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

Eric cried out in shocked dismay and an icy cold slithery horror beyond anything he had ever felt before as he suddenly felt an unseen card filled with malice snap into place over his soul. Goblin blaster fire having scorched protective blood wards just as unseen perks or curses caused even 440 Finesse to stumble, crashing to the cobblestones in a hail of plasma fire while still protecting both head and neck from lethal fire.

The furious second he had spent psionically shouting at half-step Bronze assassins who had otherwise had him totally mastered at range, had been just long enough for a madly blinking tendril to slither from the shadows and spear his lower back. Actually making the connection despite Eric’s wildly flaring Danger Sense, 107 Physical Resistance, and over 750 points in Quickness.

By some twisted stroke of fate, or a bitter decrepit, spite-filled elder goblin fiercely determined to see Eric dead at absolutely all costs even as he simpered before the woman who could so easily have destroyed him before placing an innocent infant in her arms… “How? How the hell can I see this? How the hell do I even know this?”

None of that mattered. Because the deed was done, a deadly piece had been moved forward, and Eric, despite all his precautions, was forced to pay the price of playing the mad-lad wildcard one too many times.

“Eric!” Even as Morlekai, no more than a single crimson crow as Eric had insisted, knowing just how deadly an arena they were embracing, cried out in dismay, their enemy had struck on so many simultaneous fronts.

While leaving Grim’s now very well protected manor, Morlekai now infusing all the wards with his extremely potent blood magics and there in the flesh, save for a single Eric-linked crow, was left utterly alone. Because they had never been anything save a target of opportunity.

It was Eric that was the real prize.

A truth he sensed just as he could taste so very much of the psyche now trying so furiously to claim his soul.

“Ha! Got you in the end you fucking asshole! You thought you could take out my pawns, CLAIM their sweet potency and points I had held off from claiming for myself? Well that’s fine. I hope you enjoyed your snack. Because now you’re mine, motherfucker. Body and soul!”

Even as Eric’s mind was inundated by a psychotically cackling psychopath, he was found himself fighting just to breathe as his consciousness was shoved under what felt like the bitter cold waters of his soul, face to face with a smirking monster of a spite-filled bastard with stringy hair even greasier than his pizza-stained Dead Head shirt, covered in pimples, acne scars, and bitter spite, who looked like he hadn’t left his parent’s basement in the last ten years and had absolutely all the power in this odd quasi realm, chortling so wickedly as he squeezed Eric’s throat, eager to drown his soul and obliviate him before controlling him, directly, like a puppet for all time.

Eric could sense to his horror and dismay just how helpless he was right then as the inky dark blackness sought to consume him.

To overwhelm him in the endless darkness of the beyond.

So like space.

And that was fine.

Because in the endless depths of space, there was no precious green planet Eric had to be so wary of protecting at all costs.

The chortling laughter abruptly turned to a surprised curse.

Then the screams of a drunken fool realizing he wasn’t sipping wine, but liquid fire as the crumpling soul he was so eager to consume suddenly blazed with the pristine essence of Fire.

Here and now, like nowhere else, Eric could finally stretch his wings and be free.

Contest of Wills now in effect!

5 Ranks of Dominion is attempting to crush 4 Tiers of Fire!

Fire has been enhanced by the simmering coals of Wrath!

“I will crush you. Crush you dead, worm! Like I have everyone else that thought I was trash, that they could fire me like I was nothing, break up with me like I didn’t fucking matter. Well fuck them all! They’re all my eternal puppets now, and SO ARE YOU!”

The hideous voice snarled, struggling for control like a cruel boy eager to crush and tear free the wings of the beautiful fiery bird in his hand.

For only a heartbeat did the phoenix cry out in pain, before remembering so well the feel of its talons blazing with higher order concepts of Fire and Ice, Wrath and Dominion, creation and destruction so great as to shred the very fabric of spacetime, let alone the fleet of dreadnoughts that had actually dared to challenge it.

Scores of massive city-wide ships instantly frozen to ice before being sliced in half by lances of impossibly hot transcendent flame.

A mithril sword.

A blazing talon.

Somehow, one in the same.

