Johan had been telling them his story—his plans to conquer the world. And Arthur had just told him that it wasn’t enough.

  Johan looked at the sword Arthur had propped against the table in the middle of the spacious commander's tent.

  “I’m not saying we’ll kill you,” said Arthur, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. “That was a stupid bluff to get the information. But all this stuff you have told us is not enough. It’s all speculation. I’m sorry, but we’ll be safer without you. I’ll have to tell everybody the situation and…”

  “No, you cannot…” said Johan.

  “I’m sorry," Arthur said, and he really appeared pained by what he was about to do. But he got up from the chair and started to walk away.

  “Please…” Johan said, extending his hand toward him.

  Mark didn’t move. He kept standing in the same place while he exchanged a meaningful look with Arthur. Then he looked at the broken Johan and talked:

  “Maybe you should start saying the fucking truth?”

  Johan looked at him and blinked several times.

  “You’re hiding something,” added Mark, walking towards him and sitting on the same chair Arthur had left. “I never met you in person, but we have known each other for years. You’re fucking lying to us.”

  “I don’t… I don’t know what you’re…” muttered Johan. And he seemed more terrified than he had looked before.

  Mark interrupted him, tired of the lies.

  “I was part of the clan. I helped get new members; that bullshit of the gaming computer that looked like the Batmobile? I organized it. I know how many fucking people we had.”

  He leaned closer to Johan.

  “We were about to reach ten thousand members. And you could only resurrect less than seven hundred? What the fuck did you do?”

  Johan stared at Mark for almost a minute. He was pale, sweating, and eventually, he broke. He smiled sadly and said:

  “I… sold them.”

  “What?” asked Arthur, who had been standing in the place Mark had been before.

  “I sold them,” repeated Johan. “After choosing the soldiers, we entered into negotiations with the strange old man for our equipment. They were individual negotiations. In a private room. We were all offered the same amount of coin, and we negotiated with the old man to decide how to equip our army. You know, I’ll pay for swords of this quality, I’ll pay for shields, for food, for clothes… That kind of thing.”

  “And I asked him for information. I offered to pay him anything to get more information on the system. I wanted to confirm my theories on Levels, and Classes, and Skills…”

  “But the old man got extremely serious and said that those matters involved the Laws, and the Laws were not something that could be bartered with. That the Laws were to be obeyed. He looked at me very seriously and said: Everybody is slave to the Laws.”

  “There’s no price?” I asked. I told him I would offer anything. And he seemed uncomfortable—he kind of liked me—and told me that I should mind my words, because anything could be more than any honorable man should be willing to pay.”

  “I insisted. I needed to know. I needed an edge. I wanted to survive. I insisted for him to tell me the price, that I would pay anything…”

  “What was the price?” Mark asked in a whisper.

  Johan looked at him. The candles cast shifting shadows on his face. He looked like a sinner, confessing his crimes.

  “The price was in souls... The souls of the innocent… And I paid it.”

  The tent was very silent after those words. Johan couldn’t look at them in the eye. He focused on his own hands, resting on the table, and eventually continued speaking:

  “I paid two hundred and fifty souls for each question about the Laws. One to confirm the power of higher Levels, the exponentiality I suspected existed. Another to learn about lower Levels, so I could bullshit the other generals. Way easier to lie if you use half-truths. And a third to know about possible Classes, to be able to understand a little of the world we were being thrown into. This is how I learned magic existed in this world.”

  “Three questions. At the cost of seven hundred fifty souls.”

  “The starting position at the edge of the battlefield, hidden behind a hill, cost five hundred souls.”

  “A total of one thousand, two hundred and fifty souls.

  “When I was over, the old man seemed disgusted—even I was disgusted with myself. And he muttered something about the ugliness of hopelessness, and not everybody being born to be a hero.”

  “Who was he?”

