by Ivan Kal
“I have no need to lie,” Oxylus replied. “I punished your people by taking them away from everything that they knew, and I gave them the gift of ascension. I allowed them into the world with the other races I had gathered, and what did they do? They turned against the other races, and they turned against themselves. They ripped themselves to pieces, and the remnants became the first of the savages that you met when you woke up. It was their fault, not mine.”
“Why are you here?” Korvorok asked. “You come to mock me as I make the final journey?”
“No, I come to tell you something. Your punishment had been to spend the years in stasis, until all those that you knew passed away, until their children and their children met the same fate—until all memory of your status and greatness was gone from the memory of your people. And then you were to walk among them, as one who stood as the lowest of them.”
“Are you happy that your punishment worked? That I have been miserable and that I hated every moment of my life?” Korvorok asked.
Oxylus shook his head in disappointment. “No, because you missed the point. I gave you a punishment, yes—but I also gave you a path to redemption, a way for you to change your people, to make them better. To change the fate of the goblins. And instead you did the exact opposite. You chose to reinforce their savage instinct, to slaughter, for your hatred. You failed.”
Korvorok looked stunned, then slowly began shaking his head. “No, no, you lie! It was a trick. You gave it to me in order to mock me!”
“It does not matter now,” Oxylus said.
“Fine, then. Go away. Leave me alone to pass on,” Korvorok said without any of his previous fire.
Oxylus shook his head. “I am sorry, but you will not be passing on today.”
“What?” Korvorok asked, confused.
“You see, I’m not really the sentimental type, but there are lines that even beings such as I must draw. And you tried to kill my son.”
He saw Korvorok’s eyes widened, but then he simply unfurled his will and slammed it into the core of who Korvorok was. In mere moments, Korvorok’s essence dissolved under the pressure and he was gone, erased completely from existence.
With that, Oxylus glanced at the blinding light at the end of the tunnel, and then turned his back to it, stepping through the wall and back into the material world.
Morgan stood at the edge of the cliff side of his Guild Hold. Night was settling over Reach Town and torches were being lit, illuminating the night. Morgan watched the town—it had changed a lot over the last two months. The damage from the goblin attack had been repaired, and there were more buildings now, filling in the empty clearing between the wall and the town proper, reducing its presence significantly. A portion of it was filled with different types of buildings, smaller and rounded. They now made up the orc quarter, as some of them had accepted the offer to stay and live there. They would not be required to ascend, of course, but they were now citizens of Reach Town, and associated with Skyreach.
Many things were changing. Lucius had been busy training up people as they prepared to set off outside of the valley, to fight stronger monsters and ascend further. Their group was going to be consisted of the original four and Clara, with Titus staying back to be somewhat in charge, although most of the day-to-day dealings of the Guild would be handled by Karissa. Titus still didn’t have his upgraded class, so they had decided on him staying until they found him one.
But for now there was not much to do, no pressing matters. They were just slowly preparing for adventuring, and Morgan enjoyed these simple moments of peace and quiet.
“The stars are very different here,” a voice said from Morgan’s left and he quickly turned to look, as he hadn’t felt anyone come up on him. Since he had his Life Sense skill, he had been able to sense people walking near him.
But as soon as he laid eyes on the person standing there, he froze. He felt his throat close up and he couldn’t speak. Oxylus stood there wearing a simple coat with his face turned to the sky, watching the stars. Morgan frowned as he realized that Oxylus didn’t glow with life energy at all, so he focused and tried to look more closely for anything that he might be missing. After a few seconds of him intently staring at the god-not-god, Morgan saw something. For an instant, his vision was filled with a nearly blinding, blazing fire of energy swirling all around the god. He blinked and it was gone—but Oxylus was now looking at him. He winked and then turned to look back at the stars.
“I have never found any world from which the stars can elicit the same feeling in me as those seen from Earth.” Oxylus shook his head. “I have never figured out why. I have spent only a very short period of time on Earth, watched the stars maybe a handful of times. I left it before I was even a man, and yet still it makes me feel at home.”
