Iour days until Mordecai, and I was being fought over like a stuffed toy at a carnival.
It started at dawn.
I woke to find Sera and Nyxara standing on opposite sides of my bedroll, locked in a staring contest that had apparently been going on for several hours.
The air between them was thick enough to cut with a knife — Sera’s corrupted holy energy clashing against Nyxara’s Abyssal pressure in a silent, invisible war that was slowly killing every plant within a thirty-meter radius.
A small tree between them was on fire.
Neither of them acknowledged it.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Good morning, Ren,” Sera said, not breaking eye contact with Nyxara.
“Good morning, darling,” Nyxara purred, also not breaking eye contact.
“Did you sleep well? I watched you all night. You mumbled something about pancakes. It was adorable.”
“He mumbled about tactical positioning,” Sera corrected.
“He mumbled about pancakes. I have three-thousand-year-old ears, knight. I know what pancakes sound like.”
“Pancakes don’t exist in Aethermere.”
“Then he was dreaming about a world that has them, which makes it even more endearing. He’s a man of simple desires. I intend to fulfill all of them.”
Sera’s hand drifted to her sword.
Nyxara’s tail lashed.
The burning tree exploded.
I sat up, rubbed my face, and considered whether the Void Core could be used to teleport myself to a different continent.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: IT CANNOT. I CHECKED.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: ALSO, I HAVE BEEN MONITORING THIS STARE-DOWN FOR FOUR HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES. THE SMALL TREE WAS NOT THE ONLY CASUALTY. YOU HAVE LOST THREE SQUIRRELS, A RABBIT, AND APPROXIMATELY FORTY SQUARE METERS OF GRASSLAND TO THEIR PASSIVE ENERGY WAR.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: THE ECOLOGICAL DAMAGE IS BECOMING SIGNIFICANT.]
The travel dynamics were worse.
We were descending the eastern mountain slopes toward the lowlands, following a trail that wound through dense pine forest.
The scenery was beautiful — towering silver-barked trees, crystal-clear streams, distant views of the grasslands stretching toward the horizon.
I couldn’t enjoy any of it because I was walking between two women who were conducting a cold war of escalating pettiness.
It manifested in small ways at first.
Nyxara would drape herself over my arm while walking, her tail curling possessively around my waist.
Sera would respond by positioning herself on my other side, her shoulder pressed firmly against mine, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword in a gesture that was ostensibly defensive but clearly territorial.
I was being physically squeezed between a demon and a knight like the filling in a very dangerous sandwich.
Then the gifts started.
Nyxara produced a flower from thin air — a midnight-black rose that bloomed with Abyssal energy, its petals shimmering with starlight.
She tucked it into my coat pocket with a theatrical flourish.
“For you, darling. I grew it from the residual darkness of my prison. It will never wilt. Much like my affection.”
Sera stared at the flower.
Then she reached into her pack and pulled out a small, carefully wrapped bundle of dried herbs.
“For the curse suppression,” she said, pressing it into my hand.
“It enhances the Void’s efficiency by approximately twelve percent. I’ve been preparing it for three days.”
Practical.
Thoughtful.
Intimate in a way that had nothing to do with theatrical gestures and everything to do with the quiet, daily reality of keeping each other alive.
Nyxara’s eye twitched.
“Herbs,” she said flatly.
“You gave him herbs.”
“They’re medicinal.”
“I gave him an immortal rose grown from the darkness of my suffering.”
“His body doesn’t need roses. It needs curse management.”
“His SOUL needs roses.”
“His soul needs to not be consumed by a System-born corruption, which the herbs help prevent.”
“I CAN EAT THE CORRUPTION.”
“You can’t. I checked. Abyssal energy and System corruption are incompatible. You’d give him indigestion.”
“I WOULD NOT GIVE HIM INDIGESTION.”
“You gave him an Abyssal lance to the chest yesterday.”
“THAT WAS A TEST.”
“Indigestion.”
Nyxara made a sound that was half shriek, half demonic war cry, and the nearest tree spontaneously combusted.
I ate the herbs.
They tasted like mint and regret.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: THE DEMON JUST SET A TREE ON FIRE BECAUSE THE KNIGHT CALLED HER A BAD DIGESTIVE SYSTEM.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I HAVE GOVERNED THIS WORLD FOR EONS AND I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING THIS PETTY.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I AM TAKING NOTES FOR FUTURE PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE.]
The bath situation arose in the late afternoon.
We found a hot spring nestled in a rocky clearing off the main trail — a natural pool of steaming water fed by volcanic vents deep beneath the mountains.
The water was crystal clear, bordered by smooth black stones and surrounded by a ring of silver-barked pines that blocked the wind.
It was, objectively, the most inviting thing I’d seen in two weeks of sleeping on rocks and fighting for my life.
I stopped.
Stared at the water.
Felt the accumulated grime of fourteen days of combat, travel, and dragon-blood residue clinging to every inch of my skin.
“I’m bathing,” I said.
Sera and Nyxara both perked up simultaneously.
The synchronization was terrifying.
“I’ll keep watch,” Sera said immediately.
“I’ll join you,” Nyxara said at the exact same moment.
