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

I had plenty of reasons to dislike Wilhelmina. She'd been a horrible superior to find myself under, especially as a fresh recruit. She almost killed her soldiers by forcing us to advance far too quickly on Berlis and sack everything in our way, just to win a 'bet' with her sister. A bet which her sister had set up as a trick to make sure the general's ire fell squarely on Wilhelmina's shoulders. I didn't really think about it back then, but the general easily could have become enraged enough to order all of our executions, and not just on Berlis. As the ultimate leader of the Legion of Torment's forces, Naberius possessed more than enough authority to have an entire troop of recruits permanently killed within the Abyss. All of that risk and the threat of ruin, brought about by the childish whimsy of the woman who was supposed to be leading us. Then there was the scenario we found ourselves in now. Seeing as she was Glaustro's direct rival for rulership over Breskwor, it was my sworn duty to try and ruin the demoness. So, yes. I already had plenty of cause to detest Wilhelmina's existence. But over the next four days, she gave me a whole new reason. Mia and I knew Wilhelmina and her forces were out there. That much was evident from the various yeti corpses we came across, all of which were deeply infected by demonic mana. But we couldn't get visual confirmation. Day after day, we failed to catch a glimpse of the major and her troops. Naturally, that meant we were stuck out there, away from all the growing comforts of our emerging capital city, constantly flitting about the snow-strewn wasteland like a pair of headless chickens. Worse still, the local yeti were clearly spooked and in full retreat, which would definitely mess with Glaustro's long-term plans. "We can't keep doing this," I eventually growled, staring hatefully at the horizon. "We are constantly one step behind. It's like she's mocking us! We need to find a way to pin her down." "Yes." If my eyes were hateful, Mia's were all but overflowing with baleful discontent. "We do have our orders. But… I don't think Glaustro would care what we did, if we succeeded in driving her off." I quirked my brow at her, confused. "Meaning…?" She had the gall to shrug, all innocent-like. "She's hunting down the yeti for their Divinity. If we can get to them first, we can just wait for her to show up. Lay an ambush." I hummed in pretend hesitation, but from the amused smirk she sent me, the brat cat knew I was in. Still… "How are they avoiding her?" I wondered. "You'd think she could have hunted them down by now. It wasn't really that hard when we did it." "She spooked them first. You know she doesn't think ahead very often." That was true enough. Besides, while a small part of me was concerned about this mysterious failure of Wilhelmina's, a much more dominant part was dismissive. It was so very easy to convince myself that she had simply messed up due to her usual stupidity. "Let's grab ourselves a yeti, then," I said with a grin that displayed all my fangs. Mia grinned right back, twice as maliciously. "Let's." — Wilhelmina probably had all sorts of demons under her command, but I doubted she had anything close to Mia's equal when it came to keen senses. In fact, I assumed Wilhelmina would fill her troops with nothing but the 'strongest', dumbest muscle-heads around. Careless of me? A little. Still, Mia's abilities were undeniable. As soon as she resolved to do it, the cat demoness easily tracked down a small scouting party of locals. The yeti were cautious and on edge. Clearly, Wilhelmina had spooked them. Even with Mia's amazing new stealth-based spells, they almost caught us following them several times. But the instant the group was foolish enough to split into two parties of four, we took out one party, and down the hatch the souls went. We immediately had to admit that our initial assumptions were wrong. Wilhelmina wasn't after a single yeti tribe. She was after two. The memories we stole painted a grim picture of the initial violence Wilhelmina had brought against the yeti, and the resulting loss of life. It was the threat of these new predators that had forced two tribes to cooperate. They were in a full retreat for a while, but for reasons opaque to simple scouts and hunters, the yeti leaders had given the order for the two tribes to settle inside an old abandoned cave system. There, the shamans and chieftains were engaged in some kind of funny business. All the young, badly wounded, and more infirm members of the tribes were roped into helping them. The strong, capable yeti were sent out to forage for as much food as they could find, which is why the group had decided to split up in the first place. The results of their expedition were not satisfactory. Desperation had forced the yeti to make a dumb decision. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. More importantly… "We need to hurry. I know the yeti have no way of knowing what demons can do, but all the hunters they sent out will lead Wilhelmina right to them, now that they've decided to sit still," I grumbled, murder on my mind. Mia naturally had no objections to that, so we set out immediately. I had to admit that if they weren't facing off against demons, yeti tactics would be very effective. Their ability to manipulate ice, especially in groups, allowed them to both discover and create caverns on a whim. That, coupled with their natural stamina, let yeti cover vast tracts of land before they needed to settle down again. The only reason they were still lingering in this area was their reluctance to give up on ancestral stomping grounds, along with some kind of religious hang-ups. It appeared that the yeti strongly believed they were tied to the spirits of their ancestors. These spirits would bind to the places where their bones were laid to rest, providing support and protection for their descendants. Since the yeti were naturally drawn to places with high ambient mana