The Skull Throne: A LitRPG novel (Kingdom of Heaven Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  He had the look of a demon and a really badass one at that.

  I finally settled on a Greater Flame Demon. From there, knowing that this was an actual player, let me figure out a good bit more.

  At the very least, this guy had to have the Demon Attunement and at a high level to have this particular form, at least Rank 40, which meant he was probably Level 35 or higher.

  The various demonic forms that the Demon Attunement let you take on gave him big boosts in the Strength and Stamina departments as well as making his baseline attacks hit like a truck.

  Add to that a high natural Critical Hit rate and you had a beast that could tear even Iron Jack apart in short order if I didn’t tread carefully. He looked slow and lumbering, though.

  Outside of some core fire-based attacks, this particular demon form also didn’t focus much on magic, so this would hopefully be a straight-up fight. Of course, I didn’t have really anything in the way of magic myself. That was part of the reason I was here, after all.

  I grimaced. Killing this guy was going to be difficult, if not downright impossible. Still, at Level 50, I probably had ten, maybe fifteen levels on him, which technically made me the bigger threat, even though he towered over me like a skyscraper. I had to remind myself the game wasn't a game for me anymore, not for me. My life could end right now. What was more, I had one shot. This dude would respawn if I took him out. I wouldn’t. I needed to make this count and do so quickly, before the GFD got too weary of what was going on.

  He leaned down toward me, scanning me with those sickening yellow eyes and huffing hot breaths that smelled of rancid meat and (for some reason) root beer directly in my face.

  He opened his mouth and, for a moment, I wondered if he was going to try to eat me. He probably wasn’t big enough to swallow me whole, but he definitely wouldn’t need more than one sitting to polish me off.

  Instead, he let out another huge huff and said, “What’s up, bro?”

  “I...I...” I stammered, looking at the beast as his name appeared overhead in my line of sight.

  Flexmaster43 nodded at me, giving me a cordial greeting as he straightened his back and loomed over me again.

  “No way!” he said, shaking his huge head. “You’re Iron Jack. I’ve heard of you. The Avenging Angels are sick, dude. It must be hella fun questing with those guys.” He shrugged. “I tried to join once a long time ago, but they told me they were all filled up. That was before they took you on. That doesn’t make a whole lotta sense, but whatevs. It’s cool, I guess.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  He grinned at me, and for a minute, he looked almost human. It was like I could see a flash that for some reason reminded me of either a guy from Cleveland or a college kid from Santa Cruz staring back at me. Maybe taking him out wouldn’t be so difficult after all. Maybe I could just explain things to him, and he’d understand. He did seem to be a fan, after all.

  “The Jackal sent me,” I admitted, letting the point of my spear fall toward the ground.

  “That son of a bitch,” Flexmaster43 muttered. “I already told that annoying asshole I can’t give him his damned elixir back. I drank it. It did make me super tall though. So, no regrets. Am I right?”

  He offered me a huge hand, and I smacked it, giving him the most one-sided high five in all of history.

  He smiled back and nodded. “So yeah. Whatever he wants you to do, I can’t help you, bro. But I did nab an Eternal Flame enchantment last week, and this place is sick with chickens. So I’ve got a gnarly fire pit out back if you’re looking to nosh.”

  Gnarly? Nosh? Okay. So this guy was probably closer to Santa Cruz than Cleveland. Either way, I was going to have to disappoint him. We weren’t going to be friends. At least not today.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I said, feeling my throat tighten. “He wants me to kill you, dude. And I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to do it.”

  “No,” Flexmaster said, holding his huge palms up in the air. “I’m sure he promised you some gold or potions or shit, but that dude is a liar. He’ll trick you. Just because he’s an NPC doesn’t mean he has to play by the rules. Besides, there’s other stuff going on here, bro. I promise, you don’t want to–”

  I didn’t care to hear any more of it. Whatever Flex had to say didn’t matter. He was going to have to die today. Which, of course, would probably ruin half of his afternoon, but if I stayed here, it would ruin the rest of my life. In the grand scheme of things, I was pretty sure he would understand.

