Take, as an example, my path towards ascension into a demon. Over the course of a paltry few months, I was ripped away from death’s own clutches and thrust into the body of a demonic army’s recruit, participated in the invasion of a world, got killed, was reborn, and then went right on to invade a whole other world! All while slowly sinking into the clutches of the Abyss with great gusto and full willingness.
And I was… fine.
Granted, people had warned me about pushing my ascension. I probably should have paid more attention when they told me I might go insane trying to turn into a demon of actual strength, instead of a boilerplate ascendant demon. Still, mortals who don’t give their all to push past their natural limitations can hardly hope to survive for very long within the Abyss.
Case in point? It was only recently that Glaustro, one of my favorite demons and my direct superior officer, finally started to make headway in getting promoted up the chain of command. And he only managed to get past the bureaucrats that really don’t like ascendant demons by engaging in a bunch of life-threatening shenanigans.
But that didn’t exactly end well. Or, rather, none of us knew how it would end, yet. We were still waiting for the general to lay down dramatic judgment on our retreat from Lagyel.
Said general was being remarkably silent on the subject.
It had been over a week since we stumbled through a portal back to the Torment layer of the Abyss. Over a week of waiting, and expectation, and a whole lot of stress.
At least the moment of passing through was rather humorous, seeing as Glaustro’s soldiers weren’t the only ones who wanted to flee Lagyel. Apparently, when a world is awakening around you in an attempt to swallow you up, it doesn’t matter whose portal you’re fleeing through. All that matters is the driving need to survive.
That’s how we found ourselves staring at several jinn who’d burst into the Abyss on our tail, sand streaming off them in winding ribbons.
The jinn weren’t happy about their arrival in more or less literal Hell. Most had collapsed immediately, reduced to whimpering husks. The rest weren’t capable of putting up a fight when Glaustro organized their swift capture. They had just come from watching their entire world drown in the sand of a Primordial, a creature so powerful that Crewe, the lieutenant general of the Legion of Torment, chose to throw in the towel more or less immediately.
With the captives under control and the chaos within Glaustro’s own unit quelled, there was nothing else we could do. The rest of Lagyel’s invasion force was still trickling back into the Abyss, Crewe was present but unreachable, and it wasn’t like any of us ranked high enough in the chain of command to force someone to give us answers.
So, waiting. Lots and lots of it. And the longer we waited, the less ‘fine’ I became.
I was doing quite well immediately after our escape from Lagyel. But the more I lingered in our troop’s compound, the more darkness pulled at my thoughts. The longer I sat in my solo room and did nothing, the harder it got to conjure up emotion.
I wasn’t quite as far gone as after my most recent bout with Abyss-induced depression, but I was hovering on the edge of it.
Ten days into this state of affairs, Glaustro decided he’d finally had enough and tracked me down.
“So, this is where you’ve been?” Glaustro opened, after literally breaking down my door. I hadn’t seen fit to get off my bed to answer his knock, so now the door was off its hinges. “Do you have any idea how worried Mia and Bronwynn were?”
I could see the cat girl herself hovering in the doorframe, but all I could force was a shrug.
“Yeah, no. We are not doing this again,” the large demon rumbled, lifting me up by the back of my shirt.
I grumbled vaguely, but didn’t resist as I was dragged into the bathroom, forced to take a shower, and then literally carried to the kitchen. Food was shoved in front of me, and I had the choice between eating or being fed. Forcefully.
I picked up the utensils and obeyed my demonic overlord. When the food actually kicked in, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten in two days, I actually referred to him as such. He smiled at this partial return of my personality.
It took a few hours, but eventually Glaustro, Bronwynn, Mia and I were joking and wasting time as I continued to pretend that I wasn’t fighting off depression with a stick.
Obviously, the demons felt it. They could sense and feed on emotions with no effort. But they did me the favor of pretending that everything was fine, at least until I was mostly back to my normal self.
That’s when Glaustro decided to lay down the law.
