The Twelve Apocalypses: A Damned Soul's Path to the Abyss

The cavern and its contents were so striking that I momentarily forgot why I was there. It was the sound of fervent chanting that brought me back to the present. Casting my eyes towards the center of the space, I saw a small group of yeti bent in supplication in front of a group of ancient banners.

Each banner depicted a different warrior, drawn distinctly yet primitively using blood and natural pigments. The banners surrounded a rough ice sculpture of some giant yeti wielding a massive spiked mace. For all its lack of refinement, the sculpture was still eerily lifelike. Even the mace looked like it might come crashing down at any second, to devastating effect.

It took me a minute to realize the impression mostly stemmed from the statue's eyes. They gleamed with an inner light that verged on intelligence, and I shivered at the sight of it.

Divinity.

So much of it, in fact, that certain phenomena were already beginning to manifest.

With a bit more focus, I stripped the mundane away and analyzed the scene with my magical senses. My eyes widened. The eight banners were miniature suns of Emotion and soul-stuff. Even so, they were eclipsed by the statue several times over.

I let out a quiet, frustrated breath.

"We're going to have to talk to Glaustro. The yeti are further along than we thought. It's not going to happen today or tomorrow, but they're getting close to producing true gods."

Mia just nodded. She didn't look any happier with the situation than I felt, but it wasn't like either of us could do anything at the moment. No, our job was to hide in some unobtrusive corner and wait for Wilhelmina to make her move.

We found one such spot, as far from the entrance as possible, and took up a position behind a particularly large and dense pile of bones.

Then I hesitated. Even if we succeeded in what we were trying to do, Glaustro would probably hand our asses to us for being reckless.

On the other hand, it wasn't like we could risk heading back. Wilhelmina might show up at any moment.

But what if we could contact Glaustro using magic?

I sighed. Even though I had purchased a communication device oh so long ago, I never actually used the dang thing. I didn't know if it was possible for other demons to intercept such communications, or whether the device would work on Breskwor at all.

Still…

"What are the chances Glaustro is going to forgive us if we have a chance to inform him about this and choose not to?" I asked.

Mia shot me a look.

"Right." I winced. "Stupid question. Sorry. In that case…"

With another sigh, I reluctantly extracted the shell-like communicator. Really, out of everything they could have chosen, why shells? I grumbled to myself as I carefully sent some of my mana into the enchanted device, feeling out its abilities.

My concerns about its reliability aside, the shell bore some intricate and fascinating enchantments. Their make-up was concealed behind protections to stop people from duplicating them, but their functionality was not. In fact, the second I interfaced with them, they all but shouted their purpose into my mind. I could register other people's devices as contacts. I could browse through saved options.

And, to my pleasant surprise, I could make calls.

It wasn't quite as simple as it would be in a demon-claimed world or the Abyss, of course. I would need to provide the device with enough mana to search for other nearby devices, and then pay more mana throughout the call to maintain the connection.

I grimaced. The price would probably be steep. Not ideal when I was probably about to head into a battle.

At least the communicator's information node included a privacy claim. No one other than the owner of the device I was attempting to contact would notice the communication attempt. Apparently, that had been a common complaint and request when the devices were first introduced.

I was pretty sure the manufacturers could still track and even listen into the calls if they were so inclined, but there was no one on Breskwor but us and Wilhelmina's bunch. What were the chances that the demonic family who produced the shell was on her side of the conflict?

Low enough for me to take the risk.

The device sucked down a solid third of my mana before I felt a tentative connection form between me and Glaustro.

"Hayden? Is everything alright? Do you need me to help? Where are you?"

A soft smile snuck onto my face at the genuine concern in my major's voice.

"Don't worry, we're fine," I assured him. "I promise! Better than fine, really. Wilhelmina's definitely here. She's been harassing a couple local tribes, and they've banded together to fight back. We found the spot where they want to make their last stand, and listen to this…"

I launched into an explanation of everything we'd discovered. I heard Glaustro gritting his teeth rather loudly when I mentioned just how close the locals were to birthing gods, but he still braved the news admirably. He was, of course, particularly interested in our plan to ambush Wilhelmina and stop her from getting her grubby mittens all over 'our' Divinity.

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"The idea's good, but I don't fu-" Glaustro took a deep breath, and only spoke again once he'd regained control of his voice. "I don't like it that you're there alone. She'll be coming with an army. Nascent Divinity or not, the locals won't be that useful. I can roughly gauge your location through this call, so we'll start advancing closer to you now. I'm pretty sure we can set up nearby without drawing Wilhelmina's attention. When the fighting starts, we'll close in the net. That'll stop her from getting away, too."

"Understood. We'll wait here, then. And we'll raise a ruckus if we think you're taking too long to strike," I teased.

While Glaustro chuckled, the sound was a little strained.

"Fine. But… be careful, both of you. Mia, if he does something stupid, stop him. Sit on him if you have to. I want you to take this seriously! Wilhelmina's lost a lot of her support, and she's been backed into a corner, but someone like her always has a final trick or two. Don't underestimate her!"

With that warning, Glaustro cut off the connection on his end. The drain on my mana ceased. I still had roughly half of my reserves, but I decided to top myself up anyway.

As I reached into my dimensional pouch for some mana crystals I had left over from my ascension, I glanced at Mia. I didn't like the contemplative look on her face at all.

