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

Greed froze to dreadful stillness at the sight of the withered, desiccated figure covered in pockmarks, pustules, boils and desiccated flesh with literally hundreds of tubes connecting his flesh to a massive machine that glowed with the darkest of all goblinoid arts, a glass panel revealing the massive jar inside and the decapitated heads within, bulging eyes gyrating wildly, mouths open in silent screams. Dozens of heads kept in a state of eternal tormented awareness transcending any earthly concept of pain, that agony alone all that was keeping his great grandfather among the living.

It was only in that moment, when Greed felt an awful twist of something that might have been... actual pity for the souls radiating such suffering that even he could feel it, when his ancient ancestor opened yellowed eyes and stretched his mouth wide in a rotten grin.

“Ah Greed. You have returned to grace me with your presence once more. How... kind of you.”

Greed paled, before bowing his head, filled with a sudden fear that was far beyond existential dread, every nerve in his body screaming for him to flee NOW. Before it was too late.

He swallowed, throat suddenly parched and dry.

“Lord Malice...”

The old withered corpse lifted one dessicated finger with a smile. “I told you what to call me long ago, boy.”

Greed flushed, before bowing his head. “It will be as you say, grandfather.” He took a shuddering breath. “Grandfather. Asp, Viper, and Mantis fleets have all been...

The ancient elder tipped his head. “Successful? Eager for rewards and commendations already?”

Greed clenched his fists, almost certain that his great grandfather was mocking him in a way both subtle and humiliating, nonetheless shook his head.

“No, Grandfather. They... they have been destroyed.”

The room went deathly silent. Even the screams stopped, somehow, and Greed’s eyes widened to find that even the tormented souls only screamed at Malice’s pleasure.

“Explain.”

Greed wheezed, for the first time in a long time regretting his pleasure in vice, his regeneration already pushed to the limit with the suppurating wounds that would not heal, now fighting just to breathe under his great grandfather’s killing glare. “All our expeditions in the realms of vice, enslavement, recruitment and corruption were successful, just as your fate-strands predicted. I swear it!” Greed desperately cried. “It was something beyond our ability to predict or account for, something that no amount of corruption could mitigate!” His final words were a gurgling cry, surprised to find himself collapsed upon rusted grates biting cruelly into the open soars on his rear. And he didn’t utter a single whimper of protest as he felt the terrible crushing weight on his throat abruptly ease. He knew better.

“And what, pray tell, is this something?”

“Aurelia Silver!” A breathless Greed wheezed, horrified to hear the words from his own ravaged lips. “She’s using her get’s core as fuel for her own ascension!”

Malice turned to glare down at Greed, eyes searing holes into Greed’s very soul.

It was all he could do to choke back his agonized cry before Malice abruptly began roaring with laughter that shook their entire massive base of black steel and bitter tears... laughter that was far to great to emanate from his withered form.

“So that silly little bitch has finally done it,” Malice said with an eerily indulgent smile as he gazed fondly off into the damp gloom of the corridor, glimpsing revelations Greed couldn’t even guess at. “She’s finally found a catalyst for her shriveled Dao, crippled so long ago,” Malice sighed fondly. “Her despair is the sweetest gift she has ever given me.”

Greed felt an odd jolt of alarm at those words, yet he knew better than to utter a single question that didn’t pertain to their immediate dilemma. “Grandfather, what will we do?”

Malice pulled himself free of what almost seemed halcyon memories etching such an odd gentle cast to his features. Then his face grew as hard and cold as granite, staring down at his descendant. “I assume you followed basic protocol and had all remaining fleets retreat to Fade Prime?”

Greed swallowed, fearing a trap that might cost him his head, but... no. His great grandfather had millennia to evolve icy discipline even beyond Greed’s own. The hour was too dire to risk destroying his own pieces now, unlike Greed’s own hasty... reaction with the intelligence officer who had revealed more than Greed was willing to see. And now he had a key pawn he needed to replace on top of everything else.

