One of the most important things in the “Salvos” series is the levelling mechanics. The System, or Arcraem, or whatever it’s locally called, doesn’t actually seem to care about virtue of weak beings. It forces you to either grow stronger or die, because the threats you will be facing are definitely growing stronger, and unless you can match them in strength, you will lose. So, if you’re a good person, you will be forced to develop a very practical kind of goodness, of the kind that forcefully defends good things in your life against violent threats, and definitely not of the fake kind that signals virtue by posting on Twitter about how this or that person is racist, sexist or something-ist, implying how good you are. On the Nexeus, nobody gives a shit. If you’re a good person, face a monster in battle when it wants to raze a town and eat its inhabitants. If you’re too weak, you don’t matter and nobody cares about your imaginary virtue. Get stronger and then you’ll be able to prove your virtue by winning battles against a herd of monsters invading from the nearby forest, or the undead infesting the Plaguelands, or the Centinels from the Bloodied Gulf. The weak are virtueless. They can be only victims. The powerful ones can be either virtuous or villainous, but the weak don’t matter. If you’re weak and pretend to be virtuous, you’re laughed at because you obviously didn’t do anything that mattered, ever. If you’re high levelled, you’re respected, because you obviously did things. Titles are even more extreme – they are a distinction even among those who did important things and levelled. A prestigious Title gives you great esteem within the society. It’s something akin to academic titles, military rank and order of merit. So, when Salvos levels quickly, and cycles through prestigious Titles like Liberator of the Plaguelands and Secely’s Sentinel, that stuff carries lots of weight in the society. Everybody who sees her knows she’s someone who did things of historic importance in mere years. So, when some hereditary Noble around lvl. 40 tries to yell at her, it is understandable why King Lamarr publicly humiliates him and gets him thrown out – he’s basically a nobody, and she’s a Diamond Ranked adventurer and Liberator of the Plaguelands. Her achievements are a form of societal rank. She did things. Her Title was awarded by the world itself. It actually means something. In a meritocratic world, she’s the actual nobility. Someone like King Lamarr, who himself is a meritocrat who won his crown from being a gladiator in the slave pits, knows what it must have taken for a young girl to rise from Gold to Diamond in two years, and to have that Title. There were daily battles to the death and she won. She succeeded where thousands died trying. You don’t get to fuck with her. As I said, there’s no Internet in the Nexeus, where the losers tend to disparage the successful people with no consequences.

So, the levelling mechanics. Where does Salvos currently stand? She is trying to reach her Primordial evolution. The earliest she can get one is lvl. 190, if she has all her Grand Skills maxed out, or she doesn’t have Grand Skills.

Her Grand Skills are:

[Divine Essence of the Angelic Devil Princess] lvl. 2,
[My Flame Shall Burn Until Eternity Ends] lvl. 3 (maxed),
[Claw of Corruption] lvl. 2,
[The World of My Mind] lvl. 5 (maxed),
[Soul Of The Primordial Demon] lvl. 1

As you can see, two of those are maxed, one at 3 points and the other at 5. This means it’s hard to calculate how many points she will have to gather in order max them all out. However, there might be a method to this: “Divine Essence of…” and “My Flame…” are her oldest Grand Skills, which she got as an Archdemon at lvl. 125. “Claw of Corruption” and “The World…” are her more recent ones, which she got as a Primeval Demon, at lvl. 165. There were hints that the Archdemon Grand Skills are inferior in nature to the Primeval and Primordial ones, so let’s assume they max out earlier as they have less potential. We can thus guess that the “Divine Essence…” will also max out at 3, while the “Claw…” will max out at 5. Whether this is actually what the author had in mind, I don’t know, but it feels reasonable and in alignment with the text.

We don’t know what the “Soul of…” does and how it works, except that it manifests two balls of light that only Salvos can see, one of which is red and the other silver, and that Manos recognized it as an immortality skill. I will make a guess: those spheres of light stand for her maxed out Grand Skills. The red one stands for “My Flame…” and the silver one for “The World…”. As she maxes out more Grand Skills, they too will be manifested there. Also, I would expect the “Soul of…” to max out at the number of Grand Skills she has. This is just guesswork, though.

