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

of metal were strapped in place next, as they built me from the ground up. My breastplate was one of the last bits to attach, once the cuirass had been cinched around my chest by leather straps. They topped off the entire outfit with an articulated shoulder and upper chest section that was lowered over my head before being locked down with clasps.

I felt like a steel armadillo at first; then I started to move as they asked, and they shifted clips and straps, loosening some and tightening others.

Soon we were warned by Lydia, shouting in from the hall that we had fifteen minutes, and then ten, and five. Finally, with a minute to spare, Augustus stepped forward, grinning, as I ran through the stretches they ordered. My armor now felt comfortable and right, instead of restrictive and rigid, the way it had at first.

It was designed to allow a full range of movement, far more than I’d expected, and I realized that the modern Legionnaire wasn’t the holdover of ancient times that I’d first thought. The Legion armorers couldn’t advance their skills, not the way a normal armorer would, by creating a thousand different styles and pieces, since they could only create armor for the Legion. However, in doing so for so long, they’d managed to upgrade it fantastically. A hinge here, a spring there, and I had a range of movement I couldn’t have imagined in such full-coverage gear. Add to that, the facts that lower sections were designed to redistribute part of the weight higher, and the way the entire thing hung on me, and it wasn’t heavy the way that armor I’d fought in while training on Earth was.

It was magnificent.

“Now, Lord Jax, now you look like a real Legionnaire!” Augustus said, clapping me on the shoulders and looking into my eyes. “Lastly, we came to you, because we know who you are. We obey you, because of that. We’ve brought you these,” He gestured, and another Legionnaire set six large mana potions down on the desk nearby, “because Oracle explained what you’d need in order to activate the Oath. We want to swear to you; we will serve you in death, as we do in life. Lord Jax, Scion of the Empire… will you have us?” he asked, meeting my eyes seriously, and I swallowed hard.

“Yes, Legionnaire,” I said, knowing somehow that he didn’t need a title beyond that right then. “I will take your Oath; I will take all your Oaths.” I stepped forward, moving to the table as he gestured to a Legionnaire by the door, who opened it and glared at Lydia as she tried to warn me that we were going to be late for the arena.

They didn’t care. He barked an order at the pair of Legionnaires in the hallway, and they crowded in, making my small room even more cramped than it was before.

All the Legionnaires knelt as one, right fist clenched to their chests, heads up, watching me, and I popped the top off each of the mana potions.

I found Oracle, feeling her presence, and she smiled at me from where she stood by the door. I smiled back at her and took a deep breath, knowing she was ready and able to help me.

“I am Jax, Lord of Dravith!” I declared, loudly and clearly. “I am Amon, the Eternal Emperor’s descendant, and I claim his Oaths as my own!”

With that simple phrase, my mana reserve flashed and dropped at an almost unbelievable rate. As Oracle wove the strands of an ancient form of magic for me, I grabbed the bottles, downing them one after the other.

My mana bar would jump, then drop, then jump, as I knocked each of them back. I saw a warning flash up, that I’d already pushed my mana regeneration past the maximum as I lifted the sixth bottle, and I paused. My rate of regeneration was at nearly three hundred points per second now, and still, it was being pulled out faster than it was replaced.

I downed the bottle for the immediate boost anyway, and gritted my teeth as my Health began to drain, along with my Stamina.

Ten seconds, it lasted, with my body feeling like it was being torn apart as magic streamed out of me. I could see the weaves reaching out as Oracle manipulated them, guiding them. They touched each of the Legionnaires, one by one, locking onto them and holding tight, as new awareness bloomed inside me. I felt them, each and every one, as individuals, as they took up a space in my soul that I’d never known was empty.

I clenched my jaw tighter and stood there, forcing myself to stay upright and feeling the power surging through me.

“How the hell did you do this with hundreds of thousands?!” I threw at Amon, not expecting an answer, and I started when he responded.

“I did it with tens of millions, but I had Oath-Keepers, and the Great Towers were linked to the Capitol. I never had to do it with mana of my own… Stand strong, Scion. Know that the Emperor believes in you.”

“Thank you… I sent, after a few frozen seconds, and then I felt the draw cut off. My mana suddenly jumped like crazy as the final seconds of enhanced regeneration were used to fill my reserves, rather than being pulled away in an instant. I drew in a deep, shuddering breath as Oracle hit me with a healing spell, and she glided through the kneeling Legionnaires to hand me a Stamina potion.

I downed it, letting out a relieved sigh as my Health, Mana and Stamina all reached full, and then I froze as she kissed my cheek and stepped aside, the voices around me rising into the still air.

“I am Augustus. The name of my Birth was Augustus Vertais Asen, and I chose Augustus as my common name. I am a Centurion Primus in the Dravith Cohortes Praetoria, and I serve the Empire. I acknowledge