evolved effect Life Leech, draining both life and mana and redistributing the benefit. Fighting beside Cain while he copies the same aura doubles the effect and keeps both combatants alive under heavy pressure. (Chapters 48–49, 66, 109, 414, 460, and 651)

Demonic Wrath begins as a party-and-construct damage aura granting fifty percent of modified damage as a bonus. Its effect doubles with Vala's Greater Companion promotion, and its later form can also demoralize enemies or make bystanders uncomfortable. Vala can suppress that ambient social effect, as she does at the carnival, and a derivative Spirit-rank copy demonstrates a more focused Wrath transformation that doubles physical size. The latter shows the template's later mechanics, but it occurs after the original Vala is freed and is not evidence that her own rank advanced beyond Mythic. (Chapters 48, 55–66, 249, and 651)

Pestilence and close combat

Vala's Epic development gives her Pestilence, an area debuff that spreads through enemies as she damages them. It can trigger repeated group healing through Damage Leech, force opposing healers to spend mana on cleansing, and continue harming targets around the person struck. The effect is not irresistible: Purrseus clears it after several seconds, and Vala must strike again to refresh it. It also threatens unintended nearby targets, as shown when a referee nearly dies simply from proximity, so Vala can remove the debuff when she chooses to end the danger. (Chapters 109, 175, 327, 400, and 414)

Her martial style supports that attrition with fast, pragmatic pressure. Vala is proficient with spear and shield, two-handed swords, armed and unarmed combat, wing-assisted movement, and a bladed tail. She uses red ranged arcs early, gains Hellfire as a Greater Companion, and later employs black energy blades and Shadow Strike. She favors feints, low blows, trips, and relentless counters rather than formal elegance. Her thermal vision supports fighting in darkness, but she is fundamentally a close-range specialist; Neffie notes the lack of ranged options while mimicking her, and Vala relies on summons or pursuit against evasive casters. (Chapters 49, 56, 66, 327, 400, 460, 498, and 651–652)

Mythic Awakening and latest state

Crossing beyond Ancient quality changes Vala's innate skills to Mythic and grants Mythic Awakening, which reduces damage from beings and skills below Mythic quality by 99.9 percent. This makes equal-level Ancient companions effectively unable to overcome her regeneration, though it does not make her invulnerable to Mythic peers, specialized suppression, or stronger realms. Purrseus can wound her wing despite losing the exchange, and anti-magic initially blocks her participation while she still counts as a summon. (Chapters 360 and 400, 558)

Cain's release preserves Vala as a level-500 Mythic being but removes Companion-only Bonded Forces. The final chapters do not confirm a later personal awakening rank, class change, or Divine advancement for the original. Her latest demonstrated state is therefore independent Mythic combatant and guild protector. Spirit-rank Vala copies summoned by Cain in the Immortal Realm inherit his current summon scaling and can challenge Immortal cultivators, but their temporary quality and skills must not be transferred to the original's progression. (Chapters 558, 648, 651–652, and 702)

Power progression

Relationships

• Cain: Vala begins as Cain's magically bound companion and field lieutenant. His efforts to equip, advance, and retain her earn genuine loyalty, and her immediate choice to fight beside him after gaining freedom shows that the relationship outlasts the command bond. She is also willing to mock his rationalizations and challenge his self-image.
• Evangeline: Their opposing demonic and Seraphim natures initially produce mutual avoidance and teasing. Shared travel, protection, and service to the guild turn the rivalry into friendship; by the endpoint they work together responding to attacks on guild members and merchants.
• Laura: Vala and Laura are the first principal Companions to reach Mythic quality. Laura often treats Vala's warm wings as a comfortable perch, while Vala balances that familiarity with a more cautious judgment of unfamiliar threats.
• Nemu: Vala helps normalize Nemu's duplicated Companion identity and later fights beside her across the Host's campaigns. Their contrasting temperaments—Vala's direct aggression and Nemu's playful support—make them complementary members of Cain's mobile group.
• Victor: Vala and the victorious Echo study and fight beside one another. When released from summoning restrictions, they are the first two to enter the anti-magic battlefield and operate back to back against Morgeth's army.

Items

• Plague Eater Sword: A two-handed demonic weapon manifested with Vala's Epic transformation; its strikes leave infected-looking wounds and complement her Pestilence-based attrition. (Chapter 118)
• Pestilent Scimitar: Cain acquires this scimitar because its on-hit Pestilence and doubled Pestilence damage can work alongside Vala's passive version. It remains Cain's weapon rather than Vala's personal possession. (Chapter 175)