Kate was once again making use of the Inquistorium’s training hall. This time her sparring partner wasn’t Beleth though, it was Apollyon.

Kate was chucking magical attacks of varying shapes and sizes at Apollyon, who defended against them as best as she could.

“I think you need to speed this up if you want to use it against someone seriously.”

Kate nodded and tried attacking faster. After a few minutes she stopped. “Faster is good, but it needs to be more refined. This is just chucking glow-y gas at people. There has to be something better.”

“As it is five forty-seven in the afternoon at the library, may I recommend ending our session for today?”

“Yea, this is not going anywhere for now.” Kate sat down. “But let’s stay here for a moment.”

“Of course.” Apollyon sheathed her blade and sat down beside her friend.

“Polly, is this even okay?”

“You are asking about your attempts at magical attacks?”

“Yea. This is betraying our core combat philosophy, isn’t it? That’s quite bad.”

“I sort of agree. Ranged combat is not compatible with our idea of combat in general, but you are also at a disadvantage in close quarters. I would like to see you find a way to implement your ideas into a less long-range style, but I understand that it will take time and effort. I already told you when we talked about even trying this that I will support your experimentation no matter what.”

“Thank you…”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I believe you that you will support me, but I still don’t know if this entire thing is a direction I want to go in. It was a good tool to stall you long enough when we fought, but beyond that? I don’t know.”

Apollyon put her arm around Kate. “We will find something that suits you.”

“I hope so.”

“I am certain. Hm…”

“What is it?”

“I may have an idea, let me think for a moment.”

“Of course.”

Apollyon let go of Kate and began toying around with various magical forms and materials. After a while, she stopped. “When we spar next week, I think I will have something to propose to you. I will need some time to experiment.”

“Take all the time you need.”

“One week should be enough for something basic.”

 

One week was enough.

“Attack me.” Apollyon didn’t even raise her sword.

“Okay.” Kate lunged and stumbled as her blade was blocked by a magical barrier. “Woah!”

“Careful, don’t hurt yourself.”

“I’m alright. What was that?”

Apollyon smiled proudly. “That was the shielding magic we employed on the chariot, just employed manually.”

“Huh, I expected it to be too complicated for personal use.”

“I thought so too and attempted to mimic its effect at first. That did work but not as effectively. What I did just now was to demand a ‘chariot shield’ in the shape and place I desired. Because I know what it does and how it works, I don’t need to specify its function every time.”

“So, I just need to internalize what defensive magic is to me and I can just block instinctively.”

Apollyon grinned and nodded. “That is the final step, yes.”

“I like that idea. I suppose reading up on how that shield works is the first step?”

“Ideally, yes. Now that I have shown you this, the actual thing I want to train with you today is using your liquiform blades properly.”

“Properly… as in changing their shape in combat?”

Apollyon nodded again. “Exactly. My experience with liquiform weapons is limited as I never used them myself, but I have some ideas. Let’s begin by parrying.”

“Okay. I’m ready.”

“Then I will attack.” Apollyon did just that, Kate blocked. “Good, now you have an option I do not. You can move your sword through mine.”

Kate took a second to think and just let her opponent’s blade pass through hers like through water. Once separated from the other sword, the Nightmare solidified her blade again. “Huh, neat.”

“It does need additional focus, correct?”

“It does, but I think I can get a hang of it enough to just do it without thinking much.”

“Good.”

“And I can use it when you block as well.”

“Exactly. Let’s continue sparing with this new technique in mind.”

Over the next hours, blows were exchanged until Kate motioned for Apollyon to stop.

“Is everything alright, Kate?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Just thinking about dinner and cuddles soon.”

“We have been at it for several hours, that is enough for today.”

“Indeed. And I need to think about what we did and what you taught me. Certainly looking forward to next week.”

“I anticipate fun.”

“Oh yes. But now I anticipate good food and a bit of snuggles.”

“I will happily provide both.”

 

Kate curled up closer to Apollyon. “I love it when you teach me stuff.”

“And I love it when you learn from me. It feels fulfilling to pass my knowledge and skills on.”

“And it feels so good to see you proud of me.”

