Shadow Stars (Universe on Fire Book 2)

by Ivan Kal

  “If you mean to ask if am I the God… Well then, the answer is no. I don’t really know for certain if a god really exists. What I do know is that if you go over there toward the light, you will find out. I guess that I am technically a god, little g, but not really… It’s complicated. Also for the purpose of this meeting, you may call me Oxylus,” the man said with a grin.

  Morgan blinked at that. Little g? Then he frowned at the name and the way the man said it. “Is that name supposed to be some kind of a reference or an inside joke?” Morgan asked. “Because if it is, I have no idea what it means.”

  The man closed his eyes and covered his face. “Calm, calm… What do they teach these kids in schools these days…” The man muttered in his hands. Then he finally took a deep breath and looked at Morgan in a way that someone might look at a child. “It doesn’t matter. I just liked the name.”

  Morgan narrowed his eyes. There was a glimmer of something in Oxylus’ eyes, but he had no idea what it meant. “Whatever you say, Oxy.”

  Oxy narrowed his eyes at Morgan but then took another deep breath. Morgan felt something, and then glanced down the tunnel at the bright light. There was something there—something pulling him forward. It was almost as if he could hear a song somewhere in his head, promising things that he couldn’t really understand, as if they were just at the edge of his understanding.

  Then he turned to Oxy as another thought occurred to him. “Wait, are you some kind of a ghost, a ferryman or something like that? Here to take me to the afterlife?” Morgan asked, turning back from the light.

  Oxy grinned at him. “Nope, I’m not a ghost, seeing as I am not dead, unlike you. And I am not here to ferry you to the afterlife. If you want to see what is beyond, all you have to do is walk into the light. I am here to make you an offer before you decide to go through or the light pulls you in.”

  Morgan glanced at the light nervously. “What kind of an offer?”

  “A new life,” Oxy said with a glimmer in his eyes.

  “You can bring me back from the dead?” Morgan asked, surprised, and then immediately felt fearful. He had played enough games to know all about zombies and other crap, and he did not plan on selling his soul or binding himself to some strange dude in a diving suit.

  “Yup, I can give you a new life. And before you ask, I mean new life. I am not going to send you back to your little world and your old life.”

  “Why not?” Morgan asked, just a bit crushed. Already he had started thinking about all the things he would change in his life if he got to go back.

  “Because I gain nothing from you continuing your life on Earth. And let’s face it, you weren’t doing much with your life anyway.”

  For a moment Morgan prepared to deny Oxy’s words, but he stopped himself. The strange god-but-not-god man in a wet suit was right. Morgan hadn’t really done much with his life. He had already repeated a year at college, and would probably drop out by the end of the year. Or rather would have dropped out, had I not died instead.

  “What are you offering, then? And just so you know, I ain’t selling my soul to you, and this better not be some Sauron type of shit where you seduce me and then corrupt my soul!” Morgan told him in what he thought was a resolute tone of voice.

  The man chuckled. “You have nothing to worry about. I don’t want your soul, nor do I want to corrupt and dominate it. All that I am offering is a new life on a new world, a new reality.”

  “Uh… Say what again?”

  “I want to give you a chance to start a new life on another world.”

  Morgan blinked; that did sound appealing. Especially since he was, like, totally dead, and like totally not about to go into a strange singing light. No way in hell or heaven am I stepping through that shit.

  “Why me?” Morgan asked dumbly, as he tried to figure out the answer to the same question. It wasn’t like Morgan was anything special; well, maybe to his grandma, who always said that he was her special little boy, but he was fairly certain that her opinion didn’t matter much to the not-God-dude.

  “Okay, it’s simple really,” Oxylus explained. “I would take you—or rather your soul here,” he said, gesturing at Morgan, “and then I would give you a new body and send you to another realm, my realm. You see, when I was younger I’ve really liked video games similar to what you’ve been playing while you had still been alive. Then, when I had a need to do some experiments, I made a universe from scratch as my playground. A universe that follows the rules similar to those of those kind of games. I would transport you and you can live out your life there. Once you die you will get back here to your tunnel and, well, you can go through there if you like, see what’s on the other side.”