We know she will get another Grand Skill before Sally dies, the “I Am…” Skill she used in her suicidal attack against Matriarch Centinel. She guesses Salvos is above lvl. 190 at that point, and it is my guess that she still hasn’t evolved to a Primordial at that point, which I will explain later. However, if that Grand Skill needs to be maxed as well, and it’s another 5 points, that kind of adds up to being a lot of points. If she doesn’t get enough by the time she needs to evolve to Primordial, she won’t get the option to evolve, and as such will be weaker than all the enemies she is supposed to fight in order to do so. Being forced to fight Primordials before evolving into one is incredibly dangerous, so this is an existential matter for her.

Grand Skill points are awarded at every level integer-divisible by 5. She has two points available to spend. According to my guesswork, she needs 1 for “Divine Essence…”, 3 for “The Claw…”, and 4 for “Soul of…”. This is 8 in total. Then comes the “I Am…”, and we’ll be pessimists and say it needs 4 points to max out, and also forces her to spend another point on the “Soul of…”. This is 13 points in total, and when we deduct the 2 she has, it means she needs 11 more.

She is lvl. 183 in her subspecies and 171 in her Class. This means she would be awarded GS points at 185, 190, 195 and 200, as well as 175, 180, 185, 190, 195 and 200 in her Class. This means that she will be missing one point when she reaches 200 in both subspecies and Class. The last Grand Skill will get her stuck.

Considering what Haec and the Devil told her, Grand Skills are a great detriment to evolving to a Primordial. Regnorex allows only the Demons without Grand Skills to join his Vanguard, supposedly because they can evolve the fastest. Also, since the ordinary Skills evolve to almost Grand Skill level at Primordial, what need is there for the Grand Skills? They just seem to get things harder. Well, I don’t think so. At Primeval evolution, you need to be quite special as a Demon to get a Hellprince/Hellprincess evolution. When you get it, you are more powerful than an ordinary Primeval Demon of your level. Grand Skills and probably Titles contribute greatly to that. Also, it seems that the immortality skills depend greatly on how many Grand Skills you have maxed out. This makes you far more competent and dangerous at Primordial than someone who evolved at lvl. 190 and without Grand Skills, and whom Salvos could probably kill in a few seconds, while being a Primeval at lvl. 174. Also, Salvos has three prestigious Titles, two of them stackable, and her Class is also barely weaker than her subspecies. She’s incredibly overpowered for her nominal level, which is why people underestimate her and die. Sure, you get lots of stat points at your evolution, you get new Skills and your old skills improve. However, compared to what happens when you have multiple maxed out Grand Skills, overpowering Titles and a powerful Class, I would venture a guess that this is next to nothing. Salvos at her Primordial evolution is going to be something rarely seen, if ever, because she’s like one of those battleships bristling with guns. She’s an extraordinary fighter, extraordinary Mage and also an extraordinarily good person for someone of her combat proficiency. However, there will be a snag, even worse than that missing one point. You see, she’s corrupted.

At her lvl. 150 Class advancement, she was offered 3 options, two of which were so badly corrupted she almost died listening to their description, while the third one was corrupted but acceptable. More precisely, the options weren’t corrupted; she was. It stands to reason that the same or worse will repeat when she maxes out her Grand Skills above lvl. 190; she will be offered something that’s too corrupted for her to even look at without dying, and that’s if that missing GS point resolves itself somehow; for instance, if “Soul of…” needs only 5 points and not point for each GS, which might be the case. However, the corruption issue will rear its ugly head at 200 and she will be stuck.

This is the point where I expect her to be stuck, trying to solve a problem that’s too hard, unable to move either forward or back, and having to face her death at the brink of a triumph she failed to reach. She remembers her companions, friends and the highlight reel of her life and prepares to die.

Here’s where we come to Daniel and his [Salvos’s Chosen Hero] Class advancement. We in fact only saw something like this in the “Amelia” series, when Amelia was offered only one option, the [Worldwalker Hero of Vacuos], and it’s not clear why until Grat-ra’zun, the ancient Dragon of that world tells her that it’s a very bad sign; the world System concluded that she’s the only possible salvation for the world. The System can see into the future, it can follow timelines and it find the only timeline that leads to survival, and that’s to recruit Amelia to save it.

