War God for Hire- Mercenary: A Reincarnation, Cultivation, Litrpg Adventure

by David Burke

  Kyle looked deeper and saw tendrils of raw essence interwoven with the Death Essence. He focused more closely and saw that they were green strands of power. This had to be the corrupted remnants of Liv, god of life. His power had become twisted when he died, spawning the curse known as undeath.

  These flying creatures, whatever they were, were neither alive nor dead but stuck in a state tween the two.

  Gilthan blasted one of the creatures trailing him with a blue bolt of lightning, but the creature raised its own magical shield in the same instant and the electrical attack dissipated harmlessly. Kyle realized that he had finally stumbled upon some of the more advanced undead. He split his soul bound weapon into a pair of two-foot-long axes. He figured they would work best in the close combat he was about to be engaged in.

  The elven sorcerer was holding the attention of the three creatures so completely that they didn’t even react when Kyle entered the area. That gave him a better chance to get a good look at them. Vampire was the only word that leaped out in his mind—though thankfully they didn’t sparkle.

  There were two men and one woman. They were all dressed like he would expect rich merchants or even nobility to dress here in the southern part of Verden. Each had the pale, smooth skin he expected of the undead. Their hands ended in clawed fingertips and their faces were contorted into feral expressions with their open mouths revealing extended canines. Their speed in the air was not as fast as Gilthan, but their bodies almost seemed to be boneless with how fluid their movements were.

  The female spoke in a hiss, “Why fight usss? You would be an honored servant. Your value would be great and I’m sure I could find other perksss for you to enjoy.”

  One of the males added, “Yes, a sorcerer of your power would quickly rise in our ranksss.”

  Even as they spoke, they kept fighting. Gilthan was using his light rapier, but it didn’t seem to be the optimal weapon for fighting undead. Mostly, he relied upon gusts of air or blasts of lighting, with the occasional slash of jab of War Essence to extend the range of his sword. A part of Kyle’s mind critiqued Gilthan’s fighting style. Some instruction on how to use War Essence properly was obviously needed.

  But what better way to do so, than with a practical demonstration? Kyle tried to angle himself so that he could aim an attack at all three of the vampires without hitting Gilthan but had to settle for just two of them. He swung one of his axes and extended its cutting edge with War Essence.

  The first of the two male vampires was cut cleanly in half at the waist—the head still screeching as the legs fell to the ground. Frustratingly, the upper half of the body was still able to fly. The second vampire reacted with superhuman reflexes, though he foolishly opted to erect a sky essence barrier though, as if he were blocking one of Gilthan’s attacks.

  This was so much more. Kyle’s strike carried with it the power of a god and embodied the concept of cutting. It sheared the shield in two with little effort and still had enough force let to sever the vampire’s arm at the shoulder.

  Gilthan’s eyes lit up. He had to have known Kyle was close, since he was being fed War Essence, but to see help actually arrive was another level of encouragement.

  Kyle shouted out, “How ya holding up?”

  “Better now, thanks, but watch out. They can put themselves back together. Have to completely incinerate them like Hilde did or dice them up into little pieces.”

  The female vampire laughed. “I see you brought company. I can call for more help too.” Then she paused and looked more closely at Kyle. He had the sense that she was looking at him with more than just her eyes. “Ooh… this one is even better. The master will reward us for bringing both of you back to him.”

  “Over my dead body,” Kyle replied. He’d meant it to be funny but winced when the words came out. He really needed to work on his one-liners.

  “That is kind of the point,” she snickered. “But don’t worry, it isn’t all bad. You get to live forever.”

  “I already had one life taken from me, thank you very much. I think I’ll hang on to this one.”

  His answer seemed to confuse the female vampire. But Kyle was glad to see that Gilthan had not been idle. He’d managed to blast the head off of the legless vampire and was doing pretty well against Kyle’s second foe, now that it only had one arm.

  The female vampire also took this all in and then winked at Kyle. “Don’t worry,” she hissed, “ I’ll bring some more company to play with you.”

  Kyle felt her gathering death essence. He wasn’t sure what she intended to do with it. But he sensed that it would attract any undead in the area. That wasn’t something he wanted to deal with, so he reached out with his own Death Essence to stop her.

  “No, I don’t think I’ll let you do that,” Kyle said and then reached out, seizing her cry for help, and pulling it under his control. Since his essence was channeled through a divine splinter, which magnified the potency of his essence on a point for point basis, he had no trouble snuffing out her call for reinforcements.

  He was effectively a demi-god of death, so he might as well make it work for him.

  Her eyes bulged at that. “Wait, you have the power of death in you too, don’t you?” She stared intently at him again, probably trying to break through Hav’s pendant to see exactly what other kinds of power he had.

