Long Live the Emperor: Chapter 20 (Patreon)

“I’ll never understand while fools like you think they can become spirit masters on their own. If you had just offered your entire being up to the Spirit Realm Monastery, we could have taught you everything you could possibly need to know. Sure, you would lose your barony to us, but that doesn’t seem to hurt you too much anyway.” Magus Terrance chuckled darkly. “But now your foolishness will cost you your life. Rogue spirit walkers cannot be permitted to live.”

“You’ll have to take it first.” Alvin wished he had a weapon. As it was, all he could do was ball his fists and prepare to fight. This wasn’t good. He and Clover hadn’t been able to do anything but run the last time they faced Magus Terrance.

“Don’t be so quick to beg for death, child,” Magus Terrance sneered. He gestured with his hand, and Alvin realized there was a creature clinging to it. “You don’t even know what this thing is, do you boy?”

Alvin held his breath and waited. Magus Terrance seemed like the type to explain himself with wide gestures and a smug, grandiose grin.

Sure enough, a moment later, the mage continued. “This exotic crab thing was plucked from deep within the spirit ground. It hales from the Dreamrealm’s equivalent of Mount Terror, the hottest volcano in the known world. Learning to keep these creatures alive was a tremendous undertaking but well worth the effort but their mastery over a fire. But they showed their true power when crossbred with the deep crystal nine-faced sucker fish obtained from another monastery. Between the two, we crafted a weapon that could focus fire into an array of destruction unlike any other!”

Magus Terrance raised his hand again, and this time the creature clinging to the back of his hand burned with the heat of the molten stone. It opened its mouth and what Alvin first thought was its tongue was instead a rod of solid ruby. The crystal grew brighter, and Alvin realized it was time to get out of the way.

“Move!”

A beam of energy shot from the monster clinging to the back of Magus Terrance’s hand. The beam was as wide as the man’s fist, the same color as the ruby within the creature’s mouth. The weapon was like a laser beam, and as it struck the stone near where Alvin had been standing, it melted both rock and sand into glass.

No, Alvin realized it wasn’t like a laser. It was a laser.

“Bind his arm!” Alvin shouted to Clover. That weapon was too fast to dodge. Their only chance was to restrict Magus Terrance’s ability to use it.

Thankfully, Clover hadn’t been idle. She’d been enhancing her control over the surrounding terrain since the moment the mage first appeared. The tall grasses at Magus Terrance’s feet shot up to wrap around the arm holding the fish-crab hybrid and tugged it down. Magus Terrance wrestled for control over his secret weapon, but Clover fought him over it.

“Stupid rogue nymph! Once you’re bound, you’ll pay for this a thousandfold!” Magus Terrance growled.

The two spirits Alvin had seen before emerged from behind Magus Terrance. Alvin finally got a good look at their true bodies.

One spirit was clearly the one who’d created the bonfire that had trapped Clover and drained her strength. It was a burning snake, and it looked like it had hot embers instead of scales. It was as wide around as a man. Its head sported a mouth that looked like it could open wide enough to swallow a wagon.

The other was smaller, and it was harder to tell what it did. It moved slowly and cautiously through the portal before flopping onto the ground on the other side. When it emerged completely, Alvin realized it was somewhat reminiscent of a long tortoise, like someone had plucked three sea turtle shells out of the sea and thrown a shark inside of them all after wrapping that shark in a dozen layers of cowhide.

Its mouth was full of teeth, and its claws dug at the earth with supernatural speed. The ground gave way in an instant, and before Alvin could get a second look, the creature had already buried itself up to its tail in the dirt.

The monster was gone, and within moments Clover was in dire straights. These two spirits had been brought specifically to deal with a forest nymph of her abilities. Her grass wasn’t too strong when one creature was tearing its roots out from beneath the ground, and the other was breathing great gouts of fire. Between the two, the spirits had freed their master’s laser arm within moments, and the first thing he did was point the thing at Clover.

Clover tried to raise a shield, but her efforts were immediately countered.

“Firebrand!” Clover called, and the woman made of fire answered.

From the fire pit, a wave of flame washed over Clover without burning her. The burning snake’s fire struck a wall and seemed to come to a direct and sudden stop.

“What’s this, another spirit you were hiding?” Magus Terrance pointed his hand into the flickering flames and fired another blast from it.

For his part, Alvin would take any allies he could get. Clover seemed to know this ball of fire helping them, so he’d trust her.

Spirit battled spirit, and he had to think of something. There wasn’t much Alvin could do right now since he was really nothing more than an ordinary human. How could he fight in a battle full of fire-breathing snakes and shark-turtle things?

Alvin searched for a weapon. Something. Anything.

He found a rock. It would have to do.

“Hey, Terrance!” Alvin shouted. He threw the rock, and Terrance turned his head just in time to catch it between the eyes.

He stumbled backward, dazed for a moment. Alvin searched for another rock and threw it as well, though that one unfortunately missed. By the time Magus Terrance recovered enough to fire the weapon on his arm at Alvin, Alvin had already closed the distance.

Magus Terrance might have been the better Dreamwalker between the two of them, but when Alvin tackled him to the ground, he realized he was the stronger of the two.