So, Daniel’s Class option has multiple meanings. The first is that Salvos chose him as her Hero. That did not necessarily happen in the past; it could have happened in the future, but it is inevitable and the System sees it. The second implication is that the world could be saved only if Daniel accepts that Class. The third implication is that Salvos needs to save the world, and Daniel needs to save Salvos in order for that to happen.

Daniel is currently lvl. 181 in his Class, but he’s a low-levelled Trader in his second class, likely around lvl. 25. Compared to the overwhelming power of Salvos’ Class lvl. 171, he is incredibly weak. He’s not likely to save her by beating some foe she’s too weak to overcome. He can, however, give her a 10% stat boost with his “Will of the Hero” Skill. While this is important, I think the emotional part of him being there for her while she’s essentially stranded in a hellhole, surrounded by people who care only for what she can do for them, might be much more important. Also, when he accepts that Class, I would expect him to get some Skill that can tell him when Salvos is in mortal danger. Whether he’ll also get a Skill that can teleport him to her location, or will he use that feather the Watcher showed him, of one-time teleportation to the location of whatever you’re thinking of at the moment, remains to be seen. In any case, I expect her to be in serious trouble, and I expect Daniel to come to the rescue, finally being the Hero where it actually matters. And then, I expect the sync with Sally to begin.

Sally made a big contribution to killing Matriarch Centinel, lvl. 238. That’s going to create a deluge of experience after Edithe/Archangel kills her. Sally also represents the only uncorrupted aspect of Salvos, that was stranded in the Mortal Realm without any connection while Salvos was corrupted in the second layer of the Netherworld, fighting those Corrupted Hellspaces. Sally also developed not only mana system, but also a soul of her own, and in the end sacrificed herself willingly to save others. All of that is going to sync with Salvos. I don’t actually know what to expect, but I think she’ll get her corruption fixed and her status screen will reset, finally offering her the option to evolve. This will be not only Primordial Demon of the Hellqueen status, but also the next evolution of her Lesser God species – Greater or True God, depending on what Melas has planned. In any case, since almost everybody ever evolves to Lesser God at 200, and that’s the last evolution, they simply have no options for the next step. But if one evolves to Lesser God at 150, there’s a next evolutionary option at 200. Also, since she will perform something noble and self-sacrificial with both her souls, something going to happen there and the System is going to give her an option that will save the world, which will make Daniel’s class make sense.

However, based on how Melas wrote other series, I don’t think Nexeus will be saved. I think Salvos will be able to save the people in The World of Her Mind which will become a proper world, independent of the Nexeus and able to traverse the Void while Salvos retains all her magical abilities. I think she’ll pack everybody who wants to go, and they will go to Earth-1, Daniel’s home, since she promised to find him a way there.

Whether the series continues from that point onwards, I can’t tell, but I think everything points to Daniel and Salvos being in an actual relationship at that point.

I can’t say what happens to Samuel and Belphegor. It would be a shame for them to die, but I also don’t see them merely tagging along with Salvos. It’s a complete blind spot in my ability to guess. Also, she has some plan to drop the Beast onto Regnorex from a rift, counting on it to destroy everything and disrupt the ritual. I don’t see that succeeding, but she might use Truth Divination on the Beast and befriend it, which might result in all sorts of hilarious outcomes, when the Beast shapeshifts into a scary-looking humanoid and accompanies her.

In any case, this is where I exhaust my ability to make educated guesses and I’d have to start inventing stuff outright, but I would rather wait for Melas to do his own thing and hopefully do something positively surprising.

What is better – to be born virtuous, or to be born sinful and only attain virtue due to great effort?

It’s a good question, and one would probably ask it in relation to the “Salvos” series, but it would be a mistake. You see, “Demons”, as described in the “Salvos” series, are nothing comparable to the Demons in Christian worldview. Christians understand demons as spiritual beings, fallen angels who followed Satan in his rebellion against God and were cast down unto hell, damned for all eternity.

