This wasn’t like the previous times I’d been exposed to Poseidon’s aura. This was a physical thing, pushing and pulling at me like I was standing waist deep in the sea. I was forced back against a wall that I was confident had been the tunnel entrance a moment ago. No escape, it seemed. I was committed.

  I spent some mana on Enhancement and staggered forward a few paces. It was only five metres to reach the damn thing, whatever the hell it was. I reached out my right hand and waded through air that felt thicker than treacle. The closer I got to the white orb the stronger the aura became. I was tugged back and forth as I struggled to move each leg forward. The average of the motion was very much back towards the wall.

  My back hit the rock again as Enhancement ran out and I noticed my health was ticking down very slowly as the damage began to mount up. I was down to three hundred and forty seven- make that forty six. I cast Enhancement and Mass to increase my weight and I struggled nearly halfway before they ran out and I began to slide backwards again. I recast the spells quickly and managed to get within two metres of the pearl that seemed to be the source of the Vialith river the giants based their towns around.

  I was down to a metre away, my hand outstretched as I strained against the impossible sensations of tides and depths Poseidon was sending at me. I used Size and grew by over fifty percent, my hand getting to less than a foot form my goal when a surge in Poseidon's aura knocked me back and I tumbled into the wall behind me.

  Health: 321/350

  Pertabon had been right: I wasn’t strong enough. At least I wasn’t strong enough as I was. I cast Heal and pulled up my status screens. The nice thing about the system was I could get a lot stronger as long as I had Souls to spend and currently I was a rich man in that regard.

  I dumped two thousand four hundred and thirty Souls into levels and jumped to level one hundred and ten. This netted me an additional thirty six stat points to play with. I also spent another nine hundred Souls to boost my Enhancement spell to the maximum available of ninety-eight percent. I put my stat points into strength and health as well as a few into mana .

  Level 110

  Primary Stats: Body: A- Mind: C+ Soul: D

  Available Souls: 19580

  Secondary Stats

  Physical strength: 60 Reflexes: 40 Health: 500

  Magic strength: 30 Focus: 30 Mana: 520

  Affinity: Fire

  Summon fire: Range- 104 metres, Intensity- +156%, lasts 15 seconds

  Fire Resistance- +100%

  Projectile: Speed- +60%, Detonation- 11.5 metres cubed.

  Fire Wall: Area- 20 metres squared. lasts 15 seconds

  Barrier: 220 HP, Area: 5 metres squared

  Fire Spirit: duration 110 seconds

  Burning Skies: Area- 50x50m, duration 15 seconds

  Affinity: Life

  Heal (self): 20HP and 156% increased recovery rate for one hour. Seals moderate wounds.

  Enhancement (self): 98%,

  Resistance (all): 60%

  Projectile: Speed- +156%, (heal other)

  Rapid Growth: Area- 20 metre squared.

  Projectile: Speed- +156% (Enhance Other).

  Shapeshift (Minor): Duration- 110 seconds

  Shape Soulbound Servant: Permanent. Maximum 1 shaped servant.

  Affinity: Space

  Size: range- 54 metres, Intensity- 58%

  Mass: range- 54 metres, Intensity- 58%

  Area: 10.5m cubed (optional) lasts 15 seconds

  Resistance: 100%

  Pocket Dimension: 5.5m cubed

  Spatial Tear: Range- 11 metres

  Affinity: Earth

  Shape Earth: Range - Touch, Duration 15 seconds

  Hybrid Spell (Earth/Fire): Volcanic Vent: Area: 50x50m, Duration 15 seconds

  Imbue

  Enchant

  Soul Transfer

  Aresk’s Boon: Carrion Feeders Gaze.

  Aresk’s Boon: Divine Steed

  Synthesised Spell: Shape Soulbound Servant.

  At level one hundred I unlocked a new spell in the Life tree and the oddly named second boon from Aresk. At one hundred and ten I received the hybrid spell Volcanic Vent. I had a sneaky suspicion as to what that one would do when I got around to testing it. Shape Soulbound Servant posed some interesting and horrifying possibilities as well. But right now all that mattered was I felt like I could toss mountains around and my health had skyrocketed.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  I cast Enhance again and pushed forward more easily. The tidal aura must have some kind of exponential growth attached to it. The closer I got the stronger the metaphysical waves battering at me got in turn. I was poised with my hand barely six inches from it. I recast Enhancement to give me more time. I tried with everything I had to force my hand closer to the glowing white pearl but I kept slipping back. I used Size and Limited Shapeshifting at the same time.

  As my body grew, the tattered rags of my tunic falling away at last, I changed the shape of my hand, melding the flesh into a single digit that stretched out and managed to brush against the pearl for a moment.

