Woe had claimed me long ago, but now it spread like a cancer, relentlessly converting everything in its path. I felt hope flee from me as every memory I had ever made was tinted and viewed through a different lens. Every decision, every moment of fleeting happiness, all melted into one another to compound the final, disastrous result.
The miserable memories of my original life flashed past me first. All the moments of quiet death, where I slowly felt my very soul wither from my helplessness and uselessness, returned to swell Woe’s rising tide.
Hayden’s memories came next. They pulled me under a deluge of suffering, an endless series of minor disappointments laced with aching envy for affection and validation that never came.
Those two lifetimes were enough. More than enough. My soul was an endless dirge in the name of Woe.
But Woe didn’t have just these two sets of memories to work with.
Each soul I had absorbed with the station’s help came out to play. I had buried their memories deep, denying they were a part of me. Now all those stolen memories were dug up, examined, and added to the miserable chorus.
Clarinette Illsent, the mage whose tragic life I had cut so short, was the chief contributor. It made terrible sense, of course. All my mana, the very foundation for who I had become, came from the stolen shard of her soul.
In spite of all this misery, I wasn’t entirely lost. My ongoing ascension had done more than just drudge up painful memories. My inner eye could effortlessly track the progress of pure red mana as it invaded, thickening and solidifying my soul to make it capable of withstanding eternity. I could also feel my mind getting stronger by the moment.
That meant I was strong enough to fight. I could try to claw back control of my soul. I could even strive to banish the Emotion that had claimed me.
I chose not to.
It wasn’t a choice made on a whim, nor was it motivated by the swirling depression that had sunk its teeth into me. My decision stemmed from one simple fact: no demon could survive without an Emotion. No demon was complete without one. To reject it would be to reject a crucial part of my ascension. No matter how tempting the idea was, I knew that the moment I fought against what was happening, I would tear myself apart.
But then… what can I do?
The answer came to me easily, as though whispered by countless lips all at once.
I accepted it. All of it.
I reached out to my Woe, and I claimed it as mine just as fully as it claimed me. There was no differentiating between us anymore. It could have my soul, but I would have everything it represented, too.
Instantly, the tide of crushing Emotion shifted. Instead of dragging me into the depths to be drowned, it buoyed me higher and higher. Yet even as I accepted my role as the true avatar of Woe, I felt the few remaining fragments of my humanity crumble away.
I grit my teeth and let the process continue.
Still, I did cling to some of who I used to be. I refused to relinquish the affection I felt for the people who had basically forced their way into my life, and I refused to give up on the small pleasures of what it meant to live.
I conjured up memories of visiting a delightful little café with Mia, of spending quiet time next to a campfire with Bronwynn, and of all the active support Glaustro had offered me through sheer force of will. All these emotions deepened and took root in my mind. They were altered, sure, but undeniably present.
I took solace from that. It was incredibly reassuring that no matter what happened, at least a part of me would remain the same.
That comforting realization helped me relax, which made the process of integrating my Emotion so much smoother. Rather than grappling for dominance, it now simply locked into place, shifting from an adversary into one of my newfound strengths.
It was incredible, what a difference it made to know these crucial parts of my identity were safe. Sure, I had rushed headlong into demonhood, but a part of me was always a little terrified that whatever came out the other end of the process would no longer be me.
Yet now, as I embraced the change sweeping through me, the only thing I felt was relief. The red and black balanced each other out in my soul, Emotion and Abyssal mana working in harmony. In fact, I felt strangely exultant as the transformation completed its journey through my metaphysical body.
Of course, then it zeroed in on the one pinprick of mortal soul stuff stubbornly hanging on: the area directly around my mana core.
After all I had experienced already, I expected the finale of my ascension to be a quiet affair. Instead, when the Abyssal forces finally invaded the core of my magical abilities, it was anything but. My mana core shook in place as it stubbornly resisted change, and pain radiated out of it like a continuous shock of electricity.
Suddenly, my thoughts froze in horror as my core cracked, then fractured entirely.
I heard myself screaming in fear and pain as the mana once contained within that core surged out, sweeping through my soul and body both. My soul stood firm, soaking up the mana effortlessly.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
My body fared far worse.
Since my physical self and mana core had merged together during my advancement to Archmage, the core’s fracture quite literally ripped open parts of my body. Weird, glowing red lines tore through my flesh, making me look like a cracked porcelain doll instead of a living being.
Bit by bit, my body flaked away into a glowing mass of mana, silencing my screams. My physical presence in the world faded entirely, and no matter how desperately I grasped for my mana to prevent that, it was useless. The Abyss had hold of my mana at the moment, and it wasn’t letting go.
Not even to save me from death.
Oddly, I felt calm wash over me as the last bits of my corporeal form faded away into red and black mana. With the loss of this physical self, all the concerns that came with it disappeared as well. Hunger, pain, and discomfort were wiped away like they never existed. Minor wounds that had lingered, things I’d gotten used to after years of living with them in Hayden’s memories, simply dissolved.
In spite of that, I was still a presence. Body or not, I remained a part of the realm, even if I was just a mass of mana shaped roughly like a humanoid.
But the process was not complete.