He swallowed the desperate lump in his throat, forcing himself to nod, more relieved than he cared to admit that his admission didn’t cost him his head. For Malice’s one unquestionable act of mercy that showed the unmistakable favoritism he had for his offspring more than any lesser goblin was that they need only fear quick death whenever they disappointed him, not eternal torment, lesser souls forged to the very blackened steel that served as the beating heart of their utterly indestructible base on Fade Prime’s largest moon, effectively a twin planet with a population even greater than on Prime below.

“Yes, Grandfather. Standard protocol was followed.”

Malice glared at Greed for long moments. Greed closed his eyes and prepared for the inevitable. Yet all Malice did was give Greed an oddly approving smile. “Excellent.” He began to laugh, the air filling with melodious golden notes so at odds for the desiccated monster gazing so very fondly at his descendant. “Do you not see, grandson? This is the best of all possible scenarios.”

Greed swallowed, afraid even to speak his mind, yet his great grandfather’s suddenly steely gaze forced a response.

“Forgive me, grandfather, but how can this possibly...”

“It means that it’s not too late!” Malice snarled, eyes glittering with wrath, bitterness and hope. “If that bitch has actually ascended to such a deep Silver that she can take out an entire fleet of Tier III equivalent imperial dreadnoughts... nay, a trio of such armadas... all of them thousands of light years from one another, then that means there’s hope for us. The both of us! Whether or not that doomed bitch ever hits Gold, which we both know is an absolute impossibility, is beside the point! She’s achieved a Silver Ascension so fierce and deep that her continued existence, her indefinite continued existence is all but assured!” Malice’s eyes lit up with sudden gleeful avarice. “And by the contract and codicil that silly little bitch signed so long ago, whatever she is capable of IS MINE AS WELL!“

Greed’s eyes grew wide with wonder. “Grandfather... how? Such a contract, such a powerful binding as to let you ride on the ascending coattails of another... how?”

Malice smirked down at his descendant. “A tale for another day, Greedy little child.” And for the first time that Greed could remember, the shriveled old man gazed down at his descendant with pitying distaste. “Really, Greed. You couldn’t do more to boost your Charisma and Appearance than you have?”

Greed gave Malice the strangest look. “Grandfather, it was you who said to never bother with positive...” Greed immediately froze, realizing how perilously close he had come to both contradicting his ancient elder and calling to question his eternally perfect advice. “I mean... yes, Grandfather. I shall look into a class evolution that allows for positive stat accrual in those two traits with my next Ascension point.”

Malice glared down at Greed before giving an approving nod. “Do so. You’ve mastered the darker arts as well as I could have hoped, without going completely mad or becoming an utterly self-serving lemure. Now it’s well time you’ve walked a path that I alone embraced to the fullest in our family line. A path I deem you alone, of all my descendants, worthy of walking in my footsteps.”

Greed swallowed. He wanted to listen and learn whatever his grandfather was willing to teach him during the rare moments the ancient was in anything approaching a garrulous mood. Yet the tension and terror of minutes ago, the entire base in a panic, wasn’t something he could easily let go of.

“Grandfather. Forgive me. But Aurelia... glorious as your bound fates assuring your own ascension might be... our retreat allows her to go onto the offensive. What happens if she starts striking our worlds directly?

Malice glared at his trembling descendant for long moments before roaring with laughter.

“Fool! Do you not understand how tightly I’ve wound the cords of obfuscation and twisted fate around our worlds, child? The multifaceted malignancies and blinding contingencies soul-sealed into EVERY SINGLE title and deed I’ve sealed by oath, talisman, and paper? That foolish bitch won’t be able to enter our territory any more than any other would be conqueror, explorer, or merchant, who doesn’t first sign their souls to our tender ministrations.” Malice flashed a smile worthy of his namesake. “Indeed, my delightful grandson, what merchant has ever come out ahead when daring to enter goblin space?”

Greed flashed a hopeful smile. “Not a one, Grandfather. For in the end we bind them and their entire families to oaths and codicils they can never escape, their very souls ours to cast into black steel the moment we find fault with a single trade... and then their mercantile empires are OURS for the claiming!”