In “Salvos”, Demons are physical beings, native to the Netherworld plane of the Nexeus. They are born out of pools of Demon blood, as Demon larvae, and they evolve as they reach certain thresholds of levels – 10, 40, 70, 100, 150 and 200. Their evolution is reminiscent of how caterpillars moult and emerge as butterflies, and as such, they could be described as insectoids akin to the Zerg from Starcraft games, than Christian Demons. The only area of overlap with the Christian Demons is that of nomenclature. The Netherworld, also commonly called “hell”, is a bad place, but it’s not a place where sinful souls who rejected God are cast in punishment; it’s just a place where Demons are born and try to survive by levelling quickly enough that neither the world nor other Demons kill them. It imposes incredible evolutionary pressures on the natives, and mostly in a direction of pure power and survival, where all other qualities are either irrelevant or actually stand in the way of survival. Also, a large percentage of it is pure luck; of not being near something lvl. 114 when you’re lvl. 25, for instance. Not being there when lava explodes from the ground, or black lightning strikes from the sky. Not being in the path of the Beast, or in the vicinity of two Primordial Demons having a fight. Not being captured by Demon King’s slavers. You get the picture – the place is incredibly deadly and survival of the young, low-levelled Demons is unlikely. Even the survival of lvl. 180 Hellabominations is improbable if something like the Beast is around. You hide. You learn to kill first, ask questions later. You learn never to get into fights with something of much higher level. You learn to not get into Demon King’s territory, or if you’re captured, learn to act submissively and obey all orders, and even then he’s likely to get you killed as part of his foolish, deadly plans.

Salvos was not born sinful; she was born completely ignorant, with only her basic character traits which are to strive to be more, survive, make friends, and fight those who want to kill her. One can hardly call those traits sinful. She is very reminiscent of a human baby, if a human baby were physically more capable; for instance, being able to walk, talk and look like an adult at several months old. When she gets to Mortal Realm, she looks ignorant because she is, does foolish things because she’s a year or two old, has childish ideas because she’s a child, and the only reason why her behaviour is perceived as silly is because she looks like a teenager while in fact being two years old. At the age of five, she enrols in Mavos Academy at lvl. 106. At the age of eight, she already knows more about the world than most adult Humans, has won terrible battles against overpowering enemies, and ascends to Primeval Demon and Lesser God. At less than ten years old, she traversed the Multiverse with her father, Samuel the Devil King, fought the End of the World, met Belphegor in his doomed mission, survived two attacks by the Great Agarus, and is officially titled the Enemy of the Demon King, leading the uprising against him.

Let this sink in. She’s not confused, ignorant of some social customs and human emotions because she’s dumb. She looks like a beautiful girl in her twenties when she’s in human form and people naturally interact with her with certain expectations, and they are surprised when she acts immaturely. She’s not an emotionally retarded young adult, she’s a super-genius baby. At eight years old she commanded the victorious Human army against the forces of the Demon King, and then moved to the Netherworld and leads the uprising there, either killing or converting to her side a significant portion of Regnorex’s generals, and liberating fifty of his legions. She’s still in her first cycle of the Netherworld, which is around ten years.

So, she’s not someone who was born sinful and then developed virtue. She is someone who was initially a blank slate, the way human babies are born, only with less physical constraints in her early years; and by the age of ten, she’s an inspiration to entire civilizations.

Kerrigan as the Queen of Blades

If we ignore the label of Demon, her evolution resembles that of Sarah Kerrigan, but if she started as a Zerg larva and gradually evolved to Queen of Blades, and then to Xel’Naga.

Kerrigan ascended to Xel’Naga

So, essentially, she’s an insectoid with open-ended evolutionary potential, and the “demonic” names and labels are there just to mess with the Christians whom the author probably assumes to be dumbasses without much capacity for abstract thought. The main difference between the “Demons” and the Zerg is that the Demons are not forming swarms; they are individuals, with the exception of some evolutions (Lesser and Greater Legions) who seem to be collective entities. This makes the fact of Demon becoming an Angelic Devil Princess and a Lesser God merely a matter of choices, decisions and acquisition of virtues on an evolutionary blank slate, where some decisions end poorly, and some open up endless possibilities. Salvos is not a cursed being who attained redemption; she was a child born in a terrible place, who evolved into something more because she chose to.