The only reason I wasn’t already dead was the sandstorm. It had weakened the spells, leaving me to deal with only the dregs of demonic might. Still, it felt incredibly ironic to be thankful for the storm’s existence when it was also carrying me forcibly towards the ground with malicious indifference. I doubted I would survive the impact, battered and barely lucid as I was.
It wasn’t only the pain from my wounds clouding my mind, though.
I was also consumed by the awareness of the slain fire jinn’s soul. It streamed through my sword, immense and angry. My bonded weapon guided the soul eagerly, siphoning away a tiny piece of its power before attempting to funnel the entire soul into the jewel on the sword’s pommel. The sword ran into resistance and failed, which sent the soul hurtling through my body towards my soul purse.
That was the pain keeping me nearly senseless.
In a way, ever since I improved my ascension, I’d been far more aware of the process of my soul purse capturing a soul. I could almost feel the souls passing through me before they were shoved into my bonded artifact, but it had never seemed worthwhile to pay much attention to the phantom sensations.
But I was paying attention now. I was aware of every excruciating moment as the soul was dragged through me on its way to my soul purse. Oh gods unholy, holy, and in-between, I felt it.
The whole process lasted one second, maybe two, but it felt like countless lifetimes and left my already weakened body limp and helpless. I couldn’t even flap my wings, and it was a struggle to keep my eyes open. Realizing I was doomed, I just closed my eyes and surrendered.
There was a scream of frustration, the sensation of something hitting me from the side, and then a surprisingly painless tumble over sandy ground. I must have lost consciousness, because the next thing I knew, someone was pouring a potion down my throat and cursing up a storm of words, only half of which I actually understood.
I sputtered and almost tried to spit out the liquid. The person just shoved the bottle into my mouth harder, which finally got through my haze and reminded me that drinking was a good idea if I wanted to live.
I drank greedily after that, then again when the original potion was removed and a new one stuffed into my mouth. The concoctions did their job, spreading through my body in waves and fixing everything they came across. I felt the wounds across my back and arm flare up briefly, but that was followed by the gradual fading of pain.
Meanwhile, my leg felt steadily hotter and hotter, until I wondered if I was burning. I forced my eyes open and directed them towards the limb.
What I saw made me wince and look away. My entire leg was frozen. From what I could tell, the potion was fighting to thaw it out and heal the cold damage from the inside.
“Idiot,” hissed Mia’s angry voice, and then she actually bumped me on the head with the empty potion bottle. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt, but it did leave me blinking owlishly at the angry cat girl. “Just… idiot.”
“I…” I croaked, then coughed, feeling like someone had shoved sandpaper down my throat. Well, it was more likely to be regular sand, no paper involved, but still. “I wasn’t myself,” I admitted.
Those words terrified me more than I could explain.
The whole experience took me back to my first invasion. The demons had whipped their new recruits into a blood frenzy and unleashed us onto a city, not caring how many of us would die in the mindless charge.
One word from Crewe, and I had been right there again, screaming and charging, no thoughts or awareness in my mind. And I wasn’t the only one. I could remember with startling clarity the faces of several demons, twisted in anger and hate as Crewe’s emotions drove them to launch their attacks recklessly on the jinn leaders.
Will I be as helpless when I ascend? Will higher ranked demons still be able to jerk me around like a helpless puppet?
Then what’s the point?
The bitter thoughts flooded my mind, drowning it in a deluge of anguish. It was only when Mia started shaking me and pulling me to my feet that they cleared, allowing me to recognize the reality of our situation.
We were still in the middle of battle. The jinn were scared out of their minds, but there were still plenty of them. And they were still fighting.
Mia gripped my shoulder, forcing me to look directly into her eyes. I shied away from the emotions I saw there. There would be time for all that later.
For now, there was bloody work to be done.
I couldn’t say that I dove back into the fight with any finesse, or even much regard for my safety. I was nearly feral, and several times I welcomed a minor injury just for the chance to drive my sword through the chest of a frenzied jinn.
Luckily for me, our enemies weren’t thinking very clearly at that point. Whatever Crewe had done had robbed them of much of their sanity, leaving them in a state more akin to sitting ducks than a fighting force.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Even the knight-like jinn were stumbling around, hardly aware of their own actions. Better still, their full plate armor proved largely useless against my sword. They must have fused the sand into their bodies, making it a true part of themselves in every way that mattered. The protective sand was now inextricably mixed with their souls. That meant I could slash easily enough through the two armored individuals who did cross my path.
Then Glaustro and Bronwynn found us, and the battle got even easier. The two demons fought with an unusual level of ferocity, eyes burning with frustration as they demolished the disoriented and demoralized jinn.
When the last living jinn finally fell, and I could spot no one else around that needed killing, I slid to my knees and all but shut down.
I didn’t budge when Glaustro talked to me, when Mia shook me, or when Bronwynn tried to reason with me. I just stared at my sword, at its oddly unblemished blade, and let my mind drift, comfortably devoid of thought and emotions.
Someone may have lifted me eventually and returned the blade to its sheath on my hip, but I didn’t care much. I just continued to stare without seeing. And as I stared, I slipped out of the peaceful thought-void, deeper and deeper into a swamp of doubt and misery.
—
I couldn’t fathom why I ever cared. Couldn’t understand what drove me. Breathing was a chore, one I continued to perform routinely only because stopping would have taken more effort, somehow.
I hated the world. I hated those who had forced me into performing acts I couldn’t even stand to picture. And most of all, I hated myself.
I absolutely loathed how easily I had sunk to lows unimaginable to any decent person. To any decent soul. Which I wasn’t, clearly. If ending up in the literal hell even before I’d possessed a random young man’s body wasn’t proof enough, what I did with said body was.
