Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) by Jez Cajiao (free ebooks for android .TXT) 📕

I can either be this‒this man you see‒or I’ll be him… so you need to pick right goddamn now, because I can’t have this conversation again. Either you accept that I’ll do this, that I’ll always try to save you if I can, or you accept that I’ll use your Oaths… and I’ll make you stay at home. I’ll MAKE you be safe, if I can’t trust you to be by my side.” I turned aside and walked away into the darkness, to stand glaring at the collapsed passageway we’d escaped as I tried to slow my ragged breathing and keep the tears from flowing.

They have to accept it, I told myself, blinking the hot tears away. They have to understand. Either I protected them, protected them all, or I’d be taking a step on that path, the first step to becoming him…

“The worst thing…” I whispered aloud, knowing that Oracle was standing right behind me, knowing that the others had followed me and were standing silently as the tears finally flowed down my cheeks.

“The absolute worst thing isn’t that Amon could have taken me over back in that shithole of a city. It’s that I could see what he was going to do, and there was a part of me that was fine with it. As long as those I wanted to save would be okay, I’d have let it happen, because at last, at long last, I could have just sat back and goddamn relaxed. I could have chilled and enjoyed not being pestered every two minutes. I could have just done whatever I wanted. I could have gone fishing and drunk Mal’s beers, or whisky, or whatever…”

“Yer can still go fishin’… sometime?” Lydia said hesitantly, as though regretting she’d said anything at all earlier.

“I hate fishing,” I mumbled wryly, shaking my head. “I tried it once, and it was boring beyond belief. I… don’t want to be that person… I really don’t…” I broke off, turning around and seeing them all there, even Bane. “But I could be, don’t you see? There are days where I’d choose to go fishing, which I fucking hate, rather than help someone in need, because there’s always more of them. Every time I turn around, someone else needs something from me, and if I turn away, if I say, ‘not today, not right now,’ I’ll end up as him. A single small step is all it’ll take, because the next step will be easier, and then just one more after that. I remember it.” I met their eyes, silently pleading with them to understand. “I remember when Amon took those steps. He had to do it; he let his friends die to save others. Some of them saved thousands with their single deaths, and I know someday, I’ll have to let that happen with you, but I can’t just let it happen now, not when I could save you.”

“I didn’t mean it…” Lydia said, reaching out, taking me in her arms and clinging to me tightly, her armor clattering against my own. “I’m sorry, I... I…” she faltered, and I felt her tear-stained cheek pressed against my own.

“I know,” I said gently, holding her, the fear bubbling up in me that I’d just made a fool of myself in front of all these people who I cared for. I had visions of them starting to laugh and then turning from me, when Grizz moved forward and went to one knee, followed by Yen, Tang, and then the others. Lydia gently disengaged herself from me to take her place by Grizz’s side as Oracle silently stepped up and claimed my hand in her own.

“I’ve served in the Legion my whole life…” Grizz said slowly, staring up at me. “I panicked back there, and then let my anger and my fear get the better of me just now, because you are the reason we live, Jax. You say you can’t do this; you can’t let us die? Then let us live. Let us live by your side and raise the Empire up, back into the light. Every day, you give us a new reason to stand by you, and now?” His gaze bored into my own. “To hear that you have the same fears that drive us, that drive me? Knowing that you’re as terrified of failing or becoming that…. that wretch, as I am? We’ve all got that darkness inside of us; we just never speak of it, we never admit it, until one of us turns, and we all have to put them down, and then we see it in each other’s eyes. The fear that we’ll be the next one our brothers and sisters have to stop. Do you see that, Jax? We all feel it, but the Empire? That’s something golden and true that we can hold onto. It’s the death of our dreams and our hope that does it, Jax. Seeing the Empire rise again? Seeing the wonder and glory of the past resurrected? Seeing kids running free and being able to look at ourselves in the mirror and feel proud?! That’s what you’re bringing back to us, and there’s times I, and we all, need to remember that,” he said, bowing his head and speaking more formally.

“I, Centurion Grizz of the Dravith Cohortes Praetoria, acknowledge anew my Oath to Lord Jax of Dravith, Scion of the Empire. I shall be a shield for the weak, a blade for the guilty, and I’ll do my best… not to be a dick…” He finished, looking up at me and grinning, even as the others said their own vows. Each was slightly different, as they said what was in their hearts, but when Bane’s voice rumbled to a close at the end, I felt… better.

I felt healed, washed clean of all the stress and sorrow that had been building in me since I lost the first of my people back in the Tower, and that had risen to new levels