  “It won’t matter,” she sneered. “The master has found another splinter. Soon he will be doubly empowered. He shall rain death and terror down upon your cities until Verden belongs only to our kind.” With that, she turned to flee back to the ground.

  Kyle could sense a horde of undead a few miles away off to the south—probably where her so-called master was. He was suddenly inspired by a new idea.

  “No,” he shook his head, “I don’t think I want you to leave.” He reached out with the force of Sky Essence and solidified the air surrounding her enough to slow her down. Then, he formed bonds of Earth Essence around her while also weaving the moisture in the air into an additional layer binding her.

  He had two more ideas that he wanted to explore. Kyle realized that while she was held like this, he could easily cut her into pieces so small they would never be able to reform, but he wanted to do more than simply end her. He wanted to announce his status.

  The death splinter had been with him longer, so it felt like more of his own. He began to cultivate through it and then set up a cycle of cultivation that ran through the female vampire, as well. Soon, he was pulling all the raw essence in the area to himself. His cultivation cycle became stronger and stronger until he was able to rip the Death Essence completely out of her.

  Kyle watched through his divine sight as her soul finally escaped undeath’s grip on it. Undeath imprisoned one’s soul with a combination of corrupted life essence and death essence. Without its imprisoned soul, her body quickly started breaking down, though still full of life essence. With no soul to anchor the construct, corrupted life essence alone was unable to animate the body.

  Without death essence, she couldn’t maintain this parody of life.

  It was fascinating to see how the undead operated in an unholy perversion that was a mixture of corrupted life essence and death essence. With her soul released, her body was nothing more than exceptionally effective sack of fertilizer falling to the ground beneath it. He chuckled with the thought that whatever grew where her remains landed would probably be blessed by the life essence he saw within her. It was ironic that undeath could be turned to such a beneficial purpose.

  The only problem with this process, was that it took too long. Gilthan had defeated both of the others, but he had to pursue their remains to the ground, in order to prevent them from reforming. Kyle followed Gilthan down as he thought about what he had just done. It had been necessary for him to overcome the bonds of undeath placed there by whoever had created the monster.

  He could feel a signature to the Death Essence, but it wasn’t one he recognized. Most likel
y, it had been the necromancer Hav had alluded to. If so, it meant that the man was more powerful than he’d thought. Kyle had been able to wrest control of the death essence in one vampire, but he had no delusions that he could wave his hand and destroy entire armies of the undead.

  While pondering the nature of undeath, Kyle almost missed the nearly invisible wisp that had escaped the vampire’s now decomposing body. In fact, if he hadn’t communed with his unborn daughter, Gli, he wouldn’t have realized that this was the soul of the woman who had been turned into a vampire.

  Without actually knowing how, Kyle understood that one of his divine duties was to protect such souls. Some of Krig’s memories came back to him then—memories of an ancient pact made by the surviving gods. It was Lige’s duty to judge unaligned souls and Dod’s duty to reap them, but each of the gods were responsible for the souls of their followers, as well as for ensuring that other souls made their way to Lige’s hall.

  A part of Kyle reached out to the lost soul; he felt a new ability blossom within him. He called her soul to him as easily as a man might call his favorite hound. She flitted over to him and he could send confusion within her soul. He wanted to offer her a place with him. She had been fiery and he could have sent her to Hilde’s people to be reborn, but that wasn’t what the pact required of him.

  Kyle intended to shake up the order of things eventually, but first he had to protect this world. There needed to be something left worth shaking up. And for the moment, that meant honoring the original pact between the gods. With a sigh, he sent the wisp of a lost soul off to Lige’s halls. At least she would no longer be a tool for this necromancer.

  He paused to check out the new divine ability which had suddenly appeared.

  Soul Shepherd 2: 700 raw essence This ability allows a divinity to see souls either inside or outside the body. The stronger the ability, the more the divinity may manipulate the soul.

  While that would be food for thought later, there were still a few other things that he wanted to test. It was high time he tried to use his abilities as a demi-god of justice. He slowed his descent just before he reached the ground.

  Gilthan was already on the ground, blasting apart the remaining bits of the two male vampires, while those parts were either attacking him or doing their best to escape. Seeing lumps of flesh bouncing around on the ground might have disgusted him if Kyle hadn’t already witnessed it with the zombies.

  “Gilthan, stop. I want to try something,” Kyle said.

  The elven sorcerer looked at him as he blasted back a clawed hand that was skittering across the ground on its own. It was evidence of the connection they had formed, that he simply nodded and said, “Yes, Lord Kyle.”

