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

by David Burke

  Kyle looked at Gilthan. “What about you? I can sense you cultivating.”

  “I learned, just as much slower than the others,” the elven sorcerer replied.

  Nyda jumped in, “We all want you to do for us what you did for Lash.”

  “I don’t know about that. That was done in desperation. She was dying, and it was the only way that I could see to prevent her from turning into a ghoul,” Kyle said.

  Kierra stood up. “We are all willing to take that risk, alpha. We want to be the strongest pack possible.”

  “I will consider it, but first I want to get a better feel for what we are facing. I can feel the hordes of undead out there, but we used to have an expression on my home world, ‘Seeing is believing.”

  “Allow me time to prepare an honor guard to escort you to the wall and you can see everything there is to see,” Lash said.

  Kyle was about to argue with her about not needing an honor guard, but then he remembered they needed to project a certain type of image. As he paused, he sensed something far overhead. It was powerful, large, and full multiple types of essence, but mostly raw essence. Certainly, it couldn’t be an undead.

  He stretched out more to feel for it and eventually recognized it. Well, not it specifically, but he could identify its type. He looked at Raina, “Are there any other dragon demi-gods?”

  “Not that I am aware of. If there are, they would be a newly made one. Why?” She replied.

  “There is a dragon flying overhead. It keeps circling over the city like it is looking for something. I didn’t notice it at first but as I stretched out my senses, I found it.”

  Lash and Raina looked at each other. The non-verbal exchange was interesting to Kyle. The two of them seemed very much at odds, but they also were clearly working together. Finally Lash said, “I’m sorry M’lord, I can’t sense a dragon. If you say there is one up there, then we trust you.”

  “Don’t worry. Obviously, it is hiding. I can’t see a dragon aligning itself with a horde of undead and certainly not with the Aekor or void wraiths who slew their mother,” Kyle said. He was surprised by the surge of emotions that came with Krig’s memories of Brann’s death.

  “Well, are we ready to go?”

  “Yes, I thought we could inspect the section of the wall that Saber is the commander of for today. That way, it will be mostly troops loyal to us,” Lash said.

  “You don’t have to worry about an assassin's blade. I am not some mortal to be slain that easily.”

  “If you will forgive me, M’lord, but your predecessor taught me to always be prepared and to never underestimate what a determined enemy might be capable of accomplishing.”

  “Very well, Marie. Lead the way. Wait, do you prefer Lash or perhaps, Consort?” Kyle asked with a grin.

  “She isn’t your consort yet, not unless you are naming her that,” Raina snapped quickly and both Nyda and Kierra both suddenly rippled with essence.

  “I was just making a joke. As far as I am concerned, Marie, Nyda, and Kierra are all equally my wives, as Gilthan and Skrug are my close friends.”

  “Joke all you like, war god, but the position of consort is one which will be recognized by even the other gods. Only Lige currently has a consort, the dragon Ember.”

  “I won’t joke about it anymore. I was just curious how you all would react.”

  “What did you expect, Alpha? We all want to be your number one mate.”

  “That will have to wait. Right now, I can’t get a question out of my mind. How the heck does Lige get busy with a dragon?”

  Now it was the girls who were giggling. Raina was the one to answer, though. “All dragons are natural born shapeshifters.”

  “Ah, I guess that makes sense.”

  Skrug elbowed Gilthan, “Even dragon girls no like dragon dick.”

  Chapter 29 – Fury of a War God

  Kyle’s party marched through the streets of Nargossa. It felt silly to Kyle because he could just fly everyone there. All the core came with him. Selma, of course, stayed behind but even Raina came with them. Or perhaps he should say Meeka. He quickly figured out that while she was allowed to transform inside the warded walls of the guildhall, that they didn’t want people outside the inner group knowing she was a succubus, something about superstitions. He guessed there was probably a great deal of truth to some of those superstitions.

  There were small groups of troops at almost every major intersection, and each one had at least one mage with them. He saw his own troops patrolling the street, and they always stopped to bow to him. His “chosen” must have done a good job of building him up while he was gone.

  When they reached the wall, it was obvious that there was fighting going on at the top. His patience for the escort had reached its limit. So he simply leapt up to the top of the wall. Looking over the wall was like looking into a fishing net. There were undead bodies clamoring over each other to get to the wall.

  “They do this randomly a couple times a day. We always push them back, but it tires us out and costs us many injuries,” Saber said.

  Kyle saw one zombie which almost made it onto the wall and slashed out with his soul bound weapon transformed to a sword for easier use in the tight confines offered by the top of the wall. He removed the head and then with the backswing cut but arms in half.

  Some of the soldiers atop the wall were armed with polearms that were something a cue used in shuffleboard. One ran up and pushed the severed forearms off the top of the wall. Kyle chuckled. That must be a gruesome job. He looked out and started to gather his essence. He wanted to make more of a difference than just striking down one zombie at a time.