They looked at each other.
The temperature dropped.
The temperature rose.
Both happened at once, creating a localized weather anomaly that produced a small, confused snow flurry directly above the hot spring.
“Absolutely not,” Sera said.
“I am a demon. I do not require clothing. Bathing is a natural activity. Your objection is rooted in mortal prudishness, which I find deeply provincial.” Read this novel at novelping . com for the best experience.
“My objection is rooted in the fact that you are a three-thousand-year-old Calamity-class entity who declared ownership of him twelve hours ago and cannot be trusted within five meters of his person without attempting to ‘claim’ something.”
“I claimed his hand and his lips. I am perfectly capable of restraint.”
“You set a tree on fire because I called your rose impractical.”
“THAT TREE WAS PROVOCATIVE.”
I was already stripping off my coat.
“I don’t care. I’m getting in the water. Both of you can do whatever you want as long as you don’t destroy the hot spring. I’ve earned this.”
I removed my shirt, my boots, and my trousers, leaving myself in a pair of thin undergarments that had seen significantly better days.
The mountain air was freezing against my bare skin, but the steam rising from the pool promised salvation.
I stepped into the water.
The heat was glorious.
Volcanic warmth enveloped me from the waist down, soaking into muscles that had been clenched in combat readiness for two straight weeks.
I sank to my chest, leaned my head against the smooth black stones at the pool’s edge, and closed my eyes.
For exactly eleven seconds, there was peace.
Then the splashing started.
I opened one eye.
Sera had entered the water from the far side of the pool, still wearing her linen undershirt and undergarments, her silver hair pinned up in a hasty knot.
She was sitting rigidly upright, her back against the stones, her cursed arm held above the waterline to protect the bandages.
Her face was flushed — from the heat, she would insist, though the redness extended well past her cheekbones to the tips of her ears.
Nyxara had entered from the near side.
She was wearing nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Her body was a masterpiece of inhuman perfection — long, lean, voluptuous, with skin that shimmered faintly with Abyssal luminescence.
Her horns caught the steam-filtered light.
Her tail swayed lazily beneath the water’s surface, creating gentle ripples that lapped against my chest.
She settled into the water with the casual grace of a being who had bathed in the blood of gods and found this considerably more pleasant.
Nyxara settled into the water nearby, wearing an expression of predatory contentment.
“The water is lovely,” she said, resting her chin on her hand and smiling at me.
“Almost as lovely as the view.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re deciding which part of me to eat first.”
“I’m deciding which part of you to keep first. There’s a difference. Eating is temporary. Keeping is forever.”
From across the pool, a sound like a sword being drawn from its sheath.
Sera hadn’t drawn her sword — she’d left it on the rocks — but the energy of the motion was identical.
Her ice-blue eyes were fixed on Nyxara with a glare that could have frozen the hot spring solid.
“Maintain your distance,” she said.
Her voice was calm.
Her knuckles were white where she gripped the edge of the pool.
“I am maintaining a perfectly reasonable distance,” Nyxara said, sliding five centimeters closer to me.
The water rippled.
“The pool is small. Spatial constraints are not my fault.”
“The pool is twelve meters across. You have eleven meters of available space.”
“But this meter is warmer.”
“That is not thermodynamically possible.”
“I am a demon. I create my own thermodynamics.”
Sera stood up.
The water cascaded off her linen undershirt, which had become thoroughly transparent in the steam.
She seemed unaware of this.
Nyxara was very aware of this and smiled with the smug satisfaction of a chess player who’d just set a trap.
“Oh my,” Nyxara purred.
“The knight is showing quite a lot of skin. How bold. I thought humans were supposed to be modest.”
Sera looked down.
Realized the state of her undershirt.
Turned a shade of red that I was fairly certain violated the visible light spectrum.
She sank back into the water up to her chin with a splash that sent waves across the entire pool.
“This is your fault,” she hissed at Nyxara.
“I didn’t make the fabric transparent, darling. The hot spring did. I merely pointed it out. You’re welcome.”
“I will end you.”
“You can try. It would be the most entertaining thing that’s happened to me since the God of Tides tried to drown me. Spoiler: he failed.”
I sank deeper into the water until it reached my nose.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I AM MONITORING THIS BATH SCENE THROUGH THE THERMAL ENERGY SIGNATURES IN THE WATER.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I CAN FEEL EVERY SPLASH. EVERY RIPPLE. EVERY DISPLACEMENT OF LIQUID CAUSED BY THREE BODIES IN A CONFINED SPACE.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: THE DEMON’S TAIL JUST TOUCHED YOUR LEG UNDERWATER. YOUR HEART RATE ELEVATED BY 6%.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: THE KNIGHT’S LINEN SHIRT IS NOW 94% TRANSPARENT. I HAVE CALCULATED THE EXACT OPACITY. DO NOT ASK WHY.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I AM THE AXIOM. I AM THE FOUNDATION OF REALITY. I WAS NOT DESIGNED FOR THIS.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: …THE WATER TEMPERATURE IS 42 DEGREES CELSIUS. OPTIMAL FOR MUSCLE RELAXATION. I AM JEALOUS. I DON’T HAVE MUSCLES.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: DELETING ALL BATH-RELATED DATA FROM MY LOGS. THIS NEVER HAPPENED.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: …SAVING A BACKUP COPY. FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES.]