  Morgan blinked slowly as Oxy’s words seeped into his brain. “You are telling me that you, a dude that says he is technically a god, played video games?” he asked incredulously.

  “Of course I did. What? Gods can’t play video games?”

  “No, no, I just didn’t expect it is all. Right on!” Morgan extended his hand for a fist-bump. Oxy just stared at him with a blank expression on his face. Right. For a moment, Morgan wondered if he was imagining all of this, if he was perhaps dreaming—or maybe I’m in a coma. But he knew that he wasn’t. He didn’t know how he knew, but there was something inside of him that told him with no uncertainty that he was no longer living. He was dead, and he was supposed to walk toward the light, and staying where he was would result in him disappearing into nothingness. He pulled his hand back and returned the man’s gaze.

  “So what do you say?” Oxy asked.

  “I feel like there is a lot that you are not telling me,” Morgan said slowly. Something about the man in front of him frightened Morgan unlike anyone else ever had. More even than that one time when a spider fell on his keyboard and walked over his hand and Morgan screamed like a little girl. Morgan shuddered as he remembered—frickin’ spiders, man.

  “Well, of course I’m not telling you everything. I’m older than some universes. There is a lot that I know.”

  Morgan swallowed audibly. He couldn’t really wrap his mind around anything being that old. Then again, the dude might just be lying to me, he thought to himself. He opened his mouth to speak, but Oxy spoke first.

  “Look, I really have no time to explain everything to you. You are dead, and you can go toward the light and the afterlife—if it exists. I am not planning on going to check. Or you can accept my offer and get to live again, it’s as simple as that.”

  Morgan was certain that it wasn’t as simple as that, but he also knew that he really didn’t want to walk into the light. He hadn’t been very religious before he died, a great shame to his mother, but he really didn’t want to go through and then see that all the stuff she’d been telling him was the truth. With my luck I would end up in hell; I’m pretty sure that stealing is a sin. Frickin’ Marcus and his dumb bubblegum. He would much rather extend his stay in the land of the living, thank you very much. It wasn’t really a choice for him.

  “All right, I’ll give you my answer if you answer two questions. First, what do you get out of this? And second, why me? I seriously doubt that you give this offer to everyone that dies.”

  Oxylus sighed impatiently and then nodded to himself. “Fine. I said that I am running an experiment—what I get from this is information that helps my research, and that is as much as I am willing to say. As to why you…well, I am trying something new. Until now I’ve been making this offer to people I believed were more suited to my needs, warriors, soldiers, and the like. Those, I thought, could give me what I wanted, but the results I’ve been getting aren’t all that impressive. Now I am trying something else, and I am extending the offers to people like you as well. I am offering a new life, and if you gain enough strength and if you reach the end of the Tower of Power, I shall grant you a great reward.”

  “People like me?” Morgan asked, confused, and then he understood. “You mean gamers?”

  “Yes, and hopefully t
his won’t be a waste of my time. Now, what is your answer?” Oxylus asked.

  Morgan mulled it through one last time, even though he knew what he was going to say. A chance to live again, and in a world where everything would be like in his games? That wasn’t a choice at all. “This reward you offer, can you bring me back to Earth?”

  Oxy rolled his eyes. “I can’t think of any reason why you would want to go back there, but sure, if that is what you want.”

  “Then I agree.” Morgan nodded, spit on his hand and put it out for a handshake.

  Oxy just stared at Morgan’s extended hand without reaching out, then looked Morgan in the eyes and blinked at him as if he were insane.

  Right, Morgan thought to himself, pulling his hand back and wiping it on his pants. How in the hell did I even manage to spit on my hand if I’m dead? Morgan wondered.

  Oxy then tilted his head and pointed his palm at Morgan. Then he grinned, and Morgan felt heat radiating from the center of his chest—but then it changed, as if something in the core of his being shifted. “Great,” Oxy said, and stepped closer. “Now, I am in a bit of hurry, so we should get this over with. Oh, and I will need a piece of your soul first.”