“Get off of me, you cretin!” Magus Terrance demanded.

Alvin headbutted him in the jaw, chattering one of the mage’s teeth. He pinned the mage beneath him, then went straight for the creature on his arm. This was the mage’s most dangerous weapon. If Alvin could take it for himself, he would have the upper hand.

“No! You can’t take that!” Magus Terrance yelled, fear finally creeping into his voice when he realized Alvin was tugging at the creature clinging to his arm.

“I can, and I will!” Alvin grabbed the fleshy, bulbous thing by its center of mass and pried it away. Magus Terrance had his fingers wrapped around its legs, and the legs popped free of the body like tearing the claws off a crab. The creature mewled pathetically, and Alvin barely moved his head aside in time to dodge a massive laser blast straight up into the sky.

With the creature’s beam active, Alvin turned it around to point it straight at Magus Terrance’s face, but the mage had one more trick up his sleeve.

“Computer, activate force field!” Magus Terrance shouted.

Immediately, a bubble of blue light enveloped the mage and surrounded him completely.

“What the fuck!” Alvin shouted as the energy barrier tossed him aside like a limp sack of grain.

Magus Terrance sat up as the bruise between his eyes and his broken tooth healed within moments. He was grinning again, proud and confident once more.

“The Dreamrealm is vaster than you could possibly know!” Magus Terrance stretched his arms wide as he cackled. “Many years ago, when the monastery was more skillful than it was now, we ventured to those far-off places filled with strange people and stranger devices. Though it has been generations since those days, the prizes our ancestors looted are far vaster than anything you could hope to comprehend!”

Alvin fiddled with the laser creature. Based on the fluid leaking from its sides where its limbs had once held it to Magus Terrance’s body, it was dying. But maybe he could coax one last laser beam out of it?

He rubbed its belly, and that seemed to get the crystal glowing a little more.

“Come on, come on!” Alvin muttered as Magus Terrance dusted himself off. Alvin wasn’t sure if that force field came with any weapons, but if it did, he knew this fight wasn’t going to last much longer. Behind him, Clover and her friend Firebrand were busy fighting the other two spirits, but things looked close to even so far. He couldn’t count on them to come to save him.

He rubbed the thing’s belly faster as he saw its crystal tongue grow brighter and brighter. Soon, a beam of energy shot from it once again, and Alvin pointed it right at Magus Terrance. The mage held up his arm, though the blue shield around him was what truly blocked the energy beam.

Magus Terrance grimaced and staggered forward, despite the laser-blasting right at his face. He reached into his pocket and drew a long, slender dagger from it. It was identical to the one still sitting in the hands of Alvin’s physical body and was probably standard among Spirit Realm Monastery and its agents.

“You should... have given up... while you had the chance!” Magus Terrance huffed as he recovered his breath and prepared to finish Alvin.

His shield showed no sign of fading. There was only one way Alvin could think of to save himself. The dagger in the mage’s hands had given him the idea.

And so Alvin closed his eyes and concentrated.

“Waiting for death at last?” Magus Terrance chuckled. “Or do you think you can flee back to the physical world? This close, even that won’t save you...”

But Magus Terrance was wrong. Alvin planned to end this the same way he’d started it.

Magus Terrance must have come to the realization of what Alvin was planning because his charge forward doubled in speed. He rushed Alvin, hoping to end things in the Dreamrealm before Alvin could rally enough focus.

But the focus was something Alvin had plenty of. He thought of the study where his real body stood, and a moment later, he opened his eyes there again.

He was frozen, dagger clutched in his hand as he pressed against an energy barrier just like the one in the dream realm. The goopy ooze that had surrounded it was gone, and now all that was left was the shield itself. But Alvin had tested it once already and realized it wasn’t unbreakable. He just needed to stab.

And so stab Alvin did, throwing his entire weight behind the blow. His back strained, his arms flexed, and he barely stifled the battle cry that fought to emerge from his lips. The dagger’s tip bent, but not before cracks spread throughout the glowing blue shield. Then the dagger dug into Magus Terrance’s throat.

Blood shot up from the wound, spraying all the way up the ceiling. Alvin didn’t stop there, and he dragged the blade wide, so blood pumped out like water from a faucet. Magus Terrance gasped a gurgling last breath as he fought to open his eyes, but it was too late. He was dead before he could even wake himself.

“Good riddance,” Alvin said as he flung the dagger aside. His hands were coated in blood, and iron hung heavy in the air. This was going to be tough to explain away.

Note:

Guys, it didn’t hit me until now, but you know what I totally forgot with this book?

Any sort of game element whatsoever. They just kinda slipped my mind. I guess I didn’t really introduce a good system to have them in this series.

I could add them in the next draft if I think of a way to justify them somehow.

Idk. How do I give the MC a Pokedex or something?

Find it somewhere in the Dreamrealm somehow?

Or maybe it’ll be something Aldrich had with his body as a dreamwalking aid? I think it would be neat to sprinkle a little high technology into the setting, ported over from the Dreamrealm somehow. I’ll have to think about how that could happen, though.

Idk. Let me know if you have any ideas or if you think the novel is fine without my usual game element stuff.