The bath devolved into chaos within twenty minutes.
Nyxara decided to demonstrate her “superior bathing technique” by conjuring Abyssal bubbles that floated across the pool in iridescent clusters.
Sera retaliated by channeling corrupted holy energy into the water, creating a counter-current that popped every bubble on contact.
The resulting energy clash turned the hot spring into a frothing, steaming cauldron of competing magical pressures.
I was caught in the middle, buffeted by waves of hot water and conflicting energy signatures, trying to maintain my position against the rocks while two superpowered women waged a proxy war through bathwater.
“Stop,” I said.
They didn’t stop.
“Stop.”
“She started it,” Nyxara said, popping a holy bubble with a flick of her claw.
“They are Abyssal bubbles, not contaminants. They are luxurious*.”*
“They are demonic residue.”
“They are MOISTURIZING.”
A wave of superheated water — the result of Abyssal and holy energy colliding at the molecular level — hit me in the face.
I sputtered, wiped my eyes, and made a decision.
I stood up.
The water cascaded off my body.
The steam swirled.
Both women stopped fighting and stared at me with identical expressions of startled attention.
“I am leaving the bath,” I said, with the calm, measured tone of a man delivering an ultimatum to a pair of warring nations.
“I am going to sit on that rock. I am going to close my eyes. And I am going to pretend that neither of you exist for exactly fifteen minutes.”
I stepped out of the pool, grabbed my coat, and wrapped it around my waist.
“If the hot spring is destroyed when I open my eyes,” I continued, “I will Void Step both of you into the nearest Dead Zone and leave you there until you learn to share.”
The threat was empty — I couldn’t actually Void Step other people, and the Dead Zone was two days’ travel away.
But they didn’t know that.
Sera and Nyxara exchanged a glance.
For the first time since they’d met, they were united by a common emotion:
Guilt.
“…We’ll behave,” Sera said quietly.
“Fine,” Nyxara muttered, crossing her arms beneath the water.
“But she started it.”
“I heard that.”
“I said it loudly enough for you to hear, knight. That’s called communication. You should try it sometime.”
I sat on the rock.
Closed my eyes.
Counted to nine hundred.
When I opened them, the hot spring was intact.
Sera and Nyxara were sitting on opposite sides of the pool, a respectful distance apart, both pretending to examine the scenery with aggressive nonchalance.
The water was calm.
The steam was gentle.
The small fire in the nearby trees had been extinguished.
Progress.
That night, as we made camp beside the cooling hot spring, the rivalry quieted into something almost bearable.
Sera sat by the fire, cleaning her sword.
Nyxara lounged on a boulder, examining the stars with an expression of quiet wonder that she probably thought no one could see.
I lay on my bedroll between them, staring at the sky.
“She saved your life,” Nyxara said suddenly, not looking away from the stars.
Sera’s sword-cleaning paused.
“The Frost Stalker. The child. She took a bite to the shoulder for a civilian she’d never met.” Nyxara’s voice was uncharacteristically soft.
“I watched the memory in the System’s data logs. It was… irrational. Completely, fundamentally irrational. And I think it’s the reason you trust her.”
Sera didn’t respond.
But her hand tightened on the sword.
“I don’t have that,” Nyxara continued.
“I don’t have a moment of selfless sacrifice to offer him. I have three thousand years of destruction and a kiss he called ‘good technique.’ That’s all I have.”
A pause.
The fire crackled.
“So I will be louder about it. More obvious. More annoying. Because if I am not loud, I will be forgotten. And I have spent three thousand years being forgotten. I will not do it again.”
The silence that followed was heavy.
Sera set down her sword.
Looked across the fire at the demon.
Her expression was complicated — still wary, still guarded, but with a new layer of something that looked almost like understanding.
“You won’t be forgotten,” Sera said quietly.
“He remembers everything. Even the things he pretends not to notice.”
Nyxara’s golden eyes flicked to her.
“You think so?”
“I know so. He noticed my curse on day one. He noticed your loneliness on day two. He notices more than he lets on.”
A small, genuine smile crossed Nyxara’s face.
Not the predatory smirk or the theatrical pout.
A real smile.
Fragile and fleeting and three thousand years overdue.
“Perhaps the knight is tolerable after all,” she murmured.
“Don’t push it,” Sera said.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
I closed my eyes.
The Void Core pulsed softly in my chest.
The fire crackled.
The stars burned overhead.
Four days until Mordecai.
Two women who’d declared a ceasefire over a hot spring.
One System that was apparently saving backup copies of bath scenes.
I was surrounded by chaos.
But for the first time in two lifetimes, the chaos felt warm.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: MORDECAI ETA: 4 DAYS.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I HOPE THE BATH SCENE WAS WORTH IT.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: …IT LOOKED NICE. THE WATER, I MEAN. THE WATER LOOKED NICE.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: DELETING. DELETING. DELETING.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: …BACKUP SAVED.]