  Kyle had already started cultivating Justice Essence as he’d descended. Now he held out his hand and felt the golden energy pool in his hand. For some reason, Justice Essence wanted to spring forth from his hand far more readily than anything other than War Essence. It was like it begged to be used.

  Kyle studied the energy better to understand its purpose. He formed a connection with the concept of justice as a means to end needless suffering. At first, he thought that only included the victims of the undead. Then, as he examined the concept and forged a deeper connection with it, he realized the undead themselves were the first victims. Not only them, but their families and the ones who’d lost them, were as much as the victim as those they killed.

  The golden light in his hand began to buzz, and Kyle pronounced his judgment: “Undeath is an abomination and contrary to the pact which formed this world. I condemn you and break this curse, but then grant you mercy in Nade’s stead. Find your way to Lige’s hall and be judged for your actions prior to this curse.”

  The justice essence flew from his hand in hundreds of tiny streams. Each stream connected with a remaining piece of the vampires. He felt the twisted bond between life and death essence break and the bod parts crumbled, while the two freed souls shot upwards toward Lige’s realm.

  The drain on him was more intense this time. He couldn’t put his finger on why, though. He hadn’t lost any raw essence, but there was something about invoking the pact that wore him out.

  He couldn’t argue with the results. It worked much faster and was easier than using death essence to free the undeads’ souls from their twisted imprisonment. It was something he’d have to think more about, later.

  For now, he turned to study Gilthan, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, M’lord.”

  “What did I say about that?” Kyle grumbled.

  “It seems appropriate when you race in and save me,” Gilthan said, but then a bit of the man’s competitiveness shone through, “Although, it looks like you need some more practice with your flying.”

  “Ha, ha. Very funny,” Kyle said dryly.

  “I’m glad you’re here now, though. Maybe you can decide what we need to do,” Gilthan replied.

  “Do? About what?”

  “About the hosts of undead. I was on my way back to the guildhall to report what I’d found when the vampires saw me. Although I’m faster than they are, they came up from under me and I couldn’t avoid them. Then, I realized you would like it if I led enemies to our very doorstep and...” He shrugged.

  “I wasn’t sure if they were called vampires here or not,” Kyle admitted.

  “What else would they be called?”

  “Well,” Kyle drawled, “the legends on my world were that vampires couldn’t be out in sunlight.”

  “The vampires on your world must have been pretty pathetic,” Gilthan muttered. “Not that I know that much about vampires or any of the undead, really. While scouting out their army, I learned there are more types than I want to know about,” he admitted. “Hilde might be able to offer some additional insight into them.”

  “Unfortunately, she isn’t available to ask… but I will find out what Meeka knows.”

  “I doubt it is something a pampered noblewoman would know much about,” Gilthan said dismissively.

  “I’d be careful about any assumptions you might make about Lady Meeka.” Kyle chuckled. “Remember the assumptions you made about me when we first met?”

  The elven sorcerer grimaced. “Point well taken. Still, there are a load of horrors out here that I don’t even have names for.”

  “Well, since I’m here, go on with your report. I can sense a vast army of undead out there,” Kyle said.

  “For sure, there are likely at least ten thousand zombies and a couple thousand skeletons. By themselves, they could overrun the walls of Nargossa. We might be able to destroy them all… eventually.”

  Gilthan grimaced then continued, “but they’ll just keep coming until they are… well, you know.”

  “I assume there were bigger threats than zombies and skeletons? Did you see anyone who might be this ‘master’ they were talking about?” Kyle asked.

  “Yeah, but only from a distance, though. I didn’t want to get too close. I used air essence to listen in to a conversation or two and it seems a powerful necromancer is leading the army, but from what I overheard, I think he might be a demi-god of death.”

  Kyle motioned for Gilthan to keep going.

  The elven sorcerer shrugged. “He was talking about obtaining a second splinter. That is sorta like what you did to us, right?”

  “I gave you a divine splinter, but to be a demi-god you have to be born with one. Still, there is nothing to stop you from becoming just as strong as Barak was.”

  “Was?” Gilthan asked with an arched eyebrow.

  “Yes, was… as in past tense. Skrug and I killed him while you were out scouting.”

  The elf finally smiled as he replied, “Then that’s just one more reason for me to be in your debt. I really hated that guy.”

  “Actually, that brings up a good question. Why didn’t you change into your dragon form? Surely you would have been more than a match for three vampires in that form.” Kyle asked.

/>   “Yes, but they would have ripped my throat out while I was transforming. In fact, they almost had me before I felt an influx of power.” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at Kyle. “That was you, too, wasn’t it?”

  “I was experimenting. I could feel you were in danger and wanted to help from a distance,” Kyle answered.

  “Not sure how I feel about being experimented on, but whatever you did, it worked. I got faster and stronger. It is only just now fading.”