Emerson stood up once again. Last he knew his body had been ripped apart by one of the larger Woodflesh Prowlers. The pain never grew old, no matter how many times their teeth sank in him and crushed his armor, before doing the same to the bone beneath.

He had died many times now. The first few days had been the worst. He distinctly remembered his first death. A sphere of pure void had obliterated his heart along with most of the left side of his body. It seemed that his attributes were enough to allow him to experience the full sensation of the ordeal for a time.

The second time one of the treant shifters had torn his limbs slowly, like pulling at single strands of grass to make sure he knew pain, before throwing him into its gaping tunnel of a mouth.

Then the deaths had blended, a bad dream that never ended. The invisible chain around his neck pushed him forward, as retreat didn’t seem to come as a thought on its own. He had fear, of course. Lots of it. Ever-growing fear of the death that came every day, sometimes by the hour, and sometimes by the minute. He had waited for the fear to lessen, but one couldn’t simply get used to dying.

Like a zombie, he would rise from the ground as good as new each time. Covered in the gray armor they all wore. He had met a few of his fellow prisoners. Broken beings who had foregone any semblance of self in this fruitless crusade.

Some had let their minds be completely taken over by madness. They screamed and laughed and cried and threw themselves at the hordes of monsters without care, abandoning weapons and skills. They would live again, after all.

Emerson felt some of it rub off on him. His mind was not like his flesh. Each death was another nail into his already fragile perception of self. Often times he had caught himself unable to remember life before the battlefield. Who had he been? Did he have a family? Did he ever feel love? Did he have friends?

The blur of fighting and death slowly eroded it all. With each death, he was less himself and more whatever the wretched thing gripping his soul wanted him to be. There were some iterations where he remembered though. It was strange. As every few deaths he would be allowed to know who precisely he had been before this, if only for the sense of loss to remain as strong the next time he forgot.

He had realized his body was expendable. In a few brief moments of clarity, he had wondered whether it was him that rose up each time, or some stolen memory of him. Maybe the original was a long death corpse, buried beneath the ground he walked on. The piled corpses of all others sharing his fate made it impossible to find. Was his life only defined by the moments he fought, before he fell to rise again?

Emerson blinked. A large creature was ahead of him, one of those insects that reminded him so much of the god spawn he had fought together with… a friend. Who was it? He knew their face, but not the name. The name escaped him. Still, it was good to have a reminder of something. Each memory was a precious gem that could slip away at a moment's notice as he died again and again.

He rushed at it with a yell along with some of his brothers and sisters. Even if they had spoken, he no longer remembered their names. Some no longer had names.

[Weaken Divinity] was useless on this battlefield, but [Armor of the Faithless] had grown and improved his strength along with his [Supreme Strength] to a monstrous degree. He had gone through many weapons until he had finally created his own.

It was not an item so much as a manifestation of his desires, mana taking shape into the form of a giant mace with two large spikes on each end. It followed him and remained clutched in his hand as he fell and rose again and again. [Mace of the Faithless], the system had dubbed it. Appropriate, if a bit repetitive. He had no faith, nor hope. All he had was rage, fueled by skills and death.

There were no levels to be earned here, so he held no illusions that he would grow strong enough to remove the shackles binding him to this fate. There was a limit to the growth of skills if one didn’t advance. However, his skills still grew – the few he had. They grew with each life he wasted, and each life he took.

[Deathless] was his path. To fight forever, until the end of all time.

He reached the foot of the creature and swung with his two-handed mace, letting all of his fragmented memories, all of his anger and frustration, and all of the emptiness inside explode with the strike. A grey aura spread off of it and added further to the destructive force behind it.

The leg burst apart as if it was never there.

Soon, his comrades took another and the creature fell to the ground, where it was easy prey. Emerson yelled in triumph and rushed against a pack of Woodflesh Prowlers. He swung, killing one of the creatures with each strike, sometimes two. There were no skills at work apart from the few he always had. Only his strength and an ever-burning will kill that was both his own and something foreign. Something intrusive and alien.

It was good, it gave him purpose, and it gave him something to hold on to when his memories failed him. Had it been days, months, or more? Time was meaningless in this place without day or night.

Only death mattered.

A beam of darkness cleaved Emerson in two and made his insides evaporate. Part of his upper body along with his head flew for a time through the air, and he saw the world spin, and he felt death embrace him once again.

In his last moments, he saw a strange storm in the distance. Something told him it was important just as darkness took him.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

And once again, there was fear.

And once again, he was back seconds later, to fight again.

***

The explosion lasted all of five minutes, but it grew to the point of making the formation glisten and shake beneath the brown and red clouds. By the end, Alan was sure something really bad was about to happen. No matter what trick he pulled, he wasn’t going to survive the literal end of the world, especially if everything just fell into the endless void of space. He still didn’t know if the fractal was a place floating in space, or if it was contained separately, like a pocket realm.

It would’ve been a pretty shitty way to die, all things considered. Thankfully the storm ended soon after, raining bits and pieces of monsters and soil everywhere. One of the hills in the distance had simply disappeared. Alan had seen it happen – as if someone blew away a pile of dust into the air. And the whole ordeal had been followed by the strange sound of shuffling book pages.

The details were not important. What was important was the power, and what he needed to do to get hold of it. His thirst had only grown now that he felt so refreshed of mind and soul. His body felt great too, although death was coming for him. Not that it bothered him anymore. He would try to fix it as long as he could, and he had a few aces up his sleeve with the spirits if things didn’t work out in the very end.

