“Are we planning another fight today?” Scarlett asked.

The question came over breakfast. No activation of the seal was getting between them and an expansive meal that morning. Hearty pancakes with bacon were the meal of choice.

John cut another slice off. “Maybe during the seal competition,” he answered. “We are on seal three of six, if I understand correctly?” He waited for the confirmation. “Nahua?”

“Mhm?” The axolotl woman looked up from her plate. While eating may not have been viable, taking the foodstuff and letting it be dissolved by her plague apparently was. The resulting sludge was eaten like watery pudding. “Sooooo, sorry, I was, like, totally zoned out there – can you repeat that?”

“There are six seals in total, yes?”

“For someone with such an erudite mind, you’re, like, super forgetful!”

“For someone with such a rotten personality, you’re, like, way too cute,” John answered instinctively.

Asexual or not, Nahua snorted at that. Momo pinched the bridge of her nose. “The answer is yes,” the demigoddess responded and devoured another spoonful of sludge. The malicious grin on her features fit with the purple stain on her sharp teeth. “Seven segments, six seals between them, simple math.”

“So, we have four remaining,” John continued from there. “Since one goes to the Illuminati and another to no one, to be completely certain of victory, we need three. We are at zero. Best to focus on that effort before we go and fight the others.”

“Glory, Malady, and the three god-warriors,” Rave listed. “That’s who we gotta beat… god-warriors probably gonna be the most difficult?”

“On the basis that they are slippery, yes,” John agreed.

Glory would be a difficult fight, no doubt, but all John had to do there was ride in with a formal challenge. Since Zelos was a glory hound, it was probably be as easy as asking for the fight. It wouldn’t even need to be a fair one, Glory would just see it as a challenge.

Probably – John was working off the assumption that Zelos would continue acting according to his stereotype. Many high power people in the Abyss had an eccentric, outwards facing persona. Inefficiencies were the luxury of the strong. If faced with an actual threat, Glory may remember what ‘pragmatism’ was and at that point all bets were off the table.

As for Malady, John was under the assumption that she was about as strong as Rave and would plan for a deviation of up to 25% upwards. Getting her into a fight wouldn’t be too difficult either, he reckoned. He would just go in there and promise Norahnon not to touch any ruins if they lost. The mad scientist may deny him out of an odd mood, but John liked his chances of goading him along.

For the three god-warriors, the only plan John had was to come down on them with extreme force when he saw them. “Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl I don’t expect to give us too much trouble. Aclysia almost fought the Lord of Darkness to a standstill on her own and Quetzalcoatl would have only recently been incarnated.”

The Gamer raised the next bit of bacon to his mouth when there was a sudden and hard shift. He sighed. Aclysia growled. “Why must they impose on breakfast hours? It is the most important meal of the day.”

Rave swallowed. “No idea what happened, but I guess we gotta go outside?”

“Yup.” John led the way by putting down the knife and fork. All of them got dressed for battle and then headed up through the tunnel system.

What previously had been an open area, burned down by the attacks flung between the Gamer’s and the Azure Tribe’s encampment, was now surrounded on all sides by massive blocks of carved stone. Covered in expansive but simple decorations, the walls moved in slow, predictable ways. There were dozens of entrances into what John knew was a labyrinth.

“Congratulations, Momo, I owe you yet more face sitting time.”

“You know, you have a giant deficit on that by now?” Momo asked. “You owe me like three days of sitting on you straight.”

“I doubt it’s that much, but wouldn’t be the worst way to go. Sylph?”

“On it!” the volt bunny chirped and leapt upwards. A lance of blue and pale green lightning, she entered the maze through one of the horizontal openings, then zapped straight around a corner, disappearing from sight. Information was constantly flowing towards her, almost but not quite keeping pace with her. ‘Faster, go, go!’ she thought at them, whenever she had to stop for more than a microsecond to orient herself.

“You know you can just use a body that doesn’t need to breathe, dude?” Momo was the main force behind the mental effort, constantly adjusting and readjusting her predictions according to the movement of the walls.

“But how would I suffocate under your butt if I did that?”

“You wouldn’t?”

“Exactly.”

“Someone mind fillin’ me in?” Hailey drawled. The country gal, far from her usual look, was currently covered in a full armour made from plates of opaque blue ice. The Plate of Astral Ice came free with a large hammer that she kept slung over her shoulder. Between the form-fitting shape of the armour and her body language, she was a stunning interplay of fantasy knight and mechanic. For all her combat training, she still held the hammer like she was about to drive fence posts into the ground. “Is this about Momo’s notes on the obelisks?”

“Yeah,” the fairy maid answered, then gave Hailey some sassy side eye. “Didn’t you pay attention?”

“I was kinda distracted by Karia hangin’ ‘round.”

“Long and short of it is that I figured out that the markings on the obelisks are for conjuring and controlling stone.” Momo put a hand on her hips. “From there, I simply scanned every single obelisk around with my doubles to construct a three dimensional map of the labyrinth before it even spawned in.” She put her other hand on the white blouse covering her petite chest. “You may now praise me!”

“You are amazing.” John hugged her from behind.

“That is pretty impressive,” Scarlett agreed.

“Y-you’re the best!” Gnome joined the choir.

With every compliment delivered, Momo grew a little more smug and a little more embarrassed. She swayed between John’s arms and he swayed with her. “Stop iiiiiit,” Momo giggled in the tone of, ‘More, please.’ A kiss on the back of her head gave her everything she wanted.

