Death Cultivator by eden Hudson (knowledgeable books to read .txt) 📗

was not made to linger after death; it is a terrible hell of hunger and memory. You are our only chance to be released.”

“I won’t absorb it.”

The creature glanced behind me at Kest, Rali, and Warcry. “And do not let anyone else.”

“They won’t, either,” I said. “I promise. They’re good.”

I mean, obviously Warcry was a douche, but there was a big difference between being a douche and being evil enough to absorb a ghost begging for your help.

The creature nodded. “Thank you, Death cultivator. When we arrive safely to our bodies, we will repay you with a technique you may use to defeat the reaper.”

Before I could ask it anything else, the chaos creature popped into a marble and rolled to my side. I picked it up.

The marble sank into my palm and disappeared.

“Holy—” I stopped suddenly, realizing I could feel Spirit start to slip out of the marble and flow toward my Spirit sea. “Wait!”

Fast as I could, I concentrated on making a tiny Death Metal shield around the marble. Kind of a little pill capsule. When it was done, the creature’s Spirit was sealed off.

Awesome, now I just had to do that fifty more times and keep all the shields active while trying not to get killed by the angel of death or the OSS.

Thinking about the angel made my ears prick up. The crashing outside the cave had stopped.

“How long has it been quiet like that?”

Kest and Warcry turned to look at the rubble like they hadn’t noticed the change, either.

But Rali said, “Not long. She stopped while they were telling us how they got stuck in the mine shaft. I’ve been listening to see if she would start shifting the rock, but so far nothing.”

“Why not?” I asked. “She’s super strong. Moving some boulders wouldn’t be a big deal.”

“My guess would be a seal that keeps her from getting through,” he said. “You said they were holding her off while we ran. They must have some kind of defense against her.”

“Maybe so. Her scythe sliced right through their bodies, but it didn’t do any damage, and she couldn’t go through them at all.”

I picked up the next purple chaos marble from the floor. It disappeared into my hand, too, and I slapped it with an encapsulating Death Metal.

“So, we’ve got to get from here to the mine shaft,” I said. “Alive. Anyone have any ideas?”

“Not if she’s out there waiting,” Warcry said, scowling at the fallen rocks. “We’re proper screwed, then.”

“Then we don’t go out that way.” Rali pointed at the back wall of the cave. “We go out that way.”

Warcry snorted. “You blind, fatso?” He limped to the wall and smacked it. “This is solid rock.”

“It is right now.” Rali looked at his sister. “But I just so happen to know a young Selken with a pickaxe in her storage ring.”

Kest frowned at him for half a second, then started pulling up maps on her HUD.

“Theoretically, we should be able to. There’s a draw on the other side of that wall. It shouldn’t be more than seventy or eighty feet thick. If we tunnel through into the draw, we can follow the shut-ins to their easternmost point, then it’s a straight shot north across the Rust Flats toward the mine shaft.”

“What if we pop out on the other side and the angel of death is standing there waiting?” I asked, absorbing and encapsulating either my sixteenth or seventeenth marble. It was hard to keep track while talking.

Rali tapped his chin with the top of his walking stick. “I wonder if she will be. Possible seal on the outside of these rocks notwithstanding, if she could pop up anywhere, wouldn’t she have just appeared in here with us?”

“You’re thinking she has to move through three-dimensional space like the rest of us,” Kest said.

“And find people like the rest of us,” I said. “If she could just sense me, she would’ve known where I was as soon as I made it to Van Diemann.”

Warcry threw up his hands. “Sure, and she’s probably not gone to get something that can track you! There’s bound to be a Hunter affinity in one of the galaxies.”

“Even more reason to get moving.” I tried scooping up a handful of marbles to see if I could absorb them all at once. It didn’t work, so I went back to singles. “The sooner we get these guys back to their bodies, the sooner we get that technique to stop her.”

“We?” Warcry crossed his arms. “I didn’t accept a ghost quest. That’s your problem, grav.”

“But the Bailiff is both of our problems. There’s no way he’s going to let us live after tonight.”

“Think you solved that, yeah?”

“Actually, you solved it a long time back. If we were affiliated with one of the Big Five, a jerk from a little local gang like the OSS couldn’t touch us.”

“You heard the Dragons’ recruiter,” Warcry said. “They’re not accepting solicitations.”

“He told you the Wilderness Territorial was the best way in,” I said. “So, we enter the tournament and get signed that way.”

Warcry snorted. “You won’t even make the top two hundred.”

“He might not have to,” Kest said, frowning as she thought about it. “Everybody focuses on how the winner of the one-on-one competition and any small gang he’s affiliated with always gets signed, but a lot of the time, fighters who rank high and don’t win get recruited if they impress one of the Big Five. Most people who get signed from these tournaments do it that way.”

“There’s the small gang riot, too,” Rali said.

Kest nodded. “That’s a good idea. Most of the hype around the tournament is for the individual combat, but they also have a riot bracket for up to five fighters. It’s not as popular with the spectators, but the first-place prize is still affiliation.”

“The Bailiff was training Ripper and a couple other hooligans for that,” I said.

“That’s because he’s smart enough to hedge his bets,” Kest said. “We should do the same, enter