Alpha Zero (Alpha LitRPG Book 1) by Arthur Stone (top 5 books to read TXT) 📕

the epicenter, I was supposed to have died, but apparently didn’t. I didn’t feel too good, sure, but that could be expected.

I never felt good in this place.

The troops in black were no longer standing over me with weapons raised. The killers lay on the ground right where the wave of the released power had reached them, the dark mounds forming a neat second row behind their victims in white night garments.

Our servants’ corpses had changed as well, their skin now a charred black. Strangely, their clothing hadn’t been damaged or even discolored by the blast, which had seemed to impact only organic matter.

Truthfully, I didn’t care to ponder the mysteries of what happened. I wasn’t even worried that I couldn’t see the main killer anywhere, nor Camai. He could even be hiding behind me now, readying himself to slit my throat. I didn’t care.

Just as long as I managed to do one thing before that happened.

The fact that I managed to stand up was a miracle. And the step forward that I took afterward—a miracle twice over.

As were all the subsequent steps.

I had a goal to which I would happily crawl on my hands and feet. But I wasn’t crawling, I was walking. Walking in the correct direction.

And that felt wonderful.

The skin on mother’s face and arms was unchanged, meaning it hadn’t blackened as with the others. Treya wasn’t moving, but that didn’t fool me.

She was still alive. Life hanging by a thread, but still breathing. I could feel it. I didn’t know how, but I could. After all, my bond to this woman was built on more than just hatred. Too much had accumulated between me and the person who had cut short one of my lives before selflessly defending the other. Somehow that gave me certainty that I would have enough time to tell her some parting words.

I stopped before her body, then proceeded to crouch—slowly, taking every care not to lose balance and topple over. But mother was true to form even now, blocking my attempt to take initiative.

Treya’s eyes snapped open, and her hand shot out in front of her, trembling. Not to help me, but to grip the amulet around my neck. She relaxed after a few seconds, then said in a barely audible whisper.

“Gedar... the coffer... Your bag... Give me...”

Why did she want those things now? I couldn’t begin to guess. Nor did I care for the whims of the dying. This wasn’t why I had walked over to her. And yet, so great was the woman’s authority over me that I could no longer remember what I was doing here.

So I took out the coffer and proffered it to her, as requested.

“Open... Give me...” Treya whispered.

I opened the nephrite lid and took out the contents. An ornamented silk pouch that held several familiar items.

Mother gripped the pouch in her hand, wheezing.

“Higher powers... last words... prayer of the dying... Essential. Essential to my boy. Give me... more.”

Another fine tremor passed over her body before she relaxed, then added peacefully.

“Your neck. Put it around your neck. With the amulet. And don’t take it off.”

As I followed Treya’s instructions, I suddenly realized what a buffoon I was being. Instead of telling her all that was on my mind, I was behaving like a mama’s boy.

The bitch was about to croak, leaving me with nothing.

I hurried to remedy the situation.

“I’m not Gedar.”

“Gedar... my dear boy...” the woman stammered out, her eyelids growing heavy.

“Wait! Don’t you dare die on me! Don’t you dare! I’m not Gedar! Do you hear me?! I’m not Gedar! This is not your son, but merely the shell of your degenerate spawn! Not an empty shell, either! It’s occupied! You remember me, don’t you? You must remember! It was you who had ripped out my heart! You and Traco Darce! You remem...”

A brutal seizure gripped every muscle in my body, and I collapsed forward onto mother, squeezing the air from her chest as her last word filtered into my ear.

“Ge... Gedar...”

And that was that. The dying woman would never know the snake she had cherished in her bosom, fighting to the end to protect an empty shell that had long been misappropriated by a stranger.

How unsatisfying. I had been desperate to explain to her what a degenerate her child truly was. Every last bit of him. He was as empty as a blank page—whereas I was the text that she, in her blind mother’s love, had recorded where the consciousness of a true Crow should have been.

Treya died with the full confidence that she had used her last strength to protect Gedar, and not an enemy who had hijacked his empty shell.

Meaning, she died with a clean conscience. And that was terrible. So terrible that not even the pain from the seizure ravaging my body fully distracted me from ruining the missed opportunity.

I should have accomplished my wish. To explain to the shrew the full depth of her error. She should have met her death in the throes of despair, gritting her teeth with helpless fury.

The seizure receded, but the pain remained. Something was happening to me. Something I’d never before experienced. The wave of chi that had passed through my body hadn’t vanished fully. Some kind of trace had remained.

And that something was torturing me from the inside with the cruelty of a professional executioner.

Were this happening to a typical denizen of this deviant world, they would probably proceed to take their own life just to put an end to the pain. Instead, it was happening to me—the weakest creature imaginable. And one that had been suffering for years. Suffering nonstop. Suffering from the moment the incandescent blade of the sacrificial knife had burned into the skin on my chest.

That is all to