Stronger Together chapter 219 (Patreon)

From the stable (the actual holding pens were out back apparently) we  headed to an inn, where Malachi had us get ready for and then  subsequently head to a welcome dinner held in honor of the tournament  participants. They had clothes ready for us, in our sized even, and I  could only assume the staff at the Prideful Prince had given them our  measurements, or that they could just eyeball them I suppose. Still the  stuff fit relatively well, so at least there wasn't much to complain  about there.

The clothes  themselves were...interesting. Kind of a weird mix between fantasy noble  clothes and BDSM gear. Lots of soft brightly colored velvet and tight,  form fitting spots to highlight our bodies. They were hard to describe,  but mine showed off my chest and abs and Yang's looked like an insanely  ornate club minidress. Weirdly the styles kind of worked for us, and  Yang preened a bit as she saw me staring. I admit that was mutual  because she was gazing hungrily at me in the new duds herself and I  liked it.

Sadly  the fun stuff would have to wait, we didn't have time for sex right  now, as much fun as that would be. From her disappointed eyes she knew  it too. She held out her elbow for me to take. "I like that look. Hold  onto that for later, for now, how about you escort a lady to dinner, huh  stud?" I had no argument at all for that sentiment so I took her arm  and we followed Malachi out of the new inn, Despite our apparent ease  though, i could tell Yang was just as on guard as I was. Malachi's  casual dismissal of the attempt on our life really drove home that we  weren't in Kansas anymore.

As  he slipped into the crowd and pulled ahead of us, I took in the  residents of Balam. Unlike Dis, every being in Balam seemed to be  purebred fallen. Due to this there was a much wider range of social  strata on display here. Fallen were rich and well appointed, all the way  down to beggars on the street, where in Dis even the lowest class  fallen seemed well to do, even if some were less than others. Despite  that I couldn't imagine there was no underclass here, and wondered if  all the half breeds and demonic looking citizens lived in some slum out  of sight and out of mind.

Regardless  Malachi managed to slip ahead and we had to hurry to keep up, I was  worried this was another good natured murder attempt, and that if he  lost us we'd be dead, so I pulled Yang along to catch him. As I did I  leaned down to whisper in her ear, the sound hopefully covered by the  crowd. "Stick close here. We have no clue how these people think  clearly, and we'll need to have each others backs if we want to get out  of this. Let me try the food first, my godsteel reinforced stomach  blunts the effect of poison to an extent."

She  nodded discreetly, but didn't have time to respond because we seemed to  have reached our destination. The building was made of the same black  glass as Balam itself. I noted with interest that most buildings here  were made from normal materials like stone or wood, sometimes even  metal, but the most important looking buildings seemed to be made from  this stuff. Assuming Balam was made from the skull of some kind of  primordial it's possible this stuff was leftover bone from after the  battle, and only special places were allowed or could afford to use it.

I  really wanted to punch one of the walls to see how sturdy it was, but  on the off chance I pulled another gatebreaker I didn't want to have to  explain to the literal Devil why I blew his house down big bad wolf  style. Well, not his house probably, based on the size and what I'd seen  coming in this was most likely some kind of local government office for  visiting dignitaries, a city hall or some kind of embassy. Still,  knocking things down was a bad way to endear myself to the people here,  and I didn't really want to fight something that could kill a being with  a skull this big.

Or  the legions of demons and fallen that worked for him. Even if I thought  I could take Lucifer (spoiler, I really didn't) I was absolutely  positive I couldn't take him, the eight other princes, their armies of  fallen retainers and a partridge in a pear tree. Even if we ended up  having to sabotage the armies I was planning to wipe as many of the  weaker ones out as possible before the big dogs showed up. Hell I might  have ended up just poisoning them or taking them our guerilla style to  avoid getting curb stomped.

I  put that all out of my mind though, focusing on the issue at hand. This  place was seething with power, and we had to keep our eyes peeled in  case any of the other city lords or their champions tried some shit.  Malachi led us into the building and then down a side hallway, pulling  us up a set of stairs that wound around the back of the building. We  came out in a large room with a massive entryway leading onto a set of  stairs. At the top of the stairs was a formally dressed fallen with a  scroll.

It  was pretty obvious immediately that this was some kind of herald who  would announce our presence. The room between us was swamped with high  society fallen in outfits like ours mingling and talking as a few  standout badassess loomed over come of them, clearly the champions here  for the tournament like we were. I could pick out about ten of them, and  assumed the others were either late or dressed more formally like Yang  and I, but the obvious ones were clearly not worried about blending in.

