The Twelve Apocalypses: A Damned Soul's Path to the Abyss-Chapter 102 - 153: Distance

We didn't have a big, dramatic big kiss or a night of steamy lovemaking. As it turned out, cuddling was just as fine for demons as it was for mortals. Neither of us was in a rush for any grand gestures of affection or even to put any labels on what was happening.

Still, there was no denying that some of the distance between us had narrowed, if not vanished altogether. Something had changed.

Of course, there was also no hiding this change.

When we strolled into a meeting with Glaustro, Methialia, and Bronwynn the following day, the pink-skinned demon almost choked on his drink. Awfully embarrassing way to croak for a demon. When he was finally done coughing and sputtering, he stared at us with wide eyes.

We just glared back, unamused. It wasn't like we were groping each other or kissing right in the major's tent! Sure, Mia was holding onto my sleeve, but that was only because I had tried to hold her hand while we walked, like I occasionally did. She had flushed scarlet and grabbed my sleeve instead, refusing to look at me.

Abyss protect me from the courting peculiarities of her people, but if anyone said that wasn't adorable, I was going to rip their soul right out of their chest.

"What?" I finally snapped.

"Nothing! Nothing…" Bronwynn blinked, shaking his head. He wasn't staring anymore, but the slow smile spreading across his face was almost worse. "I just… well, you're pretty much radiating my Emotion."

Affection… right.

I was the one who flushed this time. Thankfully, we got to move on to the day's business after only mild amounts of teasing.

The meeting itself was surprisingly productive, though it lasted far longer than I expected. Apparently, Glaustro was determined to get things in order, even if he had to force us all into something resembling proper discipline.

He started that process by getting his hands on a map. It had been drawn by the scouts and was only mostly reliable, considering our entire environment shifted constantly at the whim of the weather. But a couple landmarks were still semi-permanent, and the map was at least useful for calculating distances.

Which was exactly why Glaustro wanted it.

First, he extracted one of the Divinity-soaked banners from his storage item and gave it to a trustworthy scout. This scout was then ordered to go exactly one mile away from camp. He sent a signal back to us when he was there, and Glaustro asked Methialia to describe how far that particular measurement 'felt' to her senses.

The process was repeated, but the second time, Glaustro concealed the distance the scout traveled. He asked Methialia to gauge it using her ability alone. Within four attempts, she started identifying the correct distance consistently enough to progress to the next stage.

The next stage involved Methialia reaching out with her senses. Then, effortlessly, she dropped pins on the map to mark all the locations of hidden Divinity within the range of her detection. Speaking of her range, it was pretty crazy. My good captain could practically taste Divinity on her tongue from eighty miles away.

Glaustro's excitement was palpable as he started making plans in hushed whispers. Suddenly, we were on the verge of looting the world empty of all its most precious riches. It was as simple as sending Methialia to track them all down.

The one thing that marred my enjoyment of the moment was Methialia herself. I could tell she was keenly aware of the Divinity within Glaustro's dimensional item. When the scout returned the experimentation banner to Glaustro, I swear the captain was visibly restraining herself. For as long as the Divinity-rich item was out in the open, her eyes tracked it with avarice.

That was what prompted me to pull Glaustro out of the meeting for a minute.

"What is it, Hayden?" he hissed as I ushered him out of the tent. "Couldn't this wait? We have an amazing opportunity on our hands!"

"This whole thing started because we wanted a way to track Wilhelmina," I reminded him. "If we jump on the Divinity now, what are our chances of dragging her out of hiding?"

"It doesn't matter! With enough Divinity, our army would have the power to stop her. We can just hunt her down then. Besides, if she refuses to show herself, we'll claim this world eventually. We wouldn't even need to worry about her at that point."

"Yes, and what if we need to fight in order to claim Breskwor?"I shot back. "What if there's a different advanced race here, vying for control? Like the jinn in Lagyel? What are we going to do if she ambushes us during battle?"

Glaustro scowled and crossed his arms, but he very pointedly stopped protesting.

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I sighed. "Listen, I'm sorry, but I'm just saying: let's not get carried away. Now, give me a second."

I paused to draw on some recent lessons from Mia. My mana wisped out, forming into a ward that blocked most of the sound from passing through in either direction. I wasn't good enough to block out signs of our presence entirely, like she was, but keeping us from being overheard? That I could do.

"Whatever you want to say must be important." Glaustro looked amused. "I don't remember you doing something like this before."

"I couldn't do this before. But, yes, it's important. Listen… do you think you could set aside a bit of the Divinity for Methialia? I don't want to get into it now, but I think she needs it. Badly."

Glaustro studied me for a moment, carefully assessing how serious I was about the request. The unflinching look on my face made him drop his eyes.

"How badly are we talking?"

"Badly. And we can start with a small amount, just to see if it would help at all. I understand that we need most of it, but think about how much time she's going to help us save, and what she could do for the army. We'd always have an instant Divinity detector, and that's just to start with."