  As I touched it the orb went from a perfect white colour to a mix of orange and green. The colours looked like a living yin-yang symbol as they swirled against each other and the previously crystal blue water spewing from the Source became a mix of a deep sea green and a brassy orange. The aura died as I brushed the tip of my transformed finger against the sphere and I staggered forwards. As the water changed colour I fell into the pearl and felt myself being sucked away into the god’s realms.

  I was deep underwater and the pressure was killing me. I felt the fluid being pulled from my body as though some osmotic effect was sipping me dry in defiance of normal physics. My eyeballs shrank down, like grapes becoming raisins, and my skin contracted against my muscles.

  Poseidon was there, floating in front of me, her hair swirling in the current of this world and creating a nimbus of lighter green against the backdrop of the deep that surrounded us. She snarled and one of her tentacle limbs shot towards me but a bronze shield slammed down in front of me and blocked the attack. I felt the pressure ebb and flow away. I could breathe again and gasped a breath as blood red light spread out around me and drove back the depths.

  “Took… your… fucking… time…” I croaked as Aresk appeared behind the shield and glared at Poseidon over it.

  “You lost Fish-tits. For once in eternity why don’t you accept it with a bit of grace!” the bronze titan called out. The red light pushed back the murky blue of Poseidon's domain and I sagged onto a marble floor as Aresk took control of my surroundings.

  “This will not go unanswered,” Poseidon snarled and then she vanished. My skin and eyes rehydrated as Aresk turned back to me, shrinking back down to his relatively human size. The pervasive sense of being deep underwater faded away as my surroundings shifted to the familiar marble plaza, ornate arms and armour floating above plinths around me. A bronze throne rose up behind Aresk and he sat down, waving for me to do the same. I glanced back and sure enough a simpler chair had appeared behind me.

  “Well done boy! That’s a bone in the gills to the old sea-bitch!” he chuckled as I lowered myself carefully onto my chair. I felt my eyeballs rehydrate to their normal size. It was almost as unpleasant as Poseidon sucking the moisture out of them.

  “What the hell did I just do?” I demanded.

  “You took her Source for me. Now I have two! You really should go find mine and claim it, by the way!” he replied amicably.

  “Where is it?”

  “Ah now that would be telling!” The sound of a gong being struck rang out as he tapped his nose with one finger. “You saw the water change?” I nodded. “When you get back take some of it to the feral Huskar. It’s what they need for you to keep your promise to them.”

  “Which bloody promise? They’re coming to war with me anyway. The clans from down the river at least. What will happen with the Narbolik?”

  “Oh they’re yours now as well. Look, Julius Narbo had no idea about biochemistry and whatnot but the system helped him out. There was a price for what he did to create the Huskar. He was one of Scaly-bitches champions, you know? I was so annoyed when she got him. I ended up with a Sassanid peddler. Rough game that one.”

  “So the Huskars are infertile unless they drink the water of the Vialith?” I wondered.

  “Yep. Hormone deficiency in the females that the water supplements. You’re a ways off that kind of power level but sooner or later it becomes a question of trade offs, Ray. Now, you saw your new boon?”

  “Yeah. I’m getting a horse?”

  “Oh nothing so plebeian as that, little mortal!” I received a very smug bronze grin from the statue.

  “So a fancy horse. Will it be like Glimpse?”

  “You won’t be able to borrow his senses but I think you’ll like him. Consider this a show of gratitude.” I received a metallic thumbs up as Aresk’s domain quickly faded away. I was left in the limbo space and if I had a mouth there it would have been opening and closing as I tried to rush out some more questions for my patron.

  Real sensation returned and I found myself lying naked on cold and damp rock. I raised my head and the water spewing from the Source was back to an azure blue, the giant pearl was once again a perfectly white sphere. Sitting next to the Source and lapping at the torrent, that emerged at a high enough pressure to strip normal flesh from the bone, was a gigantic bronze wolf. If it wasn’t moving I’d have thought it was a statue. The tongue flicked in and out as it drank from the Source.

  I rose slowly to my feet and backed away slightly. The head swung towards me and he let out a happy chuff. I knew this animal. He was a shit load bigger and had undergone a fairly significant dye job but this was…

  “Wilson?” I asked in wonder.

  The wolf bounded over and knocked to the ground. While he appeared to be made of bronze, the tongue licking my face was undoubtedly a biological thing of slobber. I ruffled his fur and pushed him back. I stood and had to look up into the wolf’s face, he was a good seven feet tall at the shoulder.

  “Welcome back, bloke! It's been a while!”