  “I don’t know. I said that I wanted information about him—and asked what was the price for that. And the old man looked at me, extremely serious, and he said that I should go out there, into the world, and conquer it, and build an empire to last ten thousand years, and in the process grow in courage, grow in wisdom, until I became the greatest man of all, and I should father ten children, and see them father a hundred grandchildren; and then, and only then, after I sold him my empire, and my soul, and the souls of my children, and the souls of my grandchildren; then he would allow me a glimpse into who he was.”

  “And the rest of the people who didn’t appear with us?” asked Mark. He didn’t want to talk about selling souls. He didn’t want to understand what that entailed. There was something ugly about this world, in the gods that ruled it. Mark could feel it in his bones. He felt a chill through his body.

  “Those I exchanged later. First, I continued negotiating with coin; now that I knew magic existed, I bought the book with magic spells using almost all the coin we had available. The rest I spend on a few swords, some clothes, the tents, water bottles and a little food. It was easier to equip our army, because we were very few people. Then he started to leave, fast, disgusted with me. But I didn’t want him to leave; I didn’t have enough information, I needed more.”

  “So I started asking more questions. And the Law required a payment for each. The soul of ten innocents for each question.

  “I asked him if in the future I would find a way to save the souls I had sold.”

  “That seemed to soften him a little. He seemed to pity me.”

  “You’ll soon realize Terastes is a complex world, Filled with wonders, and deep darkness lurking beneath. With many powers competing for supremacy. But if you win the competition, if you conquer the world, you might be able to save those damned souls.”

  “Tell me more about this world we resurrected in, I asked then.”

  “And he got up. And he told me:“

  “Terastes is a crime scene. A mass murder where the murderer is taking his time before killing the victims… savoring their suffering.”

  “He started to walk away, into the darkness behind.”

  “I asked him what else to do when we arrived. He thought about it for a second. Then he laughed. And said that it was interesting how I had earned a position in the battle. You became famous for cursing one of your friends… And I see he will be resurrecting with you…”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Do it again. All together. Fuck you, Mark. As soon as you arrive.”

  “Then he laughed again.”

  “Maybe the crazy bastard really knew what he was doing when he chose you… he said, and then he added: Good luck, young man.”

  “And then he left.”

  “It was very abrupt. But now I see he wanted to stop me from continuing to spend soldiers from my army.”

  Mark felt a chill. So him getting the Class [Kilser the Traitor] hadn’t been a coincidence? Johan had done it on purpose?

  Mark asked:

  “How can you be sure none of the other generals know about the power of higher Levels?”

  “I doubt any other general took the same deal I took. They weren’t as desperate as I was. And in the end… It’s horrible for me to say, but I was betraying people I didn’t really know. Those generals would have needed to be able to betray their most loyal soldiers.”

  “In any case, if somebody paid the price and learned about higher Levels, obviously they didn’t tell the other generals. So most generals don’t know. I’m sure of that.”

  Arthur interrupted the conversation.

  “This is all fucking absurd. We’re talking about Classes, and Skills, and Levels. What the hell?”

  “It’s true!” insisted Johan, “I have a Class and a Skill.”

  “Yeah, yeah… You told us. You’re a [General of the Apocalypse] and have the Skill [Basic Morale]…” By the way Arthur said it, he clearly didn’t believe anything he had heard.

  “What? You think [Basic Morale] isn’t useful? Why do you think all the people out there,” Johan made a gesture towards the entry of the tent, towards the gamers outside, “aren’t shitting their pants? Why do you think they are functioning normally?”

  “Because they’re seeing all of this like a fantasy. They don’t really believe in what’s going on.”

  Johan stood up, looking at Arthur.

  “The dead have been pretty real. Their screams of pain were extremely real. People heard them, and didn’t lose their minds. I can feel the Skill within me. It’s impossible to explain if you haven’t felt it yourself. But I know the Skill is there. And I used it when people seemed to be about to lose their minds. I protected them from falling apart. You talk about taking my army from me? Prepare to see them falling apart from fear, from despair.”