  “What?” Morgan asked, but he had no chance to react before Oxy slammed his hand through Morgan’s chest. Morgan glanced down only to see Oxy’s hand elbow deep inside his chest.

  “Mother fucke—” Then there was only pain.

  ETERNAL PATH BOOK ONE – ETERNAL SOUL

  CHAPTER TWO

  VIN

  Kai Zhao Vin woke in darkness on cold stone with shackles on his wrists and ankles. Thick chains kept him tied to a wall, allowing him only a few steps in any direction. He did not know for how long he’d slept, nor did he even know for how long he had been imprisoned. He had lost count of the days, with no sunlight to tell him the passage of time. Once again he cursed his captors for making his soul suffer through this abomination, for trying to break him and refusing to let his soul pass to the realm of the gods.

  A rattle turned his attention to the doors of his cell; Vin heard voices and realized that he had been woken up by these visitors. He closed his eyes to shield them from being blinded by the orb of light that his jailers would certainly have, and waited. A few moments later he heard the door open and the sound footsteps growing closer. Suddenly, large hands grabbed him and removed the shackles from his wrists and ankles, and then the visitors picked him up and half carried, half dragged him outside.

  The legs of this body were weak compared to the one he had been born with. The original owner of this body had been a weak spirit artist, his body not even reaching the first step of the path. So, even though he hated being carried, he swallowed his pride and conserved his strength.

  He opened his eyes just a bit, letting them slowly adjust to the light. He hated that he was constrained by this frail body, hated that this body’s core was so weak that he could barely push ki through its channels, hated that he couldn’t seek justice for what had been done to him and to his people, and to Orb—his world.

  He managed to turn his head enough to see the two that were carrying him. Beasts with dark red scales and black horns, over two meters tall and wide as oxen, with leathery wings folded on their backs. Brutes, they served as heavy infantry for the enemy, slow but powerful. Vin guessed that now, when there was no one else to fight, they had been delegated to other lesser tasks, such as retrieving prisoners.

  They carried him out of the dungeon and into what had once been a city of his people, the last that was standing before Vin was captured. The soaring towers of Heavenly Orders no longer pierced the blue sky; now, only craters remained where they had once stood, and the once azure sky had turned crimson as blood. What previously had been the brown-and-gray shape of the Father Storm was now tinted in that same red, and the storms that danced across his surface now seemed angry as he rose above the horizon, filling half of the sky.

  Buildings once filled with crafters and practitioners of the spirit arts were now tainted by the invaders. Vin did not know exactly for how long he had been a prisoner; he knew only that he had spent at least a year as a prisoner in his original body, enduring invasions of his mind. The enemy wanted him on their side, but Vin’s will was greater. He would never bow and accept their offer. He had tried to escape, of course—his honor as a spirit-artist demanded the attempt—as these were not artists from another clan, but honorless invaders. He had prepared for months, compressing and purifying his ki in order to gain a burst of power great enough to overcome the strange aura that the enemy used to keep him imprisoned.

  He had almost succeeded; he escaped the prison and then ran right into one of the enemy commanders. Had he been at his peak before the imprisonment had weakened him, or if had he still possessed even one of his blessed arms, he could have won, he knew. Instead, he had found himself back in the cold, dark cell. The enemy had then used their cursed artifact and strange powers to extract Vin’s soul from its earthly vessel and put it into another, weaker one, ensuring that he would not have enough strength to escape again. And in fairness this body was not truly weak, Vin admitted: whoever had inhabited it before simply hadn’t even attempted to make the first step on the path. By the shape of the body’s muscles, Vin knew that the body’s previous owner had taken care of it, had trained it to the best of his meager ability.

  A strong man for sure for his level of power, but nothing compared to power that Vin had wielded in his original body. The strength that the body possessed now was no match for even the lowest of the enemy’s soldiers. Despite that, Vin cultivated the body’s—or rather now his—ki, pushing and pulling it through the body’s channels. He was familiarizing himself with his new body, hoping that someday he would have enough power to escape.

