Battleforged: Book 1 - THE BILLION CREDIT HEIST - An Earth Apocalypse LitRPG Adventure

“I got that fucker! Finally!” Kevin hooted, raising his stick-thin arm in triumph as the howling winds that slipped through the veli’s field whipped back his greasy hair. Not that it was his fault that he didn’t look like fucking Cruise. Because when had he been given any time to tend to proper hygiene with an entire city to overthrow? Damn class didn’t even give him free points to rank up his Strength and Charisma. Which meant that if he wanted to look like an Adonis, he’d have to actually hit the weights and sweat it out. And he didn’t care if his former friends and now devoted slaves had bragged about how easy it was to bag at least a couple Strength points if he put in the work. This was the Post-apocalypse! Just surviving sober was a fucking chore, why make life harder on himself?

No. If he wanted a good workout to prove how much better he was than all the other losers out there, then all he needed to do was find a choice specimen and crush their soul right out of their body. Then they were a puppet he could reshape to suit his fantasy. Whenever a loyal footsoldier actually helped Kevin out of the good of his heart, not even sensing the cords of Dominion that Kevin had wrapped so tightly about him… whenever his former female party members who could barely stand him just a few months ago were now his slavish devotees living for his every pleasure, those were the triumphs that made life worth living. That was the very definition of power!

So why the fuck did he need to work out, or worry about proper fucking skin care, when he could personally take over anyone and everyone and feel just how good it was to take deep breaths of air that left one’s powerful muscles tingling, able to run for hours at a sprint, feeling no more fatigued than running in a dream?

And now, as the veli shook under his driver’s tight-knuckled grip, racing along at wild speeds to get to New York as fast as possible, Kevin had once more embraced sweetest triumph with yet another victory. His grandest one yet!

His lips curled in a smile equal parts vindication and ire.

“Turn around and head back. We got business to take care of in Freetown… and Queensland!”

“But master, we’re in the middle of outrunning a pack of carnivorous theropods! I can barely keep this thing straight without tipping us over!”

Those words froze the sharp taste of iron bitterness crawling up Kevins’ throat. It would be so easy to demand that his pilot gouge out his own eye with his finger and present it to Kevin so that he could pop it and smile at the man denied even the right to flinch. But it wasn’t time for that, especially with the driver desperately trying to keep them alive.

And why the fuck were they fleeing? He had won!

“It’s over! I finally got that crazy wildcard fucker! You here me? The little shit actually thought he could take out my brother without paying the ultimate price. Well sure as shit, I’m taking out his entire fucking faction! And I’ll make sure he’s awake and aware the entire time I—”

His words cut off in surprise when blood began shooting from his nostril.

“What the fuck?”

The pair of goblin mercenaries beside him gave excited nods. “Good. Good! You’ll get a fat prize for securing that threat to our tribe. We’ll head back just as soon as we’ve outrun the… Master, are you aware there’s a vine coming out of your nose?”

Kevin rubbed his own nose in disbelief, surprised to find that the booger lodged in his nose that he just couldn’t pick out was, in fact, a vine that had just pushed through.

A vine covered in sharp thorns that stung his flesh.

And eyes.

So many sky-blue eyes that popped open to pear into his own, filling the veli with a high-pitched, tinny voice Kevin could hear all too clearly.

“Round two, motherfucker.”

Kevin began to scream. Which did absolutely nothing for the already panicked driver, his vehicle taking on a growing swerve as Kevin tore at his own face, trying desperately to dislodge the vine, crying out in pain when he tore it free with a final bloody yank, dismayed to feel his own bone grinding. That thing had grown roots!

Then he felt it, the awful tingling itch at the back of his neck.

His ire turned to a panicked sob as the pair of goblins beside him began to curse and glare, raising their blasters as one.

“No, you fucks! Don’t shot! The car’s jostling! If you hit it wrong…”

Plasma flashed. Kevin screamed. The vehicle began to list as vines whipped forth from the back of his neck, now wrapping around the limbs of the suddenly gurgling goblins, claiming their blasters just a heartbeat later.

“I’m hit!” Kevin realized to his horror, his left leg ending at the charred stump of his knee. Yet by some miracle there was no bloodloss, and almost no pain either.

“Did my Vitality actually… no… oh no, no, no, no, HELP! MOMMY!”

Kevins words died off in a scream when vines covered in thorns and blinking eyes popped free of his leg, only for the flaps to fold back, revealing a giant sharktoothed maw that sensed his own leg stump and stomped down, devouring it as effortlessly as a boa would a mouse.

“Abomination!” Kevin screamed. “Abomina—” before his words were cut off with an agonized wheeze as a massive vine burst from his stomach, a bug-eyed Kevin now squeezing his own belly in pain and unspeakable horror the massive vine wrapped itself around the closest squealing goblin before its tip opened wide like a mantis’s mouth full of serrated teeth as it chomped down on the panicked sniper, managing to shove it in its maw in a single bite as the air filled with fresh shrieks and blaster fire that tore a dazed Kevin’s arm wide off but didn’t effect the vine in the slightest, the blaster fire stopping when the lamprey maw snapped off the head of the second goblin mercenary a second later.

