Divine Milking System

Chapter 371: 371 | An Inventory of the Living

The canyon offered exactly two directions: upstream toward the fire, or downstream toward wherever the river decided to take us. Neither option screamed "survival," but downstream at least didn’t involve walking back into an inferno.

I helped Blair to her feet. She accepted the assistance without comment, which told me more about her condition than any medical scan could. The Blair Davenport who existed before the cliff would have slapped my hand away and made some cutting remark about charity cases. This Blair just grabbed my forearm and pulled herself upright, her burned side making her wince in a way she tried to hide and failed.

We moved along the rock shelf, following the canyon wall where the footing stayed relatively stable. The river churned to our left, violent and uncaring. The walls rose to our right, volcanic stone that had been carved by water and time into something approaching a path. Each step brought new pain, small reminders that my body wanted rest more than it wanted forward momentum. Every few meters I checked behind us, watching the rim of the gorge for yellow eyes or the telltale shimmer of heat from the fire spreading. Behind us, the walls glowed with reflected orange light, but nothing moved in the shadows.

Nothing yet. Small mercy.

"Can you feel your team?" I asked, keeping my voice low. "Through your mana connection or whatever bond thing your family’s ability creates?"

"That’s not how it works." Blair’s voice came out tight, each word costing her something. She pressed one hand against the wall for balance, moving slower than I’d ever seen her move. "Hellflame doesn’t create bonds. It creates fire. Very impressive fire that burns things. That’s the entire description."

"So no magical GPS for finding Dante and Charles."

"No magical GPS for finding anyone." She stumbled on a loose stone, caught herself against the wall with both hands now, left a bloody handprint on the rock that smeared as she pushed off again. The print stayed there, dark red against grey stone, proof that we’d been here. "They’re alive. They have to be alive. Dante’s ability protects him from mana-based attacks and Charles has Frame Perfect and Javier is..."

She stopped talking. Her shoulders rose and fell with the effort of breathing, each inhale seeming to take more work than the last.

"Smart enough to run."

"I was going to say resourceful."

"Same thing in a Void Gate."

We walked in silence for another hundred meters. The canyon began to widen, the walls pulling back and the river slowing as it spread into something broader and less murderous. The fire glow above us had shifted, moving east as the wind pushed the flames in a direction that wasn’t directly above our heads. Lucky. Or the gate’s ecosystem adjusting in ways that didn’t follow normal physics. Hard to tell the difference in a dimensional space that shouldn’t exist.

My chest throbbed with each step. The essence had closed the wounds enough to stop the bleeding, but the muscle damage remained, a constant reminder that I’d been carved open by a creature the size of a motorcycle. The System’s health indicator still read MODERATE, which was better than CRITICAL but worse than FINE. I’d take it.

Belle’s essence sat in my inventory, three remaining bottles, enough to keep me functional if things went sideways again. The thought of her made something twist in my chest that had nothing to do with leopard claws. She was out there somewhere, probably with Jordan, probably terrified, probably already figuring out a plan because Belle Fox didn’t know how to stop planning.

Naomi was airborne when the fire started. Gold buff meant she could stay in the air indefinitely if she wanted, raining down destruction from a position nothing on the ground could reach. She’d be fine. She had to be fine.

Hikaru had survived worse than a forest fire. Her whole life was surviving worse than whatever the universe threw at her.

Misato had clones. Javier had notebooks and knives. Charles had his stupid perfect timing ability and the arrogance to believe it made him invincible.

They were alive. All of them. I refused to consider alternatives.

"There." Blair pointed with her good arm, and I followed the gesture to where the canyon wall curved inward, creating a natural alcove maybe thirty feet up from the water level. The rock face beneath it showed handholds, not easy ones, but possible. More importantly, the alcove itself was deep enough to hide two people from anything looking down from the rim, and high enough to give us warning if something came up from the river.

"Can you climb?"

"Can you stop asking stupid questions?"

I took that as a yes.

The climb was worse than it looked. Every pull sent fire through my chest, and my arms shook in ways that C-rank Strength wasn’t supposed to allow. Blood loss, probably. Mana corruption fighting against the healing. The specifics didn’t matter as much as the reality that I needed rest, actual rest, not the adrenaline-fueled sprint that had defined the last several hours.

Blair climbed beside me, her teeth gritted and her face pale in the distant firelight. She favored her right side completely, pulling with her good arm and pushing with her legs in a rhythm that compensated for the burns. Impressive, actually. Most people would have given up. Most people would have asked me to carry them.

Blair Davenport was not most people.

We reached the alcove at the same time, rolling onto the stone floor and lying there gasping like fish pulled from water. The ceiling curved above us, maybe eight feet at the highest point, tapering to the back where the rock met itself in a natural corner. Dry. Relatively warm, compared to the canyon floor. Hidden from above and defensible from below.

Not perfect. But close enough for a Void Gate.

"Watch duty," Blair said when she could breathe again. "We need to establish a rotation. Four hours each, visual monitoring of both approaches, audio confirmation of any movement above the ambient noise level of the river."

"Or we could do the thing where I take first watch and you sleep."

Her head turned toward me, wet red hair dragging across the stone. "Excuse me?"