Time waits for no man.
I was aware of the expression, of course. I just wasn't expecting to discover it applied to demons, too.
In other words, I almost drowned in the flood of changes that occurred in the three months after our glorious (and supremely easy, if anyone asks) battle against the goddess of Breskwor.
Our little city grew rapidly, both the one aboveground and the one hidden underneath. We even had a name for it now. Glaustro had proudly dubbed the settlement 'Hafnir', an ancient Norse word supposedly both declaring ownership of a land and marking it as a haven. He meant the name in honor of what the city was supposed to be, but it was also a way to rub our victory in the noses of the previous force that had occupied the world.
We weren't sure yet, but the goddess we killed in order to claim the world had invoked Yggdrasil before her death. As in the great sacred tree in Norse mythology. Not only were some of those myths I'd encountered back in my original life real, apparently, but the gods were still active.
And we had just beaten them.
Claiming the world meant Glaustro's power and influence over Breskwor increased massively and quickly. After just a few months, he was capable of manipulating the world to an extent. For example, it was child's play for him to draw more and more animal species close to Hafnir, and to then boost their drive to procreate all across the world.
He'd even asserted a decent level of control over the tailed foxes, mostly because all those we discovered huddled up in the caves of Breskwor's core were juveniles with at most three tails. The foxes were an enormous help when it came to enticing yeti away from Hafnir. Their innate charm and beguilement meant that tribes venerated them as divine beings on sight, though we had to toe the line very carefully between using the foxes and letting them use us.
Glaustro went to great lengths to prevent yeti worship from switching away from their ancestral totems to the foxes. The former were easily harvested sources of Divinity for us. The foxes would have been a pain in our collective asses if we let them grow too powerful.
But with the yeti and foxes under control, we could turn our attention to other matters.
Our 'Hafnir' was flourishing. We had a lot more buildings, all made of my enduring and pretty crystal. Most were perfectly set up to cater to shops and all the various businesses expected in a demonic city, ready for our coming link with the Abyss.
I spruced up two buildings in particular.
One was meant to house Apple Infernal, my favorite demonic inn franchise ever. It had saved my ass by providing me with a place to stay in guaranteed safety, all the way back when I was still a mere mortal recruit of the Legion of Torment.
The other, well… I was hoping it would host a very special mother-daughter duo, if I could ever entice them to set up shop on our world. That could be a major win for us, what with the popularity of their business and the quality of the armor they produced.
Of course, we also constructed plenty of residences meant to house visiting officers, important demonic figures, or just plain old everyday demons looking to visit Breskwor.
Granted, the latter would have a more mundane list of properties they could rent from us at reasonable prices, unless they wanted to beggar themselves and pay for the premium quarters. Glaustro was tempted to force the more official visitors to pay too, but that would just end up with legion representatives breathing down our necks for 'insulting' their officials. So, Glaustro decided to fleece them for all they were worth in other ways.
Mostly through goods and services.
That was the second half of our major refurbishment project: facilities demons would actually like to visit and invest their hard-won souls into. Gambling, drinking, relaxing… Glaustro had plans for it all.
Of course, it was mostly me who was stuck with the responsibility of making those plans into reality, at least when it came to the building prep.
I didn't begrudge him this. Not only was he my major, but he was a friend I'd do a lot to keep happy. Besides, his only other option for building projects at the moment was Imthala, and the demoness was still a bit shaken by what had happened in that final battle.
When we descended into the depths of Breskwor's hollow core where the world's chief goddess hid, Imthala's was the least fortunate out of our three parties. The divine cold we'd encountered down there was insidious. Glaustro only just managed to keep it at bay, with a decent bit of help from Mia, Bronwynn, and me. Three of his sergeants all working together, and we still barely held on.
Methialia, the leader of the second group, wasn't a sergeant, but she possessed more than the strength of one. The archdemoness managed to hold off the cold with her flames, which were capable of burning through even Divinity.
Imthala, on the other hand? The fourth and final sergeant of our army had been stuck. She had none of the natural advantages of Methialia. She was still not at the level of an archdemon. And her set of abilities was all about ice.
The cold Divinity in the air strengthened her magic through resonance, yes, but she had no way to protect others or even herself. Her soldiers all died. She only just managed to keep herself alive by turning her magic inwards and freezing herself within a massive chunk of ice.
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When we finally got her out of it, she'd been shaky and uncertain. She told us she had felt her soul freeze over and enter stasis, and she had no clue what that could have meant for her if she hadn't been rescued.
Thankfully, we didn't need to worry much about her, or about any of the losses we sustained during our Breskwor invasion. We were demons! Imthala would recover eventually. Anyone we lost had already resurrected within the Abyss. We just needed to pick them up when we finally established the connection between the Abyss and our newly claimed personal world.
Of course, there was just one simple problem with that. An insignificant concern, really. If anyone from the Abyss found out Breskwor could produce Divinity, we'd most probably get run out. All our hard work stolen. All our efforts wasted.
So, you know. No pressure.
Glaustro was running himself ragged, doing everything he could to prevent this. But we all knew it would take no more than a single accident. A single, snoopy demon who was too curious for their own good.
So, we were going full on 'paranoid conspiracy theorist' trying to come up with all eventualities and how to prevent them.
