The Tenth Realm: A LitRPG Fantasy series (The Ten Realms Book 12) Read online

  TEN REALMS: BOOK 10

  The Tenth Realm

  MICHAEL CHATFIELD

  Copyright © 2022 by Michael Chatfield

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Art by Jan Becerikli Garrido

  Jacket Design by Caitlin Greer

  Interior Design by Caitlin Greer

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-990785-02-3

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-990785-01-6

  Table of Contents

  1 Retreat

  2 Head of the Imperium

  3 War Machines

  4 In Defense of the Realms

  5 Orders

  6 Rising Tide

  7 Vehpolis

  8 Avegaaren

  9 Across the Realms

  10 In Service of the Realms

  11 Shattered Wave

  12 To the Tenth

  13 Defenders of the Realms

  14 Power, A means to an end

  15 Ascension

  16 Descend

  17 Across the Realms

  18 The Ninth

  19 A Future Unknown

  Author’s Note

  1

  Retreat

  R ekha Bhettan, first disciple of Xun Liang, the last head of the Imperium, wrapped her braid up in a rag, her brown eyes never leaving the storm clouds advancing in the distance. The Tenth Realm was hell and heaven, lands of plenty, untouched forests, floating islands, and underground worlds, all waiting to be discovered. It was filled with the strongest creatures and people of the Ten Realms, but also Elemental storms that could tear apart body cultivators and mana storms that would overload the strongest mana cultivator.

  Those were natural occurrences; the approaching elemental clouds were anything but. Mountains framed the horizon as the storms, attracted by their masters, hung above or rumbled below.

  She pulled the rag closed with a final tug, drawing upon her mana. Wisps of a spell appeared over her fingers, and she passed it over her face. Her vision reached across the kilometers. Ravagers, creatures of the Shattered Realms that cultivated Elements ate up the open ground, crossing the plains rapidly. They moved in packs, grouped by their elements and beast type. At their centers humanoid creatures moved upon their elements, surrounding them, responding to their command.

  Devourers.

  Ravagers gave them a wide berth, not daring to close with them unless summoned.

  Rekha’s eyes flicked from the creatures on the ground to the ones in the air. She blinked against her fatigue, and the grit that seemed to fill her eyes. “Here we go again.” She sighed, wondering absently when she’d last been out of her armor.

  “I can’t see who their leader is,” Sam, one of her closest friends and party member, muttered. His elven ears twitched in frustration as he ground his casting staff into the catwalk.

  “They have to be powerful to have this many sworn.” Rekha dismissed the spells from her eyes. She could see the elemental energies twisting the very fabric of the realm without their aid.

  “A lot of changes in three weeks,” Sam said.

  His somber tone caught her off guard. She followed his gaze, watching a party leader, an Imperium veteran, checking on the latest reinforcements bolstering the ascension platform’s fortress. Rekha recognized them as fellow students of Avegaaren.

  Former students.

  A familiar stab of grief ran through her. Three weeks ago, they had lost Avegaaren, the only place she had called home and where she had been accepted. Three weeks ago, the Imperium lost their leader, and she had lost a man she had thought of as her father.

  She steeled her heart, quashing her anger and retreating into that colder, darker place—the place that had seen death and dealt its hand. She gripped the sword on her hip, her master’s sword, sending a ripple through her heart. The runes across her armor brightened with the fluctuation of mana and elements flowing through her body.

  She studied their defenses. The fortress lay on a rise in the vast plains. Three four-sided stars at ninety-degree angles to one another and fifty meters taller than the one before them, cut up the hill that the ascension platform stood upon. Their white and grey walls were covered in the flowing script of Star-rated formation masters, as thick as a person’s fist, and filled with catalysts that glowed like gems.

  In the center of the fortress stood the ascension platform, a spike of formation-layered stone and metal, untouched by nearly two millennia. It stabbed into the heavens, its peak wreathed in clouds, taller than any mountain across the Ten Realms.

  Dozens of warships held position around it, facing the enemy advance. Rolling grasses shifted with the wind. Here, unlike the rest of the realm, there were no natural mana or elemental storms.

  “You think it works?” Sam asked.

  “The ascension platform?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “The first ascendants that created the Tenth Realm made the tower to replicate how they ascended. One needed to reach the Tenth Realm with their own strength, then pass through the ten trials before they might attempt ascension.”

  “Yeah, and in two millennia, we haven’t had a single new ascendant. Not even one person has made it out of the tower. Once you start climbing the tower, you ascend, or you die.”

  Cayleigh, the gnome and last member of their group, pumped her arms as she ran from the command center. Behind her, fighters started talking to one another and gathering their gear.

  We’re attacking them? On open ground? That’s suicide.

  Cayleigh made it to the stairs. The higher elements and mana made one stronger, but it was also harder to move, like wearing armor while being stuck on the seabed. Jumping fifty meters was impossible in this realm, forcing her to use the stairs. “’Scuse me! Watch out, make a hole!”