“I don’t know,” Morgan said. “Earth never seemed like home to me. This place does; this is home to me now.”
Oxylus looked at him and nodded, then glanced down to the town. “You have done well, with everything.”
“I nearly died. A couple of times, actually,” Morgan said, trying to keep his voice from shaking.
Oxylus shrugged. “But you didn’t. You grew stronger and prevailed.”
Morgan opened his mouth to speak, but instead he thought better of it. After collecting his thoughts for a moment, he spoke. “Would you have let me?”
“Of course, as I told you before. There are no third chances. You will either grow and become strong, or perish.”
“Even with me being your…” Morgan trailed off, unable to say it out loud.
“My son?”
Morgan nodded, not trusting his voice.
“The job of a parent is to prepare their child for the life ahead of them—and I know the true reality of all existence. It is a cruel place where only the strong thrive, and the weak perish. If you want to live, you will struggle and gain power to keep what you care for safe. I have given you the tools you need to accomplish that, and that is all I will do. Hiding behind me will only serve to make you weak, and the first moment when you are not standing in my shadow, you would die because you did not have enough strength to survive.”
Morgan struggled to grasp at this man’s beliefs and convictions. The way he had been raised, the way that the things were on Earth were so very different than here. But now that he had heard Oxylus’s words, he felt like he understood this world more. It was a place that only a being with the convictions of Oxylus could create, a place where the strong survived and thrived, while the weak served only as food for them to climb higher. In many ways, Morgan found it despicable and deplorable; but a part of him that loved ascending could understand. There were always things more powerful than you—you needed to be merciless in order to survive.
“You are a dick,” Morgan said at last.
Oxy didn’t react. Instead, he looked back to the town. “One day, if you achieve true power, you will thank me for it.”
Now it was Morgan’s turn not to respond. He watched the town alongside the man that was his father. After a while, he finally got enough courage to ask a question.
“So…” Morgan started. “Am I like half god or something?”
Oxylus’s response was to explode into a fit of laughter. Morgan frowned and watched the god-not-god laugh at his question. Well, fuck you then. I think it’s a completely rational question!
I heard that, Oxy’s voice echoed inside of Morgan’s head, and he froze.
Outwardly, Oxylus didn’t acknowledge it. Instead he collected himself and looked at Morgan. “No, you are completely human. The body that conceived you was human in every single way. Although I guess your soul might be somewhat different, since half of it came from me.”
“And what does that mean?” Morgan asked.
Oxylus shrugged. “Don’t know. I haven’t really cracked this soul or spirit or whatever just yet.”
Morgan blinked in surprise. He was pretty sure that Oxylus had just imitated him. He shook his head and decid
ed to change the topic. “So, my mom told me that you were dead…”
Oxylus sighed. “Your mother… We had not really spent much time together. A few days, and then I left.”
“Oh…so like a one-night stand that turned into several…”
“I am sorry if that makes you feel bad, but it is the truth. I did not plan you,” Oxylus said.
“So why my mom then?” Morgan asked. He really couldn’t see his religious mother with this man who was basically a god.
“I…I was not in a good place when I met her. I had suffered a loss, and I felt like I needed a time to myself. I found an Earth, and I went there to hide. Your mother… She found me in a bar. She made me laugh, and I hadn’t laughed in a long time. It was enough.”
“You are a god, but you haven’t thought about using protection with a woman you intended to leave?” Morgan asked, perhaps with just a bit of an edge.
“Even gods make mistakes. I knew the moment you were conceived, but by then it was too late. I considered taking your mother with me when I left, but she was not really the type of a person that would take well to the revelations about the truth of her existence.”
“Right,” Morgan replied. He couldn’t even imagine what his mother would have done once she was exposed to the revelation that probably everything she believed in wasn’t true.
“I set up a system nearby to watch you and inform me should you ever be in trouble, and then I left,” Oxylus said.
