Blessed Time: The Complete Series: (A LitRPG Adventure Box Set), page 113
“Phase B!” Micah screamed, running away from the ritual circle and snagging his spear en route to the hall or iridescent shadows.
Drekt was on his feet, struggling after him with help from Trevor. If Leeka was smart, she was under cover, or on a different floor entirely.
The temperature in the hallway dropped noticeably as wings of green flame sprang from Eryk’s back. The right wing scythed sideways, striking the crackling blue barrier of the circle with the sound of a mallet striking a bell.
Micah’s heart stuttered when his Arcana skill felt the force of that attack, which burned through almost half of the sacrifices powering the ritual circle—a year off of everyone’s respective life—in one blow. Blue streamers of energy lashed out, burning lines in Eryk’s white robes and searing flesh underneath as a portion of his attack was reflected back on him, but the enraged man hardly seemed to notice.
His second attack shattered the circle entirely, briefly illuminating the entire hallway with a flash of brilliant blue. Then his wings unfurled, jagged lengths of flickering emerald light that highlighted his ripped flesh and torn clothing as they stretched almost three paces in each direction.
“I will have your skull for a chamber pot!” Eryk screamed, rage and something deeper, more malevolent, distorting his voice.
The Pontiff sprinted toward them. The first window ignited, catching Soliborne by surprise. Before he could process the fact that the tower’s defenses were being turned against him, the crouching and bestial shape leapt toward him, landing on the young man’s back between his wings.
Eryk screamed when its green claws dug deep into his flesh. His defenses activated, creating a cocoon of flames that wrapped themselves around him. He was brought to his knees by the light monster’s weight.
The purple light outside the stained-glass window doubled in intensity. Somehow, the shadowy monster plaguing their opponent became more solid, more real. It opened its jaws in a wordless scream of triumph before biting down into Eryk’s shoulder with a mouth full of needle-like fangs.
Flames obscured the injured man as the creature feasted voraciously on his back and neck. None of them could see his face, but everyone present heard his wordless scream.
Then Eryk’s wings exploded outwards, flinging the silhouette from him and into a nearby wall with enough force to shatter stone. Any ordinary creature would be dead or crippled by the injury, but more power just pulsed from deep underneath their feet, healing it instantly and reinvigorating the monster.
The fire surrounding Soliborne disappeared. He staggered sideways, slapping his left hand onto the ragged flesh of his neck and shoulder. Almost immediately, it was soaked in gore up to the wrist. Blood flowed freely from the gaping wounds.
He looked up at Micah before his eyes flickered to the four stained-glass windows between them. For the first time, there was a tremble in his step and fear rather than fire in the depths of his gaze.
The bestial silhouette pounced on him again, somehow passing through a green wing that Eryk brought up to ward it off. It landed on his left side, beating him to the ground as claws and fangs ignored his defensive flames and tore great ribbons from the screaming man’s flesh.
The fire surrounding Eryk exploded, sending the iridescent shadow flying with a blast of concussive force. The Pontiff staggered to his feet.
With a clatter, the disintegration arrow fell free from his chest, leaving a cavity the size of three or four fists filled with nothing but dust. Eryk didn’t even turn to look back at them, instead staggering toward the limit of the lit rectangle as he broke into a stumbling half-run toward the stairs.
Micah looked at Drekt and Trevor, nodding once before he broke into a run after Soliborne. Blood and ash streaked the formerly pristine marble as the Pontiff pulled himself toward the exit. The shadow flipped itself to its feet, breaking into a four-legged gallop that tore long lines of marble from the tower’s floor as it sought to catch up with the fleeing man.
Skidding to a stop next to the biggest puddle of Eryk’s gore, Micah set himself and grabbed his spear with two hands before shouting, “Time leash.”
A gleaming silhouette of a man in the fetal position appeared at Micah’s feet before sprouting a whip of dull silver energy that crackled outward. It wrapped itself around Eryk’s neck and jerked him back into the lit rectangle before depositing him, prone, just in front of Micah.
