Already able to tell this was going to take a while, Ben picked up Thera before giving an accusatory order to the heavens.

“Explain. And I guess point me in whatever stupid direction I need to go.”

“Again Myriad, please explain why the fuck I’m dealing with the rest of it? Give it to me straight, am I the gods’ whipping boy? Y’all see a problem and think it can just be tossed onto poor, disposable Ben?”

“Excuse you, just because my mind’s a little more powerful than average doesn’t make me not a normal person!”

Myriad went on, ignoring his apostle.

“What? Why me? There’s no way you guys can’t close it yourselves! Hell, you should have done something hours ago!”

“Damn it all, fine! But I want any watching gods to know that I plan on calling this in as a massive favour one day! I deserve it, you cheap assholes!”

It took an hour of rushing through the destroyed lands and avoiding any ghosts they’d seen passing by to find an area the devastation hadn’t touched, with another just as long to actually see people in the distance with a small town that was clearly a source of the ghosts further off, and Ben was feeling the strain of getting there.

His body was beaten and bruised, his muscles and bones hurt and he was covered in no small number of cuts from everything that had been whipping through the air, with none of that even mentioning the strain he’d put himself under to get out there.

Carrying Thera wasn’t actually that bad, his strength was unreasonably high at that point, more so than what any normal person could expect. Same with his stamina, keeping the length of time he needed to carry her from being a bother either.

No, what was causing him problems was his lowest attribute by far, his agility. After all of his awakenings and a constant supply of strengthening potions, Ben was actually far faster than any average person, even if he’d never willingly put it to practice, but as things stood he didn’t have much of a choice but to run with all he had, if only so he could ensure the portal to hell would be closed even a few minutes faster.

It was already obvious the world was going to be dealing with a ghost problem for a long time to come, maybe even long after the end of the war with the demons, regardless of who won. He was sure that the various light and death spirits in the world would be able to do something to whittle away at them all, but an entire planet was a big place with plenty to deal with.

And anyway, that was something for the gods to deal with. It already felt like he was having extra work dumped on him after he’d already volunteered to put his life on the line to help save the world, he would close the gate the second he could get there, which first meant Thera needed to be taken care of.

Something that seemed to have already been dealt with, for as he was making his way to the group he could see in the distance, they were making their way to him, undoubtedly having already been told to expect him as the party met him in the middle and greeted him with a bow.

“Honoured apostle,” The one who seemed to be in charge said. “We were told there was someone you needed us to watch while you bring an end to this disaster, I take it that’s her?”

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“It is,” Ben nodded as he carefully handed over Thera, talking in his head to his god at the same time.

Myriad, keep an eye on her and make sure she’s safe while I’m off dealing with this.

Myriad, I’m leaving my unconscious girlfriend with a bunch of strangers so I can go save this stupid planet. You damn well make sure nothing happens to her or I will kill every person on this world.

I will, just one thing first.

“Okay, before I run off to heroically save the day, I don’t suppose there’s any healer among you, is there?”

“Ah, I’m a light mage,” One at the back volunteered.

“Great, in that case, do you mind?” Ben asked, gesturing broadly at all of himself as the mage nodded and began trying to cast his magic, his brow wrinkling in concentration as nothing seemed to happen, leading Ben to connect to him and take a peek at his soul.

Ah, fifth level and seems like he probably has a pretty regular magic pool. Yeah, I don’t have hours to waste here, I have been way too spoiled living with two awakened life mages. Myriad, just point me to where I need to go already so I can slink back off to Stonewall where I can beg Sonya to heal me.

Myriad quickly gave Ben directions as his apostle gave up on being healed and instead went back to running, putting his all into getting to the town he could see in the distance and then racing through the empty streets, the residents still following the gods’ orders to stay inside and hide away.

Through it all there were still some obvious signs of destruction, the outsider not having left the place untouched with the path it took to leave being marked by smashed houses and the damaged roads, the ground torn into by the same brutal strikes that they’d been forced to avoid as they’d faced off against the monster while Ben tried to ignore it. There was nothing he could do for the people who lived there, all he could do was give a brief prayer as he finally reached where he needed to be, the ruins that had once been a warehouse with a torrent of souls pouring out of it.

It looked like something had burst out of it, which of course it had, the outsider having escaped its confines while ghosts were still escaping from the area and keeping Ben on edge.

Without the outsider there to help control them, there shouldn’t have been as much risk of danger from them with each one simply trying to escape their damned fate, but he wasn’t so certain of that that he was going to throw caution to the wind.

Each one that passed him close enough by he connected to, feeling their minds and history and trying to get a sense of if he should fear any power that might be at their disposal, finding each safe enough in the end as he passed them by.

He didn’t give himself time to indulge in some of the more alien minds he was encountering, saving that for later as he climbed over a smashed wall to see what was within and bearing witness to the hell around him.

Nearly two dozen people stood in a circle with only a few gaps between them where bodies could be seen collapsed below, but just because there were gaps, didn’t mean they were empty. In their place stood more ghosts filling the roll, still very much being controlled as Ben got to see the hell at their feet.

Not the same as staring into the primordial chaos, nor like seeing the outsider, Ben still felt a new strain on his mind, different from either of the last two. It felt like something was trying to forcefully split his thoughts even after he’d leveled his unnatural mind twice in one day, with it only barely failing to get there.

It failing didn’t keep him from getting a headache on top of all of his other aches and pains though, leaving Ben to try and get through his new task as he reached out with his connect while he started walking around the circle of people, looking into the minds of both the perpetrators of the disaster and the ghosts who had them chained to make sense of everything they were doing in order to try and find the perfect way to close the portal.

As much as he didn’t want to admit it, it looked like the gods had actually been right to leave that as his problem. The ritual they’d attempted was complex to a shocking degree. He could see in their memories just how long they’d practiced to make it work and even then the fact that they’d pulled it off would have felt like a minor miracle if not for just how badly things had gone wrong in the end.

Moving from person to person, he couldn’t help but see where things would go wrong if they were taken out of the equation. From potentially destabilizing it in a way that would make it rip open even wider before it inevitably collapsed to over-stabilizing it, making him question if it would ever be closed if things came to that, it wasn’t going to be an easy problem to solve, made only worse by one very obvious thing he was doing his best to ignore.

Naloth, the one who’d led all of those people and caused the disaster they were under, was nowhere to be seen.

Had he run off after accomplishing everything he wanted to or simply escaped after things had gone wrong? Ben couldn’t know. Even peering into the memories of those bound by enslaved souls, all of their focus had been directed to the portal the moment they were chained. The best possible result was that he’d been knocked into the infinite hells himself, forced to pay the price for his hubris, but Ben wasn’t willing to place his faith in any sort of justice existing in the world.

And that’s something I can worry about later. He told himself. For now-

His senses screamed at him before he had time to process them and once more he moved beyond the limits of his body, ducking down just in time for something to only skim the top of his head instead of impaling him then and there as he turned to see what he was going to have to deal with from there, a part of him expecting more ghosts or possessed people around to try to stop him from closing the gate until he saw a familiar face as what he’d felt to warn him made sense.

The subtle sounds of movement, perhaps a slight hint on his peripheries that there was something wrong and a tingling on his skin, none of that was as significant as the strange sense that came with his sacrilege whispering in the back of his mind of nearby divinity, its source, the demigod Ather, standing poised to attack with another spear in his hand.