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

and hooks, suckers and mouths. This creature had been tearing the life from me, slowly draining me of everything I was. I roared in triumph at Amon, who floated helplessly on the other side of the Veil, and I saw the confusion on his face, then the recognition and the horror that filled him.

“No… not the Valspar…” he whispered, and a flash of memory, one that he had shared with me during the battle against the SporeMother, came to mind with his words.

I didn’t remember it clearly, but whatever had killed Shustic’Amon had been the Valspar, I thought? I shook my head. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that I had won.

I scowled at it with my single functioning eye, at the pseudopods that wrapped themselves around my armored forearm, frantically reaching further, trying to connect with my flesh, to re-enter me…

I growled and pulled on my mana, somehow using it inside my mind, and I conjured a flame. A flame that would evaporate steel and cause the oceans to boil.

Dragonfire flared to life. Without a spell or any clue as to how, beyond deepest instinct, I drew in a deep breath and roared out flames, feeling my mouth blackening and charring, my teeth exploding in the heat. I watched my arm wither and crumble, even as it held the remains of the creature aloft.

As the last fragments of the Valspar turned to soot, blowing away from me, I collapsed. My body was ruined, my soul charred black by the power I’d unleashed. My mind had been flayed, and I saw him reach out, a single hand pushing through the Veil to touch me. I would have screamed in agony, if I’d had anything left to scream with.

“You were right,” was all he said, but the power that flowed down into me brought terrible pain, even as it began to reconstruct my soul.

I felt the building blocks of myself snapping back into place as fragments were yanked back into existence. I felt… bits… of myself pulled back into my soul, I felt my body being reconstructed, and I felt a white-hot flame pouring into me from outside.

“You are stronger than you know, Jax… use that strength… I will not seek to supplant you again, worthy Scion,” Amon said, and I stared warily at him as his hand slowly retreated through the Veil.

“One year, I will serve you; a single year from today. Then, once again, we will meet, we will face each other, and we will decide the future. If you have succeeded in your attempts at bringing peace and life, then perhaps I will be able, at last, to sleep. To rest. If not, we will again test each other, but this time, without the Valspar twisting our minds and souls.”

Fresh pain tore through me as my mind was suddenly slammed back into my body. I screamed in agony as my mind tore apart the cave we’d been in. I felt the Veil as I returned to the realm of the living. It swirled around me, a shadow’s depth away, and I felt Amon sinking deeper. The confused welter of memories and madness that I’d had with me all of my life, the voice of utter insanity, I now knew was only a part of Amon. It was a phantasm, a fragment of a fragment. The being I’d met there, in that space between worlds, was the true Amon, his soul. What I’d had, and what I’d been using to survive this long, was a shadow of the real man. In using it, I’d almost allowed the Eternal Emperor, driven mad by grief and hatred, to live again. Had he gained control, he would have destroyed reality as I knew it.

I bit down on my scream, forcing the pain down, suddenly able to manage it. In comparison to what I’d just endured, it was truly a weak thing.

I found myself lying in a small room. The weak sunlight shone in through dirty windows, and I was surrounded. Oracle was there, sobbing as she held onto me. Full size, she knelt by the table I was laid across, her arms wrapped around my neck as she wept into my hair.

Lydia and Yen held my left arm and leg, Bane and Tang my right. a middle-aged woman I didn’t recognize glared at me, as I glared back. My armor had been torn free, and I had been eviscerated, my insides on display for all the world to see. I saw others: Gaion, the woman and her baby, the little girl, and dozens more.

They crowded the room, staring at me in a mix of horror, awe, and elation. The stared at me as though unsure if I was going to murder them all, or save them. More were crowded outside, guarding the door. Three Djinn were present, each of them holding a glowing ball of energy that poured light directly into the spell being woven by the woman who was glaring at me.

“Hold him still!” she snapped, and my friends redoubled their efforts, clamping down as a fresh wave of pain tore through me. I could move, but spasmodically. The world looked wrong as I attempted to shift my gaze around. The damage I’d done to my brain was growing worse as the bleeding tore open more sections. I felt the world spinning, and I tasted… colors…

“Put that in his mouth before he bites his own tongue off!” the strange woman snapped, and Oracle jammed a wooden block between my teeth. She frantically wiped my face, her hand coming away bloody as tears flowed down her cheeks, and she looked into my eyes.

“It’ll be okay. You just have to hold on…” she whispered, forcing a smile. “You’ll do that, right? For me?”

I couldn’t move. She shifted, grabbing a leather strap I’d missed before. As she drew it across my forehead, snapping it into place to stop any movement, she maintained her smile for me.

“I need more mana!” the woman