Chapter 762: A Little More Time
"So, you’re saying all this is because you told a god you’d save his shards?" Luke asked.
His tone was perfectly neutral, a calm surface over what I knew had to be a storm of thoughts. He held himself so still, the quiet more unnerving than any outburst would have been. My fingers curled into my skirt, my tail swishing anxiously.
"I just know it’s important," I whispered, looking at the ground.
He took a deep breath, then another.
"Important to who?" he finally asked.
"Err, me?"
He stared at me, then sighed, deflating a little, and rubbed his horn. "Xiviyah, I believe you. I really do. It’s just..."
"Not enough?" I asked in a small voice.
He nodded, not quite meeting my gaze. "I believe that it’s important to you. But this isn’t something I can take lightly. Losing shards means losing seventh- or even eighth-level demons, demons we’re desperately going to need for the fight ahead."
"But the elves don’t even have a ninth-level mage. Blacksand is the only empire with them left," I said.
"This isn’t about the northern continent. All of this," he made a sweeping motion with his arm, "Everything we’ve done so far was to build our forces for the real fight ahead. The church all but surrendered this land to us. They’ve pulled everything back to the southern continent and are busy fortifying every kingdom and empire. We’ve lost our army there entirely. I’m not even sure if the apostles escaped, yet. Last I heard, the church was performing some sort of ritual to seal the continent off completely."