“It doesn’t matter what’s going to happen with the Lagyel mess. We need to get you settled. Both of you. And we can’t afford to waste any more time.”
That made me shoot a worried glance Mia’s way, but from what I could tell, the cat girl was basically fine. Sure, there was a new rawness and twitchiness to her stance, even while sitting and laughing. But other than that, she was definitely in better shape than the mess I kept dissolving into.
Still, Glaustro was determined that both of us mortals get our affairs in order.
The process of turning into a demon was supposed to be relatively straightforward. Gather one thousand souls, sacrifice them to the Abyss, and then trigger ascension.
Easy. Simple. Also woefully lacking in the grand scheme of things, because following those steps like a good little soldier got you to the baseline demon state, and did absolutely nothing else. Special physical characteristics all Abyss-born demons had? Nope. Special abilities the aforementioned demons threw around like candy? Likewise, you’d be out of luck.
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So, I decided to go the extra fun route of offering more sacrifices to the Abyss, embracing the risk of going insane, dying, or losing myself fully. And I only ended up with crippling depression, induced by the infection of emotions bleeding into me from the Abyss itself, while dragging the only mortal friend I had into the mess with me.
See? Fun!
Mia had every right to hate me. I wasn’t sure if that was just the depressive voices in the back of my mind or a cold, hard fact.
And neither of us were safe yet. The final stretch to demonhood could, realistically, result in a full loss of self, if we couldn’t withstand it. Understandably, Glaustro left us plenty of time to sort ourselves out before making the attempt.
It was for this reason that I dragged myself and Mia all the way to the circle of Passion.
“You know, you really didn’t need to come with me,” I hedged, glancing at the cat girl. “I could have handled this.”
Her narrowed eyes narrowed clued me into the fact that I was treading on thin ice, and her unusually verbose answer just confirmed it. “Like last time? When you asked me to leave you alone, and I did, and you ended up in your room, refusing to move? When Glaustro had to bust the door down?”
I winced, the rightful criticism just making the self-accusing voices louder. “Fair, fair. I’m… I’m sorry. I don’t know if I ever said that, but… I am. For dragging you into this, I…”
“Enough,” she snapped, though not unkindly. “Hayden, I wanted this. I needed it. Glaustro wouldn’t have picked me to join his unit without you. I wouldn’t have started training my mana without you. I wanted more than basic ascension, too. I need it.”
We’d never sat down and discussed them, all our issues. I never asked her why she was desperate to advance and so willing to risk herself. She never asked me a thing, either. We just spent time together. Each was there when the other needed it. She had literally saved my life more than once.
At that moment, though, I was on the verge of pushing for more. The desire to get to know her deeper rose up, but I let it fade to the back of my mind.
I knew she had a real fondness for sweet food and was a bit snobbish about taste. I knew that she liked lying down in sunny spots, as cliché as that was for a cat lady. I also knew she was a real snuggle bug, when she felt comfortable around someone.
I knew all of that, and a thousand other little things. I might not have solid knowledge of Mia’s past, but I knew exactly who Mia was. She was my friend, a person I could count on, and that was enough.
Or at least it would be, until we both didn’t have our upcoming ascensions hanging over us like the sword of Damocles.
So, instead of saying anything, I just grabbed her hand. She stiffened for a moment, but then she returned the grip, tightening her fingers around mine.
For once, the despairing voices that had been plaguing me for weeks shut up.
As we walked, I allowed myself to just take in the sights of the Passion layer for perhaps the first time. The place was… well, it was exactly what you’d imagine if you took a bunch of crafters and artists, got them high on the emotion of Passion, and then unleashed them onto the world.
We passed a beautiful building shaped like a small castle, complete with multiple crenelated roofs and twisting miniature spires. Right next to it was a twisting tower of glass and gleaming metal that looked like it belonged in a sci-fi setting. Light washed through it in all the colors of the rainbow, dazzling me and taking even Mia’s breath away.