An undeniable fusion of 12 Ranks of Higher Order concepts along 4 synergized paths of enlightenment that became one unified whole. An epiphany so transcendent, it had been enough to catalyze the flames of his own mother’s ascension to Gold.

And it was more than enough for the bird’s talons to absolutely shred the pudgy hands of the twisted puppetmaster that thought he could crush Eric’s psyche and make it his own.

The spite-filled monstrosity screamed and fled and Eric took a shuddering breath, gasping in wide-eyed horror to find himself holding a screeching tentacle.

And with a snarled curse and a surge of his will, it burst into flame.

You have successfully immolated your opponent’s vessel.

Heat Surge is now Rank 13!

“Eric! Are you alright? Talk to me!”

Eric flashed the crow a shaky smile, even as he pressed his hand against the needle-thin insertion point and imagined searing out his foe with impossibly hot flame.

Yet much to his dismay, it wasn’t enough.

He knew that even when he carefully redrew the blood runes upon his flesh, infusing it with his potency once more, even receiving the happy little ding that he had just survived his first bout with what was now a sworn enemy, and Blood Wards had just hit Rank 4.

“Yeah, I think I’m running on a serious fucking clock, Morlekai. The phoenix’s flame might have scared that overenthusiastic fucker off for now… but I can still feel the worm of his intent, so like the System’s silvery worms, trying to slither right into my soul.”

It was all he could do not to puke, shaking off his dismay and roiling guts with a snarl, even as he felt the tingling in the back of his skull and throat, the buildup of his enemy’s pressure, like the need to hurl.

He flashed the worried-looking crow a bitter smile. “I think I’m well and truly fucked, Morlekai.”

“Eric, this isn’t good! We have to get back to Lord Grim, right now!”

Eric chuckled bitterly at his normally cool-headed friend’s flustered state.

“I think that would be a bad idea. If I dare to relax, if I stop focusing on my own inner flame… yeah, we don’t want a 500 Strength, 750 Quickness puppet in the middle of your sanctum if I blank out for even a second. That would be bad.” He closed his eyes, visualizing the furious phoenix that he was even now blazing so hot and fierce that a steady stream of malevolent rot and corruption was obliterated even as it tried to wash over and consume Eric for all time. With a deliberate twist of his will, he turned that phoenix the color of blood. For Bloodfire was another unorthodox path he had at least kissed before flying for more pristine skies. And it was the perfect path for this very moment, even as a still wounded foe gave another frustrated snarl only Eric could hear. For all that he desperately wished that he wasn’t so well connected to his foe.

A connection that he was dreadfully afraid would only grow stronger over time. And the longer it took to break that connection...

“I just made a binding oath. I cannot enter your premises unless you and Lord Grim both consent. And since you now know the risks…

The crow was speechless for a long second. “You were able to oathbind yourself so fast? And 750 Quickness? Eric! Then how did…”

“There’s a certain Silver-Tier sage that wants me dead at all fucking costs who’s playing Cards of Fate to assure that I trip up at exactly the wrong moment. Hates me so much, just for existing. As if my existence trumps his own miserable son.”

“Eric, who the hell…”

“Greed. He’s my half-brother.”

Even the crow was momentarily speechless. “Well fuck.”

“I know, right? And he’s just somehow been reborn as an infant. Totally innocent, so my mother can’t even kill her firstborn child that had been preserved in suspended animation for almost 2000 years before Malice grew bored, thawed him out, and twisted his son’s mind for a century or, forcing him to take the most butt-ugly class evolutions in body and soul, all with the goal of making him a supremely twisted fuck, before resetting the clock to innocenceville once more. So, yeah. All kinds of intergalactic fucked up. And father dearest, using the baby as a pawn to keep Aurelia from obliterating him and his final pathetic excuse for a planet, wants to clear the way for his little boy to ascend.”

“By killing you and your sister.”

“Exactly.”

“Eric, Greed’s father. He’s not…”

“God, I hope not.” Eric shuddered in revulsion at the thought, before snapping back to the only thing that mattered right then. Because he’d have all the time in the world to loathe who his father might or might not be… but only if he survived this night with his mind still intact. And if the tingling dizziness he sensed trying to overwhelm him once more was anything to go by… there was only one path forward that would allow him to see the dawn.