  I lunged toward him, thrusting the tip of my spear toward his chest. His eyes went wide as he quickly threw a huge hand into my side, knocking me away. Instantly, Energy bars appeared over both our heads.

  Mine was full, but Flex’s was a touch over half. Finally, some good news.

  “Did you just come at me, bro?” he asked, lumbering toward me, his steps causing the ground underfoot to shake. “I told you that you didn’t want to do that! I’m not just some ordinary player, bro!”

  I had heard it before. Every idiot who’d ever leveled up thought of themselves as the Second Coming or something. This guy might have been good, and he might be riding a wave of elixir-induced bigness, but he was not me. The Avenging Angels didn’t want him, which meant he had a pretty obvious shortcoming. All I had to do was find it.

  “Neither am I, I’m afraid,” I answered. Though I, of course, meant something completely different than he had. “Which is why I have to do this, I’m afraid.”

  I sprinted to the side. Even at regular size, Demons weren’t a speed Attunement. Ones using the Fire Demon form were even slower, a good bit slower than most other hand-to-hand focused Attunements and definitely slower than a knight. Since he was three times the size of a regular demon, I could use my quickness to my advantage.

  I twisted around him, hitting him with tiny jabs, each of which tore tiny segments from his Energy bar. Though he obviously had a ton of Energy, even starting at half, I was wearing him down. Enough of this, and I wouldn’t have to do much in the way of fighting.

  Angry, he yelled and slammed his foot against the ground. The ensuing shockwave knocked me to my ass and wiped out almost a quarter of my Energy bar. The really strange thing was that there still was a certain deadening of pain. Sure, I felt it far more than I did when I was behind the keyboard (which was none, of course) but you would think that kind of massive hit would have had me crying like a baby. Maybe I’d been given Iron Jack’s steely nerves and physical toughness to match his stats.

  Flexmaster43’s Demon Stomp hits you! You take 19,873 Physical Damage! 67,127 Energy remaining.

  Damn, just like that Flexmaster43 was back in the game.

  It didn’t help that Kingdom of Heaven had a very nice physics model, something that made a lot more sense in hindsight with it, well, being a real world and all. My spear flew from my hand as the force from the stomp threw me off my feet. I crawled toward it, reaching out for the wood. Flexmaster stomped on it, though, snapping it in two and sending the damned thing flickering out of existence. Now that wasn’t part of the normal game! What was more, this new shockwave knocked me backward again. I slammed against a tree as another quarter of my Energy went bye-bye.

  Looking up, I saw that in just a few seconds, we were closer than I’d have liked in terms of Energy, and now I was without my spear.

  Pulling them from my virtual armory, I brandished my soul daggers as I rolled away and up to my feet. They were small, and while not as effective as the spear, I could hold them while wielding my sword (which would have come in handy right now), affording them a full time spot on my weapons rotation.

  Plus, they had long range capabilities, which was cool as shit right about now. I tossed the soul dagger at the demon’s chest and watched as another piece of his Energy bar went the way of the dodo.

  Your Soul Dagger hits Flexmaster43! He takes 6% Physical Damage! 29% Energy remaining.

  Growling, he swung around and leveled a fist in my direction. As his fis
t got closer, I saw he wore a pair of Venom-Dipped Brass Knuckles. I bristled. That was a pretty kickass weapon. You couldn't even wield them unless you had at least 300 Strength, putting them on a near-even level with my Sword of Judgment. I lunged out of the way, but it struck my lower half/Even with the partial dodge, the massive fist slammed me back down into the ground, and burning venom flooded into my body.

  Flexmaster43’s punch hits you (glancing)! You take 14,110 Physical Damage and 12,182 Venom Damage! 16,708 Energy remaining.

  Looking up, I saw I could barely move. Even Iron Jack’s vaunted 392 Stamina and the High Pain Threshold Knight Passive wasn’t enough to keep the pain at bay. It was real as it seared through my lower extremities. Flexmaster was over me now, staring down at me with anger in his eyes. I was one hit away from death, one foot to the temple away from oblivion. As he lifted his leg, I knew he was about to give it to me.

