“Do you want to go after her?” John asked, while the duellists separated.

Ehtra’s green eyes remained fixed on the retreating samurai. Between Rave’s questions, the power of light at her disposal, and her raw power, the theory was all but confirmed in its entirety. Kage and Hikari were the Twilight Twins reborn.

How exactly this had happened remained a question unanswered. Similarly, they did not know how much of the old powers had transferred to these new bodies. The First of Light’s speciality had been the use of light to reinforce other constructs. The sword waves certainly had matched the description. Her general light powers were above what he had been told.

Lady Vengeance closed her eyes when Malady landed next to her hired help. “I do,” she answered, her voice tormented. “I wish to know if she lives. This, however, is not the time nor place to talk to her.” The lids opened just a crack, allowing Ehtra to stare at the floor. “I will console myself knowing we have found them.”

She sounded anything but consoled by that limited knowledge. John wouldn’t be calmed either if he found a relative in the form of bones that someone else wore as armour decoration. It was an apt comparison, considering just how important graves and honouring the dead was to the Akkadians John knew. Ehtra was also too wise to blame someone for the circumstances of their birth. What could Hikari do, rip her bloodline out of her veins?

Maybe. That was a question to be answered another day. For now, the Gamer put a hand around Ehtra. The First of Hatred scowled. She leaned against him for support. He ran his fingers through her white hair. As long as they had each other, they could keep going.

“See, this is the kinda stuff I live for!” Rave’s cheerful attitude broke up the sour mood. “Ya doing fine, Ehtra?”

“Fine enough, considerate creature,” Ehtra answered with her usual sourness. “A splendid duel.”

“Right? That was super fun, but also I am beyond tired now.” The feline Lightbearer yawned. “Can I have my Guild Rank changed to Hikari no Neko?”

“I’ll think about it, but I think that might confuse people.”

“Maybe, but it sounds awesome.” Rave gently pulled at her bodysuit, until the surface parted and revealed a line of new, still pink flesh underneath. “That’s gonna need another minute,” she said and let Illuminare close back up.

“Want Undine’s help?” John asked. The elementals, Siena excluded, were hanging about incorporeally for the moment. To the present enemies, their manifestation would hardly be a surprise. Their group was still big enough without four more targets in the mix.

“Nah, it’s gonna heal and I’ll take the Restorative Heat in full, please,” Rave purred. “Related question, how strong do ya think she was, level wise?”

A difficult estimation to make. She had stood up to Rave, so she realistically could not be too far out of their level range. Contrary to that ran the Innate Ability they thought she had. She had not confirmed it outright, and even if she had, John would not have wholly believed it, but Complete Self-Control mapped onto what they had seen. If that was it, then that made her incredibly effective towards singular targets. All senses deliberately narrowed to one person could punch way above their weight.

“Conservative estimate, I would say around level 500?” John grimaced for two seconds. “Up to 650. She definitely wasn’t your equal or above you in level.”

“Yeah, I’m more of a generalist melee fighter, so I’d just get folded by a super duel focused one,” Rave agreed. “Makes ya wonder if she’s still growing or not.”

The Gamer couldn’t make a good estimation on that either. Latebloomers usually ascended rapidly in power once they kicked in. Not as rapidly as John himself, he was doubly unusual on that front, but rapidly nonetheless. If he had a better estimation of the twins’ age, he could find out if they were still in the middle of growing into their new shoes or at the tail end of it. The memory obfuscation made this difficult.

“Can’t ya do some fancy tech-stuff to compare the power of her slash with the World Turtle to now?” Rave asked Scarlett.

The technomancer gave the first of the harem a deadpan stare. “I swear to fuck, if I still smoked, I’d put one on right now just to get over that idiotic question.” Shaking her head, the redhead went for an actual answer. “To start with, I don’t have good footage of the incident that shows the sword wave itself. Even if I did, I’d have one data point that I can in no way compare to what she did against you.” Scarlett gestured at the floor. “The only thing I can say for certain is that this red stuff is sturdy.”

The road had survived the conflict. It was burned in places and sliced up at others, but those gaps were already knitting themselves back together. John still wondered what exactly they were dealing with. It was wood at the base and absorbed souls and information in some fashion. It could have been the organic equivalent of Eternal Iron or it could have been something else entirely.

The problem when dealing with magic was that all rules they imposed on it were more like suggestions. Applying the scientific method to the supernatural was partially successful, partially futile, and partially to be shown an exemption. John had Game Breaking Skills and so did others of his power level. The Abyss had hard and soft magic systems and they blended into each other with no hard line.

Educated guesses could be made, but no analysis was ever absolute.

“Let’s set up camp for now,” John decided and led the way to the empty quarter.

“We’re stayin’?” Hailey asked. “Couldn’t we go back to the plane?”

“You couuuld,” Nahua chatted singingly, having reclaimed her genuine pretension of sweetness, “buuuuut, if you did that, that, like, would be really against the traditions and I don’t think my father would appreciate that.”

“If the seals can be replaced, that means we could find ourselves incapable of catching up with the rest,” John gave his opinion on the matter. “I’d rather not let anyone else talk to Huitzi first. The situation is complicated enough as it is. The Horsemen will want to extract their tribute and be hostile if they do not get it, the Azure Tribe will try to ally with the gods, and Norahnon I plainly want to obstruct.”

“That’s petty, hon’,” Hailey pointed out.

“I know, but since he just sent his hired help to fight us, I have to assume he still doesn’t think this situation is serious enough to band together.” John scratched the back of his head and sighed. “Fact is that we’ll partake in this game. We’ll advance seal by seal with everyone else until we enter the great temple. Falling behind is not an option, therefore we stay. Also, we should fortify our position.”