concentration, their burial grounds were located in those areas, often shared among several tribes who had all descended from the same ancestors. It was one such spot where these two tribes of yeti had chosen to make a stand, which confused and worried me in equal measure. It confused me, because the memories I'd inherited made it clear that yeti saw dependence on their ancestors as a last resort. The action was almost shameful. They shouldn't have defaulted to it when their tribes still had a decent number of members. It worried me, because while I didn't think the yeti could actually kill Mia and me, Divinity was unpredictable. If this cemetery really had been used as a place of worship by generation after generation of different tribes, then chances were high that it held actual power. The only question was whether that power could be used for offensive purposes. Of course, I also had one more worry in the back of my mind. If we failed to stop the yeti before they somehow managed to use up all that Divinity, Glaustro was going to have our asses. As Mia and I made our way through the tunnels, I was impressed by the sheer variety of defenses these yeti had prepared. They had everything from extremely intricate pitfall triggers and concealments to whole scores of subjugated beasties, just lying in wait for a careless invader to come bustling through. Of course, having the memories of one of the hunters, we easily waltzed through the whole setup. We even traded some banter along the way. But the further we ventured into the tunnels, the more visibly tense both Mia and I became. It wasn't anything I could easily point to that made our hackles rise. It was just something that lingered in the air, some mounting pressure that threatened to reach a crescendo with every step we took. And then, all at once, it entered our senses. It was a massive pool of mana, unlike anything I'd ever seen outside of the Abyss. The world itself was practically screeching in the agony of trying to contain it. And that was the effect of the pool at rest. The mana felt as frozen as the surrounding ice, with no intent to drive it onwards. Unfortunately, that was changing. There was a single thread, so insignificant I almost missed it, that swirled through the calm of the pool. A moment's investigation showed me the intent behind the magic was malignant. I could practically feel its bite on my skin: a terrible conviction to destroy all the invaders who dared disrupt the local way of life. The yeti were weaponizing the mana, slowly but surely. At the rate they were going, I would give them a day or two before they could use the mana pool to put up a genuine fight against the weaker members of Wilhelmina's army. The whole thing was educational, not to mention remarkable. On any world older than Breskwor, what the yeti were attempting would never have worked. The mana on older worlds was too ancient, too set in its ways. There were ways to harness it, sure, but definitely not like this. The yeti's method was the magic equivalent of taking a spoon and swirling it around a bowl until something happened. Now, I didn't want to invalidate the effort the yeti were putting in, or the brilliance of their mana manipulation. Somehow, these so called 'primitive' creatures had managed to accrue enough knowledge and generational experience to cobble together a crude but effective spell, designed to manipulate the world itself. And it was working. I could taste the intent that saturated the air around us. It was seeping into the very fabric of the world, willing it to move, to react, and to change. The world obliged, even if it did move at its own pace, and an impossible miracle was born. It was funny. It was preposterous. I kind of wanted to steal the spell and see if I could somehow adapt it for use in worlds where a Will had already formed and matured. It was unlikely, but… still. Not long after we first sensed the massive natural pool of mana, we came across several yeti stationed as guards around the entrance to a large cavern. Its entrance arch was covered by carvings of symbols and other gibberish that meant nothing to me, and everything to the yeti whose memories I'd stolen. We paused for a moment while Mia recast and strengthened all of the spells hiding us, but then we proceeded to move past the guards like we weren't even real. Across the large cavern was the entrance to another cavern, which I assumed contained the burial grounds. This entrance was even more heavily guarded. The press of bodies alone precluded us from simply bypassing them on foot. Thankfully for the two of us, I could fly! I picked Mia up and soared over the guards' heads. Her spell could muffle the sound of my wings as easily as it muffled our footsteps, but the air currents I produced were another matter. She had to concentrate to keep them from tipping off the yeti that something was passing above them, but she managed. And there it was: a ridiculously vast stretch of cavern that was absolutely covered with yeti remains at various stages of decomposition. Some were white-bleached bones, their color a true testament to their age. Some bones still had chunks of frozen meat attached to them. Then there were the cadavers, in frozen and thawed form alike. Some were even partially eaten, bearing the unmistakable marks of yeti fangs. Apparently, a bit of cannibalism was perfectly acceptable, so long as the bones themselves were put to rest properly. It was then that I realized where all the mana had come from. While I had no doubt the spot was rich in mana naturally, generations of yeti had decomposed in that one cavern. For whatever reason, all of their mana had refused to scatter, and instead settled right there when released from the confines of a bodily form. Countless generations of yeti, and all the mana they still contained upon their deaths was concentrated there. A glance at Mia told me she was thinking the same thing I was. If the locals possessed anything that could give Wilhelmina pause, this was it.