Apocalyptic Life (Era Series Book 2) Read online

  List of Era Books

  #1 Transient Life

  #2 Apocalyptic Life

  #3 Languished Life

  #4 Cataclysmic Life

  #5 Hallowed Life

  #6 Resonant Life

  List of Sequel Series Books:

  THE FATE SERIES

  #1 The Ninth World

  #2 The Corrupted World

  #3 The Howling World

  #4 The Chaos World

  #5 The End of the World

  Fate Series will become available Later!

  More content available on my

  website (web novels, short stories)

  overpoweredfantasy.com

  APOCALYPTIC LIFE

  The Third Era

  ————————————

  Book Two

  of the

  Era Series

  ————————————

  PATRIK MIELONEN

  COPYRIGHT 2019 © Patrik Mielonen

  This is a work of fiction. Everything is author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual locations, events, or people, either dead or living, is purely coincidental.

  Recap & Prologue

  I think this is close enough, Emy says.

  The Feenix replies, Very well.

  Emy stands up, clenching the crystal in her hand. She lets herself fall off the back of the Feenix, plunging into the dark below. The trail of blue motes follows her.

  I’m not Emily, but... goodbye, she says the farewells Emily refused to say to her friends.

  Thank you all, she thanks those who helped her in this cruel world.

  I’m coming, everyone...

  I’m coming, Mom...

  She presses the crystal against her chest in her free fall. The ground is getting nigh. She pours her intention into the stone, and it reacts to her, emitting bright light. The Bright Old One is watching her beautiful departure from a dimension unknown to all but him.

  I’m coming...!

  She is not.

  The time itself stops. It isn’t the same as Bladedancing. It truly has stopped. Whether it’s the trail of motes or Emy herself, they’re all still in the air, frozen in place. The Black Demons below are just as motionless.

  What...?

  However, Emy can still think in the timeless space. The crystal in her hand has begun to erupt, blinding light emanating from it. If the time had stopped a nanosecond later, her hand would be gone.

  A familiar voice resounds in her mind. I need you.

  Dracon?

  Yes, it is me.

  Stop it. Let me go.

  There will be no third life and death for you. You will cease to exist if I let you.

  So what? That’s what I want.

  Why?

  Because... Emy trails off.

  Do you not want revenge?

  Emy isn’t sure what he means by that.

  It is because of him that you are forced to cease existing. It is because of him that your mother had to die. So, do you not want revenge?

  She never considered it. She merely accepted the reality. Can she avenge her mother? Can she avenge herself? She can’t think of a way to harm him, knowing he is beyond mortal coil.

  Besides, Dracon reminds, your mother did not want you to die.

  Her heart stings. Shut it! It’s too late anyway!

  It is not.

  It is!

  It is not. I am the Supreme God. Although weakened, I am a god nonetheless.

  The more Dracon prolongs her inevitable end, the more Emy begins to regret her decision. Especially now that he reminded her of Susu.

  If you promise to fight him, I will save you.

  Emy can’t suppress the surging whorl of emotions. Her current self is conflicting with the Emy who declared she’d willingly die in order to defy the world. The choice is too difficult to make, but Dracon waits, and waits, and waits, ever so patient.

  How? Emy asks.

  There is only one way to save you right now. Our souls must be amalgamated, which means there would be two minds in one body. We would be the Supreme God of the First World.

  So, I wouldn’t be Susu’s daughter anymore?

  You would, if that is what you wish. The only change would be that I have become part of you.

  And how can we fight him?

  By disrupting his plan.

  Emy remains silent for a moment in the timeless space. She can’t blink, she can’t look anywhere else. It isn’t a pleasant experience.

  Fine, she complies.

  Thank you, Dracon is glad.

  The flow of time resumes, and the crystal erupts. A blinding wave of destruction wipes the desert clean of everything and anything, including the sand. The Seed is erased from existence along with billions of Black Demons. The defenders of the Extinction Wall are caught in the shockwave, the stone barely unaffected. The casualties are minimal, thanks to the distance.