“You have exceeded every expectation and every hope. I would be a bad friend if I wasn’t proud of you, my favourite head librarian.”

Kate giggled. “You’re the best.”

“Sometimes.”

“That is one of the best answers I got from you when I call you the best.”

“I am working on accepting your praise. It is hard but I enjoy your encouragements.”

“You’re doing well. There is something I wanted to ask though.”

“You know you can always ask me anything.”

“Yes, but this is something I tried to research myself and didn’t get anywhere and it’s a bit weird.”

“Intriguing. Go ahead.”

“I asked Jolene about her little nicknames for us all. She calls you Destroyer too, but not because the angels do it and it’s fun to take their title for you away from them. She told me about three scars you will have left on the three worlds eventually. I wonder if you know what she could be referring to.”

“I have an idea but nothing concrete. She said I will leave one scar per world?”

“Yes.”

“Hm. I have wrought destruction within the heavens. There is no major single thing I did there but a lot of minor places I obliterated. I did order the usage of the chariot in Celestis, and they rebuilt it only partially before Athena and the Inquisitorium destroyed it again. That is one possible scar. I do not know about anything I did in the border world, but she might be referring to something in the future. As for Hell… I am very certain that this scar is the cocytan basin.”

“Okay, what?”

“Seshat told you about the basin when she delivered our card game accessories. It is essentially a massive crater that features a type regenerating stone at its bottom.”

“And you made that somehow?” Kate wasn’t quite sure how to imagine creating a basin or what made it a scar.

“There are many places in the border world where humanity has tested massively destructive devices. The two I am most familiar with are the so-called Bikini Atoll and Novaya Zemlya archipelago. Do you know what device I am talking about?”

“Nuclear bombs, yes. So, you made one too?”

“No, but we had our equivalent. I will have to tell you about a few seemingly unrelated events to get to the creation of what we now call the cocytan basin, if you indulge me.”

“Please!”

“Alright. We discovered the border world by following cats about four thousand years before immortality. It was treated a curiosity but nothing more. Eventually we met the angels and kept a friendly but distant relationship with them. They are not important here. It is important that we quickly discovered that the border world would be a good source of souls in case Hell had trouble with its own. After immortality, that became the case. We decided to no longer hunt down animals for souls in Hell and instead opt to travel to the border world to hunt as it was a place where death was still normal. That was inconvenient, so we decided to attempt to bring a self-regenerating soul from the border world into Hell to create an inexhaustible source right in our home. We succeeded. It was placed where the basin is now. Eventually, it did too well and became a problem. It was an amorphous biomass, not an animal just something that was living by the most technical definition. The only directive it had was to live. It did that by feeding on the regenerative nature of the rock deep under the laboratory. It outgrew our ability to contain or feed on it, so we decided to remove it. Taking it to the border world was not an option. Thus, I was approached. We bombarded it for decades with various weapons to not real avail. After witnessing our continued failure, I ordered research into any means of wiping this lifeform out without affecting anything else.”

“And that’s when you made a magic bomb.”

“In a way. The trouble we faced was not our pure destructive ability, but our speed. Eisheth would sink a much larger area single-handedly several millennia later, but it took a few minutes. Minutes that would give this beast a chance to survive. The area had to be cleansed instantly. We took inspiration from Amaterasu’s research and made a device that would allow a demon to basically create a miniature star in an instant. At that size, it would dissipate quickly and only need containment for a few seconds. I operated the device and created a crater just under two hundred kilometres in diameter. The beast, and everything else in that region, was instantly vaporized. We of course rebuild the settlement the beast swallowed.” Apollyon sighed. “It was not my proudest moment but also not truly something I regret. We made a mistake and rectified it.”

“What a crazy thing… I didn’t even look like a crater when we went there. I suppose the rock at the bottom regrew?”

“It did and we then covered it in soil to let nature reclaim the area.”

“Quite successfully it seems.”

Apollyon nodded. “Definitely. It almost looks like the basin is a natural feature now.”

“What happened to the device?”

“We dismantled it. There is no need for such a bomb and if there ever is again, we can rebuild it. If you want to see what it looked like, there is a monument in the centre of the basin.”

“We should visit that someday.”

“I will gladly take you there.”