  “Stop,” I muttered. “I’ll die. I’ll really die,” I begged. My brow knitted together, thinking of how stupid and unnecessary all of this was. I would die for nothing.

  He shook his head but didn’t stop. “Bro, you don’t even know.”

  His foot started its descent toward my skull. I panicked, scrolling through my armory and hoping to find something I could use. Everything seemed useless, everything except that damned Lightning Bolt Ori forced me to buy. A niggling little voice in my head, the part of me that actually paid attention to stuff Ember said about magic in KOH, reminded me that demons had a natural vulnerability to Nature Magic.

  Taking a deep breath and watching as his foot (and my death) loomed ever closer, I used it. A strange sensation filled me. Magic had never been my thing, and I couldn’t say I liked the tingle I felt now that it was running through me.

  “No!” a voice shouted from the distance.

  Flexmaster pulled to a halt.

  “Ori?” he asked. “Hecate?”

  Ori? Hecate? They had found me, but how did they know this guy?

  Before I could get the answer to that question, my called upon lightning bolt did its job. Rushing from the sky, it slammed into the demon, sending shockwaves through him and stealing what remained of his Energy. He looked down at me as his yellow eyes went dark, and then he fell backward, taking out a tree as he landed dead on the ground.

  Your Lightning Bolt hits Flexmaster43 (Critical Hit)! He takes 32% Electrical Damage!

  Flexmaster43 dies!

  Congratulations! You gain 4 Ranks to the Woods Mystic Attunement!

  “No!” Ori shouted again. “No! No! No!”

  I watched her flap overhead, rushing to the demon’s body.

  Hecate was at me, pulling me upright. “It’s okay,” I said, my head spinning and my body still tingling. “I’m okay.”

  “But he’s not,” Hecate said, looking over at Flexmaster. “You killed him.”

  “I had to,” I said. “The Jackal promised to–”

  “You really killed him,” Hecate said, blinking.

  “It’s fine,” I answered. “He’ll respawn.”

  “No,” Hecate said. “Before you, there were others. He was one of them. His name was Aaron. He was from New Jersey, and you just murdered him.”

  14

  Aaron.

  The name bounced around my head like something a scantily-clad Miley Cyrus might ride atop, clanging hard against the sides of my skull and bringing me everything short of actual, physical pain.

  I paced around the woods, wearing a circle into the ground beside the lumbering giant’s corpse. Only he wasn’t a lumbering giant any more than I was a super-hot knight with perfect hair and piercing blue eyes. He was a guy, maybe even a kid. He was a Jersey boy who had parents and a life, and I had taken all of that from him. I had murdered him in cold blood, and I hadn’t even realized it. It took all I could do not to scream.

  At the time, caught up in my grief and doubt, I didn’t notice my Sanctity Level start to rise again, having almost zeroed out after my death blow on Aaron.

  “Would you stop doing that? You’re making me nervous,” Ori asked, tightening her mouth until her plump lips all but vanished into a thin, straight line. She was judging me. I could tell from the look on her face and the way she stood a little further away than she had any right to.

  I couldn’t blame her. I was an idiot. I was a careless fool. I should have known better than to trust the Jackal. He was a trickster. He was a liar and a con man who didn’t care what happened to people so long as he got what he wanted.

  Well, if the death of some kid from the Northeast was what he was after, then he must have been singing right now, wherever he was. He bolted right after I sent that Lightning Bolt crashing into Aaron’s chest. Hecate went after him, running to either get some answers or revenge. Preferably, she’d come back with both.

  Who was I to ask for revenge though? I was just as responsible for this atrocity as the Jackal. I was a smart player. I was a frequent player. I knew everything there was to know about the Jackal, and I always prided myself on being too smart to fall for that particular NPC’s bullshit. I guess I wasn’t though. I wasn’t smart at all.

