Bloodline: A LitRPG Adventure (The Root of All Evil Book 1), page 56
The two remaining golems closed in on his position, and Dollar ducked through them as their attacks swung into the wall, crushing it, and causing half of the wood to collapse on top of them. With a deft movement Dollar flicked his hand toward Christoff and a new symbol appeared on his head, quickly swarmed by the tendrils of shadows still there.
[Activate], Dollar thought.
The shadows disappeared as flames gushed from Christoff’s head, destroying the darkness symbol, and enveloping his hair. The fire symbol Dollar had transferred was destroyed instantly, but the damage was done.
Or so he thought.
Christoff’s expression warped into one of terror and rage as his vision returned, and he felt the flames engulfing his scalp, but then the look shifted to one of relief as the flames died down, revealing a perfectly fine set of hair.
“You’re protected,” Dollar said.
Christoff chuckled as he saw the look on Dollar’s face. “Did you think I wouldn’t be?”
He works with explosions. Dollar frowned. But he was still scared when he thought the detonation was going to happen. Which means his protection has to be limited.
Unfortunately, Dollar didn’t have time to figure out those limitations.
“Goodbye,” he said.
With a nimble jump he threaded through the doorway, hearing his cousin shout as he did so. His movements had brought him back to the entrance of the shop, and with a few more hasty strides he was out in the open streets of Zendria.
Rain pelted at his face the moment he ran outside, the clouds low and dark as they hung in the sky. The storm he had seen coming was in full force now, screeching at him and tossing lightning across the heavens. His visibility was instantly cut in half and as he looked back at the shop, he realized that was why nobody had reported the fire yet. They couldn’t see it or hear the battle through the storm.
“GET BACK HERE, ENGTH.”
The shop’s roof shattered into fragments as something gargantuan erupted through it. Dollar saw four arms heaving under the deluge of rain, and a giant red crystal gazing down at him with contempt and malice. In its hand were four swords. Each was ten times his height.
Achimedes had better get out of there in time, Dollar thought.
A single punch crushed the entrance of the shop as the giant golem stepped outside. Underneath its feet Christoff stormed out of the shop, his eyes dripping with rage as the two smaller golems protected him from the falling rubble.
Dollar knew he couldn’t escape this time, but there were shouts in the distance now. Everyone had heard the destruction of the shop even through the storm.
Christoff’s ears perked up as he heard the shouts.
“You’re the guy that sent those other two, aren’t you?” Dollar asked. “The ones I kicked out of here.”
Christoff froze, his attention stolen from the shouts as Dollar knew it would be. The mention of the debt collectors injected a new flair of anger into Christoff, gnawing at his mind and rationality, and shifting his concentration onto Dollar.
As Christoff’s eyes fell onto him, disbelief flickered through them. In front of him was a child. An infant, by his standards. He held a dagger and a notebook, but neither looked like much of a threat. Yet there was an assurance to his gait, a subtle faith in his own power even in the face of certain death, that caused the Tiberius heir to hesitate.
“Who are you?” Christoff asked.
“I’m just an old man in a boy’s body.” Dollar smiled, a wry grin that entertained wit and wisdom beyond his youthful visage. “Reincarnated into this world and making the best of his time here.”
“Your jests will get you nowhere,” Christoff said.
“It could be a joke. Or a lie. Either way it doesn’t matter. Half the Citysworn in Zendria will be here soon, and not even you can get away with this kind of destruction.”
“My household owns this city.” Christoff dismissed his words instantly. “None will question my actions.”
“It’s a gamble, but I like my odds. What do you say?”
Three monoliths of destruction stood frozen in the rain at their master’s indecision. The golems couldn’t move because for all his boasting Christoff himself wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue the fight.
Christoff paused, his eyes narrowing as he took in Dollar’s neutral expression. “Kill him.”
Dollar ran, his hurried footfalls drowned out by the storm. Behind him the stone streets screamed as the giant golem strode forward, its weight causing the stones to crack and fold. Dollar raised his notebook, activating [Transcriber of Reality], and a painted haste symbol appeared on his chest.
As he activated the haste symbol, he heard a crash beside him and the world around him exploded. His body was sent flying. He slammed against a nearby wall, the bricks crumbling around him from the force of the impact. His vision blurred as he tried to grasp what had happened.
The sight of the massive golem greeted him.
It had leapt across the street and crushed the tiles he had been standing on only moments before. The haste symbol had activated just in time to save him, but the attack had blown apart his protection symbol’s armor, pain wracking his body. His body was spent, and his muscles exhausted, each refusing to listen to him as they crashed to the ground.
Four massive swords bore down on him, slicing through rain and brick with ease, as the golem attacked. Each came from a different angle, and the golem had blocked every exit.
The attack was impossible to escape.
So, it’s come to this. Dollar sighed.
He pulled out a heavy object from the storage ring, a mass of metal that radiated with power and magic. Dollar raised the object into the air as the golem’s swords reached him, and he injected his will into it like his father had taught him. The mechanism of the device was vast and complicated, but he only needed a single function to work, and quickly found it.
“[Cease].”