With a grunt, Micah stabbed downward. His air-blade split Soliborne’s burning armor, opening the way for the spearhead itself to punch deep into the man’s chest and into the marble below. He invested the mana to activate vacuum, doubting that the enchantment would be necessary, but unwilling to spare any effort where the Pontiff was concerned.
Then Micah jumped backward, leaving Eryk to claw helplessly at the spear pinning him to the floor. Blood bubbled up out of the young man’s mouth like water from an overfilling spring.
He made eye contact with Micah, his gaze dim and unfocused. “It’s not possible,” he whispered. “I beat you. I remember it, but—”
Vacuum activated, removing Eryk’s upper lungs and his ability to speak.
Then the iridescent shadow pounced, ripping the defenseless body asunder as it shredded unprotected flesh and feasted on the dying man. Micah pulled his spear from the corpse a second before it burst into a pyre of green flames, but the shadow didn’t even seem to notice him. Instead, it focused all of its attention on turning one of the most powerful men in the world into little more than a discoloration marring the marble floor.
Micah walked back to where Micah and Drekt stood, some forty paces away. Trevor held the silver crown in one hand and the scepter in his other, spear tucked in the crook of his arm. Drekt just stared at the silently snarling shadow as it devoured what remained of Soliborne’s corpse, ignoring the massive green fire that burned around his dismembered body.
Drekt shook his head as Micah approached, dragging his gaze from the grisly sight to watch his arrival. The big warrior smiled weakly.
“Your plan worked, Micah,” the big warrior remarked blandly. “I’m not sure whether Ankros would be annoyed at its cowardice, or applaud the tenacity and planning that made our victory possible.”
“Cowardice?” Micah asked with a snort. “I wouldn’t call my sprint through the hallway cowardice, and even if my spell erased the first battle from existence, that doesn’t mean that I don’t remember it. The deluded asshole broke all of my ribs and punctured a lung, and he wasn’t trying his hardest. If we fought him at full power, he would have wiped the floor with us.”
“Well, it’s a shame Eryk turned out to be the bad guy,” Trevor said with an easy shrug. “Anyway, your prizes await, brave champion. I proudly present to thee a little silver circle of unfathomable power and a metal stick of cosmic disaster.”
Trevor handed Micah the crown and the scepter. After everything they’d gone through, it felt almost anticlimactic. There was no flash of light and peal of bells. No prophecy or portent that signaled the momentous occasion. Simply the handover of a pair of slightly shiny magical tools.
Even having tasted the artifacts' immense strength, they felt too light in Micah’s hands. As if they were a pauper’s reward after the immense struggle to make it to the tower and defeat the Pontiff. It was almost like they cheapened Garrat’s death and the titanic battle against Soliborne by just glittering dully, inert.
“Come on, Micah,’ Drekt said, waking him from his brief reverie with a gentle slap on the back. “It’s time to head down to the library and retrieve the girls. You left them to sort through the books for anything you might find worth copying a couple of hours ago, and I’m sure they’re going crazy waiting to hear back from us.”
“One thing first,” Micah replied. “There are some more of Dakkora’s artifacts in the vault. Nothing as powerful as the crown and the scepter, but we should be able to find a use for everything stored there. We should clean it out before we head down to the fifth floor and—”
Micah cut himself off, frowning. “Wait. Trevor, you said that ‘it was a shame that Eryk turned out to be the bad guy.’ Did you actually know him before today?”
“Of course,” Trevor responded. “I played dice with Soliborne and a couple of the other sailors pretty much every night on the Leel. Nice guy, even if he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. I was surprised to see him on the Amelia, but he was acting really weird there. Every time I brought up starting a dice game, he would glare at me. I just figured the captain had a thing about gambling and didn’t push the issue.”
“Of course,” Micah chuckled, lapsing into full-on laughter as he tried to choke out his words. “Of course you knew him from gambling, Trevor. I don’t know why I would have expected anything else.”