"Glaustro said to sit on me only if you think I'm about to do something dumb. I am not about to do something dumb," I said empathically.

The brat cat huffed, but did look away from me. I rolled my eyes.

Then we settled in to wait.

—

Whether due to caution or incompetence, Wilhelmina took her sweet time getting to the cavern. It was eight hours after we'd set up our watch before we felt the approach of demonic mana in the distance.

All that time, we'd been subjected to the endless chanting of the yeti. I decided to listen at one point, but it was just a steady stream of praise for their ancestors mixed with pleas for protection. If not for the thin stream of mana connecting the small praying group to the banners and the statue, I would have thought they were just wasting their breath.

Even with the mana, I still couldn't understand the purpose of their actions. Oh, they were doing something, but it wasn't any kind of magecraft I was familiar with.

Mia, meanwhile, hadn't been as idle as me. She'd spent her time casting spells and carving runes into the ice around us. I offered to help at one point, but she just eyed me as only a cat could and told me to sit still and avoid disrupting her work.

The one attempt I made to practice my own spells just earned me another scolding. Apparently, the defenses Mia was putting up would do a decent job of concealing our bodies, our souls, and our mana, but only if we didn't do anything that made us more visible.

So I sat. And listened. And was bored out of my mind.

Finally, several hours later, the sounds of combat reached us from outside the cavern.

Judging by the noise, the fight was as brutal as it was brief. Then Wilhelmina herself strode into the cavern, at the head of a growing host of demons. She was absolutely covered in blood and looked even angrier than the last time I'd seen her. The way her eyes lit up with feverish desire at the sight of the cavern's contents only enhanced her resemblance to some vengeful wraith.

"Go! Kill them all! I want those totems!" she shrieked.

To my surprise, she stepped aside, choosing to hang back while her troops charged. Apparently, while the general's punishment had done a lot of damage, it had also taught her to be more cautious.

The host of demons surged forth, their eyes full of nothing but murder. After all, why would they worry? While Wilhelmina hadn't been able to field quite as many troops as Glaustro, I'd still seen at least two thousand demons follow her into Breskwor. Only a portion of them could fit into the cavern, sure, but that didn't matter. Not when they were up against a grand total of six yeti shamans, two chieftains, and twenty guards.

Yet even as they made their advance, the magic of the cavern came to life. Stirring and stretching like some massive beast, the mana thrashed about for just a moment before it suddenly sank towards the ground.

No, not the ground.

The bones.

All through the cavern, countless skeletons quivered, then were hoisted into the air and rapidly reassembled. Long dead yeti rose to the defense of their descendants, eyes lighting up with ice-like flames.

The demons laughed and sneered at first. But when the first demonic weapon crashed into bone and was stopped dead, that laugher quickly died. When a skeleton snagged a demon into its crushing embrace, the demon's cry of anguish really kicked off a wave of concern.

But the demons didn't just cower. The skeleton who had grabbed the demon was quickly assaulted by magic and weapons alike. While its bones weathered far more than should have been possible, they did eventually crack, releasing the trapped demon. His broken arm hung limp and useless as he staggered to his feet. Still, he was very much alive, and incredibly pissed.

It didn't help the yeti that this new threat actually made their demonic assailants rally together. Wilhelmina's forces quickly took up a proper formation, which instantly elevated their effectiveness.

The undead tried. They really did. Hundreds of skeletons surged forward like a tide that knew no fear.

But the tide ran into cliffs, and broke.

More and more of Wilhelmina's magically inclined demons began wielding proper war spells. Each explosion of mana claimed scores of skeletons. It wouldn't be easy and it wouldn't be clean, but the demons could eventually eliminate every single skeleton in the cavern and advance on the yeti unimpeded.

The yeti seemed to grasp this fact. Their chanting picked up in fervor and pitch, and a magical pulse washed over the cavern. Suddenly, the undead stood straighter and moved with more purpose. A few skeletons rose that were larger and sturdier than the others. Then a few more, and then a dozen, until a truly titanic example of yetikind rose from the area around the banners.

This skeleton was different even at first glance.

Blue fire enveloped its whole body, burning brightest in the eye sockets. It wielded a giant ice mace. As I watched, the weapon rippled briefly. Then its ice spread over the skeleton, covering the undead in a facsimile of flesh until it resembled a living specimen of its species.

The reanimated ice yeti roared, an unearthly sound that shook the cavern and all who heard it. Then it began to laugh in sheer delight as it lumbered forward. Its steps shook our surroundings even more than its voice.

This wasn't magic. Not really. I'd watched from start to end, but I hadn't seen a single formation of a proper spell. No, whatever the yeti were doing was far more primal and uncontrolled.

Then my eyes fell upon the clinging cloud of mana that surrounded us, and I shivered.

Before, the mana in the cavern had been motionless, almost dead. Now it writhed and radiated malice. It felt like a living, sentient thing, and I found myself caught between the urge to study it or destroy it on the spot.

Somehow, probably by taking advantage of their ancestral bond with this place, the yeti had brought the mana in this cavern into a twisted form of life. A form of guardian spirit, perhaps?

Regardless, Wilhelmina seemed to realize that things were escalating beyond her control, because she stepped forward with a determined and hateful expression.

Our rival major was about to take to the field herself.