Then the car was filled with desperate shrieks and dying screams as Kevin desperately fought for control of his prey. “No! You can’t do this to me. You can’t do this to me! I control you. I control you!” He sobbed in pain and growing panic, only to find that, to his dismay, his assertion was only half valid. He could control the shell that was Eric Silver just fine, even if it was at a painfully slow lurch, because they were already dozens of miles away, he could still pilot the fucker back to the arena and happily watch Eric’s body kill all his friends.

But for some awful reason that was doing NOTHING to stop this viny bloody abomination that could only be Eric’s spirit, that far from being obliviated to nothing with Kevin’s seizing Eric’s body, had instead broken free of his metaphoric cage before enacting the ultimate coup from within Kevin’s own body.

“No. How? Powers don’t work this way. You can’t do this!”

His stunned dismay turned to shrieking horror even greater than the driver’s panic, only seconds away from cartwheeling right into an entire pack of velociraptors.

Because the massive vine that had just devoured both of his sworn bodyguards was very much aware and attuned to his prey, immediately turning to face Kevin, lamprey maw opening wide as that bastard of a Contender popped open ice-blue eyes INSIDE the mouth of the blood lamprey consuming them all.

“You know, I have this theory, Kevin. You want to hear it?”

“No, please! Let me go!”

“Sure you do. Okay, it goes like this. You’re a mind lord, I’m a half-elf. As far as playing to my weaknesses goes, I’m utterly fucked, and I can’t really do shit about your mental invasion. But I’m also a Necromancer AND a Bloodmage. And really, how far does my soul have to go to see things through? I just hop on the blood link YOU forced between us, motherfucker, and the solution’s simple.”

“I’ll let you go. Please! I’ll let you go!”

“Sure you will. Anyway, my guess is that the moment you’re a corpse, I’ll be free. And even if I’m not… you’ll still be dead. So it’s a win/win/win in my book. You dig?”

“No, please! I’ll swear to serve yo—”

***

Kevin’s dying plea was cut off in a spray of blood, Eric able to sense all too well his foe’s final moments of exquisite agony. Agony Kevin FORCED him to feel in a final desperate link as Eric’s lamprey maw of inwardly spiraling shark teeth clamped Kevin’s mangled body tight.

Eric’s tormented spirit, now suffering severe Soul Strain from the madness that he dared, cackled with laughter. “You think that’s pain, bitch? How about I give you a taste of what it means to run through fire!”

And just for shits and giggles, he allowed Kevin’s dying moments to be of seeing his terrified brother crawling around inside an orcish hellpit as Eric closed the maw of his trap and began to feed.

Yet far from jumping into that pit to save the memory of his brother, and perhaps earn the mercy of peaceful slumber in a hospital as he gently faded away, passing on as the better version of himself that might have been if there had been no apocalypse… Kevin instead pivoted around on his skinny legs and ran for all he was worth, fleeing the memory of his desperately pleading brother whose soul had truly been there, only to find each and every bellowing orc and terrified human snapping around to face Kevin at once. All of them opened their mouths impossibly wide before clamping down on every square inch of a desperately struggling Kevin. Taking out chunks of raw bloody flesh, Kevin’s limbs spurting blood as he was devoured alive, his dying screams blending seamlessly with the System messages now flooding Eric’s interface as he snapped back to himself with a triumphant roar.

Only to find himself heaving for his breath, stumbling to his knees inside an arena filled with far too many horrified spectators.

Thousands of mortals and classers that Eric wanted to sob tears of joy that he hadn’t slaughtered, surprised and a little bit dismayed to find his eyes leaking tears of blood.

And wherever his crimson drops touched the parched ground, the soil gobbled his sacrifice before tiny vines spurted from the ground, all of them sporting thorns and tiny oddly patterned fruit that could so easily be mistaken for eyes.

It was when they matched Eric, blink for blink, that he was forced to concede that it was no mistake at all.

Congratulations! You have successfully slain Kevin, an opposing Contender!

You have dared this feat while embracing and CONFIRMING your ties to the Path of The Ravager, fusing the primal arts with which you had first unlocked the Path of Consumption in order to consume the Mind Lord who thought to master you in turn!

You have achieved Rank 15 in the Path of Consumption!

You have CONFIRMED your ties to the Ravager’s path!

How do you wish to shape your Destiny?

A. Embrace the Ravager’s path to the fullest! You know what it means to devour the might and destiny of a dozen worlds in the single night you ascended to Gold by your mother’s side! Your nature is unmistakable, your dentition legendary, your destiny one that will bring fear to the hearts of all who would oppose you!