EPILOGUE
Baron Hurden’s body opened its eyes. It sloshed slightly in the brass bathtub, pulling itself up from the red liquid that it had been soaking in until its chest was free.
“Disappointing,” the Third Prince muttered, struggling to use the baron’s vocal cords in a manner that wouldn’t do them irreparable harm.
It reached over to a small table, red dripping freely onto the luxurious carpet surrounding the bathtub, and picked up a small bell. It rang it twice before letting its body sink back into the bath, drooping lower until only its neck and head were above the surface.
Barely ten seconds later, the door opened and a tall, skinny, middle-aged man in a suit ran into the room. He began bowing urgently, stuttering as he fawned over the Third Prince’s body.
“M-Milord. W-What is it that you require of me?”
“Fetch the skimmer and a fresh pig,” the Third Prince replied. “My bath is beginning to coagulate. While you’re down there, make sure to send up the representative from the Royal Knights. I have news that will interest him.”
“But M-Milord,” the servant said hesitantly, “no one has come up the stairs to your chamber. H-How could you have news for the—”
“Skimmer. Pig. Knight.” It didn’t bother to open the baron’s eyes. “Unless you want to be the one manually refilling my bath, I would be quick about it too.”
The man scrambled away, hurriedly closing the door behind him. The Third Prince listened to his steps rapidly descending the stairs outside of his bedchamber. It didn’t bother to remember the servants’ names. Inevitably, they all failed him, and when that moment came, their names hardly served a purpose anymore.
The Prince let its borrowed body slosh slightly in the tub, reveling in the feel of the magically infused liquid as it bonded with its skin and flesh, strengthening and rejuvenating its ailing mortal shell.
A short rap on the door, followed by a creak of un-oiled hinges, announced the Royal Knight’s presence. Through lidded eyes, the Third Prince tracked the new arrival’s presence by the light of their gleaming soul as they walked over to the side of the tub.
“Matthias said you had news for me?” asked a woman with a pleasant voice. The Prince knew that the original inhabitant of its body had held lustful thoughts toward her, but the mere idea revolted it.
Mortal reproduction in general was an aberration. All of that sweat, grunting, and meat slapping against meat. It was simply wrong. Yet another addition to the Prince’s list of reasons why Karell needed to be plunged back into Elsewhere and erased along with the disgusting creatures that called the foul place home.
He opened his eyes and looked up at the woman. She appeared to be young, but the Third Prince knew that was an illusion created by using the same treated baths he was utilizing to reverse his host’s catastrophic aging process.
“My servant has failed,” he said without any emotion or expression. “Silver will be returning before too long. We need to speed things along. Your people will need to gather more sacrifices and hurry the construction of the castle.”
“Unfortunately,” she replied, “that will be difficult. We have every prisoner in the region working on construction, and we have already emptied the orphanages to procure the sacrifices you have used to enchant the fortress to date. If we move any faster, the royal family will surely notice.”
“Leave the royal family to me,” the Third Prince responded dismissively, closing its body’s eyes once again. “Disposing of them once we got the fortress flying was always part of the plan. I will simply have to move sooner than expected.”
“Very good, Baron,” the woman answered. “This partnership has been very fruitful for my faction within the Knights. You’ve been true to your word every step of the way. If you are sure that this Silver character poses a threat to our plans, I can put together—”
“Don’t bother,” the Third Prince cut in. “I have plans for him, and by this point anyone under level 80 would be nothing more than free experience for him. He will hide and skulk, trying to put together a force capable of defeating me, but once I move, I will be able to force his hand. He has been too open with his dealings, and anyone that knows where to look can find his family and his guild. When the time comes, he will be the one to attack me.”
“Level 80?” She sputtered. “I thought this was a young man, under 40. If he’s able to fight a blessed at level 80, he must be some kind of kingdom-toppling prodigy. How can you be so sure that you will win if you decide to fight him?”