“Come on. We’re heading to the same outdoor coliseum where Greed leveraged all those doomed kids just so he could snap a mithril slave collar around my neck, right?”

“Correct. And don’t worry about the children. There, beyond the grandest blockbuster film, your mother truly came through. According to Master Grim, all of them were gated through at the same time fresh troops for your sister crossed over, and all are now being protected and cared for, safely ensconced the worlds Aurelia calls her own.”

Eric took a shuddering breath, oddly relieved to hear that. Clearly the original plan was for the kids to get blown up along with Aurelia’s worlds, but he and his mother had ascended just in the nick of time. Even if 60,000 additionally rescued souls was just a drop in the bucket compared to the 12 Sylvan worlds saved… and the dozen goblinoid worlds utterly destroyed. But he felt somewhat better about the fiery path of ascension he and his mother had taken, all the same.

“Eric. Is Greed really you’re…”

“Whoever Greed was before, I think he truly is gone. As to everything else? Fuck it. You’re guess is as good as mine.”

You have successfully saved versus – Soul Possession!

You have expended an additional 12 points of Soul Reserves!

Eric howled as he felt his psyche being pawed by cold greasy hands, never having felt so violated in all his life as putrid breath from wheezy laughter washed over him. For just a second, he saw himself as a rail-thin man still plagued by acne scars and bitter hate, surrounded by a handful of powerful Bronze-Tiered enforcers covered in glowing armor humming with deadly potency, extremely lethal-looking high-tech blasters comfortably held in expert grips. Sentinels protectively surrounding the man now pawing so eagerly at Eric’s soul, massaging it, squeezing it… the horrid wrench of burning pain as the monster tried to tear free Eric’s psyche and force his own bloated soul in Eric’s place.

“Let go, you little shit. You’re making this far harder than it has to be.”

“THE HELL I’LL LET YOU!”

This earned a snort, and a mental smack so hard that Eric was sent cartwheeling into a nearby brick wall, the entire building collapsing in screams and rubble, Eric suffering hardly a scratch.

“Damn, you’ll be a juicy little prize to slip inside of soon enough, won’t you, stud?”

“I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!”

The mocking puppetmaster snorted. “Sure you will, kid. Sure you will.”

Eric then embraced the only thing that had bought him precious moments before, seconds he had so stupidly wasted, still treating this like a game of one-upsmanship where he could get the best of his foes, daring to waste precious seconds sprinting for the goblin sniper nest, so clever as to throw the squealing white-clothed minder who thought he could claim Eric’s prizes with impunity right at the pair of now headless half-step Bronze goblins snipers that really had come way too close to doing him in. Even when he smirked with satisfaction as the little goblin’s howling body set off a chain of self-destructive curses, obliterating both the high ranking goblins and their jealously guarded prizes. Eric was up four more blasters and for just a few precious seconds had felt like he was somehow getting the best of his enemies even as they struck him from so many angles that a few of those fuckers had actually gotten through.

Well, he had been an absolute idiot wasting even a handful of seconds.

Because his enemies HAD gotten through with the only attack that mattered. IT didn’t mean shit if he had captured knights and pawns. He was going against a sneering master who absolutely despised him, had set up his mother for so much fuckery that he had turned a sweet idealistic teen into the savage bloodthirsty monster his mother had ultimately become… and now his ultimate nemesis was just a heartbeat away from positioning his pieces to checkmate Eric in the most devastating way possible.

Soul Possession.

And for all Eric knew, Malice was cackling in his rotting prison of a body even now, having gamed EVERYTHING out from the start.

Aurelia’s ascension. A second chance for his son. And Eric carefully nurtured through conflict to blossom so monstrously...before being taken over like a perfect puppet. And who the hell knew if Malice himself wasn’t one day planning on being the one driving Eric along?

But only after Malice, or this asshole trying to commandeer him, made Eric kill his own sister, of course. Because somehow he just KNEW that was part of the plan.

‘’THE FUCK I’LL LET THAT SHIT HAPPEN! I’LL BURN YOU ALL TO HELL FIRST!”