  The comment about Skills made Mark insist:

  “He might be onto something…,” he repeated, interrupting the discussion. “I… I also achieved a Class. I received some Skills… He is onto something.”

  Johan and Arthur looked at him. And Mark explained in a few words that when they had shouted the fuck you, Mark, he had achieved the class of [Kilser the Traitor - Horsemen of the Apocalypse], and the Skills [Traitor’s Premonition] and [Phantom Presence].

  “So the old man actually helped us there?” Johan asked, a little surprised.

  “What?” Mark asked, seeing Arthur’s face of disbelief. “You thought I killed an elite Mongol soldier just with some positive thinking?”

  Arthur answered:

  “I did kill mine by myself, no tricks necessary,” he realized the look Mark was giving him. “What? Okay, maybe you did distract him a little…”

  Johan was frowning.

  “But this should be impossible. Leveling only happens when you go to sleep.”

  “Well, it happened to me when I was awake,” Mark answered. “And it has only happened to you once, so maybe you’re…“

  The same instinct that had pulsed within him when facing the Mongols fired again, and he felt a burning shadow hitting him in the side of the head.

  Mark evaded the shadow leaning back, almost falling from the chair, and one of the candles flew in front of his eyes, barely missing him. He stared to the side, toward his friend Arthur, who looked with curiosity, not at all guilty for almost burning his face.

  “Fuck you,” said Mark.

  “I was just testing it.”

  “Fuck you!” Mark repeated. “You could have hit me!”

  “I had to try!”

  “What? Do you want to try the [Phantom Presence] by stabbing me in the stomach?”

  Arthur smiled a little.

  “Of course not. I would never forgive myself if I murdered you.”

  Mark had to chuckle.

  “Fuck you…” he repeated.

  Tobias, who had been listening in silence, ran to extinguish the candle and make sure it didn’t start a fire. Arthur looked to Johan again.

  “Okay… so it might not be complete bullshit… There are Classes, and there are Skills… Whatever the fuck this all means. So what’s the plan, the actual plan?”

  “Focus on specialization. And not on basic stuff like [Archers] and [Soldiers], but on things the other armies will not have: at least in a long time. Like [Mages]. We will have [Mages], [Druids], [Rogues], [Healers], fucking [Beast Tamers]; we will have an army of elites. Specialized elites. Nothing about being mediocre in three different things. We’ll aim for greatness from the very beginning.”

  Johan continued:

  “This is our edge. Our path to victory. Our path to glory.”

  “Don’t we need infantry?” Mark asked. “Don’t all armies need infantry?”

  Johan shrugged.

  “Maybe? I have never actually organized an army. In any case, we can recruit from the people of this world.”

  Arthur and Mark looked at each other. Then at Johan.

  “There’s other people here?”

  “Of course! Didn’t you hear? We are the apocalypse. We are the punishment. What kind of punishment would we be if nobody was living here? And not just humans, from what I understood, there are many other strange races. This is a big, massive world, with its own history that goes back hundreds of thousands of years. We are barely a small stain on it… Of course, it will not be easy to just mingle with the people of this world.”

  “Why not?” Mark asked.

  “Didn’t you hear me? We are the fucking apocalypse! How would you react if some stranger came to your home and said: I’m the apocalypse!”

  For a few minutes, there was silence in the tent, while they processed everything they had heard.

  “I don’t know what hour it is,” Johan eventually said. “But it’s time for you to decide. Will you defect from my army, taking everybody with you? If not, it’s time for you to leave and find the magic book. Without it, we’ll never survive these first weeks of chaos. So… are we allies? Do you accept me as your general?”

  Arthur and Mark looked at each other. Mark nodded. Arthur shrugged.

  And that was it.

  Arthur said that he would organize the book retrieval and left the tent.

  Tobias followed him.

  And Mark found himself alone with his old online friend.