  Thus the Extinction War concludes in this world—at the price of the parallel dimension, namely Earth and the vast universe around it.

  Where am I?

  Emy is in a whole different place now. It’s a tiny island in the middle of an ocean, rocky and cold.

  I have taken us to a safe location.

  Emy is baffled. Are they ‘one’ now? Did you merge us already?

  Yes. I’m the other half of your mind now. We share the same thoughts and memories. If you wish, you can explore my mind as much as you like. I believe that should answer most of your questions.

  Curious, Emy tries just that, and to her surprise, she can indeed see Dracon’s mind. But by perceiving his memories, she learns things she never imagined to be true, things she never thought could exist. Now, she also knows why Dracon is weakened. Also, she, too, sees him as an enemy now.

  He seems to be the one behind everything that’s evil.

  Relax for a moment. Lie down, Dracon tells her.

  Why?

  You will see.

  Emy complies. She lies down on the rocks, watching the skies. However, she experiences something perplexing; her hands move, and she isn’t doing it herself. Nay, it isn’t just her hands; her whole body is moving on its own.

  If you let me, I can take control.

  How convenient—wait, no! This is indecent! I don’t want to be groped!

  Eh... The being that is the Supreme God is flustered. I, uhm, did not consider that when I made the proposal. But is it not your body that touches you? Not that I have a plan of touching this and that.

  Yeah, I guess, Emy can only believe it. She does, after all, see his mind.

  Anyway, you probably know already what the plan is?

  Yes.

  Emy’s learned of the other worlds, thanks to Dracon. Overall, there are eight worlds, and each of them has two dimensions—or had, as the other half of this world is gone, and another world has disappeared only recently. Dracon doesn’t know why it is so, but one world, along with the two dimensions, has been obliterated during the time Emy has been fighting. Furthermore, each of the eight worlds has or had a Supreme God of its own. However, only three of them are aware of the others, and Dracon is one of them. What’s more, each world has its own norms, which means Spirit, for instance, doesn’t exist anywhere else other than in this world.

  Wait, what’s... this? Emy is touching her forehead.

  You know the answer.

  Emy has a thin but long crystal stuck to her forehead. It’s like a horn, pointing straight ahead with its sharp tip. But that isn’t all; she is bleeding, for the stone is, in fact, xenobiotic. It isn’t part of her body at all. It’s sunk into her brain through the skull, and blood is dripping from the wound, forever and ever. She
won’t die, but that’s how she’ll look like. That is Dracon. If she pulls it out, he will die, and so will she too.

  Now, let us head to the Third World.

  Chapter One

  Change of Third Fate

  “Why do I always get the boring tasks? Oh well, could be worse. I don’t want to clean up the whole headquarters,” a woman whose eye and hair color changes almost daily speaks her mind in a tavern. She isn’t dying her hair, or especially eyes. Her constant change in color is because of more natural means. Also, she likes wolves, a lot.

  She was ordered to eavesdrop on the locals for rumors about Elementalists and the Elementi in a certain town (pronounced ‘element-eye,’ and the same goes for words Dragoni and Demoni). Because of that, she is now sitting in the tavern, candles and oil lamps lighting the interior. Some huntsman trophies have been nailed to the walls, horns and stuffed heads.

  She is slender, and honestly, her bosom is rather flat for a woman of her age. Although she only has a thin shirt with a hooded cloak on top of it, there are no signs of a pair of bulges. She is also tall for a woman, about 68 inches. She is an athlete, so despite the lack of curves, she is very alluring nonetheless. Her face has a scar, sadly. It’s a mark caused by a sword a year ago. It goes down from below the left eye to her jaw, like a straight line.

