Three days of travel later, the party was well within the massive gash that Rex Magnar had cut into the original map. It would have been a massive area to scour through without guidance. Nahua cut right through that issue, guiding them to a much narrower area.

They still took two days combing through that area, though. The terrain was all flat jungle. Any manmade landmarks Nahua knew from 500 years ago had been swallowed up, either by vegetation or new towns. Courtesy of John’s barrier sense, they still found it.

The advancement of the timetable required some uncomfortable measures.

The Ambassador Double held the phone up to his ear and awaited a response. A long and pondering silence deliberately kept him on edge. Considering the circumstances and the number of feathers he had already ruffled, John decided to stay patient. Seconds passed until Emrik finally responded, “Understood.”

John was in the process of sorting out a diplomatic response, but even his erudite mind could not find words quick enough to speak up before the phone was hung up. Sighing, he tossed the phone on top of the usual shelf, then pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Just tell the fucker to eat the business end of a shotgun,” Eliana said.

The pretty little psycho was sitting on the Couch alongside three other women. Nathalia and Nightingale were here with him as per usual and Lydia had managed to take some time out of her busy schedule.

“Seriously, the clit-sucker can go hang from a windowsill for being such a disrespectful beaver-face,” the white-blue haired woman kept on ranting. “First he’s being a total cunt about joining, now he acts like you’re the asshole because you’re not protecting Fusion enough, whatever the fuck that means.”

“He has his reasons,” John tried to play devil’s advocate.

“He deserves to be dangled above some sharpened bamboo sticks and to watch them grow.”

John was amused by her outrage. For all the understanding he tried to have for Emrik, he did broadly share the viewpoint that he was overreacting. The problem was that it didn’t matter much what the Gamer thought. Emrik was a skilled orator and negotiator. He was hooking into fears that John, at his level, could hardly fathom anymore. Too little time had elapsed between him having the security of modern America and him becoming strong enough to not rely on any protection for him to understand these concerns properly.

‘I can sympathize on a broad level, but I don’t think people should look to me as their eternal protector in the first place,’ John thought. ‘I’m not the head of the nanny state.’

“Should I attempt to organize a tea party?” Nightingale asked, once John had plopped down on the Couch between the harpy and the failed goddess.

“No, I think the best way to handle this is to wait for the general mood to cool down,” John responded. The goddess of the night nodded to express her agreement.

The current problem was that parts of Fusion’s emerging leadership class had expressed disagreement to him leaving in the first place. He had now been out for 28 days and would not be able to wrap this up within the next 2-3, if what Nahua told him about the slow progression down the Glory Road was correct. Consequently, he had told everyone there was an extension. It had not been received well.

There was no fixing this with words.

“God, I wish I could just challenge my opposition to a duel and be done with it,” John joked in Lydia’s direction.

“Old structures have their advantages, my love,” the queen answered. “This is one of the difficulties I face in modernizing Rex Germaniae’s structure. It would be a profound loss to exchange a culture of honour for the efficiency of bureaucracy.”

“I’d argue honour is a concept that waxes and wanes independent of bureaucracy,” the Gamer returned.

“How rare for you to state something foolish. The more rigid a structure becomes, the less people are required to learn about honourable behaviour and the more rewarding it becomes to be corrupt by drawing resources out of the power structure.” Lydia sipped on her cup of cold water. “You must be aware of the theory of system collapse.”

“I can entertain hypotheticals without believing in them,” John said simply.

“Can you entertain me?” Eliana asked. “Because fuck me if this state talk isn’t making me groan my lungs out.”

“Well, what do you want to talk about?” the Gamer asked.

“Me, and for once not because I want to fucking make everything about my breed-crazy self.” Eliana swung a leg over John’s, for seemingly no other reason than to be a little closer to him. “What the fuck am I supposed to do to finish this melding bullshit? Because both sides of me are getting pretty exhausted with existing separately.”

“How would I know?” John asked.

Eliana threw her hands in the air. “I don’t fucking care how you know shit, you just do!”

A soft tap accompanied Nathalia turning another page on the book she was reading. “Just will it into existence,” the dragoness commented.

“Brilliant fucking commentary, fire lizard. Got anything more useless to say?”

Nathalia shot the pretty little psycho a warning glare, before returning to her reading. “You’re a goddess. Do not search for answers – make them. That’s our privilege as the strongest entities of this world.”

“Last I checked, the strongest entity in the world was Romulus.”

“And he achieves that power by devouring ours,” Nathalia refuted with a growl. “Beyond that, it’s a very easy generalization. If you match up the average mortal against the lowest of the gods, who would ever bet on the mortal?”

Eliana grumbled something, but did not offer any counterargument. “Stupid… ass… Gale, do you have anything to say?”

“Nothing that would soothe you,” the harpy answered. “You are unique. I have no wisdom to offer.”

“In my personal opinion, you require a ritual,” Lydia said.

Eliana tilted her head. “Like, a ceremony with candles and circles and shit?”

“Nothing as esoteric is required. I mean a ritual in the most rudimentary sense. A shared experience, a moment of epiphany, a certain event that marks that passing from what has been to what will be.” Lydia closed her eyes for a moment, the memory she summoned was still painful to her. “Lydia Goch was not ready to fuse with Cath until she found her father plundering her mother’s grave. That was the moment of ritual.”

“So, something horrid as fuck has to happen to me?” Eliana asked.

“Merely something deeply emotionally resonant,” Lydia stated. “That would be my answer to your predicament.”

Eliana appeared satisfied that she had gotten an answer at all and turned to busy herself by straddling John instead. Initially she was just grinding up and down his leg, but such an invitation could not be resisted. He lifted her by the wide hips and had her impaled on his cock a moment later.

