Progressing from the level of a mage apprentice to a mage proper was a momentous occasion in the life of any magic user in Berlis. Of course, the world was a poor one, able to support mana users of middling strength only. Still, the power that coursed through my veins made me downright giddy.

Giddy enough that I could ignore my new superior’s glower and continue smiling, even if that was probably a mistake in the long term.

What I cherished far more than the newfound power in my mana core, however, was the sense of control over my emotions. The cool yet electrifying sensation of mana nourishing my soul pushed the negative feelings into a corner of my mind. The cloud of gloom and rage didn’t disappear entirely. What improved was my ability to process them, to accept them without letting them swallow me whole.

Why had I started going off the deep end in the first place? I didn’t know for certain, but I did have big fat clues staring me in the face. Clues that, overwhelmed by the very emotions pushing me off the deep end, I had been happy enough to overlook.

My progress to ascension. Knowledgeable demons had noticed it, and none of them seemed too pleased by the development.

But… why? I feel fine. Better than fine. The demonic mana is amazing.

Perhaps it was a bit bullheaded of me, but I found it difficult to accept that my ‘progress’ was the culprit, or that all the souls I had sacrificed in its name were a bad investment. But if I seriously examined my behavior, the results weren’t pretty.

I didn’t notice any big emotional discrepancies immediately after I stopped feeding souls to the Abyss. But the next day, when we made our disastrous teleport journey? Yeah, things were… off, from the moment I woke up.

If I was honest, even my choice in the station to push through to fifty percent was suspect. I think I knew then, deep down, that I wasn’t fully in control, but I dismissed it as a temporary side effect of coming in contact with the Abyss.

What if it wasn’t so temporary, however? What if I would never again be able to trust my own emotions?

The thought made me sick to my stomach.

Sure, my mind was a fractured, unstable mess. But it was also the final bastion of my identity, the only space where I could acknowledge my past and think of myself as more than just Hayden, orphan and demonic recruit. Now? I had an outside force-feeding my emotions beyond my ability to handle. It clouded my mind, blurring the lines between the past I tried to cling to and this body’s rightful memories.

Even with my new sense of control, I felt my heart sinking.

I let none of this turmoil show on my face. Instead, my expression went full stony, that small smile fixed rigidly on my lips. Maybe the asshole they put in charge of my fate could sense my churning emotions, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me struggle visibly with them.

In an attempt to distract myself, I thought back to my interaction with Glaustro. The sergeant had slipped something into my palm, yet to my frustration, I couldn’t risk checking it out yet. At one point, when Mercutio’s attention was stolen by the café’s proprietor, I managed to slip the ‘something’ into one of my belt pouches. That was all I dared to do. At least, if it was some kind of note, it wouldn’t get ruined by my sweat.

Five hours. That’s how much longer I had to stand there after I improved my core and kicked off the next cycle of mana accumulation. If I weren’t afraid of getting robbed, I would have pulled out mana crystals and started absorbing them. Hell, I really wished my state of mind had allowed me to visit the Absorption Station over the past two days, so I could finally inherit the knowledge of Apprentice Enchantment Theory (Basic) from one of the souls that hadn’t been sacrificed to the Abyss. I could have used all this waiting time to review the inherited memories and make them properly my own.

Instead, I was stuck obeying the whims of yet another demon commander, one whom I hated without knowing why. At least the emotion seemed to be mutual.

When the mortal troops started to trickle in during the late afternoon, they did so in pitiful numbers. Twenty, thirty mortals from each troop were all we got, sometimes fewer.

We even had one single woman of some non-human race. Her skin was the color of earth and riddled with cracks, and I swear I saw magma shining through underneath. Her hair was a mass of crystals that cascaded down her back, chiming with every step. When her eyes swept past me, I realized they were literal gems.

Beautiful, or eerie? The jury was still out on that one. Still, I knew I would not want to be in her shoes on a world, any world, controlled primarily by humans. My teachers at the training camp taught us that humanity, when allowed major sway over the fate of a world, quickly descended into exploitation of ‘lesser’ races. I could easily imagine human nobles cooing over rare gems extracted from some poor victim’s face.

But was the demonic obsession with souls, now my obsession, any better?

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Another thing that shocked me, other than the low numbers of the arrivals, was the absence of any commanding officers. As the last stragglers trickled in through the portal, I had to acknowledge that Glaustro’s public announcement of support for us mortals was a rare thing.

I found the gesture endearing. No matter how our relationship had started, I owed quite a bit to that demon by now.

Finally, when half an hour passed with no new arrivals, our commanding officer deigned to make another appearance.

He strolled out of the café looking fresh and pristine, in direct contrast to our sweaty faces and stiff postures. His blue eyes examined us like we were bugs he found splattered all over the windshield of his fancy new racing car.

“Barely over a thousand of you? Really, mortals do die like flies. No matter. I did not come here expecting a force worthy to assist me in my task. I expected rabble, and I suppose that’s what I got.”