  Although the woman may ask herself why she gets such tasks, she actually knows the reason; she is an Elementalist, and some rules apply to that profession in this world. Due to those rules, she’s been very close to being exiled or imprisoned as a rogue Elementalist. She hasn’t stood up to the Order or anything. Instead, it’s because of her usage of Elementi. They are allowed to utilize the Elementi to their hearts’ content, but using them for sinister purposes leads to an unwanted phenomenon. And of course, she has done just that, but not to the point of causing the catastrophe.

  And thus her tasks are like that nowadays. They try to ‘rehabilitate’ the unusually sinister youth, although she is past her twenties. To try to enjoy her time in the tavern, she’s bought a large mug of beer, but she is drinking it slowly. When she feels like the beer is losing the sour taste, which is caused by carbonic acid, she draws a symbol in the air with her finger, an Elementi symbol, then she touches the symbol with her palm. In a moment’s notice, the beer has the taste restored. She does it so that no customer sees her do it, just to ensure if there’s an Elementalist hater in the bar, at least she won’t cause a ruckus. And due to such fact, she has her hood covering her hair, and hopefully even eyes by shadowing her face.

  Back to the spell; to do such, she needs to craft the spell by attuning the Air Elementi—which makes her hair and eyes change in color—to isolate carbon dioxide and mix it with the beer. This does cause the beer to go bubbly for a moment, but the mug is big, and the beer is only three-fourths of the space.

  As for the hair and eye color change, as long as she won’t attune any other Elementi, her colors remain white as they are now. But if she attuned Water, for instance, her colors would appear blue. Lightning would make her red, and yes, lightning is red in this world, which means thunder is red as well. Fire attunement causes yellow coloring. Obviously, there are many more.

  “Ah, it was so much better back in the days when the bloody bastard wasn’t the Mayor.” Some customer is having a conversation with his companion.

  “Aye. He’s been charging me for everything I do. I had one week when I didn’t drink a single drop of ale, thanks to his taxes.”

  “And for some reason, the guards have grown nastier recently. I heard someone got raped and nothing was done about it. Suspicious, I tell ya!”

  “There was that case with the stealing as well.”

  Those two keep talking for a while, and the Elementalist woman decides that it’s pointless to listen in on them after gathering they won’t discuss Elementalists. Of course, she hasn’t been listening to them only. There is one group of farmers who talk about weather and soil, tilling and fishing.

  Suddenly, one lonely man tries to accompany her, seemingly trying to hit on her. “Looking for—?”

  “Get lost,” is all she minds to say.

  She isn’t usually like that, but right now, her mood is such she doesn’t feel like having anyone’s company, especially not a flirting man’s. Because of certain factors, she doesn’t have many friends, but she isn’t troubled by that as she has her hands full of tasks of all sorts.

  The man returns to his seat some yards away, dejected. A minute later, the Elementalist woman finally hears an interesting conversation after hours of sitting. The men she is listening to are foreign, three of them. Their skins are tanned, and their clothes are clearly meant for hot days. The woman knows their home country well. It’s called Rajash. And yes, they aren’t speaking in Poer Haemish, which is the mother tongue of the Elementalist. Poer Haem is the name of the country.

  Poer Haem is called ‘ an Eastern Land’ by many, for Poer Haem is located by the sea as far to the East as one can go on land. Summers are hot, and winters aren’t unbearably cold. No, Poer Haem isn’t an exotic land. The national beast of Poer Haem is wolf, and there is such a thing as ‘national tree’ as well, which is birch.

  Neighboring countries of Poer Haem are Rajash to South, Kingdom of Qarch—sometimes just the Kingdom—to West, and Orloss shares a small piece of the border with Poer Haem to North. Only Orloss is hostile with Poer Haem, and it has been so for an eternity. It’s a viking country, so they don’t always see their own countrymen as allies either. Due to mountainous terrain, no country has tried to conquer Orloss in the past, even though the country itself is in a sorry state due to their poor interior politics. If the mountains weren’t protecting them, Orloss would’ve been conquered by the Kingdom or Poer Haem long ago.

