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

Funny how you can give up on something, or at least convince yourself you’ve given up. But if someone dangles that same thing in front of you, only to snatch it away… Well, perhaps there are people out there who can remain unmoved.

I wasn’t one of them.

My hands tightened on the leather. Without meaning to, I sent mana surging through my muscles, lending me enough strength to tear straight through what was left of my poor armor. I stared blankly at the plate as it clattered to the ground, heedless of the odd looks we were getting from other patrons.

For that matter, I didn’t pay attention to the odd looks of my companions.

"I’m going to kill him," I repeated.

I wasn’t sure who I was addressing. But as rage unlike anything I had ever experienced washed through me, I was absolutely sure I meant to follow through on my promise.

In fact, I rose from my seat then and there, ready to charge out of the restaurant and scour the city for Mercutio. It didn’t matter that he would rip me apart, and happily at that. I just wanted to try. To see if the poor mortal he had decided to toy with could leave a mark on that stupid smug face of his.

Luckily, as I stood, a hand closed around my wrist. I eyed it with great displeasure, then followed the person’s arm up to their eyes. Mia was staring at me. Her face was full of such confusion and worry that the rage inside me softened for a moment.

Only for a moment, though.

"I’m going to kill him," I said for the third time, this time definitely addressing her.

"While I’m not one to discourage murder, especially when motivated by vengeance, perhaps you would care to share who and why?" Graighast ventured, before his brother could.

I didn’t hesitate. Not this time. I had been able to talk myself into overlooking everything. I had reasoned that there was little hard evidence to support my claims. But with my mutilated armor on the ground, and this anger burning me from the inside?

I was more than willing to share.

So, I told them. I told them everything. About the stupid power games, the abuse of the brand, the hatred I saw in Mercutio’s face, his comments and taunts, and all the times I was convinced he had tried to kill me.

I wrapped up the story with my armor. The savaged, ruined armor I now stared at with regret as I gingerly lifted it off the floor. Losing my temper was one thing. Destroying a prized possession even further was quite another.

"I don’t know what to do," I finally admitted, my voice ragged with desperation.

Talking everything through didn’t diminish my anger. If anything, it stoked it higher. But it also forced me to remember how helpless I was in the face of a high-ranking demon. My personal strength, my influence, my lineage: none of them matched up to Mercutio’s.

Well… except maybe that last one.

Amidst all his faults, the thing I hated most about the demon was that his despicable face was nearly identical to my own. If we stood side by side, you would easily mistake us for brothers. Or a father and son, perhaps, though I violently rejected the notion of both connections.

We couldn’t be related. We simply couldn’t be. The demon was as posh and elitist as anyone I knew, and I didn’t have a drop of demonic blood in me. My mother may have ascended and earned a soul blade before she died, leaving the weapon as my only legacy of her, but I had been born when she was still a human.

Mercutio, meanwhile, acted like he was demonic royalty.

"This is… troubling." To my surprise, Graighast’s face was pinched in consternation. "If even half of what you said is true, then this man actively tried to cripple not just your advancement, but an entire group of recruits. That is not something that can be casually allowed."

I frowned. "Really? Why? I remember our first battle, and right after it. A recruit got killed just for flirting with a demoness."

"Because the longer a recruit survives, the more valuable they become," Graighast replied. "Think, was there anyone casually murdering recruits towards the end? Or sending mortals into reckless battles?" He gave me an apologetic look. "Besides this Mercutio, I mean."

"Well… no." It didn’t feel nice to admit that, for some reason. I didn’t want a lesson. I wanted to smash in a stupid, gray-skinned demon’s face.

"Exactly. This kind of idiotic shit isn’t allowed," Glaustro snarled, his eyes narrowed on the ruined armor. "Thankfully, that means we can do something about it." The determination in his voice drew a questioning quirk of the eyebrow from his brother, but Glaustro ignored it. "Go through your stuff and find something to wear. Then we have a plea to make. I trust you haven’t used any of your merits?"

That question was directed towards me. Confused, I responded with a question of my own. "You can use those?"

"Ah, right, I forgot. You are way too fresh…" Glaustro shook his head. "Yes, you can use them, and you might have to. The only one who can really help us is the general, but how cooperative he will be depends entirely on his own discretion. He might, however, be swayed by merits," the demon explained. "Don’t expect miracles, but I suspect he’ll at least ensure that you aren’t assassinated in your sleep some time down the line."

I wanted to grit my teeth at that, but it wasn’t like I didn’t know my place. So, I nodded my head and rifled through my belongings, as directed.

Frankly, it was a pitiful pile of stuff. Almost everything, not just the armor, was also shredded to bits. The only intact items I found were a faded shirt, a pair of underwear, and pants. I didn’t even have shoes to wear, seeing as the pair that belonged to my armor set was both meticulously ruined and covered with stains I didn’t even want to try to identify.

It hurt seeing all the damage done to the armor, but I still searched through the whole set for anything I could salvage. The best I came up with was the belt. Though most of the pouches and paraphernalia had been torn off, it was still serviceable.

I headed for the restaurant’s bathroom and changed there. This was a slightly awkward experience, since demons were apparently big fans of unisex facilities, but I managed, as did Mia. All her stuff hadn’t been ravaged by an insane demon, so her gear was good to go. Of course, it was still composed of disjointed pieces she had scavenged from the battlefield, and it gave only the illusion of protection. Mundane armor did nothing against demons, after all. But at least she had stuff to wear.

Other than the armor remnants, I tossed the rest of my stuff. The most valuable item was probably my ration pack, and I could get those from a quartermaster in ridiculous quantities every couple of weeks. Mercutio had probably poisoned my rations anyway.

