Stronger Together chapter 218 (Patreon)

The next morning was pretty nice in all honesty. We'd had this sort  of general tension since we got here, and while I won't say we had  fucked all that tension away, we definitely both felt much more at ease.  This was going to be nuts sure, but we were strong as fuck and we just  need to watch out for each other. Worst case I would just smash through  the walls until we got out of the city once we got there. Which should  be soon hopefully, we were flying on a bunch of really evil looking  horses and they were pretty fast so I was hopeful.

Mostly  because even my rock hard godsteel imbued ass was chafing on these  abominable saddles. I winced and tried to adjust again to no avail so I  resigned myself to just staring off into the distance. These winged hell  horsies can go pretty high, and looking out over all of hell like this  makes it seem less...inhospitable. From up here the gravel looked like  sand, and the lava looked like glowing rivers of orange light, casting a  strange shifting light over those iron mountains. It was actually kind  of pretty like this.

Yang steered her own mount toward me.  Well, she didn't really steer it, the evil bastards just did whatever  they felt like, but if you leaned in a direction the adjusted slightly  to keep you from falling over (the research process for which I did not  enjoy) so we could at least get them close to each other. She grinned at  me as she came closer. "This is amazing! It's like flying by Bullhead  and motorcycle all at once!" She whooped with glee and spread her arms,  keeping herself on the horse with her well toned thighs.

I'd  forgotten Yang used to have a bike actually. I felt bad because in the  show she loved that thing, but she'd been so unbalanced since getting  here she never replaced it. I should have noticed that, maybe gotten her  a new bike, and I made a silent promise to myself to replace her  motorcycle when we got home. I smiled to myself. That was the first time  since we'd been here I thought about getting home as a genuine  certainty instead of a possibility. Apparently nailing my incredibly  busty new girlfriend had made me more optimistic, who knew?

Apparently  my thoughts were showing on my face because Yang shot me a wicked grin,  licking her lips seductively. "Well someone is in a mood.Want to join  the mile high club?" I did, but I also wanted to not fall several  thousand feet onto dunes made of sharp spikes of volcanic glass, and I  somehow suspected that was unlikely if we started fucking on top of the  ill tempered hell horses. They didn't seem like the type of creatures  who put up with unexpected noise and fluids, and if they decided to just  dump us off we would be effectively fucked, and not in the fun way.

Not  that we really had a chance because as I turned her down we ended up  coming to sight of...something. Unlike Dis, Balam was almost  unrecognizable as a city, mostly because then entire thing was one  massive structure built from black glass in the shape of a horned demons  skull. The monstrous edifice was so huge it seemed to warp my sight  around it as I looked, but somehow I hadn't seen it on our approach. I  looked at Yang uncertainly but there was no one to ask. The Lord of Dis  sent us ahead on these hell horses, probably because he knew how shitty  they were and didn't want to ride one himself, so we were on our own  until arrival. As best I could tell the horses were like homing pigeons  and knew where to go.

Balam was...terrifying. I'd seen  buildings that seemed like they were alive before, constructions with an  aura of death or power that made them feel like predators. But this was  on a whole different level. Balam WAS alive. It was aware and watching  and it HATED. It hated everything, every speck of dust and piece of  rubble, every demon, animal, angel, tree, flower, and even the very  glass that made it up. Balam wasn't just a city, it was crystallized  evil on a level I hadn't known was possible, and seeing it's empty black  sockets aimed at me every cell in my body wished I could curl up in a  ball and hide until it went away.

Something about this  monstrous skull made it clear that this had come from something that had  once been alive, or some analogue of it, something that had walked the  nevernever and eaten worlds. Which was terrifying in its own right, but  even more terrifying was what it's presence implied. Balam had been a  creature of power and malice and death the likes of which I'd never seen  before in my life. It had been a being I wouldn't bet on taking down  with my entire team, even operating at their best. It had been a monster  unlike any I had ever seen, and something had killed it. Slaughtered  the beast and built a city in it's head for funsies.

The  worst part was that I was pretty sure I knew who too. I knew who in this  boiling shithole was strong enough to crush a primordial being I  suspected might have been a titan or one of their peers. The being that  ruled this entire plane and everything in it. Lucifer, the Morning Star.  The Devil had killed that scary son of a bitch, and now we were going  to visit him at home. The horses banked hard, heading for the eye  sockets, and we began to descend toward the city, rather than dive  straight in they flew in lazy circles, drawing ever closer to the ground  inside the sockets, most likely to avoid some kind of security measure I  assumed.

