CH615

<AIM LEVEL INCREASED>

“Well, at least I managed to get one more level,” Ben sighed as he let himself collapse to the ground. “Sure freaking cut it close though.”

“What matters is that you got it,” Myriad told him, trying to be positive despite only having a day until the invasion points opened. “So what now?”

“Now? Now I spend the rest of my time pretending I’m not going to die in the next few weeks. That’s not a completely unrealistic expectation, right?”

“Ben, even if you don’t seem to accept it yourself, you are one of the most powerful people on this planet at this point and having such a high level of an awakened magic is only going to help. I’m sure you’ll survive this wave.”

“You’re being optimistic. This is going to be a chaotic battle with an uncountable horde of enemies coming through. It doesn’t matter how powerful anyone is, anything can happen and anything can go wrong. Plus the minor issue that these are going to be the intelligent ones, that creates a lot more room for things to go sideways real fast.”

His god was silent in the face of Ben’s pessimism, leaving the apostle to sign.

“It’s not like I’m giving up so don’t worry. No matter how bad things get I’m not going to just roll over and die. No matter how I’m cut, stabbed, sliced, burned, dismembered or any number of other terrible things, I’ll struggle till the end.”

“You better. I want you living to the end and enjoying your happily ever after.”

“Ha, I’ll do my best. It’s just surviving this one month. And then every other month until the third wave seeing as how the world’s about to be flooded by demons. And then I guess one more month after where we’ll be dealing with the worst of the worst. And then whatever’s left on this planet till the end of time, and that’s really only if we don’t get any more waves because the group optimism about that on this planet is frankly ridiculous. Never mind, I think I just talked myself out of that faint glimmer of hope. It was nice to experience for the second it lasted though, I’ll remember it fondly as I’m bleeding out.”

“And here I was, so hopeful that some optimism had managed to sneak its way into you.”

“What can I say, I’ll just have to enjoy the few hours I have left.”

He actualized when he said it, creating a feast for himself to eat with his god joining in, taking in the new flavours as they talked.

“Then enough worrying on the present, focus on the future. What do you intend to do once this wave ends?”

“That really feels like the sort of thing I should save thinking about for the future.”

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“What future?” Myriad asked. “Do you think you’re going to have the leeway to consider it any time the wave is going on?”

“Yes? No matter how intense it is, I’m absolutely going to have a few minds free at any given time and I’m still popping up here when I sleep, even if you’re going to be off somewhere else. Why wouldn’t I have time for it?”