The Forgotten Faithful: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 2) by Cajiao, Jez (little red riding hood ebook TXT) 📕

“Don’t worry; we’re just talking to Jenae, that’s all. Take a seat, and I’ll be with you in a few minutes, okay?” I said, and Jenae’s mental shout nearly drove me to my knees.

“You’re ‘JUST’ talking to me… ‘that’s all’?” She snapped, “Just talking to the GODDESS THAT’S SAVED YOUR LIFE?”

I felt pain blooming in my mind even further, a hot, wet feeling on my upper lip making me reach up instinctively, and when I pulled my hand back, it was covered in blood. I could feel my ears and eyes joining my nose as blood began to trickle out, and the pain grew horrific.

I turned, struggling as I tried to face away from the others, and I bit the inside of my cheek, my rage roaring to life over the pain that filled my mind. I felt Him wake with it as well, our twin angers feeding one another, even as I sensed Oracle blast out through a lower floor window and hurtle up toward me.

The pain vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, and I staggered, blinking as I straightened again, I wiped at my face and held my hand up before my eyes, seeing the blood smeared there.

“That’s twice you’ve done that, bitch. Want to try for a hat-trick?” I whispered, knowing she could hear me.

“I…I…”

“You attacked me, again! All because I tried to follow your requests!” I roared at her in the silence of my mind, and I felt a presence filling the mental room behind me. It was disjointed, confused, and angry, made of a thousand memories more than a mind, but it was powerful, and it was filled with rage.

I mentally faced her, feeling the rage behind me swelling, growing like a cloud of smoky fury, rising to surround me.

***

In a second, the world had changed, and we stood elsewhere, a new place.

The sky way dark overhead, with heavy purplish-grey clouds that roiled and flashed with hidden lightning. The land all around us was dead and barren, soil and sand intermixed across the scrublands, broken only by the howling winds that filled this place. All around us in the distance were huge mountains; they towered higher than I could see, disappearing into the clouds, and before me stood a single figure.

She was older than I, but not past her prime. Dark red hair fell in waves down a face that would never be called stunning; her jaw was too strong, and her cheeks too wide, but her eyes blazed with the Fire of Knowledge, and she was outlined in flickering, crackling flames.

This was Jenae, I realized, the Goddess as she was now, and I glanced behind me, looking up at the growing wall of rage that had my back.

It was filled with darkness and light, roiling clouds and brilliant sunshine burst through, screams of fighting and death, and cries of laughter, cheers of celebration, and the sweet giggle of children. I saw the cloud of righteous fury growing, spreading around me and enveloping me. I felt it clothe me in armor of madness, and I knew what it was.

This was the remnant of Amon, First Emperor, Eternal. This was all that was left of him. Hundreds of years had passed, his mind and soul being shattered anew with each generation that was born of his genetics. The crazed and tangled web grew, taking more and more of him, spreading his consciousness out until it broke, and all that was left were impulses, memories...

He’d never live again and couldn’t die; the torture of seeing his descendants committing the very crimes he’d created his Empire to defend against drove him deeper into insanity, until at the last, he’d found us.   

The remains of Amon had flared to life in Tommy and myself, some twisted fate of genetics pulling more than the usual amount of himself together. He’d found more than kin when he’d found our twin rages; he’d found enough to regain some of his mind again, but it was still broken and could never be rebuilt properly.

All of this blazed through my mind in a second, leaving understanding behind.

I reached out, curling my right hand into a fist as I looked at it. A glowing gauntlet pulled itself together from the void and covered my fingers, joining to me seamlessly.

I looked up at Jenae, a shiver of pleasure running through my body as the armor flowed up to cover my head, my vision restricted momentarily as the metal flowed over my face, and then it cleared. I could see through the protective cover of metal, felt it encompassing me everywhere, yet it flexed and moved with me.

It felt as though I had donned stiff silk, yet I knew it would provide protection better than the finest steel could ever hope to.

“No!” Jenae cried out, taking a step back, and I glared at her, knowing she could see me even though my armor.

“You did this. You started this!” I growled at her, the heat of righteous anger filling me.

“No, please, Eternal!” She repeated, taking a step back. In her right hand, a sword suddenly appeared, and she gripped it instinctively.

I held out my right hand, parallel to my chest, and I closed my fingers around a naginata that hadn’t existed before now. It glowed an unearthly silver, and I felt a second presence appear beside the madness, a huge yet confused mind reaching out. It recognized Amon, and it touched him, tasting his madness and recoiling, even as it also took up a protective guard at my back.

“AMON?” It questioned, fear and sadness filling its mental sending. There was a burst of communication from the madness, a disjointed pulse that carried the taste of hundreds of years of terror and fury, the knowledge of a world being destroyed, and a soul being unraveled. I was hit with it, and it left a series of memories, but I couldn’t take it all. The second presence, though, took it easily, absorbing everything.

“NO. THIS MUST