Case in point, the meeting we were currently in.
"And most of our people have been moved into the Under City, correct?" Glaustro demanded, shooting me a look.
I really didn't know how I'd gotten myself put in charge of what everyone was referring to as the 'Under City', but it had happened. I really didn't like it. "Correct. Before you ask, yes, the runework is complete."
"All of it? All the essentials?"
"And more," I groused, feeling incredibly tired. "We have more anti-scrying, anti-divination, sense-blocking, anti-teleportation, anti-portal, and entry denial rune schemas than I bet even the general uses on his private treasure vaults, okay? Do you have any idea how much of a pain it was to put all those in place?"
Glaustro looked sheepish all of a sudden. "No?"
"Well, let me tell you! We had some enchanters, yes. A couple of the soldiers were even incredibly good at it. But runic schemas on the scale the entire city demanded? That took way more skill and way more people than we had access to, especially to get it all done quickly. We had to train ourselves out in the field. And THEN I had to figure out how to grow a bunch of runes linked into a schema within my crystals. Any clue how difficult that was?"
My superior pointedly did not answer. He didn't even look at me when he spoke again, choosing to address Mia instead. "But it's been done?"
My smug cat shimmied out of her own seat and into my lap, effectively pinning me down, and pressed her back into me for good measure. I wasn't about to complain, not when she was soft and warm and I got to plop my chin down right between her two twitching cat ears, but still: betrayal! How was I to throttle Glaustro now? Everyone knew you didn't try to get up when you had a cat on your lap, especially if said cat also happened to be a demoness.
"It's done. No one's getting in or spying on us," Mia purred, sounding incredibly pleased with herself. Probably because she got me to place at least twice as many runes as was necessary on our home. "We also have the stairway down hidden and warded just as heavily, along with the two teleportation points."
She prodded my leg with a claw, apparently displeased that she'd had to talk so much and insisting I take over.
I did so with a sigh.
"One teleportation point leads only to a well-guarded and warded entry point inside the Under City, and doesn't allow for teleporting out. The other leads only out, and to a similarly well set-up exit point. Obviously, both teleportation matrixes on the surface are guarded and warded. Trust me, no one we don't want down there is even going to find the entrances, let alone use them."
"Good. That's… good." Glaustro breathed out slowly, rubbing at his eyes for a moment before he refocused. "I do apologize for all the work, but you know why it's necessary."
I knew, damn it all. I knew. The Under City was both our final point of retreat and our treasury. All of the Divinity we'd gathered and wanted to keep on hand was right down there, hidden within a massive vault. The vault was covered in even more runic schemas, meant to prevent even the Grand Duke of Torment himself from being able to detect what we were hiding, if he ever decided to grace us with his presence.
Sure, at his level, the grand duke would probably smell the Divinity in the air of Breskwor the second he set foot on the world. The general might be able to do something equally ridiculous. But so long as we only ever had to host demons of lieutenant general rank or lower, I was pretty sure we'd be fine.
"What about you three?" I diverted the major's attention to Methialia, Imthala, and Bronwynn, eager to move away from my part in our schemes. "How did your part of the prep work go?"
Methialia wasn't officially a sergeant yet, because Glaustro could only ever have four. But it sure didn't feel like she was one of my captains anymore. Besides, people were kind of bundling me and Mia as a single sergeant at that point.
The cat had been supremely uncooperative when it came to spending time away from me lately, and I wasn't exactly far behind when it came to my own reluctance to part. Was it healthy to spend almost every minute of every day around each other? Probably not. I did feel a lot safer knowing she had my back, though.
Plus, the kisses when no one was looking were a nice bonus. We'd made a little game of it, really. And while we both knew we'd have to be functional adults again eventually, we deserved a bit of a break after helping to conquer a world.
"I'd say we're as ready as we could possibly get," Bronwynn replied. "The trick with the foxes worked. The yeti tribes have migrated as far from Hafnir as we could get them to go. The wildlife in the area has been steadily climbing in numbers. They might start becoming an issue, really. At this point, we want the unaffiliated yeti hunters and treasure seekers out there, just to keep the wildlife numbers down."
"Excellent!" For once, my major had a smile on his face. Then again, it was Bronwynn who had spoken.
Really, how could I possibly have missed the fact that the two were a thing? And for so long?
I was just about to allow myself a rare smile at my own obliviousness when Glaustro spoke again.
"I think we're ready."
His words wiped the almost-smile right off my face.
I knew he was right. We were doing remarkably well thus far. Our city was up and running. Our secret city was secured. Our resources were under lock and key.
We really were ready to link back up with the Abyss.
And we needed it. For all their scavenging and exploration of Breskwor, the few vendors and shops we currently had were rapidly running out of stock. These were all demons who'd joined our army intending to keep such items to themselves, for tinkering and experimentation. And while they'd jumped at the opportunity to make their actual dreams of store ownership come true, it wasn't like they'd prepped for it long-term.
Actual supplies and more professional service providers were waiting just a single teleport away. All we had to do was link up with the Abyss, and the floodgates of progress and prosperity would open.
All at the low, low price of risking our independence and autonomy from the legion.
I couldn't wait.