“What are you smiling about?” Zirida asked. She had been calm about the situation, if a bit cautious. Then again, she was usually calm. Her scarred face could be a model for stoicism.

“I just thought it was awesome.”

“The storm?”

“The power behind it. I want that kind of power.”

Zirida shook her head. “It would be great to reach such a level, but it’s borrowed power in this case. And borrowed power doesn’t last…” there was something else in her words. Something Alan couldn’t quite understand.

Aren’t we all borrowing power? Aren’t we all subject to the system, or you to your god?

After a moment of silent contemplation, she continued, “The Exploding Library is a strange place, or so I’ve heard. Kaly’s been there and she told me a few stories. She also said that Master Wilbis has good standing despite his lack of talent for leveling and growth. His family pulled some favors to get him the position he enjoys. Don’t get me wrong, he is strong, for his level. The Library’s strength lies in strange artifacts, more often than not disguised as books, that rain destruction upon the worlds on scales hard to comprehend. This was nothing.”

“Oh, now the name makes sense.”

Zirida smiled. “The story is fun, let’s move and I’ll tell you.” Alan nodded and the two slowly started making their way, wary of any other strange developments. He wanted to know more about the wonders of the realm and felt himself get drawn into Zirida’s calm voice.

“The first iteration was built to house a collection of strange books given to the worlds by an even stranger spirit. It’s said to contain stories the likes of which few had seen. Each person had a book that could reveal their heart to them. The only problem was that they couldn't put them down once they started reading. No matter how strong the reader was. And once one finished a book, it would explode. The explosions would vary, but apparently, they would always be strong enough to kill the one reading, and even a whole planet could be wiped out because of one person.”

“Damn.” It sounds like something a very evil spirit would do. They are sketchy, but this is on another level.

“Ha! This is a great idea! Make someone addicted to reading and literally blow their head off at the end. What a twist!” Xil laughed in Alan’s head. It was quite funny, to be honest, if one could ignore all the gruesome implications and the death of many innocent.

“So, the books were slowly gathered from all around the realm, and a whole library was built to keep us safe from them. In time, researchers and curious beings were drawn in to guard the secrets kept within. And so, The Exploding Library was born. Some think the artifacts they make are derivative of the true danger hidden in their depths – the spirit books. Who knows though? They keep their secrets close.”

“You’re saying that at any moment, someone could release a bunch of books that you can’t just stop reading, which will explode in the end?”

“I’m sure there are protections in place that won’t allow that.”

“What about the Thrones?” Alan asked. This sounded like power too insane to not be controlled by the guys on top. Who would allow something like this to exist under their nose?

“I asked the same thing,” Zirida said with a smile. They turned around a hill and the monster bodies littering the ground became more than the ground itself. It was becoming increasingly hard to not step on any. Thankfully, the monsters on the fractal were not of flesh and blood so it was more like walking on pieces of wood.

“The Exploding Library has a special status, and while it adheres to the decrees of the Thrones, there have been times when… it has chosen not to. I don’t know the details, although I’m quite interested. However, it is also said that the books inside cannot be destroyed, and the threat of releasing them… The damage would be more than the Thrones can justify.”

“A nuclear deterrence in the form of books? That’s insane.”

“I wanna go there! Take me there! You will, won’t you? I wanna—” Alan could hear Xil foaming at the mouth. Alan was quite interested too. The story was as magical as it was insane and taking a peek into this world was something worthwhile doing. Wasn’t it what he wanted? To explore all the universe had to offer. The Exploding Library was certainly an interesting corner of it.

“I don’t know what nuclear is, but I guess,” Zirida answered.

“It was a bomb. Terrible weapon. The worst we had before the System. Now I’m not sure it will make the top ten. It remains to be seen.”

Zirida nodded, “There are many terrible things in the universe, Alan. You’ve seen nothing.”

“Scarred lady is right, bud. Not that I’m much different. My memories are like the monsters you’re stepping on, shattered beyond repair. Lucky me, we found each other.”

“Yes, I thank the many gods of the realm every day,” Alan responded.

“Don’t get sassy with me, bastard.”

“We’re near.”

He could feel it too, the turbulent and strange mana raging all over, and the void at the center of it. As they neared the outer edges of where the storm had been, Alan’s mouth almost fell. The terrain was obliterated. As if a thousand blades had just shredded everything apart. There were guards before them staring at the carnage as well. Some were kneeling and eating, others were laughing, but most just evaluated the damage in silent wonder.

There was also a barrier in the distance. It was cracked like old glass and Alan saw the familiar form of Master Wilbis hovering before it. He looked angrier than Alan remembered seeing him.

Surprisingly badass.

He saw the back of the large Byrr, and a moment later met the gaze of the elf Feyrith, who smiled widely. He beelined for them, and Byrr followed reluctantly. The larger man seemed shaken by the destruction.

“Come to join the party, have you?” Feyrith greeted. There were a few wounds on him, but nothing major.

Alan nodded. “Can’t be the only ones having fun. And I kind of want to see the dragon up close.”

A loud explosion made the surroundings tremble and the cracks upon the glass-like barrier stretched further.

“It might be sooner than you think,” Byrr quietly said. “Get ready. Whoever’s stirring up shit, has come prepared.”