Rewind: A Grimdark LitRPG Series (Pyresouls Apocalypse, Book 1) by James Callum (reading tree .txt) 📕

snaked their way toward Jacob. Wherever they found a bit of life, like the grass and scrub brush between them, it withered to ash.

It was reshaping the battlefield to its advantage. Which meant Jacob had to change the battlefield, and fast. The Incomplete Vessel was too close to the narrow path that led him up, and he wasn’t about to leap down and take his chances by jumping.

All it would take was one tendril to wrap around him, and he was finished. There were no more Pyres. No extra lives. No do-overs.

So Jacob continued to back up, all the while trying to edge to his left to get the parasite away from the only viable escape route. It seemed to know his intent and was content to stay put, guarding the only exit Jacob had foolishly given up in the first few moments of the battle.

Coming forward in a rush, Jacob slashed in a flaming blur with his [Duskblade]. Stag Rushes Through the Field batted aside tendrils and appendages that rose up to attack him. He accepted one or two stinging hits in exchange for his soon-to-be freedom.

The way was suddenly blocked by the rotund form of the Incomplete Vessel. Its great yellow eye staring imperiously at Jacob. Through him. Jacob leaped back but found tall pillars of dark corruption barring his way.

More and more tendrils coated the ground, he tried to stay between them, but it was becoming impossible. Every squelching step felt like a punch to the gut. The Incomplete Vessel had shaped the battlefield into its own making, literally.

A wide cocoon covered the two combatants in complete darkness lit only by the bright flames of Jacob’s spell. A dank, oily foulness filled the air and burned Jacob’s lungs. He began to feel the cold embrace of death surround him once more.

The only silver lining was the vast reduction in the Vessel’s tendrils. It seemed to use most of its strength to create the hardened shell of darkness around them, it looked a little like a small domed room.

Try as he might to break through the walls, his flaming sword did little but scratch the hardened substance. The Incomplete Vessel slithered closer on its few remaining limbs.

A voice echoed in Jacob’s head, like nails on a chalkboard he could not push it out or ignore it. “Fine form. Finer than the Beast. You will be new Shell. Become complete. We will become complete.”

It continued to repeat the phrase over and over in Jacob’s mind until his own thoughts mirrored that of the Incomplete Vessel’s. His own mental voice disobeyed him. The two voices, the Incomplete Vessel’s and his own, slowly became closer in timbre and pitch.

Every thought was followed and chased by the growing darkness inside his own head. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the Fire Oppa’s voice, but it was drowned out by the drumming of pursuit in his mind.

Jacob heard the metallic clatter as his sword fell to the hardened black material of the floor from nerveless fingers. He struggled, fled from the voices that chased him through the caverns of his own mind.

All the while, the Incomplete Vessel crept closer, inexorably slow but assured in its newest acquisition.

Its thoughts bled into Jacob’s. It would grow stronger in Jacob’s body. It would leave the dying world of Lormar. Within Jacob’s mind, it could see the brilliant, vibrant life of another star unsullied by its filth.

Jacob’s hand twitched as he desperately tried to fight the intrusion, but it was inside his head already. It knew his thoughts, his defenses as if they were his own. Every thought was copied, mirrored, and used against him, turning his own mental processes away from resistance, toward submission.

Running through the alleyways of his own mind, Jacob saw the dead friends and family he was forced to leave behind. He saw the terrible Red Plague descend once again. The Vile Kingdom’s rise to power and its gruesome strength on display.

Off to the side, he spied a flash of light. A small glow of flame. Jacob turned toward it, splashing down a muddy lane between two impossibly tall black buildings.

The light fled before him on swift paws, taking sudden and random turns that Jacob could only just keep up with. Winded and out of breath, he continued on until Jacob could hardly hear the echoing footfalls of pursuit.

The Fire Oppa came around the corner, the puddles of water hissing where his fiery paws touched them. “If it cuts off all of your thoughts, it will consume you. It uses your mind against you, mapping it out with every thought you make. Once it is done, there will be no separation.”

Jacob opened his mouth to ask how he could fight it, but he already knew how.

The Fire Oppa looked at him sadly. “I cannot live without a flame. I have kindled your soul as you are part of my Covenant. Anything that my flames have touched, I can abide within. The warmth of your soul keeps me alive. If you die, I will die. For good.”

“Stay with me,” Jacob pleaded, surprised at how raw his voice was.

The Fire Oppa climbed up him, and Jacob held the small ferret in his hands. The warmth brought a semblance of separation from the sensation of losing himself.

With the Fire Oppa’s closeness, he felt more like himself than ever before. But it would not last.

He could feel the approach of the Incomplete Vessel. He would only get one chance at this. Jacob shut his eyes and focused on his trembling hand. Bathed in the warmth of the Fire Oppa’s light, Jacob opened his eyes.

Emerging from the mental landscape was jarring and sudden.

A host of slimy feelers coated Jacob’s physical body, and that great awful eye was focused with malicious intent on him. Hand still twitching, the only control he had left of his body, Jacob summoned the [Whisper of Insanity] to his palm.

The shifting item gathered there, and just as the Incomplete Vessel was clued in to