Eric howled as his inner phoenix blazed with the primal essence of Wrath and Flame once more. Forced to drain ever more of his Soul Reserves as he furiously pushed back the malicious shit STILL trying to control Eric’s mind even as he dashed through the city so fast, holding nothing back, no longer even trying to keep a pace Morlekai could match. And when groups of mercenaries, bands of orcs, or, increasingly, hoards or roaring ogres guarding the increasingly upscale streets leading to the merchant’s corner and the walled off arena itself…

Eric handled it in the most expedient manner possible.

He charged right through them all.

You have Charged into Ogre Contingent going 2/3rds the speed of sound!

Strength, Finesse, Vitality (total of 1499) modified skill check made.

Critical Success! Physical Resistance of 107 means you feel nothing worse than a momentary sting against your shoulder!

You have critically struck two very confused ogres for catastrophic damage!

Ogre shrapnel stuns remaining Contingent!

You have successfully quantized the skill Charge at Rank 5.

You’re a natural!

The meaningless messages washed over Eric, still roaring as his would-be master continued whaling his scrawny forearms against Eric’s mind, clawing at his soul with damp greasy hands, such that the crimson explosion of humanoid shrapnel filled the air with the reek of blood and gore so intense that it snapped Eric back into moment. He slowed his pace, howling with fierce triumph as he took in the massive courtyard of marble stone, bloody carnage, and panicked ogres fleeing for their lives. Eric howled with an odd mixture of relief and exultation in equal measure, immediately understanding where he was as he gazed upon the massive colosseum walls soaring nearly a hundred feet in the air.

“I made it, motherfucker! And my mind is still my own!” Eric clenched his jaw, more relieved and frightened than he’d ever admit to his foe, the air cracking with the sound of palm against fist as his hard-eyed gaze immediately spotted the arched arena entrance wide enough to fit a rhino and the pair of smirking goblins armed with blaster carbines just inside the archway.

Even from where he was, he could hear the screams and shouts of both humans and invaders in the massive colosseum beyond.

The pair of goblins wearing glossy lamellar armor over matching long-sleeved aketons filled the increasingly cool nighttime air with their derisive chuckles as Eric approached. “Stupid human. Thinking we will permit him entrance!” Sneered the first.

“He’s a Contender,” Cackled the second. “Doesn’t he know that the game is already lost to them? Our mercenaries will have them all purged before the night is through!”

“Very true, brother.” The first nodded his complete agreement. “Very true.”

Eric didn’t bother pleading, begging, or making any sort of case on his own behalf. He just flashed the pair of goblins a cold smile. “Time for you little fuckers to die.”

The pair exchanged a look, before bursting out in laughter. “Foolish human, as if you could hurt us!”

Eric didn’t bother answering with words when action would suffice.

Fire Fist!

You are momentarily stunned!

You have suffered backlash!

Note! Pristine affinities, mastery of higher order concepts and Elemental Resistance mitigates all pain and damage to sheer embarrassment!

And Eric couldn’t deny the truth of that, as the pair of goblins howled in absolute mirth.

Their laughter was soon joined by the mocking, taunting laughter of the asshole still trying to control his mind. As if he had been content to let Eric have a moment’s desperate hope, allow him to wear himself out as he raced to the colosseum, only to find that, despite his impossibly high Strength and multiple potency modifiers, he was unable to break through the shimmering wards protecting the entire edifice.

Instead, Eric’s Fire Fist hand ended up washing back in his own face when his fist couldn’t even enter the wide-open arena entrance from which the pair of goblins sneered and spat.

“Such a fucking noob. Don’t even know how this game is played! You can hammer that field all you like, idiot, but my pet shaman is now just an extension of ME! You get that, asshole? And I know the taste of your blood. Your fuckin’ soul! Anything with the taste of your essence ain’t coming through, you got that?”

Eric froze, heart racing as the horrid inevitability of his doom washed over him. The thought of being forced to howl and hammer at the invisible barrier before him while that monster did god knows what inside the arena… forced to listen to all those screams before his mind was slowly consumed by the asshole draining his Soul Reserves even now, keeping the fucker at bay… and FUCK! Was it deliberate?

“You goaded me to race right over here like a good little bitch, didn’t you, asshole?” Eric shouted, knowing his enemy could hear him speak sub-vocally or otherwise just fine.