Sometimes it was good to let Momo have her moments unteased. Lord knew she deserved them, even if she did enjoy the teasing.

“By now all of you must have realized that there is a labyrinth around you,” a teasing voice echoed through the Illusion Barrier. “This is your second trial – the maze of the feathered serpe- Uhm, hello there?”

“Hiiiiii!” Sylph must have zapped straight into the whatever magical circle the serpent was using to project her voice. “I did it! I leapt and ran and flew all the way, I did! A word from our sponsor: Momo brain! Momo brain is the latest in Artificial Spirit technology and she is super smart and it’s behind this super handsome face on top of these really nice and pale shoulders and her skin is so smooth, oh my self, you would not believe it, and when you poke her cheeks, she always gets so flustered it’s so cute and, and, and-“

“Alright, I guess that solves that seal for the day?” The stone walls all around were turning ephemeral. There was an undeniable disappointment in Quetzalcoatl’s voice.

“Hey, hey, no one is off limits, right?” Sylph asked, still over the loudspeaker.

“It is indeed expected that all shall fight, ye-“

A thunderous roar blew through the Illusion Barrier as Sylph, empowered by the Gamer’s mana and her own movement, slammed a fist into the stomach of the Aztec lamia. The blow struck her by surprise, flinging her across the ‘chamber’ at the end of the labyrinth. From Sylph’s knuckles, thunder continued to flow, right up until the Quest was satisfied.

‘I like today,’ John thought and hugged his fairy maid a little tighter. ‘Everything is working out for me. Alright, come back, Sylph.’

‘Shouldn’t I explain anything to her, maybe?’ the volt bunny asked, looking at the still stunned god-warrior. Quetzalcoatl’s midsection was a charred mess and the rest of her was spasming from the magical electricity still tingling through her. Portals all around fed her rejuvenating energy, but that was still going to take time to be effective.

‘It has advantages if you are known as fickle,’ the Gamer answered. ‘Especially against an enemy that is annoyingly enigmatic. Just leave her there. We have to relocate ourselves.’

‘Roger that!’ Sylph answered and zapped back through the dissolving labyrinth. She couldn’t have gone any faster if she was incorporeal.

The faster members of the group spread out the moment the stone walls were out of the way. A seal was on their account, one of the three god-warriors defeated, and now all they had to do was relocate and plan their next move. The Azure Tribe didn’t even try to harass them as they advanced. Either Liakan was still reeling from the loss the day before or they were just wise enough not to pick a fight without further backup.

John could only assume that the speed of it all left the other factions confused, because they advanced to their new position without any pushback. The next stretch was as overgrown as the last one, only parted by the red road and black pillars that framed it. ‘We’ll see what they spawn in tomorrow,’ the Gamer thought.

Gnome was clearing the area of their next bunker, while other girls were chatting or patrolling the nearby area, leaving John with a moment of free time. He chose to use it to approach Nahua. The demigoddess was staring up at the sky. “I’ve never been this close to the inner realm before,” she preempted John’s question.

The eight-crossed circle above was a notable crimson. Every barrier crossed through made it less faint. It also drove the lines deeper towards the centre. No doubt they would touch and take the shape of a wheel when they reached the end.

“The inner realm,” John repeated, then sighed when Nahua gave him a tired glare. “Will you at least hear what I have to say on the matter?” She waved her hand, bidding him to continue. It was not an enthusiastic gesture. “We are walking into your father’s Sanctum. I don’t know how he has segmented it like this, but he has.”

Nahua chuckled. “Had I known you would say the obvious, then I wouldn’t have been so cautious.”

“The same Sanctum that the ants take root in…”

The smile dropped immediately. The gills behind her elven ears rose in its stead. “And there you are with your accusations again,” she hissed at him. “The ants were invaders, like you are.”

“A god’s might in their Sanctum is unparalleled,” the Gamer told Nahua. “I have never even heard of someone fighting a god in their own pocket dimension. It’s that futile that no one dares to even attempt it. Yet Huitzilopochtli is supposed to just have let them exist in his? The enemy of his people?”

Nahua kept glaring at him. “You speak of things you do not understand.”

“Then explain them to me,” he requested, managing to make it sound like a genuine plea, rather than a challenge. Slow and empathetic, he continued, “I don’t want to be your enemy, Nahua. I have many sins, but greed is not the one I am worried about. If I understand that this realm existing will be, at worst, another guild making difficult choices in a fallen world, then I will leave you to your devices. The pieces don’t fit that though. Make me see what I am missing.”

The axolotl demigoddess kept her eyes on him. She tried to look for arguments, John could see it on her face, feel it on her unhidden surface thoughts. It was a search for answers not just for him but for herself. “My father will clear things up,” she stated finally. Half-heartedly, she switched to her chatty tone. “We are just way too stupid to get it, that’s it…”

She petered off into silence.

John did not press her on the matter. He had already tortured her enough with these questions. ‘For her sake, I hope I am wrong about all of this.’ The Gamer’s mind turned back to that village they had first visited. The tribe of the Ichor Stakes, belonging to a defeated culture, driven to a multi-generational psychological breakdown.

It was cruel to wish that on anyone, especially a demigoddess that had seen the realm from its proudest heights fall to whatever it was now.

“Do not dare suggest I should join you,” Nahua hissed as soon as the thought crossed his mind. “A daughter will never betray her father!”

John just gave her a solemn nod.