I didn’t deserve to function, or dream, or hope, so I didn’t give myself any of those luxuries. I just kept sinking into the mire of resentment and loathing, and I felt comfortable down there, because what else did I deserve?
This was all a fitting punishment. I was finally where I belonged, so I could just rot away and let the Abyss take me, once and for all. When it was done peeling my soul like an onion, maybe I could finally feel peace again in the non-existence that would follow, but I doubted it. I didn’t deserve such a thing.
My only regret was about the people I was leaving behind, but they would be all the better for it. Glaustro and Bronwynn didn’t deserve to be shackled to an idiotic mortal. As for Mia, I was just slowing her down, holding her back, forcing her to risk her life again and again to save my worthless hide.
I sank a little deeper. The anguish flooded my very soul, staining it a horrible black, a mark that I deserved and which I welcomed, and then —
Energy. Potential. Desire.
Passion.
It simultaneously flooded me and drove into my chest like a spike, pouring into my mind with a surge of instability so overwhelming I almost lost all ability to reason.
My eyes shot open, or maybe I just started acknowledging what they were telling me again, and I sat up with a jolt
I felt like a squirrel on a ton of caffeine. My limbs twitched, and my mind darted constantly from emotion to emotion, from thought to thought, so fast that I felt legitimately dizzy.
“Hayden.”
The word made my eyes snap to a red-skinned demon, but the deluge of thoughts and emotions dulled my attention almost instantly. My eyes drifted away.
“Hayden!” I looked at him again, a bit longer this time, but he still couldn’t keep my attention for long.
Then I was slapped.
My head cracked to the side, all thoughts and feelings temporarily scattered right out of it. With a creak, my neck turned to meet a pair of eyes with pitch-black sclera and truly beautiful golden pupils. Said eyes also happened to look quite wet and pitiful, which only made it more confusing when I was slapped again.
“Ow,” I finally managed, blinking hard. “Hurts. Why?”
“He’s talking!” an excited voice exclaimed somewhere off to the left, but I didn’t take my eyes off the golden pair yet. I just tilted my head in confusion.
Then the owner of the eyes spoke, and I actually focused on her words.
“Can you tell me your name? Do you remember who you are?”
I opened my mouth, but fumbled my first attempt to speak. I knew I could. I just wasn’t sure how. Thankfully, the second attempt went much better.
“I’m Hayden, of course. Who else would I be?”
“And do you remember me?” asked the woman, because I was pretty sure she was a woman.
I took a moment to consider that. Then: “Mia,” I breathed, and immediately doubled over, clutching my head as memories forced their way into my brain. From my time in the void, to my awakening as Hayden, to all that went right or wrong on Lagyel, it all swept through my mind, rebuilding me bit by bit.
“Hayden!” shouted three panicked voices, and then I was inundated with reassurances, offers of water, and even a delightfully smelling meal.
It was all overwhelming, but I welcomed the distraction. The pit I had just been hauled out of was still gaping inside my heart. It felt like a permanent feature. A constant reminder of my weakness, beckoning me to fall in and be devoured.
I shuddered.
“I’m fine, I promise I’m fine,” I mumbled, accepting water and food as a way to avoid talking for a little while longer.
When I was finally done, I let myself look around. My surroundings were oddly familiar. The room was nice, both luxurious and large, but it also had the feel of a space set up in a strictly impersonal way.
“Where are we?”
“Apple Infernal. We needed someplace to stay, and I knew you liked this place,” Glaustro said, looking immensely relieved.
“Oh.” Yeah, that explained the room. It didn’t explain everything else, though. “Why are we here? What happened to that building Crewe gave us? Was it destroyed in the fighting or something?”
“No, no, we’re… we’re not on Lagyel, Hayden. We’re in the Abyss.”
My eyes widened. “Wait, did we win? Or lose? What happened? How long was I out?”
“Just a couple of days,” Bronwynn rushed to assure me. “We applied for leave. With the mess everything was in, it wasn’t hard to get it approved. We have a limited amount of time, but Crewe was unusually generous. Probably because you managed to kill that jinn.”
I winced at the reminder, the sensation of the soul’s passage still sending phantom pain through the core of my being.
“The soul… what happened with it? Where’s my purse?”
“The soul is with Crewe. Don’t worry about any of that for now,” Glaustro instructed. “It’s a good thing you woke up. I was counting on Passion to help with that, but you never know. Thankfully, you started stirring as soon as we arrived. At least now we don’t have to do anything… drastic.” He forced a smile. “We just need you to pull yourself together.”
I took a deep breath and steeled myself. Though shame and self-hatred were rising from the pit, ordering me to keep my head down, I forced myself to look my commander in the eye.
“Thanks, but… I’d still like to know what happened. Both with the battle and… and to me.”
I shrank in on myself a little at the admission. Glaustro eyed me with great reluctance, but gave in.
“Get comfortable, then,” he sighed. “There’s a lot to cover.”
Follows and ratings help this story stay afloat! Please spare a moment to do so if you enjoy reading about Hayden's journey~ ^_^
JOIN THE PATREON!
https://www.snowingpine.com/fiction/4/the-twelve-apocalypses-progression-dark-fantasy-litrpg if you have a Patreon subscription. I don't currently have any free snowingpine exclusive chapters because I need to build a bigger backlog. They will come back in the future though!
- Fodder Imp ($3) - 2 chapters (5k words / 2 days) ahead.
- Mortal Footsoldier ($7) - 6 chapters (7k words / 6 days) ahead.
- Demonic Sergeant ($10) - 25+ chapters (and growing) (62k words / 3.2 weeks) ahead.
EPUB and PDF downloads of published and unpublished books at any tier!
https://www.patreon.com/ATValentine