The lovemaking was casual. Had it not been for the kisses that accompanied it, John and Eliana could still have participated in the conversation.

“What are you reading, Nathalia?” Nightingale wondered.

“Browsing cook books.” The dragoness’ eyes stayed glued to the screen.

“Considering what to ask of the maid next?” Lydia asked.

“Yes and yet I wonder if I could do these things myself.” Nathalia rubbed her chin. “I usually do not bother, but I do have experience in roasting and such. Might as well expand my ability while waiting for Aclysia to return.”

“How is the stand-in for the maids doing?”

John broke the kiss to correct, “Stand-ins, plural. There’s no way a single student could tackle all of the Palace’s chores.”

In the absence of the maid cadre, Aclysia had ordered the most exemplary of her current set of students from Servitude Island to cater to the goddesses. As the Ambassador Double, John himself did not leave much in the way of waste and trash around, so he was mostly out of the equation. While he was happy to let these servants cook and clean most of the Palace, he did insist on changing the bedsheets himself.

For one, he was just instinctively uncomfortable with other maids doing that in his home. It was just different when he wasn’t out in a hotel or a guestroom somewhere else. Secondly, he wanted to be able to at least live somewhat adequately on his own. Thirdly, he wanted to have an idea of what chores Aclysia went through on the regular so he was more appreciative of it all.

“To answer your actual question, they’re doing pretty well. Also, Nathalia, if you want to cook, remember that we like at least some vegetables around here.”

“What a waste of boiling water,” Nathalia growled. “Why eat what your food eats?”

“You say that like you never enjoyed a good potato soup.”

“I’ll eat anything Aclysia puts in front of me, but it all would be better if the ingredients were meat, meat, and more meat,” the dragoness declared, then put the book down. “How are things progressing with your real body?”

“We found the barrier and are currently doing last preparations. Sorting out who stays at the airplane, who comes along into the Glory Road, where we leave the airplane, that sort of thing,” John summarized. “Momo is very excited.”

“’Course she is,” Eliana sighed, between little bounces. “Fucking nerd.”

“We all need our hobbies,” John said and booped the adorable woman on the nose. The little gesture of affection had the pretty little psycho blush. Within a moment, they were back to making out. Eliana came while their tongues were whirling around.

“The Abyss truly is vast.” Lydia finished up her cup, then crossed her legs. “To believe that a god was lying in wait in Middle America. I wonder what convinced them to such inaction… and how they remained hidden for this long.”

“The crimson stakes we found answer that question, although there’s still a lot about those that I don’t get.” John gave Eliana’s bottom a smack. “You got your fill,” he whispered into the submissive’s ear. Whimpering, but obliging, she rose from his lap. A ‘come hither’ gesture of his finger convinced Lydia to swing her hips across the table and take Eliana’s place. “Can’t have you go home unsatisfied,” he whispered to her.

“Ever thoughtful,” the copper-haired woman gasped. She rode him in the reverse cowgirl position. The gentle up and down of her hips was hypnotic. “I take it that our chances at eroticism are ending soon?”

John grunted affirmingly. It was one thing to have sex with this body while he was fighting goons elsewhere. While in a serious engagement, as the Glory Road would no doubt be, he did not have that kind of brainpower to spare.

“I still… cannot fully fathom the scale of all of this,” Lydia continued the previous topic, even while bouncing in his lap. “The god of sacrifice in hiding… what do you think brought that about?”

“I have three theories,” John answered. “Number one is that Nahua is being played like a fiddle. There never was a Huitzilopochtli, just another god pretending to be him and taking advantage of it all. This theory is pretty unlikely. I trust the Grim Reaper to know what he is dealing with.

“Theory two is that Huitzilopochtli does exist and is actually a good god but they thought they were unable or unwilling to fulfil their bargain with the Grim Reaper and thus hid. This is also unlikely because it leaves a great number of questions unanswered.

“Theory three is that Huitzilopochtli does exist but is being taken advantage of. Since he does have to repay whatever sacrifices are offered to him in some form, it stands to reason that a sufficiently large sacrifice could effectively enslave him. In that case, someone else is pulling the strings on what is otherwise a good entity. This fits best with what we have so far and would explain many of the discrepancies, although there are still gaps of knowledge here.”

“I hope that there’s an alternative explanation that resolves this without more complications.” Lydia reached for his hands and found them. Interlocked fingers gave the queen the additional support she needed to move a little faster. “Then again, I am not… entirely certain if the existence of an Aztec realm would be to our geopolitical advantage.”

“It would not,” John said. “With the Purest Front in internal strife, Fusion is the sole power in the hemisphere and I would like to keep it that way.”

“That should not be your outwards stance, my patriarch,” Nightingale reminded.

“I know,” John groaned, getting ever closer to orgasm. “If it is true that Huitzi is no threat, then I will have to accept his influence over the area and… retreat.” His voice strained and then suddenly relaxed. His balls tightened and relaxed similarly, pumping wave after wave of cum into the monarch in his lap.

Lydia threw her head back and howled at the ceiling. They were locked in a shared orgasm for a little while. It ebbed away, inevitably, leaving them a short moment of content relaxation where all worries were distant. Even that faded and then they were back to normality. It wasn’t that much worse, stuck between a queen, a cute little psycho, and a gothic harpy as he was.

Catching Nathalia leering lustfully, John was about to invite the nymphomaniac into the pile, when she focused back on her book. The dragoness was still figuring things out for herself. She had become a little less haughty and certainly less demeaning since starting her journey of self-improvement. To say she had become less horny would have been an utter lie, however. She was just more willing to wait her turn in situations like these.

“Do we have time for one more round?” Lydia asked.

“One more,” he confirmed with a smirk.

Down the continent, talks were still happening.