  As he was doing so, Kyle sensed the approach of some powerful people. Maybe powerful was a misstatement, but for mortals they were a notch above. He would put one of them on par with his companions before they learned to cultivate. As he turned, he saw a dark skinned woman in regal attire. She had a rune crafted golden torc around her neck.

  Each of her guards carried a glaive with a long straight blade, and the weapons were also magic items. Beyond that, each of the guards was not only a physical specimen of a man but also a mage in their own right. The magical power that poured off of her said this could only be the legendary Empress of Shadows, Khepri, Queen of Calrissi.

  “So, it is true. You do exist. Not sure that you are a god, but damn if you aren’t easy on the eyes.”

  It wasn’t the way he had expected to be addressed by a queen, but she was an attractive woman, so why not. She definitely would fall into the MILF category. “Queen Khepri, I presume?”

  A mage in ornate robes walked up behind the queen while saying, “It is customary to bow before one’s queen.”

  Nyda and the other companions had landed just behind him. The elven priestess snapped back her own response, “And it is customary to grovel in the presence of a god.”

  Kyle waved his hand. “I think we can dispense with the bowing and groveling. To answer your question, yes, I am real. I was occupied fighting a void wraith, if you know what that is?”

  The queen turned and looked at the robed man behind her. Some non-verbal communication passed between them before she turned back to Kyle. “We may have some idea, but if it is like the one in Calrissi, it only operated from the shadows.”

  “Trust me, it is the actual threat here. The Aekor serve it, but I don’t yet know what game this necromancer is playing with the void wraith. It and the one it serves only want the total destruction of everything.”

  “Except I can’t trust you yet. I don’t know what you are. I can feel your power, but it is odd. You have more than just war essence. I grant you you have a great deal of it, but I also sense, well, every other essence in you but Lust. Which sorta means you could be a powerful demi-god but not a god. I’ve met Lige, Dod, Bedrag, and Begaer. Each of them was powerful beyond imagining but only possessed one type of essence,” Khepri said.

  “You will find out that I am not
like any other god you have met. But perhaps it is time for actions to speak louder than words.”

  With that, Kyle released his aura. For the first time, he truly let it all hang out. His power had grown greatly following the fight with the void wraith. He had been forced to tap into new depths of his own power and now his aura showed that. All but his companions were forced back and fell to their knees. Khepri managed to go to only one knee and Meeka did as well, although Kyle didn’t know if she had even needed to do that.

  There was a feeling of awe that went through all the soldiers. Their hearts swelled as they felt power strengthening them. It was the power of the war god upon the field of battle. His allies became more powerful and their morale soared, simply for being in his presence.

  The enemy felt something different, though. Even unthinking zombies fell backwards. They began thrashing about as his mixed aura was revealed. Further out in the battlefield, he saw all the Aekor pop up. There had been thirty of them before the attack on Calrissi and there were still twenty-nine. Kudos to Khephri and her people for killing even one.

  The releasing of his aura also brought divine eyes upon him. He paused for just a second to see if any were going to intervene. When he felt no attacks directed at him, he moved to act. His soul bound weapon shifted to become a massive two-handed axe. Kyle swung it with all the might of his body but also with the full force of his essence behind it.

  Cascading waves of power flew off with the blast. First the physical force drove a quarter mile wide patch of the undead swarm back. It sent them flying, then tumbling into those behind them and the force kept going. The ground itself was ripped up and a gash fifty feet deep was left behind.

  But that was the end of things. That was merely blunt force. The next wave of energy was earth essence. Kyle reached deeper into that well than ever before, till he felt it was going to burst. He didn’t have enough power with the earth to accomplish his objective, so he called upon the water that lay deep beneath the ground. Just as all water eventually flows to the sea, so his sea essence was capable of controlling that water.

  The ground where his targets had been driven back to became a soggy marsh into which the great press of bodies began sinking. After that came a wave of sky essence. It ignited as blue bolts of electrical power and combined with gold rays of justice essence to pierce through and destroy several hundred of the zombies at once.

  The second to last wave was a wave of death essence. But instead of blasting outward, it swept back the power released by the destroyed undead, thus keeping it from the necromancer or his minions. An instant behind that was a final cutting edge of war essence which sliced to pieces any who survived the wave of justice. The soggy ground grasped at those severed parts, trapping them in place.

  The guards up and down the wall cheered. Even the queen’s guards shouted out. It was hard not to be excited. In one strike, he had just ended perhaps a thousand of the undead. It was enough to break this , but it was a definitive indication of his presence.

  A cacophony of a different sort arose from further back within the army. Kyle could feel hate. The undead hated the living for having something they had lost and hated the dead for having something they couldn’t obtain, but this was more specific. This was the hate of an ancient enemy. One which builds up over time. For all that the void wraiths were meant to be the agents of oblivion, they were masters of hate.

