It was hard to tell how much the tunnels blew up the sounds. The slurping was so loud, the tunnel so dim, ribbed with lines of crystals, it was like she was walking through the intestines of some great serpent. There was the growling, too, like a little earthquake in the awful, cramped dark, and the thump, thump, thump of something slapping the ground. Tails? They must be awfully big tails...

The tunnel smelled so strongly of tar; she could smell nothing else. She'd insisted on going at the front with Sabina. She argued the strongest should go first, Sabina saw the sense in it. The closer they got, the thicker the essence; as she neared the square of light, the essence got so thick she had to drag her legs through it, wade through it, and she felt it sloshing around her ankles.

Still, there was no sign of the beasts. She could make nothing out of the doorway — nothing but a dim wall of smoky essence.

Then, twenty strides out, the slurping stopped; the growling stopped. Even the thumping. Then all Ruyi could hear were themselves, and they were much less loud than she would have hoped. She jerked to a halt, and so did Sabina.

The beasts had sensed them!

Ruyi made herself take a breath. It was so quiet she could hear her heart thudding in her chest, thudding wetly up her ears, all up in her head. She looked to Sabina. Sabina raised a fist, and smiled so warmly, so fiercely, Ruyi almost felt it too.

Then Sabina started marching again, and they rushed to follow. Together they stepped out into the light.

There, dominating the center of the room, were a pack of massive, three-headed hounds. They were easily twice the size of her demonform, and their eyes were milky white pools—there were no pupils, so she couldn’t tell where they were looking. She had the unsettling sense they were all looking at her. Their veins were stark purple too. She had read of some fungi that got into creatures' noses, and spread their roots into their brains — it was like some Hell parasite had gotten into these monsters, and spread its roots so deep you could see them showing through the skin, gnarly, thick, pulsing.

They were all feeding on the body of something huge, four-legged, with rough skin. It was torn up so badly, ripped open up the middle, painted over with its own blood, that that was all she could tell about it.

The beasts watched silently as they filed in. Ruyi couldn't figure out why they weren't attacking. Their fangs were bared, their throats stuck in a low growl. Sabina, Darius, Amelia, Rufus, and Fausta all took their places at her side, and their auras poured into the room.

Then Ruyi felt the difference. There were six of them here, all Demon Kings. But the praetorianus had nearly twenty demon kings, and their auras flooded the room, made little islands of the beasts. Only then did she realize the cerberi were scared.

And why wouldn't they be? Their auras didn't even feel as strong as Rufus, the weakest of them. The tight clump of nervousness in Ruyi’s chest was fast melting. It was hard to be frightened of something when it was so frightened of you.

And Sabina rushed in, screaming a battle cry, and the rest of them demonformed, following suit, and blood soaked the air. Ruyi sometimes wondered in practice why the Pretorius never trained as a pack. It was soon clear enough: in the heat of battle, demons couldn't coordinate if they wanted to. They just set upon their enemy and shredded them. They were vicious, and wild, and they swarmed all over; they were everywhere, wherever you looked. It was like watching a natural disaster, some great dark tidal wave flooding over, dragging hounds under. You couldn't fight them — it didn’t make sense. What did it mean to fight the ocean?

The fighting hardly lasted ten breaths, and none of them took more than a gash.

Only after they'd finished could Ruyi appreciate the room. She stood there panting, blinking, gasping. It was like the biggest sauna she'd ever seen — streams of essence poured in through cracks in the walls, bubbled up from cracks in the ground. They pooled together, making clumps of floating gold heavier than air, lighter than water. It just felt good to sit in.

Livia said this was a convergence: essence left that crack deep down, near hell, and split up ten thousand ways. Some places, like here, it found itself again. Drusila said they'd set up camp here. The thousands of them filed in, and warriors were stationed at the entrances. Everyone else settled down. Some smiths went digging, and Claudia sent some Brewers to scour for netherwort, but the bulk of them sat down cross-legged and cultivated.

***

Even just breathing here felt empowering, invigorating. When Ruyi sat down to cultivate, she choked on all the essence coming in. She was too close to her natural limits to take most of it, but the little she managed to pack in felt real — in an hour she made maybe a week's progress. Usually, these things were too subtle to sense in the moment; but she could feel new motes dancing in her belly, warm and lively.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

She found most of the warriors drinking robust elixirs as they cultivated. The two played nicely together. The mood was bright, cheerful. They all seemed to just dissolve into the warmth. Even though he joined a group of sage furs and waddled over to a thick clump of essence, where he plopped down and went to sleep.

