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

expanded but was badly damaged. When the thrashing and shaking finally died down, Jacob expected to get a surge of Souls from the death of one or more of the creatures.

When nothing happened he moved cautiously toward the broken doorway. A dark shape snaked out, gleaming red eyes opened along its dark vine-filled shape. Followed closely by a zipper of jagged teeth.

His heart stuttered in his chest and Jacob froze in fear as recognition slammed home.

He was still standing there, trying to process what he was seeing when another coiling tendril of black vines shot out from the room and impaled him through the stomach.

The tendril snaked through the air as if gravity was a mere suggestion. Desperate to cling to life, Jacob popped his last [Cinder Ampoule]. The force of his regenerating flesh pushed him off the impaling limb and onto the floor.

By then the tendril had carried him partway across the room. Instead of the knight as Jacob expected to see, it was the Skeletal Beast. Only the beast was being consumed. Black vines whipped across the bones giving it a feral, lupine shape.

Red glowing eyes popped open all along its body and its maw lengthened into a wolfish equivalence. The last thing Jacob saw before it opened its zippered maw to bite him in half was the spitting image of the Burgon Beast.

You Died.

21

September 2nd, 2035 – 11 days remain before the Collapse.

Jacob thrashed awake at the Pyre, kicking and flailing with fear. The Fire Oppa regarded him idly. Eventually, as Jacob calmed and his thudding heart stilled, he looked to the Pyre, that symbol of hope that would soon be guttered.

What have I done?

“I set it free.”

“Set what free?” the Fire Oppa asked, tilting his head in confusion.

“The Burgon Beast… I- how did I set it free so much sooner? I thought I had to open up the door to its chamber?”

Taking a deep breath, Jacob exhaled through his nose to calm himself further. Something wasn’t quite right. The Burgon Beast was held in place behind the massive gates at Journey’s End.

There was nothing about it coming out from the Desecrated Catacombs.

The Fire Oppa shut his eyes and flickered for a moment. The Pyre flared then died down. “You did not release the Burgon Beast,” he said in all confidence.

“But it looked-”

“Appearances can be deceiving. What you released was the Gnawing Hunger. The Gnawing Hunger takes the shape of the thing you fear most and uses it against you.” The Fire Oppa looked down and sighed. “Knights of greater power than you could know have been fooled by it. Do not be so hard on yourself.”

Once he calmed down and sorted through everything rationally, he guessed it had to be true. At least partially. When Alec was killed by the Burgon Beast he was ejected from the game.

The working theory was that the Burgon Beast destroyed Pyres, forcibly logging out players across all shards of Lormar associated with that Pyre. And the first thing it did was seek out the nearest Pyre.

Alec had fought it right in front of the Journey’s End Pyre. As soon as he was killed, the Burgon Beast destroyed the Pyre fast enough that Alec didn’t have a chance to respawn.

To the best of his knowledge, it systematically destroyed one Pyre after the other, intentionally destroying those closest to the latest sections of the game and working its way to the first areas.

Only once the Burgon Beast reached the first Pyre in the Razor Pass did it break free of the game. By then, nobody was alive to see what happened and all first-hand accounts ended there.

The Burgon Beast was the most powerful monster in the entire game. Its ability to wipe out Pyres aside – and the horrible fate that might await the Fire Oppa as a result – made it far too early in the game’s life to be awakened now.

If he did, nobody stood a chance.

Alec had been in the low 40s when he faced it and with gear that far outstripped Jacob’s. Not to mention it was about two weeks into the game’s competition. By Jacob’s reckoning he had been in Pyresouls for just over 3 days, give or take a few hours.

Looking around, Jacob couldn’t help but wonder if the Fire Oppa was wrong. Even as he doubted, the fiery ferret walked out of the Pyre and curled up in Jacob’s lap. The soothing presence of the Pyre burned away his fears, his worries, and his anxiety, leaving nothing but a still sense of peace.

Without them clouding his thoughts, Jacob could see the truth of the matter clearly. The creature had appeared exactly as Jacob imagined the Burgon Beast. He dreamed of it often enough, though probably not as much as Alec had.

Out of every person Jacob knew, it was Alec who could most benefit from the soothing effects of the Pyre.

It was a shame he wasn’t here.

“Thanks,” he said, absently petting the Fire Oppa. “Did… Camilla ever come back?”

“No.”

What small fragment of hope that he might run into the curious woman again vanished. He doubted Kim made it out of the Desecrated Catacombs alive either, which meant she would be sent back to her own shard.

“So I’m alone again,” he said more to himself than to the Fire Oppa.

And then he remembered all the items he managed to get right before he died. Despite what the Fire Oppa said, he didn’t see much treasure on the way down into the catacombs.

Then again, he was focused on getting the hell out of there. Not looting the place. Even still, he expected there to be more than he found. Considering the many dead ends he turned away from, maybe that’s where the treasures were.

Sprinkled bits of sapphire wisps hidden just out of sight that would have given an item to him but at the cost of his progress. A single dead-end would have allowed the hordes of skeletons to catch up to him.

And that would have