Mercutio snapped his fingers, and mana spooled away from him. It clung to the air, gradually drawing the outline of an ornate door. In the center of the door was an eye motif, surrounded by depictions of beasts tearing each other apart.

With another pulse of mana, the door opened. Out marched a small unit of beasts that appeared to be bred for war and nothing else.

The majority of them, three dozen in total, were wolf-like and taller than any of the gathered mortals. Their fur clanked and bristled as only metal can. Tentacles sprouted from their shoulders and flanks, adorned by thorn-like protrusions and fanged mouths that snapped at the air like they were trying to take a chomp out of the world itself.

I wanted to be as far from them as possible at all times.

Behind the wolf monstrosities trotted four smaller beasts, and I could not compare them to any creature I knew. They were quadruped, completely furless, and seemed to be shivering with every step. They didn’t have eyes or ears or any discernible facial features. Point of fact, I couldn’t even differentiate between their fronts and their backs. More than anything, they resembled a quivering ball of flesh attached to four legs, except the legs were all pointing away from the ‘torso.’

These creatures didn’t inspire fear like the tentacle-wolves, but they sure had ‘disgust’ covered.

The final beast to lumber through the door did so in grand fashion. At first, I thought it was smaller than the wolves, but that was just a trick of the distance. We could watch the beast’s approach from whatever world or hidden dimension it was stored in, and as it got closer, the door swelled outwards. By the time the creature passed through, the door was wide enough for two elephants to walk casually side by side, which was just barely big enough for the beast.

When it finally set foot in the square, the entire city trembled. I could feel my heart going wild inside of my chest.

The creature was a massive turtle, shell and flesh both a perfect crystalline black. It resembled a flawless statue come to life, especially since it bore an entire home on its back. The home was a ‘humble’ two-story affair, but it was tastefully decorated in an understated wealthy manner that screamed the owners were both important and rich.

Because, of course, our new asshole commander couldn’t travel without his personal retreat.

“Allow me to be blunt,” said the asshole, like he had carefully picked his words until then to avoid offending us. “You are useless. With the increased threat level of this world, you are barely good enough to assault villages and fleeing refugees. Unfortunately, high command refused to see reason and just kill you all.”

He swept his eyes over us like this was a personal failing on our part. Like we should have volunteered to do him a favor and cast ourselves upon our weapons then and there. When none of us did, he sighed and continued talking.

“I was put in charge by the logistics division of our glorious legion to assess this world and decide if it is worth keeping. Normally, this process takes months. Years, sometimes, if the world is large enough. We are going to have to condense it into weeks because all the anomalies have made high command… nervous.”

His lips twisted into a sneer, like he couldn’t believe demons would find lesser species threatening. I dearly wished he had been the one to get blown away in a trap instead of a decent demon like Bronwynn. The universe would be a nicer place.

“So, I will leverage what resources I can. Namely, you! It will be your task to clear the path for me and allow me to focus solely on surveying this world. This is an important and exhausting endeavor, so I will tolerate no insubordination or incompetence. We will be marching south immediately, towards one the largest mountain ranges on this world. Then we will travel westwards until we hit the capital of this troublesome kingdom. If important or rare materials are hoarded or hidden somewhere, they will most likely appear in these two locations. You are lucky that someone else was put in charge of surveying this world’s oceans. I would love to see you manage the depths.”

Mercutio’s expression somehow grew more malevolent, if that was even possible. Then his body gently lifted off the ground. Floating upwards, he landed on top of the turtle’s head, where a staircase chiseled into the animal’s shell led directly into the residence.

“We will begin our march immediately. We will not stop until we encounter one of the villages I was instructed to check, where we will hopefully find some locals still alive. Their memories will be a valuable resource for understanding this world better, and we might even discover some clues about all the trouble this invasion has been encountering.”

The demon obviously doubted this would be the case, but it didn’t matter. We would be following the orders anyway. It wasn’t like any of us had a choice, especially when these orders seemed to be coming from someone much higher up the chain of command than the stuck-up demon.

Of course, before he deprived us of his uplifting presence, Mercutio had to get one last barb in.

“Ah, and in case you want to slack off, don’t even try. You’ll be marching ahead of my lovely mobile home here, and if you slow down or try to stop, my beasts will gladly partake in a small snack. I might not be allowed to kill you on sight, but I can kill you for wasting my time and setting the legion behind schedule.”

I sincerely doubted the legion’s timetable was his concern, not after he wasted most of a day on some pitiful attempt at mind-games. He failed to understand a simple truth: every mortal there already knew his whims dictated our lives. Forcing us to stand out in the sun for ages was only going to make us resent him. Or was that the whole point?

I didn’t know. What I did know was that his attitude and actions only confirmed my mysterious initial reaction to him.

The hatred may have come out of nowhere, but it was here to stay.