by David Burke
Hilde snapped, “He has a reservoir. That belt stores extra Sky Essence for him to use against you.”
Kyle smiled. The man was far too confident in himself. Hilde’s warning was timely, but Kyle felt more alive than he ever had before. Power coursed through his veins and he simply couldn’t be stopped. He still needed to stall the mage, though, so that he couldn’t turn his power on Kierra until she had struck down the other woodsman. Hopefully, that wouldn’t take long.
“We did nothing. You heard him. Your lord was going to harm my friend, my teammate. We just wanted to leave,” Kyle said.
Better to let the mage think he had the upper hand.
“She is only a slave. You are only a slave. If the master had wanted to beat you, you should have taken it with pride,” the man sneered.
“You can’t really believe that. A person’s worth is not decided by their birth, but by the effort with which they live their life and by the strength that they demonstrate through their actions,” Kyle replied.
“This is pointless. You will drop your weapon and fall to your knees or I will put you in the ground myself,” the mage snapped.
Thankfully, at that moment Kierra came to the edge of the woods and waved her hand, giving the all-clear sign. A smile crossed Kyle’s lips and the mage suddenly looked afraid.
“What’s going on? Tell me! I demand to know. Drop your weapon and fall to your knees.”
Kyle simply said, “I don’t think so.”
Then, he activated Rage Burst and a wave of power blasted from him and smashed into the robed mage, folding him in half like a paper doll and sending him flying backwards thirty feet with the sickening crunch of snapping bone. Not wanting to risk any retaliation, Kyle leapt after him and brought down the blunt side of his hammer onto the mage’s head, which soon resembled a squashed grape.
Kyle looked up. He felt alive. The rush of victory went through him like having won a dozen world series. A part of him screamed that this was terribly wrong, but it felt oh so right.
Chapter 7 - A New Day, A New Voice
When they returned from the hunt, Kyle had all the money, weapons and armor from the nobleman, his guards, and the others. The coin was welcome, but it didn’t replace the amount he’d earned before being taken prisoner in the quarry. Still, it felt good to have some money once more.
In total between them all, he’d found nineteen copper bits, fourteen copper coins, twenty-eight silver, and three gold. If his math was right, that was just shy of six thousand dollars back on Earth, in terms of sheer buying power. Initially, Kyle had been disappointed that the nobleman didn’t have even a copper bit on his person, but that soon changed.
The gear was an even bigger haul: two dueling swords, eight daggers, three bows, forty-nine arrows, six pairs of boots, two chainmail shirts and two sets of leather armor. The lord’s armor had been ruined by Kyle’s strike, but the rest of the gear was serviceable, if bloody or soiled.
The few remaining items were of more value. There was a medallion, that marked the wearer as a member of House Davion. That could be rather incriminating, and Kyle was still wondering what he’d need to do with it, but it was the other two items that really excited him.
The first was the mage’s belt; it was a reservoir. It could be charged with essence and thus give the wielder a greater amount of a particular type of essence. Hilde explained that it could only hold one of the eight types of essence at a time, but that was still extremely beneficial.
The final item had him the most excited. It appeared to be nothing more than a ring, set with a small crystal in it. But Hilde told him right away that it was a spatial ring. She couldn’t say exactly how big the storage space might be, but just having it made Kyle feel like he was finally seeing some of the perks of being in a magical world.
Kyle wasn’t able to access it, so he didn’t know what all was in it. Of course, since this wasn’t a game, nothing could be simple. Still, he had it and just needed to find a way to open it. Hilde let him know that the only ways to do so were with sufficient Justice or Deceit Essence. Justice, obviously, to prove that the new possessor had come by the ring honestly, or Deceit to trick it.
“If I were there in the flesh, it would be a simple matter for me to open it for you. Otherwise, you will need a priest of Lige or Bedrag to do so,” she told him.
“Would any essence user with sufficient power be able to do it?” he mused.
“Only if they can wield one of those two types of essence. It is a built-in safety mechanism to keep people from killing others for their spatial rings. Of course, trust Bedrag to find a way around it.”
Kyle thought about it for a minute. He had offered to share the proceeds with Kierra, but she had said that as he was the alpha, she would defer to him. She knew he would make sure she got her cut but, for now, the decision about what to do with the gear was up to him.
And he knew that he wanted to keep that ring.
After hiding the gear in his and Kierra’s rooms, he left the lycan to her thoughts. Before he turned to leave her room, she called out to him.
“Thank you pack leader. I don’t know what exactly you did to me, but I can feel you in my head. I will bear your mark as the white wolf, proudly.”
“Think about what we talked about, Kierra. I want those who are brave and strong to fight beside me. I would like to have you in my life, but only if you are with me as a partner, not as a servant,” Kyle replied.
