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

Wilhelmina kept her stance loose and her eyes locked on the massive, ice-clad undead as she advanced. Her army parted before her without a single command. When the first of the smaller undead yeti reached her, it simply… collapsed.

A moment later, I noticed the strings of mana billowing around the demoness like a churning cloud. These strings slashed about freely without ever touching their mistress. Any skeleton unlucky enough to get in their way was reduced to bone-shards in the blink of an eye.

It didn't matter that the mana in the air thickened and hardened around the undead like armor, or that it wove itself into their bones until they were almost tough enough to match a demon physically. They fell, all the same.

When the demoness suddenly burst into a sprint and headed right for the praying yeti, wielding a dagger in each hand, I cursed and almost broke our stealth. If Mia hadn't grabbed my wrist, I would have tried to get between Wilhelmina and her targets.

Thankfully, before she reached the circle of banners, the icy undead giant moved. It did so with far more speed than I would have thought possible. The entire cavern shuddered with its steps as it firmly blocked Wilhelmina's advance, its club soaring straight for her head.

She dodged, of course. In the same motion, her mana strings all shot out and stabbed into the ice encasing the walking skeleton. For the first time, though, the strings failed to shred their prey.

Wilhelmina must have been as startled as I was, because the skeleton's second blow caught her full in the stomach. She was launched into a crowd of undead with a wheezing gasp. Before she could stand, they were upon her, grasping and smothering and stabbing with their bony fingers.

Wilhelmina's scream of rage was terrifying, as was the explosion of mana that followed. For a moment, she released far more mana than I could muster at once, shattering every skeleton within a few feet of her. Then she faltered. Her face grew suddenly pale as she staggered within the circle of powdered bone her outburst had produced. When she retched, a glob of blood splattered over the ice, sizzling on it quietly.

She didn't even have a second to collect herself, because the icebound undead was upon her already, mace raised.

I had to admit there was a reason Wilhelmina managed to cling to power so consistently. She bounded away from the undead's attempted strike with an expression that verged on feral. Then she attacked, her daggers cutting deep ravines in her foe's icy exterior.

New ice filled in the cuts almost immediately, but the skeleton still shivered and nearly lost its footing. There was definitely more to Wilhelmina's blades than just physical damage. I could see the streams of mana throughout the skeleton's body waver and almost come undone.

That was when the beast showed the first sign of caution. It roared and tried to melt back into the crowd around it, letting its lesser kin brave the anger of the demoness first.

That wasn't to be.

Wilhelmina proved herself more than capable of mulching the lesser skeletons long before their attacks could reach her. It was the ice-clad giant on the defensive now. Even with all its effort, the monster barely managed to keep its club between itself and the raging demoness.

In the background, Wilhelmina's troops continued to advance. Even the countless generations of undead yeti rising together couldn't stand in the demonic host's way for long.

It wasn't that the yeti didn't have enough bodies available. The cavern was full of potential opponents for the demonic invaders. Unfortunately, even this great store of semi-sentient mana had limits on how many undead it could control at once. It was failing to raise skeletons quickly enough to replace its losses, so the waves of undead were rapidly thinning.

The demons had wised up, too. After the first two occasions of bones coming to life within their own ranks, they'd taken to scouring the floors of the cavern clean before advancing. They used flames, lightning, and even odd beams of pure destruction that vaporized everything they touched, including plain ice. These beams left deep pits in the ground, but the demons just used them as traps for the skeletons, burning the contents when the pits were full.

The yeti had pulled off a few surprising moves, but there were few civilizations out there which could truly threaten a demonic army.

No, I'd known from the start that we would have to interfere if we wanted to keep Wilhelmina from snatching our Divinity. I could only hope that Glaustro wasn't going to wait too long to join the fray. I no longer relished the thought of revealing myself to a full army of demons without backup.

How had I even contemplated ambushing Wilhelmina with just Mia by my side? What was wrong with me?

Arrogance, that's what. All my recent progress had gotten to my head. This was a nice wakeup call that would hopefully prevent me from doing anything stupid in the future.

Hopefully.

To their credit, the praying yeti were clearly catching on to the fact that they were badly outclassed. I was mildly disappointed when their only response was to start chanting faster.

Though…

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"Is that leftmost totem banner shining a little brighter than it used to, or am I imagining things?" I whispered, only to catch an elbow to the ribs.

"Shut up!" Mia shot me an exasperated look. "I can hide us, but I'd rather not test my spells against another archdemon. What if she notices us?"

"You just talked more than me!" I pointed out. "And I'm just concerned about what the yeti are doing now."

That was true enough. I was concerned about the yeti somehow using up all the Divinity. But I was also rather excited to see what they might try next.

Wasn't going to admit that, though.

Mia sighed. "Yes, I think the banner looks brighter. No, I have no idea what's happening. Now, hush."

"Yes, ma'am."

I snickered at her aggrieved look, but my amusement shifted to alarm when the banner we'd been discussing erupted in golden light.

The painted image of a warrior on the banner shifted, squirmed, and then began to peel away from the grimy canvas it adorned. As its spectral body left the banner, it rapidly gained more definition. What was originally a rather inaccurate representation of a spear-wielding yeti wearing blood-soaked furs now looked as vivid as a living specimen.