Well… I hoped so, at least. I had a few private concerns.

To begin with, I wasn't sure if Divinity could actually help Methialia's deeper problem. It was entirely possible that she would gobble it down and just experience the typical boost in soul quality that would follow in a 'normal' demon.

Alternatively, she could be cured of all that ailed her, which might deprive us of a valuable Divinity sensor. It made an unfortunate amount of sense. Her intense craving for Divinity could simply be instinct, telling her to grasp for something she needed. If she fulfilled that need, the waning of her sensory abilities was an all too logical result.

I chose to keep that fear to myself, though. It wasn't likely that a single small serving of Divinity would cure her. Besides, my suspicion that recovery could hurt her abilities was just that: suspicion. We'd have to let the initial test play out and take things from there.

Eventually, Glaustro nodded. I could see the avarice and benevolence battling on his face, so I was more than a little proud when the latter won.

Not that I had doubted him for a second, of course.

"Very well," he sighed. "She can have some of the Divinity we collected as a test. Only some. We need to grow in personal strength if we want to survive. I need to grow. I'm not on the lower end of power for a major, but I'm not exactly among the most impressive, either. And we're stuck without a patron."

"I know," I assured him. "I'm not expecting you to feed her every scrap of Divinity we find until her personal problem is resolved. I'm just curious if it might help. She's a demoness. She has all the time in the world to figure out a real solution."

Glaustro smiled, and then we were back in the tent with three demons shooting us curious glances. My major ignored them. Casting one final look in my direction, he dipped his hand back into his dimensional item and withdrew one of the more tattered banners.

I had to hold back a gasp. Honestly, I was expecting him to offer Methialia a small chunk of the ice sculpture, not one of the banners with enough power to birth a god.

"I want you to have this as payment for services rendered," Glaustro intoned solemnly.

Methialia was staring at the banner, almost starting to drool. But at these words, her eyes snapped back to the major, full of disbelief.

Glaustro went on in the same solemn voice. "If you continue to perform so admirably and help us with the retrieval, I wouldn't be opposed to sharing a certain percentage of all the Divinity we claim."

I wanted to snicker. 'Retrieval' was one hell of a descriptor for the slaughter and looting of natives. Still, I controlled myself, for my sake as much as for Methialia's.

Glaustro wouldn't kill me, but he absolutely would hand me my ass once or twice in the name of 'training.'

While I was stuck in my head, Methialia was already reaching for the banner. Her fingers shook with yearning and hunger as they gripped the grimy thing and clutched it to her chest.

Her mouth opened, and when she inhaled, a stream of golden power erupted out of the item and slammed into her. On and on it poured, covering her and seeping into her skin. When the final dregs of Divinity were gone, the demoness slumped in her seat, her eyes closed.

"Wait, what? She's fine, right? She has to be fine."

I darted over to the captain, gripping her shoulders and trying to push her into a more comfortable sitting position. Her neck rolled bonelessly when I moved her, but she didn't react. Even her soul seemed… distant, dim, like something was obscuring it from view.

I was just about to start panicking in earnest when she let out a gasp and jolted in her seat. Her eyes snapped wide open, but it was clear she couldn't see anything. She just stared straight ahead for several long seconds of pure shock.

Then she blinked, and sentience flooded back into her. "Woah. That was intense! In a good way," she rushed to add, spotting our anxious expressions.

I let go of her in a hurry and stepped back, shooting Mia a furtive look. To my relief, the cat looked entirely unbothered. A part of me was sort of worried about what the recent shift in our relationship would mean for this sort of thing, but it seemed like those fears were misplaced.

"What happened?" Glaustro demanded, drawing my full attention back to the captain.

"I'm not sure. I feel… better? More whole? I honestly can't say," Methialia stammered, her cheeks flushing almost purple in response to our scrutiny.

"And your sensing range? Has this had any sort of impact on it?" I asked.

Glaustro flinched like I had struck him. I wasn't sure what sort of conclusions he'd been reaching on his own, but before he could react either way, Methialia answered my question.

"Mmmm. I think my range is a bit bigger now? Just a mile or two, but that's an amazing change, right?"

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She looked around at all of us, and Glaustro finally relaxed again as a smile stretched over his features.

"You're damn right it is. That's going to make it even easier for you to spot Divinity. If we can get your detection range to grow, then we can avoid the risk of letting Wilhelmina do something stupid or rash. Especially if our enemies ever get info on your abilities! That you can improve them would be a nasty surprise for any spies."

I naturally agreed with Glaustro, but I was even more excited about the improvements in Methialia. Not only did she sit a little straighter and look a bit more relaxed, but that constant cloud of exhaustion and sickness around her had faded slightly.

Yes, I was pretty sure that we could save my captain from future suffering using Divinity. Getting enough of it to make a difference would be tough. Every single one of our officers wanted it, including me. But we would manage somehow.

The most important thing was knowing it could work.