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

“Why are you laughing! This is not funny!”

“It kind of is,” Jacob countered. He would have lifted his visor and wiped the tears that were squeezed out from all the laughing if he had a free hand. “I don’t even know who you are dude.”

There was a faint snort of laughter from one of the lion-headed man’s subordinates. When he whirled around in a whining rage, the offender was silent.

“Don’t try to act aloof with me, I know you Jacob.”

“Why do you keep using my name like that?” Jacob asked, honestly curious. “The game tells you who killed you. Even though I didn’t do it myself, I’m not terribly surprised the game informed you. What, did you think I would get spooked that you knew my name?”

He shook his head with a chuckle. “Listen man, you do you. You wanna fight, bring it. You want to be a coward and use your friends? Whatever. I got places to be, things to do.”

The white armor on the man rattled as he shook with uncontrollable rage. Apparently, he never had anybody speak back to him. The worst this little stain could do to Jacob was kill him.

He had been through worse. Ten years of it. Nothing this guy had up his sleeve could ever compare to those horrors.

A silvery halberd appeared in the man’s hand. He gripped it so hard, Jacob was surprised he didn’t crack the wood. “How pathetically frail is your ego that you get this bent out of shape over some guy killing you? In a game designed for PVP at that!” Jacob said.

“Nobody disrespects me!” The man’s voice jumped several octaves. “My name is Mack McKinnon. Yeah, that McKinnon.”

Jacob manufactured a shrug. He made no move to ready himself for the impending fight aside from putting the toe of his boot against the backside of his blade.

“I still don’t know who you are,” Jacob tilted his head to the side. “Oh. You think you’re famous or something don’t you? Poor guy. Must suck not doing anything notable enough on your own. So, let me guess… you rely on mommy and daddy’s name to open doors you can’t? Damn dude, I feel bad for you.”

“Kick this bastard’s ass!” Mack ordered, raising and leveling the point of his halberd at Jacob threateningly. “But don’t kill him.” Jacob didn’t need to look over his shoulder to see that Mack had clearly looked to the Cleric hiding in the nearby alley.

That would be his first target.

For a moment, everything held. The street had become so quiet that Jacob could hear the creak of the first bowstring tighten.

That’s my cue.

As much as Jacob wanted to lunge at the leader, he needed to take out that Cleric. Just because he could withstand the torture didn’t mean he wanted to. It would also mean more time lost.

If he could kill the Cleric - and any others he found - he could probably force Mack to kill him. He seemed easily manipulated and had the most fragile ego Jacob had ever seen.

There was no way Jacob was coming out of this alive, he knew that well enough. With so many players arrayed against him, it was a pure numbers game at that point.

But he could put a little fear into the rest of them. Make it memorable.

Grabbing his [Longsword], Jacob twisted on the balls of his feet with his shield raising at the same time as two arrows flew for his back. They pinged harmlessly off the shield and with it raised, he rushed the pair of archers.

Their surprise was complete when he bowled into them, knocking them to the hard cobbles with a grunt of pain from each. Another arrow clacked against the cobblestones on his right, narrowly missing him.

By the time anybody realized his goal was the Cleric and not to flee, it was too late.

The mousey looking red-head opened his mouth and raised his hands ineffectively. He didn’t even try to cast. Locking up wasn’t an uncommon reaction, especially if the person was used to staying in the back.

Wind Parts the Grass drew sparks from the cobbles and cut a bloody vertical line up the man’s chest. Jacob rolled around behind him as he let out a shrill scream of pain.

His robes were surprisingly reinforced. That blow should have nearly killed somebody as physically frail as most casters were. Then again, damage from one player to another was weird. It seemed drastically reduced compared to what could be done against a monster.

Reversing direction mid-roll, Jacob came up behind the wailing man and hamstrung him with Reaping the Harvest. Again, his blade didn’t bite quite as hard as he would expect it to but it was enough to do the job.

Convinced the man - if he ever stopped that infernal crying - wouldn’t flee, Jacob stood and cast Heat Blade. A shimmer of light and heat warped the air around the blade as it ignited with long curling tongues of flame.

Hummingbird’s Kiss took the man in the heart from behind, more to quiet his wailing than any desire to kill him quickly. The effect of Heat Blade more than doubled his damage against another player.

Instead of the drastically reduced 40ish damage he was doing before, Hummingbird’s Kiss did 87 points of damage.

You defeat [Allen].

Awarded 2,500 Souls.

Damn, Allen. You were hanging onto a lot of Souls there.

With a mental command, he disabled further death notifications. Now wasn’t the time.

With their healer out of the way, and several melee fighters closing in, Jacob darted to the side and hopped up the crates set against the nearby building in the alley. A quick leap and he was up on the loose tiled rooftop with two archers turning at his loud approach.

With his shield raised, they had a hard time landing a hit. One arrow grazed his thigh but hardly did any damage. He closed the distance easily. Falling Rain took out the first archer’s throat