“Ha! That’s right, shithead. But you can call me Kevin. Or master. And you’ll be calling me that, soon enough.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why? Why the fuck what? Why am I doing all this? Enslaving minds and dominating the entire fucking city? Why, to savor your screams, asshole! Why the fuck not? We’re contenders. The world’s are fucking oyster. And if you’re not strong enough to claim your share, then you deserve to get fucking eaten! And bitch, just so you know, I’m sacrificing every piece I haven’t taken over! all twenty thousand of them, like fucking trash tier treasures, all for the chance that just a FEW of you assholes have essences worth claiming!”

Eric’s eyes widened with horror. “You fucking monster.”

“Now you’re talking my language!” The madman cackled. “See you soon, fucker.”

Eric’s desperate eyes took in the still cackling goblins and the arena walls that must have soared nearly a hundred feet. Every inch of it covered in that impenetrable ward.

Eric glared at the barrier before him. Of course he had access to higher order transcendant attacks that should obliterate absolutely everything… but if the ward truly was somehow tied to his soul… if his enemy truly had that kind of power, and one thing he knew from firsthand experience was only a fool underestimated just how wildly unorthodox and overpowered native-born Contenders could be, then a single miscalculation with his ultimate attacks could obliterate him as easily as the barrier itself.

“Fuck!”

The goblins might have only heard part of the conversation, but they could certainly sense his dismay, and happily cackled at his expense.

“Stupid human is doomed and he knows it!” Said one with a mocking glare.

The other sneered, eyes glittering with malicious glee as he readied his blaster rifle. “I think we should take him out right now, brother. Even if the humans inside want him. What’s wrong with claiming a little power for ourselves?”

Eric blinked at this, lips curving in a smile. “So, you boys can shoot through the magical ward, then?”

“Of course!” Cackled the closest one. “The ward isn’t tied to our soul, but to yours!”

Eric solemnly nodded, effortlessly jerking his head aside as the air erupted in brilliant plasma fire.

“That’s true,” he said at a conversational pace while whipping and darting past the snarling goblin’s concentrated blaster fire. “No doubt all my most valuable possessions that I took such efforts linking to myself to make them near indestructible will be worthless for getting in.”

“That’s right!” Cackled the goblins, now firing on full automatic. “You can’t touch us, but we can slaughter you! The way things should be in all the worlds we claim!”

His sneering countenance became a confused blink when Eric summoned forth a Hyperion mark IV minigun.

The pair of goblins froze.

“Yeah, so, this thing isn’t linked to me at all. Think it will get through the barrier?”

The closest goblin lurched back, staring at Eric in speechless dismay.

“You’re not allowed to use that!” The second shrieked. “It’s a violation of the—”

His words were cut off in a stream of white-hot plasma fire that tore through both goblins like throwing canisters of red paint off a bridge… only messier.

Eric smiled down at the weapon in his hand. “Well, what do you know. It worked.”

Scholarship skill check (modified by mental mastery of soul-bound Mark-II blaster) Success! You understand how to trigger this weapon while feeding it a slow steady stream of mana to catalyze each and every cartridge! This weapon is not soul-bound to you.

This weapon successfully pierces soul ward!

You have successfully slaughtered 2 Level 27 Goblins. (Minimal) experience earned!

Eric frowned thoughtfully at the shimmering force-field now covering the entire arena wall. A gentle touch felt like touching his own mind, which was absolutely chilling, and only made Kevin cackle like a madman in the back of his skull. Which he HATED! Reigniting the image of his phoenix as the sneering basement dweller blew snot everywhere and tried to make himself at home. Only to be scooted out on his ass, door slammed behind him… before he roared his fury, the ultimate spoiled child being refused to get his way, and every blow caused blood to shoot from Eric’s nose, his Soul Reserves being depleted one awful point at a time.

“Fuck.”

“I’ll claim you in the end, motherfucker!”

That’s when Eric looked up, a slow smile easing the desperate tension in his features.

“Let me take a wild guess, Kevin. When you used to play Exile’s Paths, you always used whatever builds Math Razor and all the other Self-Tube gurus used. To the last fucking point, I bet. Even buying currency at Mule Works to buy whatever magic gear was popular, because you were too much of a close-minded anxious little weeb to try anything unorthodox.”