A particularly prominent specimen, at that. The spectral yeti topped out at twice the height of the chieftains, who were larger than normal already. His spear may as well have been a giant column of sharpened ice. On his head was a crown of horns snatched from some gigantic animal, and the pelts he wore did indeed drip with fresh blood.

The specter also radiated Divinity, enough so that I could feel its heat all the way across the cavern in our little corner. In contrast, the totem banner now stood empty and forlorn, all its former majesty gone.

I wanted to scream in frustration. Wilhelmina actually did.

The yeti had done it. Somehow, they had managed to birth at least one god. The other banners were also growing brighter by the second, so we would probably be facing a minimum of seven other gods soon. That was to say nothing of the giant statue amidst the banners. Even now, it was pulsing faintly with an otherworldly glow.

My silly shells phone was immediately in my hand. I soaked my mana into it with no regard for the cost. When the connection formed, I didn't give Glaustro a chance to admonish me or protest.

"They just summoned a god. One of the banner totems spawned a god. Get down here now."

Glaustro didn't even take time to curse before cutting the connection.

I then turned to look at Mia, who was watching me in a terribly mulish manner.

"We can't break stealth yet," she insisted. "We need to wait for a good chance to ambush her. Remember, Glaustro said she might have hidden cards to play. It's better if we wait."

I opened my mouth to protest, then snapped it shut, grinding my teeth in frustration. Mia was right. However much I wanted to skip straight to combat, it would be suicidal to do so without backup.

At least there was valuable intelligence to glean in the meantime. Pushing down my anger, I turned to inspect the god who had revealed himself to us.

The spectral divinity did not charge into combat the second he was summoned. Instead, he stared around the cavern with an oddly vacant look in his eyes. It was only when Wilhelmina tried to press past the icy undead, drawing a bellow of pain from it with her daggers, that the god focused his gaze on her.

In that moment, a terrible rage blazed to life in those empty eyes. The god raised his spear and bounded across the battlefield. Its silence was worse than any bloodcurdling cry.

It was an awe-inspiring sight. Still, there was something… off about the way the god entered battle. I couldn't pin it down, but something was bothering me.

In another show of power that should have been beyond a normal archdemon, Wilhelmina exploded her mana all around her, then somehow forced it to latch onto the air. For just a second, she resembled a spider, with a web of mana threads woven all over her surroundings. Then she wrenched them close once more with a single hand gesture.

When I say the mana threads tore through the air, I mean that in the most literal way possible. They left deep gouges in the very fabric of space. She had to puke up another glob of blood immediately afterwards, but the results were worth it.

Wilhelmina's assault obliterated the undead icy giant. Only fragments of its feet remained. Those quivered from a moment, as if trying to regenerate, then went still.

Even the god faltered in his approach, eying the rents in the fabric of space warily. He seemed content to wait as those rips began to close.

Wilhelmina did not share his relaxed attitude.

She surged right past the devastation of her own attack, dodging some of the rents so closely that bits of her clothing and even a few strands of hair were shorn off. But then she was upon the god, and her daggers met his spear in a dizzying dance.

It was a smart move, getting close enough to use her short-range weapons to their full deadly effect. Still, the god fought back admirably. His fighting style wasn't polished. There didn't seem to be logical intent driving his combat moves. Instead, he moved with a wild energy, stumbling into the right maneuvers through sheer primal will.

Even so, for the first time, Wilhelmina actually met her match in combat. She was hard pressed to do any damage against the god's powerful defense. When the deity did manage to gain enough distance to use his spear, she had to scramble away for fear of grievous wounds.

The fear was not idle, either. Every strike of the god sent potent mana whistling through the air. Even at a distance, I could feel the power of his spearhead. The weapon was not physical in nature. With all the Divinity in its make-up, it was just as much a threat to its opponent's soul as my own blade, if not more so. Wilhelmina absolutely could not afford to get hit by that, not with her soul already so ravaged.

Then two things happened at once to make her situation go from bad to worse.

The continued chanting of the yeti bore fruit once more. A second banner erupted into light, and another newborn god began to enter the world, peeling itself free of its cloth prison.

At the same time, panicked shouting spread throughout Wilhelmina's ranks as several explosions rang out behind them. Meanwhile, adding insult to injury, a whole section of the cavern wall to her army's left suddenly liquified. A host of demons led by Glaustro poured in, flanking Wilhelmina's troops from the side while another group of our soldiers ambushed from the rear.

I caught the exact moment Wilhelmina realized she was screwed.

It was glorious.

Anger, resentment, and then cold resignation swamped her face. I could have giggled with glee if I weren't so focused on finding the most opportune moment to reveal myself.

Vengeance was so very sweet. No matter how much or how little of the Divinity we managed to claim in the end, I could rest assured that not a single ounce of it would wind up in the hands of the demoness I had resented since my early days as a mere recruit.

Glaustro didn't have the same history with her as Mia and I did, but the smile he wore was still one of vindictive triumph.

"Stand down and surrender, Wilhelmina, and I might just spare you a trip to the Abyss!"

"I would rather die," she hissed.

Judging by her murderous expression, I was inclined to believe her. She would not go quietly into the night.

Good.