Then he left. He really would have to figure out what to do about all this. Apparently, he had done to her whatever he had done to Nyda—infusing her with a splinter of his divine power, but it remained incomplete.
He needed to sort that out, so it stopped happening accidentally. But it was equally important that he learn how to fully connect the splinters. Hilde assured him that this would give significant increases in power to each of the girls, but couldn’t tell him exactly how. Reportedly, each time was different.
He had other issues to sort out, too. These sensations or urges for battle, he knew they were coming from that part of him that had been Krig. Even more disconcerting than the fact that they were increasing, he couldn’t deny that they felt good. He felt excited by the prospect of dominating the world around him. When he had bent reality to his will, it was the type of epic contest that was fitting for a god to have—much more so than the simple fighting he had been doing.
The problem was, now that he knew there was so much more out there, he’d found many more layers to everything about him. He could see that the layers were there, but couldn’t quite grasp onto any of it.
His perception had expanded greatly, but he could hardly make heads or tails of half the inputs he was getting.
“Hilde, do you understand what is happening to me?” he asked.
“I have been pondering little else. The mantle has changed significantly in this past hour. It is smaller now, but it is also perfectly repaired. The furniture you created for me is still here, but so too is a feast of food and drink. The throne room is maybe half the size of what it was before, but the walls shine like burnished gold now. Everything is just brighter and more vibrant.”
Her voice was full of wonder as she spoke. “Have you checked your status sheet since your experience?” she asked him.
“Since my aha moment, you mean? It was really weird it was like I suddenly could just order the world around me and expect it to obey. There were some amazing parts. I like felt so in touch with the universe… like at a much deeper level,” Kyle said.
Then he laughed. “Sorry. I don’t mean to sound like a valley girl.”
Kyle glanced at his status sheet. He didn’t study it for long, but noted there were some key differences.
Name: Krig-Kyle Hudson
Race: Godling
Stats: (Current/Max)
Strength: 17/42
Agility: 11/42
Constitution: 17/45
Will: 15/45
Mind: 10/39
Charisma: 9/29
Essence: Current/Max
Sky: 0/12
Death: 1/25 Conversion rate: 1/10 seconds
Sea: 0/12
Deceit: 1/13 Conversion rate: 1/10 seconds
Earth: 13/33 Conversion rate: 1/5 seconds (Durability)
War: 17/50 Conversion rate: 3/second
Raw Essence:
28,170,224 (construct)
97,053,971 (mantle)
Skills:
Flowing Earth Armor 1 - 2 Earth
Earth’s Sucking Snare 1 - 1 Earth/target
Divine Ability:
Rage Burst 2 - 5 War
The first thing he noticed, was that his name was now a simple merger of Krig and Kyle, while his race was no longer listed as ‘demi-god’, but ‘godling’. He had no idea what that meant, but it seemed significant.
His physical stats had all increased. He felt stronger, faster, and tougher. Harder to quantify, were the changes in his mental stats. His Will had shot up more than any other stat, by four points. He supposed that represented the way that he had willed the world around him to do as he’d wished while jumping.
He had denied gravity. He had bent air and space to do as he willed, though not with a specific expression of essence. Well, raw essence may have been involved, but he had trouble quantifying it; it had felt more like he had simply willed it to be so.
He doubted he could do it again. Something about the moment had been special.
He thought back on it. He had not wanted to get wet. Then, he had been angry that Kierra had doubted his ability to get them both across the wide river. He had jumped on an impulse, but that would have been a huge jump to make.
He had been entirely focused on protecting Kierra from the strain against her body, both as he took off and when he landed. Somehow, he had willed his body to fly across the span, and equally had willed the impact of his landing to be limited entirely to his construct without passing any of the kinetic energy on to Kierra.
The increase of his Mind score to peak mortal didn’t make him feel any smarter, but it might account for his increased perceptions—though they were spotty, at best. Even his Charisma attribute had gone up, likely due to his increased confidence.
When he included the significant increase in his War Essence and the growth in various essence conversion rates, it was all quite impressive. The fact that his Divine skill had increased to level two and now cost five War Essence was also of interest, but none of it compared to the surge in his raw essence. He could not see the raw essence in his body or what his status sheet called ‘the construct’, but it was a significant percentage of what had been in the mantle.
That was where the problem came in. He now had over twenty-eight million raw essence in his body. That explained the overwhelming sense of power he had experienced for a moment. But the mantle had also been drained. He had likely just cut months off of Hilde’s life, if he was unable to get her out of the mantle.
When he told Hilde all about what he had found, instead of sounding scared, she sounded excited.
