Battleforged: Book 1 - THE BILLION CREDIT HEIST - An Earth Apocalypse LitRPG Adventure

Doom Fist has critically struck your foe! You have drained Mana, Vitality, Quickness and Strength from Bronze Tier Merc known as Narl (Rank 10 Bronze Merc: St – 250 / Vit – 250 / Qui 300 / Fin 250 / Per 250)

Your opponent has lost his balance!

You are dodging Deadly Barrage!

Eric howled with exhilaration nearly the equal of his once more growing pain as he weaved and dodged under overlapping waves of Bronze tier blaster fire that still hit him one time in four. Yet the damage that he didn’t dodge or scatter off of his pristine mithril scales was nothing compared to the hyperion radiation still devouring him from within.

Deadly Barrage Blaster Fire damage significantly reduced by Partial Deflection and Elemental Resistance! (Modified Elemental Resistance – thanks to Hyperion Blazer title! - is now 76!)

You have suffered one Light Wound!

But Eric was already weaving behind the stumbling Tim as his fist, tingling with so much potency, sought Dominion and control over his opponent, desperate not just to give him a chilly punch but to DEVOUR the heat within him.

The fires of energy, of passion, of movement. Of life itself. Eric’s body throbbed no longer with fire but rather with a desperate aching NEED to consume everything before him as agony turned to ecstasy, and he desired nothing more than added heat, his foe’s heat, to set alight the transcendent fires within his soul.

“No, no, please, quarter, quarter! I can pay, you!” The doomed man desperately sobbed over his crackling interface. “I can pay!!”

The words went unheeded as a roaring Eric pounded the rear of his foe’s armor, the metal ringing like a gong before supernatural alloys and exotic Bronze-tier components froze and cracked, right before the entire suit shattered off the now shivering, pale faced Classer who would have been such a terror to Eric even a month or two back. Yet now, as he cried out with the agony of cracked flesh and frostbite, it was he who gazed Eric’s way with terror and despair.

Seeing the naked fear in the man’s eyes, understanding so viscerally the cycle of pain, bitterness, and retribution, Eric felt himself on the verge of a profound epiphany.

And when his foe’s gentle blue eyes absolutely exploded in chunks of flash-frozen gore, Eric howled with the dark sweet revelations echoing through his soul.

You have successfully slaughtered your opponent!

Experience earned! (So much experience. Yet so much has already been spent for the 140-fold healing rate that Potency-Surge boosted Unified Restoration is giving you that NO level has been earned!

Unified Restoration is now Rank 15

Unified Restoration is now Rank 16

Unified Restoration is now Rank 17! (So many levels earned, because in case you’re too lost in higher order epiphanies to realize it, Hyperion Blazer, YOU REALLY SHOULD BE DEAD! - Maybe there’s a bit more vampiric fae in you than you thought?)

Your foe is not a Contender.

You have used Higher Order concepts against a foe who has none.

This kill has NOT refined your prowess as a cultivator.

You have embraced the essence of Cold in a profound attack and have glimpsed the underpinnings of higher order concepts!

You had a breakthrough!

You have unlocked a Transcendent Attack!

Doom Fist taps into the true fundamental nature of COLD. You understand that cold as experienced by mortals is just the end result and the barest flicker of potency held by multiple higher order concepts! Specifically, the concept of Consumption (Which you have a natural affinity for, as a dark fae Walking the Path of Oblivion!), Dominion, and Ultimate Destruction, in addition to Freezing, Ice and Snow.

Doom Fist embraces both Consumption and Dominion as you TAKE the heat, vitality, speed and reserves of your opponent and leaving nothing but bitter cold in your wake!

Note! This transcendent attack has no damage multiplier beyond that of your underlying blows! (Though freezing and rupturing armor and protective wards effectively makes this extremely deadly!) Rather all multipliers determine how much resources and vitality you can claim, what penalty an opponent must save against to avoid being frozen or stunned, and how deep a higher-tier ward you can penetrate with your attack!

Boon. - Doom Fist requires only 10 Qi & 2 Soul Reserves to unleash! This strike may temporarily absorb your opponents health, spiritual energy, and mana pool with every successful blow.

Eric spared only an instant for the crumpled ball of brittle cold flesh and a shattered skull.

“Tim!” Screamed the girl named Marcie, gazing Eric’s way with horrified dismay.

Before she was sent flying back in a broken heap when Eric charged forth, taking full advantage of his Speed Racer and Battletime perks to pound the everliving fuck out of her rapidly sparking and shattering armor.

Congratulations! Your comprehension of a hire order discipline blossoms in the crucible of peril! Doom Fist is now Rank 2!

You have been blessed with the insights of the Winter Queen!

Doom Fist is now Rank 3!

“Marcie! No!! You’ll pay for that, you little freak!”