  “I notice there was enough in the budget for a big, impressive commander tent…” he said.

  Johan shrugged.

  “It’s a symbol of my authority. Increases my gravitas. And we’ll need a place to organize the army.”

  Mark was still sitting on the chair, a little uncomfortable.

  “Sorry about all of this. The threats, the interrogation…”

  “You didn’t stop him. Was this some sort of good cop, bad cop play?” he seemed to notice they were still talking. “Is this a good cop, bad cop play?”

  Mark shrugged.

  “Johan, I like you. I have always liked you. But you’re holding the lives of every person out there hostage to protect your own. You sold the souls of more than a thousand people. This is about power, this is about self-preservation. This is about ambition. Don’t fucking dare talk to me about morality.”

  That gave Johan pause. He spent a few seconds deep in thought, probably remembering everything he had done.

  “Yes… You’re right… I… I don’t know, I’m so fucking tired already…” Then he seemed to have an idea. “I also bought a couple bottles of wine. Want a glass?”

  Mark nodded. And looked while Johan poured.

  “You didn’t buy it by selling a soul, right?”

  Johan stopped pouring for a moment. He had a pained expression.

  “Nah. Just a couple of swords. I figured that if everything went poorly, it would be nice to have the option of getting drunk before being killed.”

  Johan drank first. And he finished his glass fast. Maybe hoping to drown his guilt.

  Mark understood the feelings of his friend. He had been in the same position several times in his life. He took a sip of the wine…

  And it was delicious. Absolutely spectacular—the best he had ever tasted. It made him tear up a little.

  Johan finished pouring another glass. He toasted toward the skies.

  “Bought from the gods. Heavenly wine.”

  And finished half of the second glass in a single motion. He was a little more animated, his cheeks getting flushed. He leaned towards Mark.

  “Do you want to know something fucked up?”

  “More fucked up than what you have already told me?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “Do you know the prize for winning the competition? The prize for the general who conquers the world?”

  “You tell me.”

  “This is not the first time this competition has happened, you know? The gods punish this world with regularity. The massive statue we’re hiding behind? It’s the second time I have seen it. The first time was in the temple, when I resurrected. And back then, it was the statue of the god who chose me. You understand? He was a general, back in the time, and then he became a god, more than two thousand years ago”.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that the general who conquers the world will become a god. And his soldiers will rule with him from the skies for all eternity. That’sthe prize of this competition.”

  Mark took almost a minute to process that statement. Then he decided to finish the glass of wine.

  They heard shouts of amazement and fear from outside the tent. They exchanged a look and got up. It was already full night. The only light in the camp came from the few fires they had started, and everybody was looking up, towards the starry sky.

  There was a background of normal stars, evenly distributed through the sky, but the most intense stars had reconfigured to show some figures towering over the world. After some seconds of confusion, Mark realized that it was a ranking of generals. Only the top ten generals appeared in that list. Their names and faces shining up there, in the sky.

  The first general was Genghis Khan. His face expressed a serious scowl while he stared down towards the whole world.

  The second one was Alexander the Great.

  The third was Napoleon.

  Most of the next names didn’t mean anything to Mark: Yi Sun-sin, Gustavus Adolphus, Belisarius, Bajirao I, Anne-Hilarion de Tourville and Epaminondas.

  Except the last one, the number ten of the ranking. Tenth among thousands upon thousands of the greatest generals in history.

  He was the only one on the ranking who was smiling.

  The only one who didn’t look like a soldier.

  The only one in the list who looked like a goddamn fool…

  ILoveFurries007, their great general. Smiling widely, raising two fingers in the sign of victory.

  Johan, who had done nothing more than run away from battle, was ranking as the tenth most powerful general of the apocalypse.

  The tenth in line to become a literal god, Mark thought with incredulity.

  He looked at Johan, and the general looked as dumbfounded as everybody else.

  “What the hell…?” he heard him mutter.

  that happened :)