“Because I have before,” the Third Prince replied evenly. “And I will do so again and again, as many times as necessary. Now leave me—the servants should be arriving soon with a fresh pig, and you know how much I enjoy the experience of watching them refill my bath.”
A dress swished as the woman bowed, and a moment later soft footsteps padded out of the Third Prince’s bedchamber.
Then there was silence. Merciful silence, devoid of any mortals and their meaningless struggles and petty concerns.
The story continues in Book 4, Shattered Hourglass.
SHATTERED HOURGLASS
BLESSED TIME BOOK FOUR
ONE
UNHERALDED
Micah’s brow furrowed slightly as he tapped the blade of his knife against his chin. He stood in the center of a large room, three concentric circles of runes drawn on the metal floor. The outer layers were already carved in, the steel filings carefully swept away before he filled the etchings with quartz powder, but as complex and alien glyphs grew closer to him, they were replaced by chalk markings.
He tucked his knife under an arm and summoned the ageless folio. Above him, footsteps pattered back and forth as Eris and Esther played some sort of game. Micah didn’t know if they were sparring, training, or just goofing off, but their constant movement had been a distraction for hours. Periodically, Drekt would calm the girls down, usually by giving them another task, but that almost made the sudden bursts of noise even more distracting. As soon as Micah got used to the clatter of weapons, everything would change.
To his left, Telivern snorted, obviously dissatisfied with the noise and distraction from up above. Ravi had long ago left the two of them alone after Micah had to shove the inquisitive panther away for the third or fourth time. Now, the second floor of the tower was largely silent outside of the sound of their companions filtering down from above.
For a minute, Micah debated heading up the staircase to talk to Trevor or Drekt about keeping the girls under control, but it barely took any time for him to dismiss that urge. They might be able to calm them for an hour or so, but chastising the teenagers wouldn't change the fundamentals of their situation. Their team was buried deep underground in the laboratory of one of history's greatest villains. He had spent a day or two after seizing the scepter and the crown securing the area, but that wasn't enough for Micah to feel truly safe letting them roam free.
Outside the tower, the oppressive darkness was only broken by the flashes of light from the citadel's defense system. Even after years of training with rituals, Micah could only understand about half of the runes that protected the ancient building. He made sure to scan as many of them as possible, committing them to the ageless folio for later inspection, but that still left a corona of light that pulsed from the defensive wall, occasionally flashing brightly with little notice. Despite days of research, Micah wasn't any closer to finding a pattern or reason behind the strobes. As best he could tell, they only existed to frustrate and mock him.
Another peal of laughter and patter of feet above him set Micah's teeth on edge. Instead of closing the folio and heading upstairs, he closed his eyes tightly, willing his jaw to unclench as he blew out a frustrated lungful of air. The girls had been cooped up in the belly of the mountain for so long, it was only to be expected. Hells, that was half the reason he was so wound up.
Days had stretched into weeks without sun touching his skin. There wasn't even the sound of the breeze rustling through branches to provide some sense of normalcy. Instead, the eight of them were trapped in the absolute silence of a tomb. Worse, the alien art and danger of their surroundings kept any of them from truly relaxing.
Everything from the frescos in the hallways to the architecture of the tower itself screamed warnings at them. Of course, it didn't help that he had some idea what the traps and enchantments could do. The daemons and monsters carved into the wall seemed to follow his movements with hungry eyes the entire time Micah tried to study the tower.
He was going stir crazy. There was no doubt about it. Of course, outside of Telivern and Drekt, he was the best equipped to handle the situation of anyone in their party.
As much as he wanted to yell at the girls, to punch a wall or scream at the invisible sun and moon, Micah knew better than to vent his frustrations. It would only unsettle those that were relying on him, and it wouldn't accomplish anything.
What he could control was the ritual in front of him. In principle, it wasn't anything special or strange, just a teleportation formation. The trick came from making one strong enough to send their entire party across the soot-clogged ocean to where he'd planted a beacon in the base of the guild house.