The desperate furious words of a ruthless mercenary about to lose the one woman he loved meant nothing to Eric. All he heard were the rustling of countless branches in a howling gale of bitter winds and glorious, frigid inspiration as the night lit up with streaks of plasma fire that could have torn through Sherman tanks like a blowtorch through butter.

Like flickering beams of moonlight, it was nothing for the boy communing with an element of his soul, himself, denied for far too long until now, when he embraced Winter’s majesty at last. Laughing with the euphoria of relief as hideous soul-fire became the soothing caress of Winter’s Doom, Eric effortlessly darted past crackling branches of frozen trees before slamming his fists into pliant trunks that cracked and bled before growing firm and rigid as winter demanded.

Yet he frowned as the howling winds whipped past him, realizing that this too wasn’t right.

In winds this cold, the trunks shouldn’t be stiff and pliant. They should be absolutely frigid.

So brittle with cold as Eric Stole every last shred of heat, vigor, and vitality, that when he struck with all his hate and fury they EXPLODED! In a storm of woodchips, shattered steel, brain, bone, and gore. Shattering like ice before the fury of his fists and winter’s implacable frigid cold.

Congratulations! Your comprehension of a hire order discipline blossoms in the crucible of peril! Doom Fist is now Rank 4!

You have been blessed with the insights of the Winter Queen.

Doom Fist is now Rank 5!

***

“Glin! Fuck! He killed Glin!”

“Narl! Get Marcie and go!” Red cried, trembling hands covered in top tier alloys that would do him no good at all against the monster suddenly smiling in his face. Then Red made a motion he had prided himself on never needing to do in the last thirty years of employment under the most ruthless and doting employer it had ever been his pleasure to work under.

Until this last assignment.

And even if the cold eyes that seemed to suck the heat right out of him left Red bitterly certain that this was the end, at least the signal was sent.

Red found the strength for a final, bitter smile as he began to glow, embracing a class feet the stupid idiot behind him was foolish enough to let him unleash. “Congratulations, motherfucker. You made me pull out the big—”

His opponent was fast. So fucking fast that it made his 400 Quickness which he had taken such pride in elevating seem like a joke. Yet now, enhanced by an Elite-tier feat that boosted it and all his other stats by a full third, even if he was now burning his candle at both ends, he was finally going to get the drop on this FUCKER! And why the hell had he delayed so long?

Because he had frozen up, forced on his back foot and reacting to his foe’s unorthodox fighting style instead of grabbing the initiative! Well that was changing right NOW! Red determined with furious vindication as he twisted around, his blaster GLOWING with the double-shot burst it was about to spray in this asshole’s face, and Red’s lips couldn’t help curling into a twisted grin. Because the idiot was stupid enough to REACH for it and receive a nice healthy dose of fatal current ripping through his body and of course Red’s employer was going to be pissed as fuck to be called after Red had just lost two of his best men and had already taken care of the... what the fuck?”

Your foe is attempting to grapple!

Your foe has grabbed the barrel of your blaster!

Retributive shock FAILS to stun opponent!

Opponent is attempting to rip blaster from your grip!

Your power boosted 300 Strength has been elevated to 400!

Your foe is smiling down at you!

“Burst of Strength,” the boy whispered, his words sending awful shivers through Red’s soul.

Right before abruptly tearing free half the blaster from Red’s hands, unleashing a white hot backlash of plasma as the weapon was torn apart by their combined strength.

Yet somehow it was Red, not the boy, who was lurching back and screaming from plasma burns that had managed to sear his flesh from the cracks and gaps of his armor that wasn’t at 100%, despite his Second Wind ability.

Yet it wasn’t simply that the kid was smiling down at him, glowing like a fucking live nuke as the plasma just ran off him like water that sent Red scrabbling back in panic, his moral broken.

It was the split second he had gotten a glimpse of the kid’s stats.

Even if it had just been for a few moments, the kid’s Strength had been well above 800.

“NO! You shouldn’t be here. You’re no human Contender! You're an Incursion lord! You must be!” Red shouted, scrabbling back and jabbing his finger toward Eric’s smiling form. “You’re breaking the accords! This territory is to be under Lord Domini’s domain! No one was allowed through the gates who didn’t sign the...”

His words were cut off by a flash of pain and hideous mind-numbing cold. As if he had just been plunged buck naked into howling winter winds and forced to shiver in the snow for hours back when he was a mortal child so like those kids his associates had so ruthlessly cut down, he found himself thinking, much to his own dismay. His normally impenetrable walls of ice-cold focus and dismissal had been momentarily weekend, mind and body now utterly sapped of his strength, leaving him a shivering wreck as he sailed through the air, in a stat of stunned disbelief that the little shit had actually managed to crack his power armor and half his ribs.

Red braced himself for an agonized landing, beyond surprised and relieved to find himself gently caught in the arms of his commander.

The strikingly beautiful battle lord gave the exhausted, shivering underling a gentle smile. “It’s alright, Red. This complication was beyond the scope of your assignment. Go look after Marcie and Narl. The healers are with them now.”