Everything was colorful, and everything was gorgeous. Did it make sense? Absolutely not.
That was Passion.
I enjoyed the stroll, but I was still glad to reach our destination. Amahis Armory was home to a mother-daughter pair of armorers I’d been lucky enough to meet during my very first invasion, and I had never regretted doing business with them since. Their armor was exquisite, and their prices were ridiculously affordable for the quality they offered.
Besides, I had developed a strong friendship with Yules, the daughter of the duo. Not only had she sold me her first official armor set, but she had made it cheap enough for my broke ass at the time to afford it.
A bell chimed pleasantly as we entered the shop. We were immediately greeted by the sight of the proprietress herself, Tibath, rising to meet us.
Like her daughter, the demoness was an impressive figure. She looked muscular enough to break me in half. Her work apron accented curves so well that Mia probably would have elbowed me if she caught me looking.
Thankfully, I wasn’t that crass. Or at least I didn’t dare to be, considering demons’ ability to pick up on emotions.
“Hello again,” the demoness greeted us warmly, with a smug glance at our hands. Interestingly, Mia quickly let go and looked away. “I have to say it’s good to see you again! With the whole Lagyel mess, I was afraid… well, mortals are much less secure than demons when it comes to dying on foreign worlds.”
I acknowledged that with a nod and a grimace. “We got out okay. Glaustro made sure of it. He’s our commander,” I added when she shot me a confused glance.
She nodded politely, then smiled a bit wider still. “Well, I’m going to assume you want my daughter again? Goodness, other people come here just for a chance to meet me, and you two continue to ignore my services. Yules! Your friends are here to see you!”
There was a clang at the back of the shop, followed by rustling and some mumbled complaints, but soon Yules was rushing out from the hallway hidden behind the counter. Her smile only widened when she spotted us.
“Hayden! Mia! Where have you been? I heard about Lagyel, and I thought you two got hurt or something!”
“We are fine,” Mia assured the demoness, stepping forward to receive a hug. The two had gotten quite close when we last visited to have our armor made. Apparently, staying in a shop all day working on your craft isn’t a great way to meet new people, and Yules was a bit lonely. “I’m sorry we worried you.”
Then it was my turn, and it was all I could do to keep smiling as the strong demoness crushed me in a painfully tight embrace.
“Yep, we’re fine.” I wheezed a little, refusing to give into the urge to rub my aching back. “And we are here with goodies to share!”
I pulled out a piece of carapace Mia and I had acquired on Lagyel, courtesy of some particularly unpleasant scorpion monsters.
“Is this…?” It wasn’t only Yules whose eyes widened at the sight of the thing. Her mother was equally enthusiastic, rushing closer to inspect the carapace. “Sand, from Lagyel?”
“Yep,” I replied with an easy smile. “We got a bunch of this stuff. It’s ridiculously mana-resistant. Some monsters converted the sand into carapace, so we figured we’d have our favorite armorer craft some defensive gear for us.”
“You’d let me work on this? Really?” Yules squealed, drawing us both into another crushing hug. “This is amazing! Honestly, if you let me have some of the material, it wouldn’t even be fair of me to charge you. This stuff is incredibly rare and in demand right now.”
I wasn’t really shocked to hear that. The scorpion-monsters had formed their natural armor by eating pieces of Primordial and converting it. Plenty of materials out there were mana-resistant, of course. But the number of materials that came directly from a Primordial? That list was way shorter.
“We wouldn’t trust anyone else,” I said teasingly, with what I hoped was a well-received surreptitious wink in her mother’s direction.
Thankfully, the older demoness just laughed in delight.
“What do you want on this, then?” Yules went on. “Ooooh, when are you deploying again? Should I make this a rush order?”
“Well, about that…”
As casually as possible, I explained to Yules that Mia and I were getting ready for our final ascension. If things went wrong, we might not return to pick up our armor. Or ever.
To say that Yules didn’t take the news well would be an understatement.
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