The Crest glowed deep black as Dollar’s command swept out. From its depths an ancient power stirred, roaring across the street, and striking the massive golem, continuing through it and into the two other golems by Christoff’s side. It was invisible to the naked eye, but the effect was immediate.
The golem stopped.
Four swords hung over Dollar, frozen in mid-air as steam flooded its innards, escaping through its chest and neck as its insides were fried. There was a single groan as a mass of metal fell with a mighty crash, destroying the street with its collapse. Beside Christoff, the two minor golems crumbled to the ground, each of them destroyed so thoroughly that they could never be repaired.
“Impossible,” a voice called out.
Christoff stepped forward through the rain. His gaze was transfixed on the object in Dollar’s hands, his anger quickly wiped out by his surprise.
“The Crest of House Tiberius.”
Levia spun through the tides and across the waves of the Grai Ocean, her eyes never leaving Zendria. Twice now she had felt the call of her bloodline. Once when she had watched The Anchor that led into the giant sky ship, she had felt it tug. A deep thrum of blood and lineage that sang of ancient pacts and powers. The second time was stranger, and deeper, as though a window into times long past had graced the world. It had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, and it was too late to investigate. She couldn’t. Not while Zendria flew high.
Her grandson had reached the port city, but he had yet to answer the call. She would have to wait until he reached the ocean to meet him. Or at least she would have, but now she heard whispers on the lips of the air spirits and whispers among the symbols gathered within the port.
Danger, they said.
They warned her so that she would respond. They warned her so she would leave sooner. They warned her because they respected her and her kin. Their reasons did not matter. All that mattered was that they could see what she could not and understand what she could not.
Dollar Tiberius was in danger.
The ocean churned and roiled as she made her move, skipping across the surface and lifting her head above the water. Storm clouds gathered overhead, and rain bucketed down across the belt of beach that Zendria loomed over. The city itself was downcast and near invisible, a thick mist and torrential rain covering its buildings and mighty towers.
“This way,” Levia’s wordless cry rang out across the ocean depths. “Guide him this way.”
The spirits answered her call, and the elements heeded her words, yet she knew it would not be enough. She did not command the same resources here as she did in her hometown. That was why she had begged her daughter to send him to her instead of the port. Now, none of that mattered.
The storm stuttered in her presence, the lightning shifting and twisting. The clouds darkened, the downpour surging to a crescendo to herald her arrival.
Her call had been given and answered.
She was coming.
60
FAILURE IS INEVITABLE. IT’S HOW WE ADAPT TO IT THAT DEFINES US
Back on Earth when Dollar had swum out of poverty and into the big leagues, he had taken to the world of riches and corporate boardrooms like a fish to water. In his first few years working with his grandmother, he met with all types of people, from the humblest of beggars to the nastiest of businessmen. Most were guided by their emotions, and yet each decision they made was unique to them and their personalities. In fact, each of them had only one thing in common.
All of them failed at some point in their lives.
Yet, somehow, Dollar had convinced himself it wouldn’t happen to him. Then, as though fate had heard him laughing, his first disappointment came, and as with everything he did, it exceeded expectations. Jobs were lost, and lives changed for the worse. His team never forgave him, and he never regained the trust of the few that weren’t fired. It was a failure by every measure of the word.
Dollar hadn’t cried. He never did. But he felt unpleasant. Rotten, even. More importantly, he didn’t know what to do. He faced a dozen choices with no idea if any of them would help the situation. However, he didn’t falter. When he was young, he had shouldered the burden of a terrible life alone. He had grown up since then, but he hadn’t forgotten the difficulties of the past. Once the end of the hellish week came, he pulled himself out of his malaise of emotions and focused on the one thing that could help him.
He went to his grandmother for guidance.
Muriel sat in the same chair she always occupied, looking out of her favorite window, one among dozens in her summer mansion. It overlooked a grassy hill that plunged into a cliff and the wider ocean where whales were often sighted. Despite the losses he had caused, she was nonplussed, sipping tea as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
“You have lost a battle, not the war,” she said. “The people that truly fail are the ones that hit an obstacle and give up. Winners don’t just succeed. They adapt to overcome failure. Make a decision, then move on.”
Seeing his doubt, Muriel’s gaze swept out across the pristine ocean. All that she saw, she owned.
“Tell me, what do you do when you fall off a horse?” Muriel asked.
“We get right back up,” Dollar said. “And we eat that horse.”
A small smile crossed her features.
“Exactly.”
Dollar stared at the broken golem in front of him, old memories glistening through his mind like lanterns in the dark. Storm clouds blackened the sky around him, and the downpour had started to turn into a torrent of water, washing away everything in its path.
He placed a single hand on the golem’s armored exterior, willing its body into his storage ring, but all that appeared within it were a few drops of rainwater. The golem was either too heavy for the ring to store, or it had anti-theft measures that still worked.
How would you eat this horse, Grandma? Dollar wondered.
“I said, ‘who are you’?” Christoff’s voice rang out across the street, forcing his attention to it.
Christoff had been talking the entire time. The three golems were destroyed. Shattered. Their symbol arrays had collapsed from the inside out, and they would never be workable again. It was a catastrophic loss, even for House Tiberius, but Christoff was too stunned by the Crest to notice.