Malice gave an indulgent nod. “Exactly. Any merchant who refuses to sign we obliterate and seize their wares before our spies and provocateurs blacken their clan names so badly that none will listen to a single complaint levied against us... before we collar and capture every last fool who would dare even think of such! For it is we who capture all mercantile markets, not our foes! And should Aurelia actually be stupid enough to spend her entire half-step ascension clamoring for our forbidden fruit, she will be far too spent to raise a single finger against our much recovered armadas which will stand ready to wipe out every Blue Corp holding the moment we track down and seize the remaining Silver phoenix my old friends swore to sell to me at extremely fair rates, I might add.”

Here Greed paled, earning a cold glare from his elder. “Speak.”

He nervously licked his lips. “Grandfather... Caliban is not who we thought.”

This earned a killing glare. “Explain!”

“Allen Ort might be of noble blood, but Caliban, it turns out, is one of the High Court’s hidden princes!”

Malice flashed a cold smile. “A prince under our control, yes? And we know for a fact he has both wife and children. It is good that you discovered this, Greed. Now we need but apply the leverage and force Caliban’s confession before our mind-slave’s brain expires which should be a good two hundred hours hence, and all of Blue Corp will be secretly bound to chains of blackened soul steel!”

Malice roared with laughter before the entire base began blaring with a hideous alarm.

Malice’s eyes widened with disbelief. “Impossible!” Only then registering Greed’s panicked words.

“He escaped with the help of that elf’s bastard spawn! Eric Silver, Aurelia’s twisted monstrosity of a boy, has successfully lit his Core! He hasn’t even hit twenty summers and he dares to embrace higher order concepts, walking by his mother’s side!”

Malice sneered. “So, she has doomed him for her half-step ascension. It will still do nothing to save her worlds, once our fleets regroup and she’s forced to either flee or fade to a Deep Silver who’s furnace has frozen. Fitting for that icy bitch, but she’ll never be able to threaten our armada again!” He turned to glare at the alarm.

“Your foolish captains triggered low orbit sensors, failing to follow protocols, Greed! You’ll need new captains. These fools are going straight into the soul forge once—” His words cut off, eyes wide with disbelief when the monitors he glared at abruptly turned on, lighting up the formerly thick gloom that the ancient Silver clearly preferred, revealing sights that were perhaps the last thing Malice had ever expected to see.

There were no ships to be seen blinking in from hyper-warp. No armadas of mile-wide dreadnoughts ready to destroy countless worlds in their master’s name. There was nothing at all to be seen save a single glittering object hurtling through the lunar heavens toward the massive soul-steel complex below.

Malice’s eyes widened with dismay even as Greed immediately barked orders, communication instantly opened to the command center in the top section of the base. “Magnify all sensors on that object! Lock all auto-cannons and fire at will!”

“It will be done, Lord Bane,” crackled an impersonal voice as magnification and clarity zoomed in a hundred fold, revealing what almost looked like a golden locket, of all things, before it was lit up with disintegrating blaster fire that, for some reason, did nothing at all.

Greed furrowed his brow, so focused he only peripherally registered his ancestor’s panicked hiss beside him. “Scanners report! What’s the nature of the threat!”

“Unknown, sir.”

“Is that a Valorium artifact?” Greed knew it was a stupid question. The containment fields needed to stabilize a starship core outside of a starship was nearly the size of the very vessel it normally fueled, the shapes of star ships originally made so as to serve as the most stable and safe containment vessels for those very cores. It was only on newly ascended worlds that Deep Bronze specialists could stabilize and contain those cores sufficient to plant into new star ships. Otherwise one would need the extremely expensive services of Silver-tier specialists that Bloodtear Syndicate had failed to contractually bind, despite multiple efforts and the expiration of multiple ‘acquisition parties.’ The real reason why Greed had authorized linking their star ship facility to Earth, to steal as much potency from that newly ascending planet as they could before stripping it of all resources and claiming every last native for their soul forges in the decades to come. It not only allowed for Bronze tier experts to safely implant cores into Greed’s ships, but had made it far easier for his own race’s unorthodox ship core forging techniques to be hidden in the wild fluctuations of Earth’s less than stable ascension, also due, at least in part, to Greed’s machinations.