I had no lungs, but the next stage of the transformation still left me breathless in awe. The mana that was me swirled and shifted for a moment. Then, by the will of the Abyss, it changed. What was once pure energy took on physical form, giving way to flesh and blood in an act of true creation like nothing I had ever seen. It went beyond even the tricks I had watched the general employ.
I didn’t get to see too much of it, though. Just as my body began to reform in earnest, my sight was dragged back under to my metaphysical being. Mana was weaving itself ever tighter into the fabric of my soul. Whereas before, the two forces were relatively ‘separate’, they were now swiftly becoming one and the same.
Soon enough I no longer needed a core, because the entirety of my being had transformed into the perfect receptacle for mana. The mystical substance was what powered my body, what sustained my soul, and what defined my continued existence.
At the same time, the mystical energy had undergone a subtle shift. It was no longer just the energy of the world around me, tamed and brought to heel within my core, yet never fully mine. Now, the substance felt like a true extension of me. My soul was one with every strand of it, no matter how miniscule. I knew instinctively that every application of my mana would be faster, more effortless, and far more powerful.
A moment later, I felt my consciousness get sucked down to fuse with the new combination of soul and mana. My alarm lasted for but a moment. In fact, this final merging was faster and smoother than any other part of my ascension.
I could no longer ‘see’ my inner self, but I didn’t need to. With my mind, soul, and mana fully integrated, I was intimately aware of everything happening to me. The flow of my mana, the state of my soul, and every little bit of my new body were under constant observation by my subconscious.
That meant, when I blinked my eyes open, I actually didn’t need to inspect all the physical changes I had undergone. I was already aware of them. Nor was I thrown off by the alien field of view I now had as my eyes blinked out of concert.
Of course, I looked at myself anyway. And while I had exactly zero narcissistic tendencies, I had to admit that I looked good.
My skin had darkened into a deep indigo color. My muscles looked like they had been sculpted in the form of some agile athlete. I had even gotten a few inches taller.
The biggest changes were in my arms and legs, which now featured feathers all the way up to my knees and elbows. The feathers were the same shade as my wings. Every shift of my hands and feet, and my wings, for that matter, sent the feathers clinking softly, revealing they were metallic in nature.
Mia isn’t going to like that.
For some reason, this was my very first thought.
Then I realized I could do something about it. Running entirely on instinct, I sent a surge of mana through my feathers. They relaxed, for lack of a better word, and the clinking sounds went away. When I ran my fingers gently over the back of my hand and up my arm, and then over my wings themselves, the feathers were even softer than before.
That left only two features to check out, and I could conveniently use one to peek at the other. Flexing my wings, I wrapped them around in front of me.
The weird, circular mark in the center of each feather had transformed into a fully functional eye at some point during my ascension process.
That was when I recognized the first mental sign of my transformation. My human self, half-ascended or not, would have freaked out at least a little at the sight of all those eyes staring back at me. The fact that I was looking myself in the eye, or eyes, rather, definitely would have scrambled my mortal brain.
Now, though, I just marveled at the wonder of my own physiology. Gingerly, I ran a finger over one ‘eye’, then frowned when I still felt the strands of a feather underneath my finger. I could even poke the feather to make little gaps in the eye’s makeup, yet it continued to function normally. It even ‘blinked’ at me, closing up to resemble the original markings perfectly.
Shaking my head in calm amazement, I finally directed all those new eyes at my forehead. I was honestly a little disappointed at the onyx-black, almost crystalline horns I saw there. They weren’t ugly or anything, but they were rather ‘traditional’ demonic adornments, resembling the horns of a ram. At least they were large and impressive. They looped back and down, close to my chin, before jutting outwards.
I could already tell that sleeping with those things was going to be a pain in the ass.
Dropping that issue as something future-me would have to solve, I stretched luxuriously, savoring the feeling as every one of my muscles worked in perfect concert. I felt like I could detect and manipulate each one separately. When I suddenly surged forward, fell into a crouch, and then did a perfect backflip from that awkward position, I couldn’t help but grin.
My body was more ‘mine’ than it had ever been, and my control over it was downright insane. Frankly, it made me wonder how a demon could ever lose a fight, if all of us had this same crazy level of physical ability.
Us.
Wasn’t that a thought? I could no longer refer to demons as ‘them.’ I was now firmly in their camp.
And I felt… fine. Normal. Part of me even felt like I had never been anything other than a demon.
I should have been upset about this, seeing as it was obvious manipulation by the Abyss, but I couldn’t conjure up concern or anger. Sighing, I filed that away as something I would need to talk to Glaustro and Bronwynn about later.
At the thought of them, I immediately took a step towards the station’s barrier. I wanted to show off, to finally be an indisputable member of the team. Besides, remembering my few friends left me incredibly worried about Mia.
Several times during my ascension, I had wavered on the edge of losing my mind. If I barely made it through, what about the cat girl? Sure, she had put on a brave face, but my new instincts and the hazy, foreign knowledge in the back of my mind all suggested that she hadn’t been doing as well as she pretended.
I was almost halfway to the barrier’s edge before I froze in place, looked down, and cursed. I’d been wearing only my underwear when I kicked off my ascension, but the process had apparently burned away even that.
Mia could wait for just a tiny bit longer. I wasn’t going to go streaking during my first hour as a demon.
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