Divine Milking System

Chapter 372: 372 | It’s My Brand

"You have second-degree burns covering about fifteen percent of your body. Your mana reserves are depleted from the explosion you created. You’ve lost blood from the leg wound and you’re running on nothing but adrenaline and spite." I sat up, ignoring the protest from my own injuries. "I have a healing ability that’s already working on my damage. My mana’s at thirty-four percent, which isn’t great but isn’t empty. And I’ve been training with a Platinum-rank psychopath for three weeks, which means I know exactly how long I can stay awake before my performance starts degrading."

"And how long is that?"

"Longer than you."

Blair stared at me. The distant fire painted her face in orange and shadow, catching the hollows under her eyes and the tension in her jaw. She wanted to argue. I could see it building behind those blue eyes, the Davenport instinct to never accept help, never show weakness, never let anyone see the cracks in the armor.

"Fine." The word came out like it cost her money. "Four hours. Then you wake me and I take over."

"Deal."

She shifted onto her right side, curling into a position that kept her burns away from the stone. Her tactical suit had mostly dried thanks to her earlier flame trick, but the material where it had melted still clung to damaged skin in ways that would need real medical attention. For now, though, she was stable. Breathing. Alive.

I moved to the edge of the alcove, positioning myself where I could watch both the canyon floor and the rim above. The fire glow had dimmed slightly, either burning itself out or moving further east. The river continued its endless roar, white noise that would mask small sounds but couldn’t hide anything large. The sky above the canyon walls showed no stars, just the bruised purple-orange of the fracture space’s permanent sunset.

Behind me, Blair’s breathing slowed. Not asleep yet, but close. The adrenaline crash was hitting her hard, pulling her down toward unconsciousness whether she wanted to go or not.

"Monroe."

"Yeah?"

"If something attacks while I’m sleeping and you don’t wake me up because you wanted to handle it yourself, I will burn you alive."

"Noted."

"And if you watch me sleep in any way that could be construed as inappropriate, I will burn you alive twice."

"Also noted."

"And if you tell anyone about tonight, about the fire and the cliff and the..." She paused, searching for words. "Any of it. I will burn you alive three times, resurrect you through sheer force of hatred, and then burn you alive again."

"You’re really committed to this burning theme."

"It’s my brand."

I didn’t turn around. Didn’t need to. I could hear the fear underneath the threats, the vulnerability she was trying to bury under bravado and familiar patterns. Blair Davenport had spent her entire life being the scariest person in every room she entered. Tonight she’d learned that the universe contained rooms she couldn’t set on fire.

"Get some sleep, Davenport. We’ve got a core to kill tomorrow."

Silence from behind me. Then, so quiet I almost missed it under the river’s constant roar, she said, "Don’t die while I’m unconscious. It would be inconvenient."

"Wouldn’t dream of it."

Her breathing evened out within minutes, exhaustion winning the war against pride. I sat at the edge of the alcove with my legs dangling over the drop, watching the canyon for movement and thinking about all the ways tonight could still go wrong.

The System interface floated at the edge of my vision, displaying information I’d already memorized. Thirteen days and twenty-two hours of life. Three bottles of Silver essence in storage. Four abilities available, three equipped and one sitting in my library waiting for the right moment. A health status that had climbed from MODERATE to RECOVERING, which wasn’t great but wasn’t terrible.

Somewhere out there, Belle was probably doing the same mental math. Calculating resources, evaluating threats, planning contingencies. She’d have found high ground by now, or Jordan would have wrapped them both in shadows deep enough to hide from anything hunting. Naomi would be circling above the canopy, her Gold buff making her a goddess of the sky, watching for any sign of the separated squad.

They were fine. They had to be fine.

I pulled up my ability loadout and stared at it for a long moment. Wave Motion for offense and mobility. Sensory Hijack for information and distraction. Reaper’s Edge for killing things that refused to die normally. A solid loadout for combat, but not necessarily ideal for what came next.

Finding the core meant tracking it through a dimensional space that didn’t follow normal rules. Belle’s Treasure Sense would have been perfect for that, her Silver buff letting her detect valuable signatures through walls and canopy. Without her, I was working blind.

Except I wasn’t. Not completely.

I opened my ability library and looked at the option I’d been ignoring since the leopard attack. Treasure Sense, sitting in storage where I’d swapped it out for Reaper’s Edge. Bronze rank, pathetic range, barely useful under normal circumstances. But the gate’s core would register as a high-value target, the single most important signature in the entire fracture space.

The swap would take five minutes. During that time, Reaper’s Edge would go dormant, leaving me without my best offensive option. In a Void Gate full of evolved predators and mana-saturated ecosystems, five minutes of vulnerability could mean death.

But finding the core meant escaping. Escaping meant getting Blair and myself back to the surface world where healers existed and backup was possible and I could see Belle’s face again.

I made the swap.

The familiar cold hunger of Reaper’s Edge drained from my mana channels, replaced by the subtler awareness of Treasure Sense coming online. Bronze rank meant the range was garbage, maybe fifteen meters at best, but the ability immediately started feeding me information about our surroundings.

The rock beneath us contained trace minerals, nothing valuable but detectible. The water in the river carried sediment with minor mana content. The alcove itself showed no signatures of interest.

But far away, at the very edge of my limited perception, something pulsed.