“If I was ever in trouble?” Morgan asked. “I guess it didn’t work, then, since my life has been full of troubles, and you only came back once I died.”
Oxylus gave him a long look. “Your troubles were nothing but simple obstacles. I wasn’t about to interfere in that. The kinds of troubles I was thinking about were more severe. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I am not really the type of person who coddles.”
Morgan wanted to say something, but decided that what he had in mind would probably anger Oxylus—and by the look he was giving him he agreed. Stay out of my head! Morgan shouted mentally, but Oxylus didn’t react. “Well, then, I guess I should say thank you for giving me a second chance.”
Oxylus inclined his head.
“And,” Morgan started, “what now?”
“What do you mean?” Oxylus asked.
“Are we going to do stuff, like father-son stuff? Maybe throw a ball around a few times—or, I don’t know, go to a few field trips to other galaxies? You know, the regular things.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Morgan. I have far better things to do than play around with you,” Oxylus told him.
“Wow. That, like, really hurts my feelings, you know,” Morgan said with a hand on his chest.
“What I said to you when we first met still holds. Gain strength, conquer the Tower of Power, and you will be worthy of standing next to me. I only have a need for the strong.”
Morgan studied his father for a long moment. A part of him was disappointed, but there was another that wanted to do as he had asked, to prove himself. He sighed and turned to look back at the town, thinking. He figured that Oxylus was never going to be a father like Morgan had imagined when he was little. But in many ways he was so much more. He was a god: a person who had achieved so much power that he could do things that Morgan could scarcely imagine, and Morgan now had a path to achieving the same abilities. It was not what he had imagined, but it was more than he had ever thought he would have. He would do as Oxylus had asked and finish the Tower, and then stand before him and make him proud.
He turned around to tell him that, but saw only empty air. Morgan stared at nothing for a long minute, then he finally whispered.
“Motherfucker.” A gust of wind nearly threw him of the cliff, but Morgan managed to catch himself. Right, a god, Morgan thought, chagrined.
“Sorry!” he yelled to the sky. Then he took a deep breath and walked back to the Great Hall.
There were many things ahead of him.
Thank you for reading!
Hello!
I have a short message for you all. Many of you already know this, but this is for the people who are not aware. All of my books take place inside a shared multiverse, and some characters crossover from series to series. But it is not required for you to read all the series in order to understand what is happening, each series has its own set of characters and storyline which is contained inside of that series. The multiverse stuff is mostly background and side stories, and I will always explain everything that is relevant in every series, so you will never feel like you are missing out. Reading the other series might give you some insight into the characters that appear across different series, but it will not give you all the answers as every series takes place at a different point in time, with thousands of years and sometimes more in between the events. Every series is also a different genre, and while the overall rules of the multiverse are the same, each series has its own feel, and you should not feel the need to read something in a genre that you don’t enjoy! Don’t worry, everything will always be explained where necessary and you will not miss out on anything!
In case that you do want to check the other books out, here is a rough timeline of the multiverse:
Rise of the Empire (space opera, sci fi with fantasy elements in the second half of the series)
Chaos and Order trilogy (coming soon! This trilogy will have the multiverse stuff as the main storyline and will set the stage for the background conflict)
Universe on Fire (sci fi-fantasy)
Eternal Path (mix of eastern and western fantasy)
Tower of Power (LitRPG, fantasy)
You are of course not required to read them in chronological order to understand things. The multiverse threads are mostly background in every series so far, but the characters that are crossing over do originate in a few of these series, and you might learn more about their origins. That’s it! Thanks for reading!
If you liked this book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Honest reviews of my books help greatly by bringing them to the attention of new readers. I would be grateful if you could spend a few minutes writing a short review (a few words is fine) on Amazon.
Sign up for my mailing list to be notified when a new book is released: Mailing List
Turn the page for a look at my fantasy series:
Eternal Path Book 1 – Eternal Soul
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.