  A crash followed with cursing. Cayleigh appeared at the top of the stairs a few minutes later. Her hair was cut short, and colored red, yellow, and silver, her boisterous ways in contrast with her reserved grandmother, Weebla. “Well then.”

  She huffed and took a deep breath, resting her hands on her twin short axes, getting her breathing under control.

  “What’s happening?” Rekha asked as fighters made their way down the stairs, abandoning their positions on the wall.

  “We’re pulling back to the Seventh.” Cayleigh exhaled the words like ripping off a bandage.

  “What?” Rekha yelled, pinching her brows together.

  “Clive Andross has ordered us to consolidate our forces in the Seventh Realm.”

  Rekha gritted her teeth, her knuckles whitening on her grip. “Doesn’t he realize that once we lose this position, we might never get it back? This is the bulwark against the Shattered Realms.”

  “Rekha,” Sam’s voice warned.

  “What? It’s true.”

  “And you’re the last Imperium head’s disciple. Right now, we need to be united. If people think you don’t agree with Clive, it could cause the Imperium to break.”

  “It wouldn’t.” Would it?

  The academy itself, untouched for millennia was attacked directly, and the head of the Imperium, who was usually only replaced when their term was up, was killed.

  “The lower realms cared little about what we did and now everything is coming apart. They’re looking for someone to blame,” Cayleigh said.

  “I’m sure he has a plan,” Sam said, but Rekha knew him too well. He was anxious and unsure as well.

  Fighters retreated without panic or fear. Teleportation pads flashed as the formations on the warships powered up.

  Three weeks of fighting and we’re falling back at the first sign of battle.

  The fortress would bloody the Shattered, but she knew that they always had more to throw into the fight. This was only the start.”

  “The warships are tasked to hit the creatures as they approach. Activate all traps and then we get out of here,” Cayleigh said.

  “We’re giving them the ascension platform.” Rekha threw up her arms and stalked to the crenellations, smacking her palms into the stone.

  Sam and Cayleigh waited a few moments before walking up on her left.

  “Them’s the orders,” Cayleigh said.

  Sam pressed his lips together, but there was no fight in him.

  Rekha wanted to yell at the sheer frustration of it, but there had to be a reason the new head needed them in the Seventh. “I—” She let out a breath that did little to quell her anger.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll pay these bastards back for what they did here, and for Avegaaren, and—”Sam’s voice softened as he looked from the approaching elemental storms.“—for Xun Liang.”

  Rekha gave a short nod, gathering herself before joining the rest of the retreating fighters. She felt numb, as she had for the last three weeks, like the world was covered in a cloth she couldn’t reach through, or maybe she was wrapped in a cloth she couldn’t escape.

  They teleported to the waiting warships, floating out over the fortress. The seer screens showed the approaching enemy in their thousands, swarming from the sky and the ground. She could make out their individual formations with the naked eye now.

  The warships accelerated away from the platform. Mana cannons and mages along t
he upper decks, together with the side batteries, lit up the sky. Explosions with titanic force tore through the aerial Ravagers as Devourers covered themselves with their elements, creating shields and advancing without pause.

  As one fell, another would take their place, charging across the broken plains.

  The batteries on the underside of the warships fired, spells trailing light as they hit the ground, rippling under the Ravager and Devourers feet.

  The Shattered spread out, roaring, swiping and releasing their pent-up elemental attacks. Red, blue, silver, brown, grey, and green thundered across the open space. The air brimmed with energy. Counter-spells crashed into elements like rocks against the ocean.

  Aerial Shattereds’ attacks peppered the warship’s interlaced barriers like rain on a skylight, with the sounds of Armageddon.

  Rekha watched the strikes hit, grimacing with the blows and wishing there was something she could do to lessen them, but knowing she couldn’t.

  She had viewed the warships as untouchable, inviolable war machines, but had learned otherwise in the last three weeks of fighting.

  The fortress’ automated defenses activated. Spell formations as large as a person appeared across the walls, unleashing beams of destruction, pure mana that tore through grasses and dirt with their passing, their integrity breaking apart under elemental attacks before they hit a target to discharge their energy or lost spell integrity.

  Shattered attacks splashed over the giant barrier like colored water balloons against a window.

  Ramps opened around the fortress as golems, twice the size of a human, made of the same material as the walls, and covered in ancient Gnome and Elven script, marched out holding swords and shields.

  Shattered rushed them, meeting the golems’ weapons as they pushed out to create a semi-circle from their ramps.

  Golems took down dozens of the Shattered, their progress slowing to a crawl without the support of fighters on the wall and the ramp limiting the number that could run out at a time.

  The crawl turned to a halt, semi-circles of golems against a seething tide of Shattered.

  “The golems are being pushed back,” Cayleigh hissed.

  The Shattered used the bodies of their dead, the physical weight pressing upon the golems as they jumped down on them, attacking them from several angles.

  The golems marched back in lockstep. The Shattered flowed forward, several latching onto a golem. It hacked apart two Shattered, three jumped on it, cutting through its runes. Its legs collapsed, still swinging its sword until its arm was torn free. The golem was buried under the flow of Shattered that pressed on, entrapping more golems, bringing them low and finishing them off.