“No, Lord Bane. As far as we can tell... the lockets made of an unknown alloy that appears to be impervious to blaster fire.”

Greed frowned as the scanners zoomed in on the hurtling object, which at that very moment sprang open, revealing a pair of twin portraits.

One, he was surprised to find that he recognized. The Duke and Dutchess of Nalbain, Rulers of Gaian. Yet the attire they wore was the farthest thing from royal finery, both of them dressed in form fitting armor of overlapping scales made of mithril, their heads bare of helm or crown, glossy locks blowing in unseen winds. Yet Greed’s surprise that he could make out those features with such exquisite clarity was nothing compared to the shock of the exquisitely detailed painting depicted on the other half of the locket.

A girl with the gentle blue eyes and innocent smile of a younger Elonia Silver, of all people, looking just as naive and vulnerable as that silly chit did when his pawns had first seduced and enticed the girl with darkest vice. And the man by her side, dark eyes glittering with wild humor, an open grin showing perfect ivory white teeth, was the face of a hidden prince or a destined hero. Striking. Beyond handsome. A face that was almost human, save for a slight gray cast to his exquisite features.

It was a face that sent chills racing down Greed’s spine.

Instantly understanding who he was glimpsing.

Both the man, and the woman beside him.

Greed’s heart hammered with a frantic staccato beat, mouth so dry he couldn’t swallow, no matter how hard he tried.

As much as he tried to resist, inexorably his gaze gravitated toward the withered creature of shriveled flesh, warped hate, and twisted glee that was the farthest thing from human hero or Sylvan royalty.

And the look his ancient elder gave him was that of a monster who would have instantly seen him dead, in any other place and time.

“So. You understand, then.” Malice sighed, shaking his head. “At any other place or time, I would torture you to within an inch of your life, until you confessed the names of all those pawns who had revealed ancient secrets best forgotten. You understand that, right, grandson?”

A speechless Greed could only nod.

“Grandfather...”

But Malice’s eyes were suddenly wide with what Greed was horrified to realize was fear. “Silence, fool. The locket! Look at the locket!”

Greed’s gaze quickly darted back to the monitor, and how exactly it had zoomed so perfectly upon the locket that had just cratered into the chasm between the nearby forest and the massive fortress that would forever stand as the ultimate symbol of goblin might... a perimeter that had been effortlessly pierced, despite their triple defensive layers, by a single locket.

That even now pulsed once. Twice.

Then disappeared.

Leaving behind a strikingly beautiful young elven girl in its place. A girl who immediately looked up at the monitor with the sweet, innocent features of a sixteen year old beauty who had never known the bliss of rapturous vice, or the hideous burdens of enslavement or despair. Then she began to smile.

A smile that stretched wide... impossibly wide, revealing wicked, serrated teeth, so very many teeth, while not affecting the exquisite symmetry of her features in the least as Malice began to hiss and curse under his breath.

Yet it was the eyes that gave it all away.

They froze like a howling winter gale.

They blazed like the sun.

And each pupil was in the shape of a phoenix blazing with the ascension of the one and only Winter Queen.

She then closed her eyes and took a deep breath of air at the edge of the forest just beyond the crater her locket had left, for a second looking so much like the innocent girl in that portrait as Greed’s elite mercenaries that he hadn’t yet been able to wheedle past Terran System sanctions, not even on this glorious Silver night, got into place to take care of the greatest threat they would ever face.

A trio of Deepest Bronze themselves just a half-step from a Silver they would never reach, thanks to the Enslavement contracts binding their souls. But they were strong. Damn strong, with a collection of heads to prove their prowess, having taken out so many pests to the Bloodtear Syndicate, including several dozen Blue executives and nobility in the last month alone.

All three of them were now lining up their sights to take out the arrogant bitch who dared think she could invade Greed’s home with all its wards, bindings, and curses with impunity.

Greed forced himself to smile for his withered elder’s sake. “You know better than all of us the power of twisted fate and folly. Upon our home soil no enemy, no matter how powerful, will get the best of us, as your curses have assured for over a thousand years.”