Maybe, if I ate them, I could take him down with me when the investigation began. But if that’s how he killed me in the end, he would probably laugh himself to death.

Bronwynn had been suspiciously quiet throughout my explanation, asking only a few clarifying question. Now, when I emerged from the bathroom, I found him arguing quietly with the sergeant brothers. He stiffened when he saw me approaching and went mum, but that was only more unsettling.

"I’m ready, commander," I said simply.

It was hard to ignore their pitying glances when they took in my current state. I looked extra pitiful, since I had stolen these clothes from a civilian home at the start of the Berlis invasion, and they were both old and didn’t fit. The lack of shoes was the finishing touch of shame. Sure, some demons didn’t wear them, but that was because they had odd feet, or deadly claws, or hooves. I was just very poor at the moment.

"Let us go, then. We should take this to the general as soon as we can. He’s been in a good mood, actually. I would almost say he enjoyed it when everything went wrong in Berlis," Glaustro groused, sounding much more refined and formal.

I found it a little funny that he always had to do a full reset of his speech pattern when he wanted to put effort into being taken seriously, but I appreciated it all the same. He was doing it for me, this time.

"U-Um, sir," piped up the bureaucrat I had completely forgotten about. Glaustro had dismissed him to a nearby corner, both so he could wrap up our official transfer paperwork, and to prevent him from overhearing our conversation. "We still need their signatures… and…"

He trailed off, cowering at our group’s obviously grim mood.

That’s when something occurred to me, and I eyed him resentfully. "You’re not from logistics, are you?"

Aggression roiled off all the demons around me, and even Mia seemed ready to stab the man. I felt genuinely touched that they would back me up in bullying a demon from Mercutio’s department. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

"N-N-N-No!" the squirrel-demon said wildly. "I’m from legislation! I don’t like that lot! They’re all horrible! Can’t even get a piece of paper without pushing at least five signatures and three different forms through their inspection!"

That mollified all of us. Bronwynn even clapped the poor demon on the shoulder with a smile and a muttered ’good man.’ The smile our unlucky helper gave in return could be charitably described as ’wretched.’

He did get our signatures, though. Then he ran, like he was sure we would take off after him and he wanted a good head start. I actually smiled a tiny bit at that.

The hint of my good mood evaporated as soon as I looked down at the crate in my hands, now empty except for my ruined armor. Fighting down a snarl of rage, I followed the group outside.

We didn’t have far to go. Some administrative genius had decided the best location for the legion headquarters was right next to the resurrection plazas, so we actually doubled back the way we came. After the plaza, we only turned down a couple more streets before arriving at a massive compound.

The titular headquarters of the legion was doing a good job of pretending to be a very large, sprawling mansion. Or maybe a small castle? Either way, it was imposing. I was surprised when we got through the front gate with relative ease. Then we approached a receptionist and requested a meeting with the general.

That was when we hit a wall.

As could be expected of a man who functionally ran the entire legion, his time was rather carefully portioned and managed. While the sergeant brothers argued with the receptionist, Bronwynn whispered to me that the general actually treated recruitment drives as a kind of short vacation. For a while every year, he got to visit a new world, toss around a couple of locals, and then kick back while evaluating recruit performance. As far as evil demonic overlords went, I supposed that was rather idyllic.

The general wasn’t the ultimate leader of the legion, of course. That dubious honor went to the Grand Duke of Torment himself, the man who ruled the very layer of the Abyss we were currently in, with totalitarian authority. The general was simply his most trusted aide and right hand, and as such, oversaw all important matters under the grand duke’s purview.

In other words, the duke got to do whatever he wanted, and the general had to deal with all the pesky little details of ruling, along with any invasions the duke started.

Why the general hadn’t tried to kill the duke yet was a mystery to literally everyone. Especially since the most expedient way to secure upward mobility in demonic society was to kill your superior and take their place.

Somehow, we got lucky. The chaos on Berlis had disrupted the whole legion, what with the insane local mage figuring out how to wield spatial magic and burn souls for mana. Actual demons had died to her traps, which was a big no-no for such a weak world. The invasion had been forced into an early conclusion, which meant the general’s schedule was emptier than usual. When the brothers hounded the receptionist into sending a message up to the general’s aide, saying a couple of his sergeants wanted to see him, the receptionist actually agreed to let us through.

I wasn’t sure who was more shocked, the receptionist or the brothers. But we had our meeting.

We were led down fancy corridors adorned with art, weapons, and random items I didn’t recognize. It didn’t take me long to realize that it was all one giant display of the general’s conquests.

When I made the mistake of walking too close to one of the displays, an unassuming dagger, I almost collapsed as a wave of malice and murderous mana washed over me. I barely managed to stumble past it, but I stuck to the very center of the hallway from then on.

The experience led me to an important revelation.

Everything on display was the most prized item of the world it came from. A legendary sword, warred over by many kingdoms. A grimoire with forbidden, ancient, and powerful spells. Unique materials that elevated their world’s mages to new heights.

All of it was cleaned, prepared, and put on display for the general and his visitors to marvel at. Not wielded, or honored, or coveted. Just displayed, like a useless trinket picked up from a souvenir shop.

It set the right mood for our arrival at the study of the man himself.

When his aide cracked the door open, we were almost floored by the amount of mana that seeped out. It wasn’t something done maliciously to cow us. The general simply gave off that much power by default.

At the sound of the opening door, he looked up from some documents with a confused "Hmm?" Then he saw us, and the flood of mana immediately cut off as he leashed it.

"Ah, yes. You wanted to see me, sergeants. And I see you’ve brought others with you." Amusement was plain in the general’s voice. "Well, come in. Let’s not waste time."

With a shuddering breath, I tried to fortify myself, and obeyed.

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