A  surprising number of them were half demon it looked like, which made  sense given some of the hybrids had to have some advantages in terms of  strength. That was how hybridization worked, sometimes the child  inherited the power of both parents. Not that I was confused about the  positions of half demons around here. The nobility crushing a larger  underclass wasn't uncommon, not to mention when the rules of the fallen  were pretty much literal gods and thoughts of revolt or uprising were  probably dismissed out of hand.

The  other champions that I could actually see were intimidating as hell  though. They seemed to follow along certain lines, presumably hybrids of  the most powerful types of demons. First there were the bigguns (name  pending, I just called them what they looked like to me), they mostly  seemed to be red with caribou like horns and bulging muscles. They were  still vaguely fallen sized, but ran closer to seven feet than the normal  six that most fallen seemed to fall into. There were five bigguns, and  they were all looming behind much smaller fallen, looking menacing as  they glared at everything around them.

Then  there were the sneaks. The sneaks were closer to normal fallen size,  with blue skin and pointy ears. Like a cross between nightcrawler and an  elf, but without the fur. As opposed to the bigguns the sneaks seemed  to be trying to blend in as best as possible, standing diffidently  behind their lords and somehow managing to appear vague enough that my  eyes kept accidentally slipping past them. I figured I'd have to watch  out for them in the tournament, fucking rogues are never fun to fight.  I'd gotten lucky with Chastel. He was too much of a blowhard to be  sneaky properly even with powers.

Finally  there were the goldies. The goldies were...well, gold. Like literal  burnished metal skin. They radiated poise and arrogance and both of them  had very punchable faces. Goldie one was a stupidly good looking guy of  medium height with eyes like single colored polished emeralds. Guy was  shredded enough that you could grate cheese on his abs. Goldie two was a  tiny arrogant looking girl with unusually full golden lips and delicate  eyebrows. She had a sort of spoiled princess look and a big thick  wobbly ass that she could probably use as fucking flotation device in  the event of a crash.

Each  of the champions were accompanied by a city lord, though they all kind  of looked the same to me. Fallen weren't boring looking, but there's  only a certain consistent level of pretty you can see before it starts  to blur. The men were chiselled handsome hunks or effeminately man  pretty, the women were strong featured heroic beauties or delicate lithe  flowers. I did notice goldie number two was the only woman with a  dumptruck booty I could see here, all the fallen girls were built like  elves.

Yang  and I made our way over to the Lord of Dis, who based on his  conversation was named Pater. I tried not to snicker at the idea of  being such a control freak you made and entire city call you daddy, but  it was hard. Luckily I was still pissed enough about the casual murder  attempt not to find much funny, though I did spend most of our  introduction flexing my metal hand into a fist as I fought not to give  him that dick punch in the middle of the receiving room. Finally though  he finished talking to the random lord or whatever he'd run into and  dragged us away to talk.

He  smiled that gemstone grin. "Ah, you made it. Wonderful, I was worried  you might have met with an unfortunate accident." The urge to punch him  in the dick grew stronger, but my will was as hard as godsteel. Plus I  was going to use force aura later when I actually hit him. "You have  impeccable timing, in only a few minutes we'll be called up by the  herald for our introduction. This will be a monumental event, all nine  of the princes are in attendance, and will be watching on as we're  introduced."

I  had assumed something like that, but something about being told the  actual Devil was downstairs waiting for me made any assumptions or leaps  of logic feel...ephemeral. Like the facts were so unbelievable even  logical guesses were insubstantial nonsense I'd just come up with out of  nowhere. But no, this was real. The logical course of action I'd taken  up to this point bore out the facts as I knew them, and I couldn't deny  it or ignore it anymore. I was about to meet the fucking Devil.

Or  at least see him across a room. I doubted the big boss was the kind to  mingle with the chattel. Which was what we were until we won and proved  ourselves, and maybe even after. Just like the Lord of Dis said, after a  few minutes people started being called up. Oddly none of the champions  or lords got called, I supposed they were saving us for last. Mostly  just nobles I ignored because I didn't care about them anyway. Finally  after literally a hundred random minor titled fops and ladies got called  up and announced the herald called the first of the champions. Which  was me. Obviously.

We  stepped up onto the dais at the top of the stairs and the herald (who  was wearing one of those stupid herald berets you see in movies and a  literal tabard, gag me) unrolled his scroll and proclaimed in a clear  voice. "Lord Cameron, and his consort Lady Yang, champions of the City  of Dis, representing it's esteemed Lord, Pater." His voice was resonant  and melodic and just generally pleasant, and surprisingly didn't come  across as dickish as I expected. Regardless it was time to shine. With a  deep breath,I took Yang's arm in mine with a nod and then we stepped  forward to be introduced to hellish high society.