Yet his words of comfort, the first time he had bothered saying any words to comfort as opposed to crush another soul save his own in well over a century, did absolutely nothing to allay the look of growing dismay in Malice’s features.

Though his elder did give a dry chuckle. “I hope you got back whatever you invested in your pawns, grandson.”

Greed scowled, but said nothing. Even looking as morose as he presently did, Greed knew better than to contradict his elder. He’d let the results speak for themselves as transcendent plasma fire flashed. Though his lips did curve in a smile. Three half-step Silvers that would never truly ascend, but each of them had been forcefully soul bound to their Tier-III blasters. And even if it cost them a portion of their eternal souls to fire those blasters, Greed’s silent command had been irrevocable and the autumn day lit up with actual essence-boosted blaster fire.

Yet when the flash faded and Greed could see again, he saw no sign of Aurelia’s corpse, or even her stunned form. Nothing but a desperate cry as the camera seemed to whirl through the underbrush before crystallizing in a panorama of dark crimson glory, Aurelia looking hungrily at the closest half-step monsters gazing at her with horror as her mouth opened impossibly wide, serrated teeth chomping right through the assassin’s soul-steel breastplate and ribs to tear free his heart so fast that not even the most advanced monitors could track it, the man’s mouth opening wide like a fish as a brilliant flood of crimson drenched the forest floor.

Then Aurelia had the gall to wink, flashing a dainty smile as beads of carmine glory covered her rosebud lips as she stared right back up at the monitor lens, a monitor that Greed was now increasingly certain that she, and not his command center, controlled, before she unsheathed her nagamaki radiating an eye-searing combination of bitter blue flames and fiery golden plasma.

Then, an eyeblink later, Aurelia was before Greed’s second soul-bound slave, who instantly fell to his knees as he caught sight of the transcendent flame warping reality itself along Aurelia’s blade, pleading for his life as he raised the spurting stumps of his forearms.

“No, please, mistress. Don’t kill me! I have no choice but to fight! Those bastards claimed my soul!”

Greed sneered past his terror. For that confession alone would have doomed the man to an agonizing final death, had Aurelia’s blade not just bisected the desperate assassin, face locked in a horrified rictus as his flash-frozen body crashed to the ground in two equal halves before exploding in fiery shrapnel that absolutely shredded the nearby topiary, without touching a hair on Aurelia’s head.

And before Greed could even blink, the scene stuttered to a new location and his third and last ace had been neatly bisected, the forest erupting in frozen flame that set a dozen trees ablaze, and flash-froze a dozen more. Then Aurelia abruptly appeared before the massive portcullis of near-indestructible soul-steel guarding their fortress that would keep even a Silver-tier monster at bay for at least long enough for Greed and his great grandfather to make use of their teleportation gate and flee this world for Fade Prime below.

Greed turned to Malice, just waiting for the word.

Yet his great grandfather’s face was locked in a rictus of horrified disbelief, before he closed his eyes and sighed. “So. This is how it ends.”

Before Greed could ask the question burning on his tongue, the comms blared with messages that chilled Greed to the quick.

“Lord Bane! Avarice Prime has fallen!”

“Lord Bane! Grandiosity II has suffered a core breach! The planet’s become inhabitable! We need to send rescue ships for sheltering survivors at once!”

“Lord Bane, Crevpost Prime has become an ice planet! The atmosphere’s collapsed to a sea of liquid oxy-nitrogen that’s already freezing over! Arel Mining Corp has sent out an emergency distress call! No survivors reported!”

“Lord Bane! There’s an intruder in the citadel! She’s slaughtering everyo—”

The panicked voices broke off in a shrill high-pitched shriek before dying altogether.

A suddenly panicked Greed shook himself out of his stupor, turning to his great grandfather, who, for the first time since he had first glimpsed the hideous abomination as a child that he had feared above all others, before he had learned to freeze all his fear, shame, and dread away, there was an actual tear trickling down the corner of that ancient monster’s eye.

Malice turned to gaze straight on at a suddenly horrified Greed. “You still have that Golden token you claimed from that fool of a hero during the previous ascension, yes?”

Greed shivered and nodded.