“Why is that, Master?” Aclysia asked, mostly to hear him talk.

“Because, as per the god-warriors, we are enemies here.” John sliced through the underbrush that had crept up behind the large ziggurats. “Not that the decree is needed. The Horsemen are against us because I displeased the Grim Reaper, the Azure Tribe will try to obstruct us because they want to be the ones to talk to Huitzi first, and Norahnon will try to delay us because Momo’s eyes are stripping the ruins.”

The archaeologist snapped out of her nerd daze. “Huh, sorry, what? I was, uhm… can you repeat that?” In her fumbling, Momo moved her gaze from the ziggurats behind them back to the path ahead. She would have collided with a thin tree, had the tree not decided to turn ephemeral for her. “Thank you,” the fairy maid said. The young tree bowed.

‘This is exactly what I mean that magic and rules don’t mix well,’ the Gamer thought. “Do you know what the greatest advantage of the Horsemen is?”

Hailey only had to ponder the question for a second. “They don’t tire?”

“Exactly,” John answered. “And their forces can be revived. I don’t know what the limitations of that are, but they still have more disposable forces than us. Lorelei told me there’s over four-hundred-thousand individuals in the Necropolis and I’d be very surprised if they did not have access to conjured, disposable grunts that add to that number. The Horsemen will harass us to make sure we don’t get a good night’s rest.”

“What about the Azure Tribe?” Scarlett asked. “You think they will do the same?”

“I don’t know,” John answered. Typically, elementals still needed to sleep, but considering the highly artificial nature of the arcane elementals’ bodies, this may not apply to them. The Gamer smiled slightly. “I think we should send them a greeting force tonight to see whether or not they do.”

“Are ya enjoying this?” Hailey asked.

“Learning to love the fight was one of my earliest lessons in the Abyss. If you don’t, you’ll go crazy in this environment,” John answered simply. “If you derive no pleasure at all from violence, then you may become unwilling to use it. If you are unwilling to use violence, you will lose to those that are willing to.” He shot her a calming smile. “The lesson I learned before that was to be patient.”

“I wasn’t worried you’d be a brute, sugar. I know ya well enough for that,” Hailey drawled and smiled back.

John guided the group to the very edge of the Illusion Barrier. Their base was not going to be stealthy. With these people and the noises they would be making before long, it just was an impossibility. Therefore, the Gamer took advantage of the invisible wall to make one direction easily defensible.

From there, it was the usual process of Gnome, with support of the other elementals, creating a fortress. All of the practice from Assaults came in handy. Gnome had more practice in designing reinforced positions than most siege engineers. In the end, they had a cleared area with a structure equal parts bunker and star fort at the centre. Two layers of walls would break any ground assault and a broad space at the centre would make it easy to envelop anyone who was daring enough to land in the camp without reinforcement. Many corridors were hidden under earthworks, their paths just odd enough that someone using them for the first time would be confused.

“Can I explore now?” Momo whined.

John took one last look around their lavish, impromptu bedroom. Since everything was put together now, there was no need to keep people around so they could be introduced to the layout of the fortress. There was an external factor to consider though. “Do keep in mind that you will definitely get harassed by Norahnon’s forces. They want the credit.”

“Screw them, I’ll get the credit!” Momo declared.

“Change of mind?” the Gamer asked with a raised eyebrow. During their first meeting, Momo had been almost ready to work under Norahnon in order for their factions to get along.

“Either we solve this thing once we meet Huitzi or things will go so tremendously sideways that we ally anyway,” the sassy support said. “So if no one is going to be reasonable, then I won’t bother either. I have a reputation to uphold. I’m, uh, somehow famous, so…?”

John smirked, he did love himself a confident maid. “You’ll need bodyguards,” he decided. “Nahua, would you be open to guide her? She just wants to observe and write down things, I assure you.”

“I won’t touch anything that does not need to be touched,” Momo swore. “First rule of archaeology.”

“An opportunity to educate you on our customs? I don’t see why not,” Nahua chatted cheerily.

The secondary thought was that Nahua’s powers wouldn’t devastate the ruins if there was a fight. Aclysia’s powers also were pretty good when it came to preserving her environment. Her fighting style, however, was north of ‘destructive’ and entered the realm of ‘devastating’.

“Ehtra, Undine, if you two could…?” the Gamer requested. The angel did not have any area attacks too terrible, as long as she kept her finger off her bolt gun. Undine was a living obstruction.

“As you desire,” Ehtra answered.

“Sure,” Undine agreed.

“Can I tag along?” Hailey requested.

“Sure, the more the merrier,” Momo answered. “What about you, Red?”

“You never call me that, stop it immediately,” the technomancer answered. “No, I’ll be doing some last minute improvements for our fortress guard.”

John leered at the briefcase she had brought with her. He did not trust its content at all. If it hadn’t been for Aclysia, he would have slept with one eye open that night.

“Don’t hesitate to call for help,” John told Momo, as their party was starting to split.

“We won’t,” the fairy maid assured.

Surprisingly, nothing happened after that for the rest of the day. Either the Illuminati expedition was busy with the ziggurats closer to their position or they just did not want to head straight into another confrontation under the current circumstances. John did as the Gamer would and had fun in his temporary home.

They kept a constant vigil for any movement. For one, because they were waiting for the seal to open or signal it was ready to be opened. If this was a competition, then John was going to win it.

With that in mind, he fell asleep in the elemental-woven bed.