  Back to the conversation; those three men of Rajash are chatting in their mother tongue, but that doesn’t hinder the Elementalist. She draws a small symbol of Voice in the air, touching it with her palm afterward. Elementi of Voice has no color, and because of it, her eye and hair color reverts to natural. Brown hair, green eyes, that is her normal look. Now that the spell is in effect, she can understand the language of Rajash, namely Rajain. However, she is disgusted by the topic. The Rajash men aren’t expecting anyone to follow their conversation, and it shows.

  “...irritated me. And to think he looked down on me, though he tried to hide it until the very end. Damn these Elementalists... If only this were Rajash! They’d all be beheaded in the blink of an eye! And of course, women are toyed with, heh. I wonder, how does a Poer Haem Elementalist woman look like with all those colors messed up? I haven’t seen female ones yet.”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure if I want to see one. It’d likely be an unholy sight to witness.”

  “They should all die. Freaks, I tell ya! I’d gut them personally if I were given a chance!”

  It’s disgusting to listen in on such a conversation, but it’s the type of talk she needs to hear out. She is resisting the urge to murder the Rajash men on the spot. While it’s well known that people of Rajash hate Elementalists, they still might leak out some information or rumors the higher-ups might be interested in. Thus she’ll bear with it.

  However, she isn’t allowed to listen any further.

  “Why’d you help your enemy?” A voice asks her, voice of a little girl.

  The Elementalist is startled. A little girl is clinging to her back. By the way, the woman has been leaning against a wooden wall, so unless the girl came through the wall, there’s no logical reason for her sudden appearance.

  “Now, don’t turn around. I’m just a girl. I’m here to talk to you.”

  The woman takes a glance at the girl, but she avoids her gaze for some reason while clinging to the woman’s back. “Who are you?”

  “Hehehe.” The girl giggles mischievously. “Me? I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it. I have two names, but neither is the real one. There was a time when I was called by one name, but that was a long time ago.”


  “You make it sound like you were an ancient one.”

  “Am I?” The girl asks playfully.

  “Stop the act. I’m busy. Don’t you have friends to play with?”

  “Friends?” The girl asks. “I had such.”

  “Had?”

  “Exactly. But could you answer my question?”

  “About helping my enemy? Who the hell is my enemy in your opinion? Do you even know who I am?”

  “Heh. I know a thing or two. Like, your name is Louir, meaning ‘darkness’ in ancient Poer Haemish. But you prefer to be called just Lou, which, in turn, means ‘moon.’ You are an Elementalist, and you aren’t in a good position within the Order. In fact, there have been rumors they’ll deem you a rogue. Also, if I’m not convincing you of my vast knowledge, then should I also point out you’re a virgin?”

  “Stop!”

  “Oh? Did I convince you?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Fine. If you want to be straight… then go kill your superiors.”

  “What!?” She cries out too loud. Everyone in the tavern looks in her direction with puzzled eyes. Once the awkward silence is gone, Lou further inquires the girl. “State your name. It’ll smoothen the procedure of your punishment.”

  “Name? Hmm... well, I guess you can call me she. I don’t see any reason to use my real names, as neither is mine. Hey! Don’t try to shake me off! That’s rude!”

  “Shut it! You are a rebel!”

  “No, I’m not even a living being of this world, so how the hell can I be a rebel suddenly!?”

  “...Eh?”

  The girl sighs deeply, then she jumps off Lou’s back. She takes a pose before Lou, showing her petite figure of a girl with a long, black ponytail. She tilts her head to the right, displaying a crazy smile with eyes that imply madness, insanity that has rooted within those eyes so deep it cannot be uprooted anymore. But then again, her smile isn’t downright crazy. Rather, that smile of hers speaks of her joy as if she were enjoying. Also, her figure has a mature air to it. Her face is oval, and not round like little children tend to have. Her legs are long and thin. She doesn’t look cute at all, but instead, she looks graceful and old, although she can’t be older than twelve.