Malice snorted. “Good.” He turned his parched neck with painful slowness toward the rear of the chamber. “You have less than a minute to use it.”

Greed’s eyes bulged. “Grandfather, you can’t mean what I think you...” His words died in his mouth, frozen by his great grandfather’s look of furious contempt. Before it died off with a sigh.

“If you’d rather die here and now, that’s fine as well. But I fear neither of us will have an easy time of it, with the karmic debt we’ve both accrued.”

Greed blanched.

Then he heard it.

The discordant laughter of death, and the dying screams of countless men on the floors above.

His chest grew tight as he gasped for breath, racing for the rearmost chamber in his great grandfather’s chamber of horrors as a shaking hand pulled free the golden talisman he had thought never to use.

Pristine Renewal.

Greed squeezed shut eyes that had delighted in savoring so many torments, even if only after his first painful ascension. And for the very first time that he could recall since that day, he was sickened by the miasma of fear and terror in the air.

He bit his lip and cursed under his breath. Of course he knew what this talisman was. He had spent long hours researching that actual Gold-tier artifact that a foolish young would-be hero had let go for a song. It had been such a steal, in fact, that Greed had actually let the boy think he had come out ahead. Living a peaceful life far from the ascending planet he had happily left, not knowing what a boon in levels and potency he had surrendered. Blissfully unaware. An innocent fool with no tragic story for anyone to ever investigate, no twinge in fate’s cords to ever lead back to Greed and his golden prize.

And what did this miracle of a wonder do?

He chuckled bitterly at the prize he had thought would win him an early throne, giving his grandfather a second chance at reforging himself from the very beginning. Scrubbed clean of all levels, all breakthroughs... and all corrupted paths and shattered foundations. With the gift of a pristine configuration assuring that anyone could attain deepest Silver at the very least.

Yet his grandfather, such a deep silver already, hadn’t been interested. Though Greed privately thought it was because he had warped himself so badly that even this coin couldn’t save the dying elder.

Yet here Greed was, now gazing upon a Golden prize he had absolutely no use for.

A prize that would shatter his glorious series of dark evolutions that had turned pain and despair to glorious pleasure long ago.

That would set him back to a pathetic, worthless level one who would be plagued with the same awful weaknesses that had made his first thirty years such a torment, before he had embraced the first of his ascensions at Level 50.

No matter how pristine his new foundation... could it possibly be worth the horror of his conscience restored? Awakening to a body barely old enough to dare the pods, struck with unendurable shame for the glorious dark revels that had become his life for more than two centuries?

He shuddered in horror at the thought.

Then he felt it. The cold clammy chill of death itself entering the chamber.

“Malicent.”

“Aurelia.”

“Where is our daughter?”

Malice chuckled coldly. “It’s been two thousand years, wife. Over a hundred generations bred and crossbred to enhance our strengths and crush our weaknesses and you know the results of my forging as well as anyone alive.”

“Monster!”

Malice gave a bitter laugh. “You say that, yet you’re the one who slaughtered every last descendant to be found in this citadel!” He snorted in cold amusement. “You always were thorough about dungeon clears, even when it didn’t earn you any title at all. And now I have a final offer before you kill me.”

Aurelia’s frigid laugh turned the bitter black steel making up this monstrous citadel to brittle ice. “What could you possibly offer that won’t be mine after I send your soul shrieking to hell?”

“Emily’s twin brother. Our son. A final trump card I froze in stasis for this very day... before growing bored and thawing him out myself. You’d be surprised by how much he looked like us in that locket before he finally embraced his first ascension.”

“YOU BASTARD! YOU TOLD ME HE DIED LONG BEFORE PUTTING THAT SLAVE COLLAR AROUND MY NECK!”

Greed’s ears bled with words that changed absolutely everything as he choked back a cry and desperately claimed the amulet in ways its original owner had never dreamed of, fading from sight as he faded from the memory of the monster so eager to kill him and all his kind.

Goblinkind.

Which he now no longer was, ears ringing with his grandfather’s… no, his father’s final words.

“Welcome home, wife. I see you’ve finally broken free of all your chains.”