Red shivered with both gratitude and fear, seeing the gentle love of a strong father that his master projected to all his favored troops. Yet Red knew damn well what his master thought of failure. And somehow, Lord Domini knew exactly what he was thinking. “It’s alright, Red. It seems that Greed’s dossier on the Winter Queen’s scion was lacking on all sorts of pertinent details.”

The powerfully built lord of war, dressed in full lorica segmentata radiating the resiliency of an ancient artifact that hindered his liquid grace not at all, smiled coolly at a positively grinning Aurelia Silver.

“Isn’t that right, Your Grace?”

The Winter Queen’s smile made Red shiver, her mouth stretching far too wide. Impossibly wide. Wider than the most vicious shark that could rip both his legs off with an effortless twist, power armor and all. A hideously wide smile that somehow didn’t stretch the features of her exquisitely proportioned face, showing that even spacetime bent to the Winter Queen’s will.

“I’m afraid your Red’s been a naughty boy. His men cutting down children shockingly close to my boy’s age, you see. Children my dear little Eric might have gamed with online, once upon a time.”

She fondly petted the monstrous youth glowing with eldritch flame or hyperion radiation, Red was no longer sure... only that he had suffered multiple radiation burns just from being near the mad little hellion who should absolutely be dead, yet somehow wasn’t.

Lord Domini nodded solemnly, like he actually gave a fuck, Red saw with a certain amount of awe. “A fair point, Queen of Winter. And I see your boy managed to take out two of my prized Bronze tier underlings, just twenty ranks below my own level. A bloody sacrifice on the alter of a handful of basics doomed never to ascend much past level fifty, if that, versus two Bronze tier Classers who could have soared ever so high. A more than fair trade, wouldn’t you agree?”

Aurelia’s cold laughter had Red shivering helplessly, frozen where he stood, her monstrous boy’s blow to his chest throbbing with renewed vigor. “Oh I’m sure you know how I would feel about such a trade, Domini. But it’s not my own practicality that’s in question here. Rather it’s my darling boy’s idealism.”

She winked and lowered her voice, as if sharing a grand secret. “We’re on the verge of a glorious breakthrough, he and I. And seeing as you and your toys have dared my little kingdom on the endless night of Winter Solstice, well, my dear Domini, I guess that means you get to join in the celebration!”

Red’s battered guts twisted with a sharp spike of dread when he saw his master’s bemused smile harden just for a moment into the ruthless disdain that had seen entire cities of unapologetic dissidents consigned to the torch. His master always gave his subjects a single chance to surrender, for terms that were always more than fair. Yet for those who made their assignments just the least bit difficult...

Yet much to Red’s awe, Domini’s features flickered from icy fury to cool acceptance. “Very well, Aurelia. What are you terms?”

Aurelia gazed fondly at the crackling monster beside her. “Should you dare to take on my darling using any method at your disposal, your victory means you may depart with your life.”

Her smile grew as Domini’s patient expression expression hardened.

“But... should you be willing to take on and best my lastborn son using no more equipment than he, then your victory won’t simply assure your continued existence as anything other than one of my beloved ice sculptures... you shall also WIN THE HAND OF MY LASTBORN DAUGHTER!”

A handful of nearby trees abruptly burst open with a crack like cannonfire, their sap instantly freezing with the frigid pronouncement of the Winter Queen as the air became a howling maelstrom of ice and snow.

Much to Red’s dark amusement, even the boy looked shocked by the pronouncement, momentarily shaken out of his transcendent stage.

“Mother...”

The palm smacking against the boy’s cheek sent him flying into a nearby spruce with more power than any blow Red or his band had managed to deliver to the kid. Red couldn’t help chuckling at the sight. Just how fucking outclassed was his crew on this mission?

“Focus on your ascension, fool! Lest the hyperion flames devour you from within!” Aurelia snapped. Her son’s furious snarl as he sprang up from the remains of the shattered tree turned to a disciplined nod as his eyes locked on an extremely pleased-looking Domini.

“Elonia Silver. Twelve pristinely placed nodes. A complete royal configuration in a fragile girl easily enticed and conquered. The territory will thus be grandfathered to my clan by birthright. Best I warn you now, Aurelia. I am a gentle lover, but she will be mastered by my rapture and heavy with child before the seasons turn once more.”

Aurelia nodded. “As it should be. Rapture and Dominion. My daughter’s weakness, and perhaps her redemption, should she be mastered by the right man. So do it, Domini! Best my wild little hellion and prove worthy of filling my precious daughter with your virile seed! I would see my daughter’s nursery filled with clever little monsters that will fill her heart with joy by the next Winter Solstice.”

Domini gave a cool nod. “Good. Then I will gladly accept these terms.”

Aurelia gave him a graceful hostess’s smile once more. “There. That’s all settled then. BEGIN!”