Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) by Jez Cajiao (beach books .txt) 📗

called out, slowly rotating, able to see every last detail in the clearing in stark clarity as shadows were banished by the light of the Imperial Ability, Righteous Rage.

“I AM LORD JAX,”  I called out, my voice booming in the stunned silence, augmented by the power. “I WILL BE YOUR HOPE. I AM YOUR LORD, AND YOUR SERVANT. YOU WHO HAVE BEEN ABANDONED, DISCARDED, AND ENSLAVED, I AM YOURS. WHEN NO ONE STOOD FOR YOU, I NOW WILL.” Lightning crackled across me, jumping from hands to feet and arcing in the air.

“I WILL PROTECT YOU. I WILL BE THE ROCK YOU STAND UPON TO REACH THE LIGHT. NEVER AGAIN WILL A LEGIONNAIRE DIE ALONE AND FORGOTTEN. YOU WILL ALL BE REMEMBERED, HONORED, AND LOVED,” I intoned, slowly lifting higher. As I cleared the tree line, hanging unsupported in the air, I saw them, and I felt Amon. The souls of those he had lost, the crew of the Prax, named Glorious Retribution, seemed summoned into existence by my power.

I felt them, flickers of will, or honor and dedication, rising from the Sunken City as they were drawn to me, desperate for absolution, for forgiveness of their failures, in allowing Glorious Retribution to be smashed from the sky so long ago.

As I watched, lights rose from the wilderness all around me, dozens, then hundreds of them, glowing souls that were being drawn from the depths of the city by my power and lifted into the air by the grace of my magic.

The long-dead crew of the Prax flickered as they came closer, their incorporeal forms glowing as the first jolts of lightning flashed out to them from the gathering storm of mana. These quick jolts of energy granted them visibility to mortal eyes once again in daylight.

They streamed up to me, their calls echoing in my ears as Amon reached out our arms, and our power altered. So many of these spirits, the souls of the forgotten, forced by a twisted sense of duty and their own personal beliefs that they should have done more, had been bound indefinitely to this plane of existence.

I saw them as I never had before, and I knew then that the world was filled with them: the unquiet dead, trapped in this realm, unable to move on until they received absolution.

“I AM YOUR LORD, AND I AM THE IMPERIAL SCION, ACKNOWLEGED HEIR TO THE THRONE,” I whispered in a voice that bounced off walls and echoed in the bones of all who heard it.

“I SEE YOU AND I REMEMBER; I FORGIVE YOUR PERCEIVED FAILURES. KNOW THAT I, JAX AMON, DECLARE YOU TO BE WHOLE. YOU ARE NOT FAILURES. YOU ARE NOT BROKEN. YOU ARE NOT WEAK. YOU WERE FAILED BY THE REALM AND THE EMPIRE, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. YOU ARE LOVED, AND YOU ARE ENOUGH,” I declared, tears running down my cheeks and turning into wisps of steam as they boiled away from the power that flooded my form.

“I SEE YOUR SOULS. I SEE YOUR POWER AND YOUR PAIN. I SEE YOUR POTENTIAL, AND I SEE THOSE THAT HAVE DONE THIS TO YOU,” I snarled, my voice rising in anger as the power built to a crescendo inside me.

“I SHALL BRING YOU VENGEANCE. I SHALL BRING THE DEAD PEACE, THE LIVING FREEDOM, AND THE SOULS YET UNBORN THE CHANCE TO STAND TALL IN THE LIGHT OF THE SUN! YOUR CAPTORS AND TORTURERS SHALL KNOW MY WRATH, THOSE WHO HAVE IMPRISONED MY CHILDREN!” My voice boomed in the air, shaking leaves from the trees, and stunning those around me into silence.

“FOR I AM JAX AMON, HEIR AND LORD, AND I DECLARE YOU TO BE MY IMPERIAL SUBJECTS. AS SUCH, YOU ARE FREE OF ALL OTHER TIES!” I screamed those final word, as the world seemed to reverberate with power. Blinding white light roared outwards, tearing at the ground, and latching onto slave brands and collars, leashes that were welded into place, and worse, harnesses that had been fused to bone through some mix of evil magic.

All of these were touched and bathed in the pure white light of Righteous Rage, and when it passed, it left behind clear, healed skin, unmarked by any blemish.

Hundreds of slaves and former prisoners were lifted into the air on wings of my power, scoured of injuries, and the in the dark places of their souls, they found light instead.

As the light receded and I slowly lowered to the ground, my feet gently touching down onto the grass, I heard and saw them, my people, weeping as they rejoiced in their freedom.

The Empire was born anew that day for many, and I felt a weight lifting from my heart as I accepted my role fully at last.

Chapter Eight

I turned back to the tent, to Romanus and his prisoner, to the lords from Narkolt and their sycophants and guards. I looked from one to another of their stunned faces, feeling the burn of using magics not meant for mortals.

Oracle landed next to me, full sized again, clad in a gleaming white dress with a belt of woven silver leaves around her waist and judgement for the lords in her eyes. Her hair, black as a raven’s wing, ran down her upper back in ringlets and curls, while lightning still crackled across her body, leaping, and flashing across to mine and back.

We stood glaring at the delegates we’d invited with open hearts to discuss the Sunken City. I’d had high hopes of recruiting them, or at least of sharing information with them, purchasing maps or artifacts. At worst, I had expected to simply warn them to keep out of our way.

Now Romanus stood gripping a nobleman who’d been revealed as a slaver, if the pulse of white fire that had caressed his two rain-cover bearers was any judge.

“I… I… how?” Faustus sputtered, before seemingly remembering himself and deciding it was demeaning for him to be held by a ‘mere’ Legionnaire. He twisted and glared at Romanus, attempting to backhand him