City of Fallen Souls: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 3) by Jez Cajiao (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

those I loved, Oracle and a few others, until the end. I could enjoy days or weeks with them, as he destroyed the realm, taking turns to breathe the air, and feel the sun on our skin. He would accept that, give me that chance, and then when they and all around us were dead, he would use his magic to gain more power.

He would raid the secret places of darkness, destroying the Liches and creatures of the night, collecting their artifacts and items of power to himself. Once he had power enough, he would sit upon the throne of life, judging the souls of the dead.

He would choose who were to be given the chance at rebirth, and he would allow them to pass back through, creating bodies of magic for them.

He would watch over the realm and ensure that they were good. That they lived in harmony with one another, and he would rip free the soul of any that disobeyed.

It would be a world of glorious order and peace… and fear and tyranny.

The Eternal Emperor would have broken everything, becoming a far worse evil than the SporeMother, or Nimon, or any other being, all because he was doing good…

“No,” I repeated, and I saw his brow furrow further.

“You cannot stop me, child of my line,” he said, his voice ethereal, yet filled with resolve.

“Yes, I can,” I replied, staring into his dead eyes. “All I have to do is not let you through.”

“You cannot stop me. Even now, I grow in power, in awareness.”

“I know, but I also know that you’re a soul. You’re centuries dead, and you can’t come back through fully. without a willing vessel,” I said, not knowing how I knew it, I just did. “You can’t transfer to another being, as you’re tied to me. You’re bound to my soul and my body, somehow… but this fucking body’s full, pal,” I growled, tapping my chest with one finger. “It’s my body, and I’m fucking using it!”

“It is just a sleeve of flesh, a home for the soul. A vessel that would allow me to bring peace to the realm.”

“Yeah, fucking eternal peace,” I snapped, and he nodded slowly, his hair floating as though moved by the tide.

“Of course. Why would you wish otherwise? The peace and solitude of the grave is the best the living can hope for. I have seen them, the souls of the good and the wicked alike, sinking through the veil. The relief when they accept the end, sinking into the comforting darkness…”

“You didn’t,” I said, and he frowned.

“I cannot. I was prevented from my rest; my soul has never known peace.”

“So, you don’t actually know if it is peaceful, or if it’s just numbing? Or so terrifying that it shuts down its victims?” I asked, sensing a thread I could pull on.

“I feel their peace…”

“You feel their somnolence, their exhaustion, not their peace. Just because I’m tired, doesn’t mean I don’t want to live!” I snapped, and I remembered something else.

“You gave your life to the Empire you created, so that people could have peace, and love, and happiness…”

“And they suffered more for it!” he snarled, emotion bleeding through in his voice.

“Yes! They suffered in the end, because a fucking dickhead of a God dropped a moon on the Empire! Because some of your asshole children wanted to rule in your place! Not because the Empire was wrong, not because peace is impossible, but because greedy fucktards screwed it up. WE can bring it back. How many tens of thousands lived good, safe lives because of the Empire, while it lasted?”

“Tens of millions lived in the Empire at its height, with hundreds more in the lands of our allies…” he whispered sadly, and I jumped on that detail.

“Yes! Millions and millions lived in peace and prosperity. They were happy, and they were sad, but they lived, and they loved. Now you think it’s okay to wipe away the last remnants of that, without trying to salvage it? What would you have done, in those days, if a dead soul decided to wipe all life from the realm to ‘bring peace’?” I asked, and he glared at me.

“I would have burned that soul from existence…”

“Exactly. You wouldn’t have given in.” A thought occurred to me, and I spoke quickly, sensing the certainty of Amon wavering. “And what about Shustic? What about Tuthic’Amon? What about their children? You swore they would be safe, that you would make sure they lived…”

“That Oath fractured my soul!” he howled at me, waves of darkness suddenly emanating from him, and the peaceful ripples of the Veil became choppy storm waters.

“And now you want to break it further!” I roared back at him. “Tuthic still lives, his children live… and you want to kill them!”

“Never!” he screamed. Tendrils of black necrotic energy hit the surface of the Veil, spreading across it as they fought to pierce through. They coated the Veil, hiding him behind a blackness that made the heart of a dying star look peaceful.

“You want to kill them all!” I screamed back at him, and I felt his fury and his madness lashing out.

The room I was in, a cavern in my own mind, shook. The walls of darkness crumbled, and light started to shine in; not a pleasant light, but the light of destruction.

Crackling, spitting whips of fire dug through the walls of my mind, reaching for me, and I spun back to the Veil, watching the now-black surface roiling with riptides and shaking with pressure, as twin glowing eyes moved closer.

He stopped on his side of the Veil, less than an inch from the surface. Even there, he was barely visible, and I saw the conflict. I felt it in him.

Centuries of pain and horror had split his mind. He wanted to protect the innocent, but he wanted to kill them all to do it. He wanted them to be safe, to do all he could to protect them from anything