  “Maybe you should be nervous. God knows I am,” I said, my eyes planted on my feet as I continued to pace. Looking at Ori was one thing. It was the only way to gauge the justified outrage and disappointment on her face. But looking at her while talking to her was another thing altogether. There was far too high a risk that I would make eye contact with her, and I couldn’t bear to do that right now. If she looked into my eyes – if I saw the disappointment in them – I might just break down altogether.

  Still, I did as she asked and stopped in my tracks. It wasn’t as much for her as for myself. I had a question to ask, a question that had been swimming around in my head since I learned what I had done to this guy. “You brought his soul here? Like you did with me?”

  “I didn’t,” Ori answered as I stared at the grass near my feet. “But the Principalities did, much like with you. He and Hecate were close, if I remember correctly. Perhaps too close for a while. We thought he was going to be the one to save us save us all at first. He was a good person, a kind person. He was fiercely loyal and seemed to have his head on straight.” She stopped a beat before she added, “He would have made a good king.”

  “Then what stopped him?” I muttered, trying to keep my voice steady and not let on just how much the sorrow threatened to crush me. “Why didn’t he become king?”

  “He wasn’t like you,” Ori said. “He had no ties to the other world, to your world. We thought that would be best at first, to find someone who had nothing to lose. The idea was that a person like that would be able to give his or her all to the cause, without fear of them reacting the way you did when you found out the truth of our plan.” Another beat and she continued. “We were wrong though. People with nothing to live for don’t make good warriors, and they don’t fight as hard as they could when their backs are pushed against the wall.”

  “Aaron seemed to fight me pretty hard,” I contested, still not daring to look at her.

  “I’ll admit, he was an exception to the rule,” she answered. “His issues came in other forms. Though, I have to admit, Iron Jack, your skills were more impressive than I previously imagined, even if Flexmaster started at less than full health and you sucker punched him. He was our champion once upon a time. The fact that you were able to take him out with a common spear and lightning you barely know how to use is a testament to how superior you are to him in terms of your skillset.”

  “What other forms?” I asked, blinking and instinctively running a hand through my hair as I did my best to brush off her compliment. This guy was dead, after all. Was this how she would react if I died? I'd become nothing more than a list of stats and stories?

  "What?" she asked.

  "You said he had other issues," I stated. "What were they?"

  “He had nothing on his earth to live for, no love, and no connection. That didn’t mean he couldn’t find it here though
.”

  “He fell in love,” I said, swallowing hard. “He fell in love with someone here.”

  “Yes, a pretty little sprite if I remember correctly. Hecate thought it was just physical, like it had been with her, but it was more than that. He found a purpose in that love. He found a family in her family, and he made a home with her, but it wasn’t to be. When the Shadow made his play for the Skull Throne the first time, he marched through the sprite lands. It took all we could do to stop him. He very nearly planted himself on the throne that very day.

  “If not for the artful resistance of the Flexmaster, he may have very well won the day. The victory wasn’t without sorrow though. His home, his family, his love all perished that day. He was left with nothing and as such, nothing to fight for. We tried to send him home. Energy was more plentiful then. He swore he had nothing to go back for and retreated into hiding. We had no idea where he was until we found him standing over you.”

  My eyes traveled from the ground to the face of the giant. I looked at him differently now, though no less tragically. I had seen this face, the giant, as a mask Aaron had been forced to wear. It never occurred to me Aaron was the mask, that in his soul, he had always been Flexmaster.

  No matter. I’d killed him regardless of who he was on the inside, and his soul, I had no idea about that.

  "He did a lot in a short time. Didn't he?" I asked, shaking my head.

  “Not as short as you’re probably imagining,” she answered. “The portal you use to gaze into our world, the game you play, is only the newest of the many methods the Principalities have used in the past.” She nodded. “Aaron came to us in what you would think of as a previous generation, through a different, more primitive game.”

  Well, that explained the “gnarly.” Still, my mind was spinning as it reminded me just how long I might be stuck here and the terrible corollary: just how long had these people been doing this, pulling humans into their world to try to fix their problems? “How long was he here?”