The praetorianus gathered together in a tight circle, sat down, and closed their eyes to cultivate. Ruyi sat next to Sabina, who didn't mind it when Ruyi used her lap as a pillow. To one side was Darius, eyes closed, his smile as real as it ever got — a little happy smile. It was an innocent smile, innocent because of how pure it was, the kind children often make, and adults do too without meaning to, when they think no one’s looking. Aelia had made a sketch of the scene; now she too was sitting there, eyes closed, sharing his smile, his feeling. They all were. Ruyi breathed out, eyes fluttering open, and took them all in, just staring at their sleepy, happy faces, and for the second time that hour she felt like her heart might burst, but for very different reasons.

So often nowadays, Ruyi had been having this thought: this wish to freeze the moment, stopper it, and sip on it forever and ever. She could remember words well enough, and pictures, but it was the feelings that were fragile. Somehow when she played back old memories, there was a little less feeling each time, some residue lost in the playing. It made her treasure each remembrance. It made her wish she could stay in this place, this time, this feeling, forever and ever.

Back when she was with the humans, she almost never had this feeling. She felt the opposite all the time — she wanted to skip ahead faster and faster, until she was strong enough, and nice enough, and smart enough for everyone to love her like she wanted them to. She just couldn’t wait until she got there, wherever that was. Her life had felt like one unending Before.

If she could choose, she still would have had it happen differently. She still missed Jin desperately, and Mother, and Tingting, and Sen, and Father. But here, in this moment, she was happy. And she didn’t even let herself feel guilty about it.

Of course, Darius just had to open his eyes. He must have seen her face, because a smirk was creeping up the edges of his lips. She knew he could see how close she was to happy crying - ugly crying, the sort of crying he’d never let her forget. He would call her names until the end of time! But there was no stopping it now. For some reason, he stilled, lips pursed, sighed, and patted her hand, and closed his eyes again.

Then she really did ugly cry. She was grateful he pretended not to notice.

***

At the dinner feast that day, we got the biggest slab of Cerberus meat. Surprisingly it tasted like beef, but was stringier and tougher. There was a special quality to its essence. It was brighter than all the rest, and when she soaked in it, it tickled her soul. She could hardly absorb normal essence anymore, but this she claimed easily.

Livia came to check on her. Ruyi had been watching her, tracking her progress as she made her way from the initiates to the Lorekeepers, to the shamans, to the warriors, group by group, checking up on everyone.

Livia knew everyone's name. She spoke to everyone as though they were her friend, and they probably were. Some friends had earned it. You wouldn't let anyone in, since if you did, they might hurt you. Not Livia. She never asked anything of you; all she ever wanted to do was help. Everyone was happy to be her friend.

Ruyi thought about her as she made the rounds. Some people were just nice like that, she guessed. It was in their nature. Usually, when Ruyi was nice to someone, she expected love from them - that felt kind of slimy, and now that she thought about it. It wasn't until she watched Livia that she realized what she liked most in a person. She liked people who would give out their love freely, to anyone, even to those who didn't deserve it at all.

A stray thought clipped her. Really, Livia was exactly the kind of person Ruyi might have a crush on. But Ruyi didn't.

Was it bad that she didn't? She was allowed not to have a crush on someone, wasn't she? But that wasn't why she felt guilty about it — it was the reason. She knew why. It was the same reason why she had a crush on Sen, and on Sabina. Maybe she was just a shallow person. She’d heard other folk talk about Livia before her accident. She’d looked like her Mother—she’d been really, really beautiful…

Ruyi wished she could be the kind of person who liked people like Livia in that way. But it was like all her other feelings. They were just there; she couldn't do anything about them. Did that make her a bad person? She wasn’t sure, but she had a worrying feeling it might.

Now Livia was coming toward her, smiling, and she tried not to panic. For a moment, she thought maybe Livia had picked up on her thoughts, but then she realized she was just at the end of a wide circle Livia had been making for the past few hours. She tried to sort her face into a nonchalant expression.

“…Are you okay?” said Livia, looking amused.

“I’m great! Just great! Mhm,” said Ruyi. She couldn't meet Livia's eyes.

“Well,” Livia smiled at her so nicely it made her feel even worse. “Good. Let me know if you would like to talk. You know you can always talk to me.”

“Mhm!”

“About what we spoke of last night…”

It took Ruyi a moment to remember. “Oh! I’m not scared anymore. I just have to trust my friends more—they can take care of themselves. It’s not a big deal. Everything will be just fine. It’s like Sabina says—happy thoughts!”

“Precisely,” beamed Livia.

As Livia turned to go, Ruyi said, “Wait!”

“Yes?”

Ruyi looked at her, really looked at her. “Um,” she said at last. “I think you’re really great.”

“Why, thank you. I think you’re really great too.” Livia left.