  Other golems were lost among the press as they drew back.

  Shattered dug their claws into the sections of walls left uncovered in their retreat, scaling them.

  A Devourer from the front unleashed a beam of chaotic elements. The twisted kaleidoscope of colors slammed into the fortress’s outer barriers. Another added their beam to the first, strengthening it, then a third, a fifth, a tenth. The barrier colored and spasmed.

  All those skirmishes, shutting down dozens of tears, weeks without sleep. Rekha gritted her teeth against her scream, the cloying fury at their retreat, watching their final redoubt in the Tenth Realm folding like a sandcastle against the tide.

  Spells bombarded the Devourers from the warships. Ravagers cast their own elemental attacks, defending their masters.

  Growing from several centimeters to a dozen meters, more beams lanced out at the fortress. Chaotic beams of swirling, twisted energies crashed into the outer star wall, the formation script straining under the attacks as more Devourers added their power.

  “Devourers don’t work together.” A guard said, blinking at the truth that lay waste to his words, his prayer.

  The formations stuttered. Rekha’s heart leapt into her throat. The very fabric of the realm shimmered like air above a smith’s forge.

  A beam cut through Shattered and the Imperium golems, detonating with a thunderclap. A twenty-meter-wide crater appeared in the heart of the golem line, throwing them from their feet.

  Shattered rose. Those out of the blast surged forward to kill the remaining golems. A living arrow through the heart of their golem defenses, they attacked the golems on all sides. Others rushed the walls behind them.

  “They’re getting over the walls!” Sam yelled.

  “And there’s not one fighter to meet them,” Rekha hissed back.

  Finding no defenders, Shattered charged into the fortress.

  “Shit, look! The barrier!” Rekha followed Cayleigh’s finger. Golden cracks burned up and away from the impact points of the chaotic beams, shimmering through colors, blackening its trail as they ate upward and across.

  Beams drilled into the outer walls, their formations flaring to withstand the destructive might. Elemental attacks landed among the retreating Imperium forces, throwing them like chaff in the wind. Meteors of flame, cracked apart with the force to lay forests flat stained the fortress’ clean lines; beams melted stone as gales with sword-sharp winds tore up stones and scarred runes.

  A dozen—hundreds of beams lanced out to strike the walls.

  Sections were blasted away, and cracks appeared. Walls that had stood for a thousand years crumbled and formed a ramp for the Shattered horde to use.

  “The ships are retreating!” Sam pointed at the warship fleet flying away as the aerial Shattered piled attacks upon their barriers, no longer protected by the tower’s.

  A warship took several hits, flames blowing out another section of the ship. Its runes flashed and died as it lost power and dove toward the ground.

  Runes flared to life, brimming with light stronger than the sun. The ship transitioned, debris that had been torn free, crashing into the plains, sending up plumes of dust.

  “Prepare for transition to the Seventh Realm in twenty seconds,” the fleet’s admiral announced.

  Rekha’s stomach turned. They had lost the Tenth Realm before, but had never lost the ascension platform.

  “Transitioning.”

  2

  Head of the Imperium

  E li’keen, administrator of the Imperium, and a member of the elven council, studied the map table in the middle of the Imperium war room. It was the largest of the nine tables. Ten smaller tables created a nearly closed C shape, the open side facing the one main door, with a massive table in the middle. It was large enough that it would take twenty men holding hands to circle it.

  Since he joined the Imperium, he had only needed to be in attendance in this room three times in the last millennia.

  The main table showed a replica of the ascension platform. Shattered had smashed through gates and barriers and were spreading through the fortress’ defenses.

  The remaining golems fought on, taking down a few Ravagers, but they were isolated and overwhelmed and soon collapsed.

  Eli’keen’s heart shuddered. No one had attempted to challenge the ascension platform in the last two thousand years, but it was a hope and goal for many. The map stilled. The last of the warships transitioned to the Ninth Realm.

  The door opened to the sound of marching boots, breaking the silence that had settled across the room. The administrators snapped their heads up to the man who entered—the newly appointed head of the Imperium.

  Clive Andross entered with his group of advisors and guards. His armor was well used and had been repaired recently; his sword hanging from his hip was almost a part of him. His balding head had been shaved, and he had an ever-present scruff of a beard. He looked like a man who was born to frown, with deep lines across his forehead.

  His severe green eyes cut through man, maps, and lies, getting to the heart of the matter. An athletic man, who had gained his size through fighting rather than body alterations.

  “Change it to the Ninth.”

  An attendant moved the controls on the table. The tower was replaced with a floating spherical map of the Ninth Realm.

  Clive paused at the edge of the table, looking at the others gathered around its edges. “It’s time we cleared this fuck-up. I’ve ordered all remaining forces in the Tenth and Ninth back to the Seventh Realm. Associations and the mission hall are coordinating with the sects and alliances. It’s about time they put in some work to defend their freedom.” He rapped his fingers on the wooden table, getting a few snorts and mutterings of agreement.