“Don’t you see? This means you have formed a deeper connection with your mantle. You have accepted at some subconscious level, that you are in fact the reincarnated war god. And no, before you ask, I don’t have any idea what a godling is, either. But from what I can tell, this is all a step in the right direction! You should be celebrating,” she concluded.
“There is more,” Kyle said.
He paused before admitting the next part. “There was also a dark side to what I felt. There was a part of me that reveled in the combat, even in the killing. It looked at all the others around me, even Kierra, as transitory... even expendable. I liked the power and the sense of connection, but not the deep need to dominate.” He shook his head. “That isn’t who I want to be.”
“Kyle, or perhaps I should say m’lord, this is what I have been preparing you for. You are beginning to experience what it truly means to be a god, to be connected to everything but yet apart… above it all,” Hilde said.
There was a fierce edge to her voice, but Kyle could also hear a hint of sadness in it.
“You were doing so good,” he sighed. “I don’t think you let a single ‘m’lord’ slip out in these past two weeks. Remember, it’s Kyle—just Kyle—the guy who asked you to be my girlfriend.”
Kyle’s tone changed as he got more serious. “I don’t want to be that cold unfeeling being that I sense Krig was. He had a form of passion, but it was all for himself. It wasn’t meant to be shared. I want my life to be one full of victory, but also one full of connection with those I care about.”
“We can want what we want, all we want… but apparently even gods don’t always get what they desire, m’lord,” Hilde said.
“Kyle. It’s still just Kyle. Don’t make me have to punish you.”
Hilde finally laughed. “Okay, as you wish. I will keep calling you Kyle, but I doubt you can punish me. Remember, I’m just a voice in your head.”
“Oh? Don’t tempt me, or I will find a way,” Kyle replied.
“Tempt you? Maybe that’s exactly what I want to do. Maybe I’m part succubus,” Hilde teased.
Something about that word tingled at the back of his mind, but his active thoughts only envisioned Hilde’s fiery form.
“Just how would you punish me, my lord? Give me a spanking, perhaps? I seem to remember one of those things that you called a movie locked up in your memories. There was something about peril and temptation leading to spankings, but then after the spanking there was…”
Kyle groaned. Her tone was perfectly sultry, and he couldn’t help but interrupt her. “Oh yes, I know what comes after the spankings. Don’t keep tempting me or I just might have to make good on that.”
“Oh, really? Are you going to come to the mantle and visit me for another booty call?” Hilde asked, sounding more than a little hopeful.
“No, I don’t think we will go to your place,” Kyle said.
The playful banter and arousal that he felt led to a surge of confidence. He thought about the perfect swing, just like he had before. This time, though, his memories of the perfect swing of a bat were blended together with Krig’s knowledge of how to strike perfectly, with a thousand different weapons.
Raw essence surged inside of Kyle, but instead of pushing into the void, he ripped open a hole in reality and reached into it, pulling through the void. He heard a scream in the back of his mind, but ignored it—he was a man on a mission. He didn’t move but called her to him.
And even had she wished too, she would not have been able to resist.
Suddenly, from out of the portal in the void, Hilde stepped forth in all of her fiery glory. At first, Kyle thought that it was because his memories simply couldn’t do justice to how hot she was. She was beautiful in every way that a woman could be, from her high cheekbones to her firm, thick thighs that still had that enticing thigh gap which showed the entry to paradise.
After a moment, though, he realized that wasn’t it at all. He was seeing her in a new way. Kyle wished he could control it, but it kept flickering on and off. When his expanded senses were alive, he could feel the essence within her. He could sense her being, down to the cells that made up her body and the soul that animated it. Kyle admired the beauty of it all, but most especially the way there were these constant explosions, like fireworks under her skin. She was a wonder to behold, with or without his expanded senses.
Her smile turned to a smirk as she said out loud, allowing him to bask in the rich tones of her voice, “Has m’lord some need of me?”
Chapter 8 - Why So Hesitant?
Hilde stepped into the room and twirled around, her wings tucked in tight to her back. “Ummmm… it feels so good to be back in the flesh. How much is it draining you to keep me here?”
Kyle looked at his status sheet and said, “Huh… not at all.”
“You mean you were able
to bring me here completely?”
“Shouldn’t you know? Remember, I’m still the guy who thought that magic and angels were the stuff of stories a few short months ago,” Kyle said.
“You aren’t that guy anymore, and this only proves it. I can feel my connection as the representative of my people solidifying again. Thank you, m’lord,” Hilde replied.
She dropped to her knees, prostrating herself before him.
“I know you were playing around before, but no more of that ‘m’lord’ stuff. My name is Kyle. You agreed to call me that, remember?”