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

against the largest boulder, Jacob heaved with all of his might. While he was a lot weaker than he was used to, he still had roughly four times as much strength as the average human, and moving the boulder was an easy task.

With a grating rumble, the boulder shifted and tiny fist-sized stones began to tumble and bounce down the side of the trail. The Vacant remained where they were. They only cared for the living, other undead or inanimate creatures didn’t interest them. Throwing a rock to distract them was useless, they simply didn’t notice it.

Throwing half a ton of rock on top of their heads made sure they wouldn’t notice anything ever again.

The boulders careened down into the narrow pass, crushing the two creatures in an instant. The ground shook with the impact and two wisps of white light streaked out of the pass and went straight into Jacob’s chest.

You defeat the [Vacant Human].

You defeat the [Vacant Human].

Awarded 250 Souls.

That was about half of what he’d need to upgrade one stat. Taking a quick peek around to make sure he was relatively safe, Jacob pulled up his status panel.

[Status]

Jacob Windsor

Covenant: None

Race: Kemora - Fae-touched (Human/Fairy)

 Level: 1

Health: 124

Stamina: 86

Anima: 0

Souls: 250

Required Souls: 673

Parameters

VIT: 3

AGI: 6

END: 3

TMP: 8

STR: 4

DEX: 5

INT: 8

FTH: 3

 

Curse: Fractured Sight

Curse Level: 0

Spell Gem: No Spell Inscribed

Maybe a little less than half, he corrected himself.

He needed to get out of the Shrouded Village and into the Razor Pass. Halfway up the winding trails with jagged razor-sharp stones jutting from the mountainside was the first Pyre.

For now, that was his only goal. Everything else came second to that.

Without a Pyre he was vulnerable. While he didn’t intend on dying, it was all but inevitable. Pyresouls was designed specifically with the player’s death in mind.

Whether these were real places on a real world in some other reality didn’t matter, every area in Pyresouls was many orders of magnitude deadlier than even the largest plague-ridden cities back on Earth.

Jacob glanced down into the narrow pass that led out of the Shrouded Village, scanning it for hidden threats. It would be just his luck that the noise brought something other than the Vacant out of hiding.

Everything looked clear.

Time to get going.

6

The Razor Pass lifted high above the sea of leaden clouds below. It progressed northward, ever-twisting, ever-tightening. Nothing was visible save the dark mountain stone that jutted out from the narrow path giving rise to its name and the dark clouds below.

If there was anything below the clouds, nobody had ever wasted their time venturing down there to find out.

Which made the Razor Pass all the more disturbing for their completely incomprehensible size. Everything in Lormar was massive. On a scale that completely dwarfed anything his Earth-styled sensibilities could make sense of.

Several people with megalophobia quit the game early for that reason alone. The mountains were the size of cities, ancient and implacable they rose thousands of feet into the air to tower over everything.

The Forbidden Kingdom, visible from the northern mouth of the Razor Pass, had walls that dwarfed Mount Everest back home. Spires and towers that were dizzying in their size and scope.

Those structures were miles away and yet were visible only because of their sheer size.

The path through the Razor Pass was a narrow ledge less than five feet wide. There wasn’t enough room for more than a single person at a time. Jacob edged along, mindful of his footing at all times.

Any creatures he met along the way would need to be dealt with. There was no way to sneak around them. And that wasn’t even touching on the sheer drop into the gray clouds below with a single misstep.

Because the pass snaked back on itself with such disturbing regularity, he could cut hours off of his travel time by trying to make the leap from his side to the other.

It was deceptively close, no more than five or ten feet wide in some places. He could jump it with his stats. But he didn’t dare.

To prove his point, and to alleviate some of the boredom of endlessly walking, Jacob passed about fifty feet ahead of the closest gap. An area he could have well and truly leaped over with ease.

Dismissing his [Mace], Jacob scooped up a handful of black pebbles from the path. With a rapid-fire flick of his wrist, he sent each of them careening over that gap.

Nearly to the other side, the first pebble disappeared before it ever hit the other side of the pass. It was so fast, Jacob wasn’t able to track it.

The next few pebbles elicited a slower more pronounced reaction. Black spiked tentacles snapped out of the roiling darkness between the mountain paths and swatted the pebbles clear.

Nothing would clear whatever that thing was.

He could have leaped the gap, yes. Just as that thing could have snatched him out of the air and crushed the life from his bones.

Like the rest of Pyresouls, the Razor Pass was deceptive. He stood again and resummoned his [Mace] before continuing on his way.

The first half of the Razor Pass was uneventful, if incredibly stressful. At times the path narrowed to a ledge barely two feet wide.

It wasn’t until the Vacant Archer that things got truly dangerous.

It often seemed to Jacob that the Razor Pass was meant to lull people into a false sense of security and boredom.

The first few empty stretches of U-shaped paths were boring but Jacob knew the fourth was far deadlier. A few Vacant Archers were positioned on the opposite side. They were easy to spot if you were looking for them but after hours of traveling with no threats, most people let their concentration lapse.

Two arrows lodged in his shoulder on his first playthrough. And he was one of the luckier ones. Had they hit him center mass he would have likely bled out like many others had.

This time, Jacob was ready.

He lifted his shield as he crept around the corner. The archers were waiting for him. Before