His cousin’s eyes never left the Crest of Tiberius in Dollar’s hands. Dollar had seen the slight widening of shock as his cousin recognized the object. He saw the cogs in his cousin’s mind turning, ever so slowly, as an impossible possibility started to settle in.
Dollar recalled the lessons his grandmother had made him learn. All the people she had forced him to meet. Everyone had things in common. All he had to do was find their weak spot.
“Failure makes fools of us all,” Dollar said.
“What?” Christoff asked.
“I said Jasper Tiberius would love this,” Dollar’s words cut through his cousin like a knife through butter. “He is your brother, is he not?”
Christoff’s mouth shut tight the moment Dollar mentioned his brother.
“I know you, Christoff Tiberius. I’m well versed in this continent’s rising stars, and your reputation precedes you,” Dollar said. “As does your brother’s. It’s unfortunate that he has to lower himself to your level so that you two can stand on equal footing.”
Christoff smiled, a jagged, stoney grin, lowering his hand, anger coursing through him. Dollar’s words cut him deep because they were true. The slightest inkling of fame and repute had sent him off on a mission to kill Achimedes so that he could stand tall and proud inside House Tiberius, but even if he had succeeded, it was Jasper’s presence that truly pushed him down.
His entire life was a failure, when viewed in the context of his brother’s existence.
“The Crest was your last resort. Otherwise, you would have used it earlier, which means you are out of options.” Christoff’s voice was low, but it cut through the rain. “I don’t know how you have it, or why, but tell me, why shouldn’t I kill you where you stand?”
“Because I have what you want,” Dollar said. “A way to surpass your brother. One that your golems cannot touch.”
“I can take the Crest from you myself.” Christoff’s smile widened. “I’ve already sent word to the soldiers of my household. They’ll arrive in seconds, and this game of cat and mouse you’re playing will end.”
Dollar clasped the Crest tight in his hands, pretending to examine its intricate carvings as he spoke. He wasn’t fooled by his cousin’s threats. Achimedes was presumed dead by the hands of a stranger, with several golems destroyed for the effort, and Dollar could see the growing desperation in his cousin’s eyes, and in his actions. This was a negotiation for survival, and Dollar had been in the backseat for too long.
It was his turn to take the initiative.
“Jasper is so young, and already a silver-ranked symbologist. Tell me, is he the favorite to inherit House Tiberius, or is that your sister?” Dollar asked.
A single twitch of Christoff’s eye told Dollar that he had hit a sore spot. His cousin’s hand grasped at his robes tightly, and a familiar clinking of bottles sounded out.
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now. Like you said, your soldiers will take the Crest from me,” Dollar traced his finger over the Crest as he spoke. “Then, as it always would be, the credit will be shared between you and Jasper. After all, this is a joint journey, and the soldiers adore him. When word gets out that your brother has come home with the Crest and proof of his genius, the decision of succession will already be made.
“Regardless of your contributions, the masses will accredit him too. I know they will. All hail Jasper Tiberius, genius symbologist, they’ll say. All hail Jasper Tiberius, restorer of the Crest of Tiberius, they’ll sing. All hail Jasper Tiberius, Patriarch of the Tiberius household, they’ll praise.”
Dollar sat back, letting the rain pour over the Crest as he playfully juggled it in his hands. His eyes observed every movement as he waited for Christoff to make the next move. Of course, he knew what it would be.
There was anger toward his brother in Christoff’s heart, and jealousy that lingered in his gaze. Jasper was superior to him in every way.
The Crest was his chance to claim the inheritance he was losing.
“Then again, if you were to bring the Crest back to House Tiberius personally, and only reveal its existence after the fact… well, the credit would be yours and yours alone.”
A smile crossed Dollar’s lips, his eyes never falling off his prey. He watched Christoff carefully, seeing shock replaced by confusion, and then understanding.
He had taken the bait.
“Only the main bloodline can use the Crest, and only one person has the Crest.”
His cousin stared at him, the cogs of his mind turning. He hesitated, then stepped back and stood down. All that remained of his surprise was cold, calculating greed.
“Ength, you call yourself. It can’t be your real name. No, I know you. I know who you are,” Christoff said. “I thought you looked familiar. Exactly like father when he was younger. A forgotten brother? No. The child of Marcus Tiberius. The one father killed. Or rather, didn’t.”
A cold smile curled Dollar’s lips and, with a tap, the Crest disappeared back into his storage ring.
He pushed himself off the wall that the golem had flung him into, letting the rain pour across his face as he stared up at the night sky. His chest tightened as he looked up at the storm, but he ignored the feeling.
“So, you did know,” he said.
The sky exploded with light as the words left his lips. Lightning arced across the clouds, dangerously close to the ruptured remains of the giant golem, but it was what the element revealed that interested Dollar. Five shadows were outlined against the light of the lightning strike, each one gazing down at the destroyed street with emotionless eyes.
The soldiers of House Tiberius had arrived.
“You’ll find, dear Christoff, that the rumors of my death were not greatly exaggerated,” Dollar said. “I just have trouble staying dead.”