  Buried in there, he felt a desire. But it wasn’t the wraith. It was a living man. His senses found the necromancer. He was perhaps five miles from the city walls in what passed for their command tent. Then he realized what he was feeling. There were two death splinters there. And the desire, it was the man longing for his own death splinter.

  Kyle could only wonder what possessing three death splinters would do to a mortal. Not that he planned to let him find out. No, if he could cut the head from this snake, then the siege could be ended fairly easily. Without the necromancer to control the undead they would be simple mop up. And no matter how powerful the Aekor were, they were nothing he and his companions couldn’t handle if the wraith was removed.

  Saber shouted out, “The enemy is pulling back.”

  Sure enough, he was right. Up and down the wall the zombies that remained were starting to shamble back and not just from the section which Kyle’s attack had cleared. Khepri mumbled loud enough for his acute hearing to pick up, “This is either a good thing or a very bad thing.”

  “Be ready for another attack. They may be planning on hitting us with their stronger troops now,” Kyle called out.

  Saber and one of Khepri’s officers started shouting up and down the line. Instructions were given for reserves and mages were being called forward. Kyle could feel his companions gathering their strength.

  Kyle looked at Khepri. “There can’t be two generals. We have to all react together.”

  “I’m glad you see it that way, Lord Kyle. Your man Saber can act as one of my lieutenants,” the queen replied.

  “How does that make any sense?” Kyle asked.

  “Let’s say for a moment that you are the war god. If this battle goes poorly, you will simply leave. This battle is for the fate of my kingdom, or what is left of it. It is a war of mortals.”

  “And it is a war over which I am the god. My power is drawn from this very concept.”

  “Which again isn’t productive for us poor mortals. War is something we do because we have to. War is your very nature. Your assistance is welcome. My kingdom will hire you and your people as a mercenary company. If we win this battle, I will pay you in gold, enchanted items…” Her voice trailed off as she must have been able to see the disdain on his face.

  “I know, as a god with no proper church to speak of, I can offer to set up temples in your honor in each of our cities or shrines in the smaller towns. Your predecessor never cared for such things, but perhaps that would be sufficient payment for your aid.”

  Kyle still stared at her while keeping an eye on the retreating enemy. His mind split between tracking down the death splinters, observing enemy troop movements and his conversation with Queen Khepri. “I also don’t care about temples. Although I will certainly want to keep the guild hall in Nargossa for the time being. Eventually we may move on.”

  “Hmm… What can I offer you in payment then, Lord Kyle?”

  He could hear the balance in her voice. She was treating him like a dangerous guard dog. She was afraid that he would turn on her, but still hoped to be able to use him. Then she smiled, “I know. You clearly have a fondness for pretty young women. I can provide you with concubines of beauty and talent.”

  Kyle didn’t like being pushed against constantly, so he went on the offensive. He took a step towards her. Immediately, two of her guards moved between them, but she signaled them back. Kyle reached down and stroked her face. “Perhaps it isn’t concubines that I want, but higher prizes.”

  Inwardly, Kyle felt a surge of victory as her face trembled for just a second. This woman, who was far too sure of herself, looked uncertain. But then that instant passed, and she said, “If that is the price of saving my kingdom, then I would bind myself to you. So long as you can accept that I will still have responsibilities to my people.” She paused before looking him up and down and adding, “I guess this wouldn’t be an entirely unpleasant price to pay.”

  Now Kyle chuckled outward, “I don’t seek concubines or unwilling queens. My companions have been gathered naturally, not because they traded themselves in exchange for my support.” As he spoke, he had to make the mental notation that Raina was the exception to that, but he didn’t show that on his face. “I’m glad you are willing to do anything to help your people. But you still confuse me. Why would you not ask me to be your lieutenant?”

  “Simple. You and your companions are the most powerful fighters we have. I may be close to some of them in power, but they are clearly better at battle.”

  Then she did something he hadn’t expected. Khepri dropped to her k
nees in front of him. “Will you please protect the people of Nargossa from this plague of evil, war god?”

  All eyes were on him, and he knew this scene had played out long enough. It was starting to become a distraction from the battle, and he would have never allowed himself to be this distracted before a game. Now there was so much more at stake. “The people of Nargossa and their queen shall have my protection. Just remember this. There are supposedly eight gods in the heavens but only one of them was here to fight.”

  “As you instruct, war god,” Khepri answered before standing up.

  The zombie retreat was now complete. They were all pulled back at least a mile. But the air was full of vampires and a single black robed lich was walking across the field. He even walked through the air overtop of the great gash in the ground that Kyle’s attack had created. When he was floating in the middle of the air about fifty feet from the wall, his dead voice intoned, “My master is willing to grant this city peace in exchange for what is rightfully his property.”