The response he got, much to his dark bemusement, was better than he could have hoped for.

“Fuck you, Eric Silver! Yeah, I know you who are, asshole! And I got news for you. Your builds were absolute crap and your streams were shit! Build guides are there for a reason! You build the build or someone else will, and they’ll outrace you every league!”

Eric’s teeth flashed in a brilliant grin as he whispered words to a favorite spell, and embraced the flames that simmered to friendly warmth when he crouched upon the branches of what truly were now stately oaks far more than vines.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll admit it. My builds more often than not sucked ass, but they made my viewers laugh and enjoy seeing me play the game like a charming noob, much like Josh Strife, the king of game reviews and cool commentary himself. But sometimes I came up with some pretty cool shit.”

“Mages are mages for a reason! The Strife effect got two of my favorite MMORPGS shut down, so I plan on giving that Contender some serious payback if I ever find him! And as for your pathetic excuse for a descent build, Even that Firemage Bow Build sucked trash compared to my Poison Archer, asshole!”

Eric’s eyes glittered with a hunger he didn’t bother hiding from his psyche or soul. “Yeah, maybe so. But there are definite advantages to thinking outside the box, you close-minded fuck, and I got news for you: The Firemage Bow build is about to make a major comeback, right about… NOW!”

And with those words, Eric became one with the spell so EAGER to catapult him through the air, much like a yew bow. Only far springier and even more awesome and even if Eric was gambling it all as he arced over the colosseum walls… one thing his foe clearly hadn’t counted on was Eric springing right over an indestructible barrier he couldn’t climb.

Eric gazed down upon a sight that filled him with horror and dismay and fury in equal measure, even as a furious Kevin screamed in his mind.

“You can’t do this! No one ever thinks up. Only through! I have the fucking data! I didn’t fail in my design. You just had to fucking break the rules. I had to keep the rooftop open with over 20,000 mouth breathers in here!”

Yet the words were the meaningless dribble of a basement-dwelling psychopath Eric could now make out, looking absolutely like Eric had visualized him, stringy brown hair, acne scars and hollow cheeks with a stick-thin body and scrawny arms that not even Contender’s status had dealt with, probably because the asshole had kept his essences, just like Eric. For all that he despised the man, that was the one and only move he could actually respect. On the other hand, Kevin had obviously put two and two together and figured out how to best play this game even on absolute ruthless mode. Which might explain why he was sitting on a gilded throne, surrounded by exceedingly well armed mercenaries while a pair of goblin shamans radiating Bronze-tier power were holding open a gate to a world of nightmares as desperate, anxious humans who didn’t understand quite how utterly doomed they were, were all corralled through into a massive steel cage just beyond the gate that Eric just knew was hanging over a combination lava pit / steel foundry that wouldn’t just kill the innocent in the most hideous way imaginable, but keep the suffering going for all time as their souls were literally bound to goblinoid soul-steel. All to make dirt cheap battleships and an absolute killing on the fleet market.

“Really? That’s what the fuckers are doing with the bodies? Shit, I had no idea! No wonder my shaman slaves aren’t fighting my control at all… they’re both ecstatic! Because I’m helping them make a killing in the ship market. Now it all makes sense. Ha! Not that I care. My good buddies swore up and down that the essences would pop right back out of the portal and right into me! And I’ll tell you a secret… they weren’t lying."

Eric’s howl of dismay shook the entire stadium when the smirking asshole made it clear what Eric should have known… that this horrid ordeal wasn’t just beginning. That this monster had already damned hundreds, perhaps thousands, to the closest equivalent to hellfire that there was in this universe. And Kevin revealed that betrayal of humanity deliberately, even as the mask came off and the mocking neckbeard revealed the furious hate-filled tyrant underneath the slothful act, crushing Eric’s soul with everything he had.

You are now in a contest of Wills with a Level 86 Mind Lord!

Showing himself to be more than a match for any contender.

But not a phoenix who knew what it meant to consign entire worlds to hellfire.

Wings of the phoenix suddenly blazing as hot as the core of a star.

And for the first time since their deadly dance had begun, Kevin stumbled, actually knowing the taste of fear.

“No. NO! What the fuck are you? Just how high level...Men! Kill that asshole now!”