Soulblade: A Progression Fantasy (Surgecaller Book 8)

Soulblade Surgecaller Book 8 Todd Herzman Copyright This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental. CELESTIAL Copyright © 2022 Todd Herzman. All rights reserved. Written by Todd Herzman. Cover Designer: Germancreative Dedication To my wife, thank you for your undying love and support (and for helping to put together our wonderful new library), I ’ m so lucky that you love writing and reading just as much as I do. Chapter 1 Huon had never felt such overwhelming power before. The essence from thousands upon thousands of cores—perhaps more than a million—had flooded into him, filling every inch of him. Filling his core and every single one of his physical and elemental reserves to the point where he was pushed, headfirst, into advancing to the next rank. The rank of Low Celestial. It was something that should have taken years. Something that should have taken centuries. Perhaps, even, millennia. And yet here he was. It wasn’t long ago that he had become an Immortal. He could barely believe what he was feeling—barely believe what was happening at all. Huon was underground in the Everlasting King’s palace. He sat cross-legged on a floor of ancient grey stone, under a high, domed ceiling, a hard-casing of essence surrounding him as he advanced. He was struggling to think clearly, as surprised as he was by this eventuality. Kelni, the former Immortal of Fire, stood above him. Huon couldn’t see the man any longer, but he could practically feel his gaze upon the hard-casing of essence that enveloped him like a shell. Kelni, who was no longer bonded to the Everlasting King, was now bonded to Huon. He had begged Huon to oath bind him, so that he would be under control—so there would be no risk of the man betraying him. Now, Huon worried that being bound to him would spell the man’s doom. He’s not going to leave until I advance, and The Everlasting King will be here soon. Mere minutes ago, Terr’al, the Immortal of Earth—now former Immortal of Earth, though Huon didn’t yet know the man’s name—had told them that he had alerted the Everlasting King to their presence here during his fight with Liona. Though the Everlasting King was on the other side of the continent, apparently it would take him less than an hour to get here. Huon and Kelni had intended to destroy the cores in this massive, domed room and be gone before then. The cores… Huon hadn’t planned to take their power. He had only wished to destroy them, and this had been the only way. Each and every one of those cores had once belonged to a person. The Everlasting King had somehow stolen them from surgecallers as their cores developed. This was something that he had done for a thousand years. And every single one of those cores that he had stolen over that time had been kept within this room. Huon didn’t understand how. No one seemed to understand how. But it was the way in which the Everlasting King had gained his power after his own core had been taken—after it had been torn from him by the other High Celestials. These cores were what had made him so damned strong, despite the fact that he had become surgeless. It was how, a thousand years ago, he had defeated the Immortal Seven in duel after duel and bonded them to his will. And now that power had gone into Huon. This will wound him. Perhaps, when he comes, I will be able to defeat him… But he knew he was simply deluding himself with those thoughts. There was no way that Huon would be able to kill the Everlasting King. Not yet. For these were no longer the only cores the man had stockpiled. Not since he had begun conquering the other countries within the Harolan continent. Emera—once Caeli, the Immortal of Air—had already told them of that. Still, he would be weakened. This would have dealt him a blow, even if not a fatal one. Huon focused on his core. On the changes that he could feel in it. This advancement… it wasn’t like any of the ones he’d had previously. It was stronger, more powerful—that much was obvious. But there was something else that was different about it. Something he wasn’t sure was right. Something about the transformation, the advancement, felt… chaotic. The power… it wasn’t as controlled as it should have been. Have I taken in too much essence? Huon wondered. A surgecaller could die if they took in too much essence. It was something that Huon and Liona had both risked when they had taken cultivation pills to push them from Champion to Legend. If a surgecaller took on too much essence—or essence of a higher advancement than their own—it could blow their core. They had to be able to cultivate and purge the essence as fast as it flowed into them. But creation essence—what Huon was calling the essence that flowed into him from the thousands of human cores—was different to normal essence. It was more akin to soul essence, which simply filled a reserve, making it larger and larger as it was consumed. He hadn’t even known this ‘creation essence’ existed until he had sensed it when observing Eliko’s advancement from Champion to Legend. He had felt something within her, something that was changing her. A type of soul essence he had now come to call creation essence—the very same type found in the cores he had just consumed. It appeared to be what made advancement possible. What changed a surgecaller’s body so that it could handle the new level of essence it surged from its advanced core… There shouldn’t be a risk of my death, Huon thought, though it wasn’t all that comforting. At least, not from this. He tried to push his senses outward. Tried to pierce the shell of essence around him. But he