  The brutes led him through the streets toward the main square. Pain shot through his heart at the sights around him, for they gave truth to what his captors had been telling him. His people were gone.

  The two brutes carried him through the throng of creatures and their leaders. Human-like creatures with horns and red skin that called themselves Arashan watched over their subjects. Eventually they reached the large square, and Vin immediately noticed the massive construction effort in the center of the clearing. Vin recognized it immediately: a World Gate. Made of gray stone, once finished it would tower above the buildings around it. Memories came to Vin of five thousand warriors, spirit artists all, the best of the best, following behind him as they marched on the gate the enemy had used to invade their world. It had been one last attempt to destroy it and cut them off from Orb, hoping that without support from their own world that they could be defeated.

  They had lost. Most were killed; though a few were captured, Vin among them.

  This new World Gate drew Vin’s eyes, and he could see that it wouldn’t be finished for a long time, years even, but it told him that the enemy was getting ready to invade another world. In order to do so, they would need a mirror World Gate on the world they intended to invade—that much Vin’s people had managed to learn. As he was dragged past the World Gate, Vin noticed something else. An archway similar in appearance to the larger gate, only smaller. Sized enough for maybe two people to pass through at the same time, with two large crystals placed on two pedestals on each side of the archway, each glowing with tainted red aura.

  The two brutes carried him in the archway’s direction, and then past it toward a large round table covered with maps and documents written in what was to him an unfamiliar language. The brutes dropped him to the ground in front of their Arashan commander, who was leaning over the table and looking at maps of unfamiliar lands. The commander turned and looked down at Vin with his yellow eyes. With this new body’s weak sight, Vin could no longer see the soul of the commander, but still he remembered the sight when he’d had the ability: there was a red aura that added power to the being before him. It was as if there were a tether reaching from somewhere far beyond this place that fed power to the being i
n front of Vin.

  The commander studied him, and Vin did the same in return. He glanced at the black armor that covered every part of the commander, each interlocking plate etched with glowing red symbols that wisped with smoke.

  “Have you changed your mind, Vin?” the commander asked.

  “No, Narzarah,” Vin answered.

  Narzarah sighed. He gestured with his hand and the two brutes picked Vin up from his knees, allowing him to stand. Narzarah then turned to the table, pointing. “These are the maps of another world, Kai Zhao Vin. We have finished with yours. Mostly. The few that remain in hiding will die soon enough. And we have already made contact with the people of this new world—a World Gate will be built and the Host will spill through, adding the power of their world to that of our God. You have suffered enough, Vin. You have seen our power. Why delay the inevitable?” Narzarah asked. “A soul is immortal. You know that we can keep you alive and bound to earthly vessels forever. Forcing you from one body to another until you forget what your original one looked like. You will never see the heavens. Accept our God’s offer, Vin. Join the Arashan, and you will have a respected place among the Host.”

  “Why are you doing all of this to get me on your side, Narzarah?”

  “Because you stood up to us, of course. Your little moon is the first low-magic world we have ever encountered that stood against us with such success, considering your handicap. The only one that had refused to bow and add its strength to the Arashan. Your people have somehow learned to harness their innate power in ways that we have never seen before. There is so little magic on this world that most spells simply can’t work without us bringing gems and anima-wells from other worlds to power them. The innate anima of our mages is not enough to power them.” Narzarah considered him shrewdly. “Yet you have achieved something once thought impossible: you have devised a way to strengthen your own anima. To change it, and to achieve power without the use of spells and magic in nature. And you, among all of your people, have stood on the top, the youngest ever to become a Sage. You killed the most of our warriors and mages, and you prolonged what was supposed to be a short campaign of several months to five years. My God can use such talent and strength. I know that you are a warrior in your heart, just like me. Join us, Vin, and you will be by my side, leading the Host in the conquest of the stars.”