As a Crimson Ravager you will enjoy DOUBLE all previous stat boons for ALL territories you consume, leaving NOTHING but utter desolation behind! Fellow Contenders already know the price of crossing you. Absolute consumption! Now you will take those crimson lessons and teach the entire WORLD the price of crossing you. Save this world? HA! You held off on quick consumption so you could SAVOR every morsel of power you might SQUEEZE from this world and rise as a Golden Phoenix even MORE powerful than your mother!

Embrace your destiny as the ultimate Crimson Phoenix, consuming ALL that would oppose you!

B. Embrace the Crimson Contender’s Path!

You live life by your own whims, and follow your own path! You choose to grant blessings to your prizes after a delicious sip, so that they might blossom and give you even more prizes in perpetuity! For the Path of Endless Bounty means endless profit, and great PR! But should any Contender dare to cross you, you will show them that you have mastered as well the art of Consuming your prey UTTERLY!

You may now consume your fellow contenders as if they were territories! Foes using unorthodox, abstract or metaphysical attacks might find previously assumed invulnerabilities actually serve as the perfect staging grounds for blitzkrieg assaults they never saw coming!

You enjoy +6 to Find Weakness skill checks against any Contender you’ve formed any sort of blood or soul link with, and upon consuming them, you may consume them UTTERLY! You enjoy a 50% Boon over and above the baseline 5% of key Contender attributes as your OWN Crimson Bounty torn free of your prey! (Effective baseline consumption is 7.5% of key attributes, further modified by attribute enhancement boons!)

You will also automatically claim at least a single rank of any essence to which you have any affinity! (You have chosen to claim no Essence that don’t synergize with the four paths of the Golden Phoenix!)

C. Crimson Blessings. - Your Necromantic Consumption has blossomed in the boons granted and the gifts received in return as you grow in ever closer harmony with the world you both saved and forged! You now enjoy 100% bonus to baseline Strength and Vitality boons and all territories whose destinies you shape will now enjoy the bounty of 4 Lesser and 1 Greater land enhancement!

NOTE! You are presently unable to ascend your gift along the Path of Balance! Your present skill evolution MUST be along the Ravager’s Path!

Eric allowed himself only a moment’s frustration that his hand had been forced in such a way as to be unable to develop his second most precious skill along the path he had originally intended, but the inconvenience was absolutely laughable when it came to the sweet joy of being himself again, being in control of his own body, and now knowing exactly what steps he needed to take to protect his psyche from any future mind lord that might think to force him to serve as their pawn or patsy.

So he didn’t cry too many tears when he chose option B, which left him just as able to shape reality while on the cusp of transcendence with each new territory claimed, as he had been before. Only now, by some twisted miracle of desperation and transcendence, he was able to walk the Path of Consumption while claiming fellow Contenders as well as territories. Yet for the foes he faced, there would be no restoration arc, no Path of Endless Bounty. To them he would only be the Ravager, tearing free every last of iota of power and potential as he could from their soon-to-be desiccated frames. Like a vampire on steroids, a thought which sent uncomfortable shivers down Eric’s spine, now no longer able to deny just how similar a path he walked to his friend’s Morlekai’s.

You have chosen to embrace the Crimson Contender’s Path!

Now, a massive portion of Kevin’s Endless potential (7.5% of his key attributes.) is forever your own!

Soul Reserves have permanently increased by 20(+10) points!

Arcane Potential has permanently increased by 16(+8) points!

Psionic Potency has permanently increased by 5(+2) points!

Experience earned!

Eve approves of this most unusual battle! She will fully permit unorthodox powers in a battle of the minds! (And one you came damned close to losing!)

You are now a Level 43 Death’s Disciple!

Blood Mastery is now Rank 33!

Spirit Mastery is now Rank 32!

Flesh Sculptor is now Rank 26!

2nd Tier Core Saturation is now at 20%!

You have CLAIMED 1 additional Rank of Dominion’s Essence!

You have finally accepted your nature and have EMBRACED an evolution that once terrified you!

Eric howled his triumph like the predator he was. All hesitation, regret, and rueful acceptance of the bittersweet path he walked had been replaced by the sheerest ecstasy of drinking so DEEPLY from the endless potential of not one but two exceedingly powerful Contenders, only now having the chance to truly savor the power and potency of his kills, such that they hit him at once.

It was a rush that transcended any pharmaceutical high. It was the euphoria of utter mastery and absolute power made all the sweeter by multiple massive attribute bonuses for so many of his stats, making almost all the boons he had gained between 80 to 90% greater than they would otherwise be.

Eric roared with manic glee that echoed eerily off the still intact buildings of Blue Quarter, filled with a near euphoric sense of well-being and a rapidly growing hunger he now refused to deny.

When his interface lit up with dozens of flaring reds, rapidly approaching the arena, his 433 Perception picking up the rapid-fire communications of multiple Bronze-tier mercenaries coordinating what would be a full on assault against him and the remaining survivors of Freetown, what he felt wasn’t terror or fear, but an incredible sense of glee.

New friends were coming to the party, and he was eagerly looking forward to DEVOURING them all.