  Before we set off I pulled out a tunic from my stash and got dressed. Waterskins in the Shop were five Souls. It had seemed a princely sum when I’d first arrived in this world. I’d been scrabbling for every advantage I could get back then and the Shop prices for basics had seemed like a drain on my future growth.

  “Not such a big deal now, eh boy?” I said to Wilson.

  Whether I’d been right or not to be tight fisted at the time: five Souls wasn’t much to me currently. I bought fifty skins for a paltry two hundred and fifty Souls and spent twenty long minutes getting my new tunic piss-wet though as I tried to fill them from a water source that was outputting at an unholy level of pressure.

  A dozen of them were ripped apart or snatched out of my hands to disappear out of what I assumed was a waterfall of some kind before I figured out a way to catch the very edge of the stream. I put the thirty eight remaining pouches of pure Huskar hormone replacement therapy in my stash and made my way back up the winding tunnel that had led me to the Source, a happy wolf padding along behind me.

  I felt like I’d been beaten with brooms as I staggered along the tunnel, one hand outstretched to keep me on my feet. I’d not slept properly for days, it seemed easy enough to go without sleep with my stats but after whatever the hell Poseidon had just put my body through I needed a solid eight hours at least.

  As I emerged I found the Fangs, my pet giants and Pertabon sharing a meal of dried jerky and yalk.

  “Soon as i’m away for a minute you’re getting drunk? What the hell guys?” I yelled as I emerged from the shadow. Mulius threw the clay bottle of yalk into his mouth, crunched once then swallowed audibly.

  “You survived then. You’ve taken control of the Source. Damn!” snarled Pertabon.

  “I appreciate the support, bloke. Yes I did.”

  “No offence intended, Harvester. It just means things will have to change. What’s the wolf?” the giant said sadly.

  “An old friend resurrected as a reward from Mars. The change starts right here, Bon. Mulius, Nuk, I’ve fixed your problem. Here.” I tossed a pair of waterskins to Nuk who snatched them from the air in one hand and held his open palm up as he glared down at the relatively tiny objects. “Give them to your women before they… before when a boy giant decides to love a lady giant very much… I guess. It will increase her fertility.” I shrugged.

  “You kept your word?” Nuk narrowed his eyes at the tiny pouches of water. “Perhaps.”

  “Whether the ferals you don’t control come south with you is not relevant. The waters changed colour so the Narbolik will make war with you,” Pertabon said firmly as he rose to his feet and nodded to me.

  “So that’s it? We’ve won?” asked Mune.

  “Be grateful neither of us had to marry a Huskar to seal the alliance,” muttered Kos, elbowing Mune in the side.

  “It would make the bond between us stronger if one of you would volunteer for the honour? Our women are like nothing you can imagine!” said Pertabon with a straight face.

  “Ah, well, you see there’s this girl back home…” Kos began before Mune cut him off.

  “I’m already spoken for… You were taking the piss weren’t you?” Mune narrowed his eyes at Pertabon who burst into booming laughter that echoed back and forth in the small cave.

  “I’m sorry little men, you wouldn’t be able to satisfy our women. Lord, there is a reason the ferals aren’t able to reproduce. Do you understand the consequences of what you’re doing? This limit was meant to stop our spreading over the earth and replacing your kind.” Bon rumbled.

  “I made a promise. I’ll bind the ferals to me.” I could feel Mulius fighting the bond every time the word feral was spoken. Nuk didn’t seem to care though. “They’ve been left as outcasts for too long. Nuk, Mulius, I keep my promises and I expect you to keep yours. You will not eat my kind, or each other.” Pertabon made a moue of distaste as I brought up the cannibalistic habits of the rural Huskar.

  “We should head back into town. The Legion can be ready to march in a day or two,” the giant said firmly.

  “We’re the fucking Legion,” muttered Mulius. Pertabon glanced over and the larger Huskar glanced away rather than meet his eyes.

  “We’ll need to unify the other rural clans,” I added.

  “That won’t be a problem, lord. The Legion is unstoppable.” Pertabon grinned broadly at me.

  “I also heard something about a stash? Some hidden reserve. A little bird told me.” Glimpsed cawed loudly from outside but the brief wash of Aresk’s aura made it clear this wasn’t a request and Pertabon’s face fell into a deep frown.

  If you want to read 21 chapters ahead of Royal Road you can do so on my

  follow, a rating or maybe even a favourite! Any of them would really help the story get seen by more people and I'd be very grateful to you for taking the time! I'm happy to respond to any and all comments so if you see something: say something :)

  Amazon. It's a system apocalypse/superhero/father-daughter kind of adventure. There's five books in the main series, plus a side story, that are available on KU :)

  discord. Come along and say hi!