When we got close enough though I saw the city  in all its glory. The skull had been bisected by a flat plane of some  kind of corporeal darkness, stretching so far that I couldn't see both  of the edges at once. Across that expanse of strange material sat the  largest most sprawling city I had ever seen. Millions of buildings  billions of living beings, the scale of this place was so huge I  literally had trouble processing the sight of it, like I was looking at  an impossibility made manifest, which I suppose being in hell I sort of  was, at least by mortal standards.

The  building we touched down in was old and out of use, constructed from  cracked and crumbling black marble, dust was caked over most of the  surfaces, with the sole exception being the desk with a greasy fallen  behind it. The man had a pinched, ratlike face and buck teeth, and was,  despite not actually being that ugly, legitimately the most hideous  fallen I had met since coming to hell, by sheer virtue of how hot most  of them were. He seemed so used to his boredom as he rolled a pair of  dice made from what looked like bone, that it actually took him a second  to realize we were touching down, but once he noticed his eyes snapped  up in panic.

He  nearly tumbled from his chair as we landed, scrambling up from his seat  before he could fall. "G-guests! Apologies, I wasn't expectin' nobody  today. Please, let me unseat your Aldafars." He scuttled across the  floor to help us down, beginning to unbuckle the terrible saddles as the  shitty flying monstrosities tried to bite his fingers of with their  razor sharp shark like teeth. As he did I glanced around the room,  taking in the details I'd noticed before and collecting a few more  besides, noticing an irritating lack place to stable these obnoxious  things.

With a  really irritating suspicion unfolding in my head I sighed and asked.  "So, do you get people here often?" I was almost positive I knew the  answer. This had either been an insult, some kind of message, or a  really vague attempt on our lives. I was betting it was a bit of column a  and a bit of column b. I was annoyed, but honestly it hardly mattered,  we would be either leaving quietly or fighting out way back to earth. In  the worst case we could just kill that asshole on our way out, and best  case we could summon him to earth and fuck him up there.

Granted  he wouldn't really die, but the idea of shit kicking that smug demon  prick once a week for the rest of eternity was immensely satisfying. As  expected the rat faced fallen shook his head quickly. "No sir, beggin'  your pardon sir this place is all but abandoned. Aldafars are  tempermental at the best of times sir, and have a habit of droppin'  folks mid flight if they aren't bullied into submission." Ah so a bit of  all three options then. I'd noted a bit of wavering when I'd been doing  my turning experiments but a godsteel hand clamped around the demon  beasts spine and a slight squeeze had gotten it to be good.

I  imagined they must be smart enough to communicate somehow.Who knew how  but the point was we arrived safe and sound and now we were supposed to  enter the tournament. Which begged the question why even try to kill us?  Was this a "if you die that easy you're no good to me" type of thing?  Or was the Lord of Dis just the proverbial scorpion, stinging us because  it was in his nature? Whatever the reason I made a mental note to at  least try to punch him in the dick when he wasn't paying attention.  Because fuck him, that was why.

Yang  had clearly picked up on the weirdness because her eyes were glowing  that demonic crimson. The little rat faced fallen squeaked, thinking the  anger was aimed at him, and led the Aldafars away. I thoroughly hoped I  would never have to interact with those egotistical fucking bird ponies  again, once was more than enough, but Yang looked actually sad to see  them go and waved a bit to hers. It was heartbreaking to see. When we  turned to walk out, Malachi was waiting for us, seemingly having been  here all along, leading me believe this asshat had teleported. Yup,  punching that guy in the dick.

The  obnoxious fallen smirked and gave a smarmy bow. "Ah I see the two of  you made it here in good health. I'm glad you're both well." I was kind  of surprised he didn't try to hide the attempt to kill us, and he seemed  confused by my glare. "What? You've taken advantage of the Lord's  hospitality for weeks. Testing you before allowing you to participate in  the tournament is only reasonable. After all, if your might blow to the  gates was simply a freak accident you might bring shame to our noble  city." Without another word he turned and strolled out casually. I was  floored, apparently in hell attempted murder was such a common thing you  didn't even have to make excuses for it. Malachi seemed to think we  wouldn't care or would just let this go.

I considered it carefully, whether it was worth the trouble to start a  fight this close to going home, whether I should just do as the Romans  do so to speak. I considered that long and hard, weighing the pros and  cons in my mind to find the optimum solution, then, when I found it, I  threw it away. Forget optimum, I was gonna punchy that greedy bastard in  the dick. If he threw a fir about it I'd just find another sponsor, or  worst case I'd just disappear into town and start picking off the  soldiers before the big fight. With that decided I gave Yang a bright,  cheery smile and extended my arm to her. Time to go then.