Wholly Undead

"I... You... How? How can you just take someone"s soul? To kill someone is one thing, but to take someone"s soul! Did you sit up a ritual just to do this?"

"What? No... I just did it." Jack felt this was a funny question, and a joking voice was heard.

"..." Emily rattled a bit in her chair again.

"It"s not that scary..." Jack tried to sooth.

"...Jack... If I can call you that." Emily, again, tried to pull herself together.

"Of course, you can."

"It is much more crueler to take someone"s soul, then it is to simply kill them. I don"t even know how you do this without a ritual. Just to command someone"s soul to leave their body... This... This is terrifying. This sounds like the old evil tales I was told when I was younger." Emily said, after a moment to try to compose herself.

"Well... I mean I did have to put a bit of effort into it. It wasn"t like I just snapped my fingers and it popped out."

"Still... No ritual. Is this the power of an Emperor?"

"Ah... Maybe..." Jack smiled wearily in his mind, "Now, let me get to my point."

"I"m sorry."

"After his soul confessed, and placed it back into him. We took him to Jail to wait for punishment. Other things happened, and I needed information, that he knew. The Grand Minister, Lucius, got the information, but only after promising that I would see him again."

Jack let this soak for a moment before continuing, "I met him again today... Do you know what he called me?"

"G.o.d-King?" Emily said without hesitation.

"YES!" Jack rose his voice.

Emily remained silent for a few moments, and the two of them descended into it together.

Emily broke the silence a few minutes later, "Did you ask why he called you this?"

"He says that the Light spoke to him. Told him I was the new G.o.d of the undead. The Undead G.o.d of the Light, in fact. That I was the G.o.d-King. He even wrote three books on the topic, that he bound in his own flesh, and I a.s.sume he used his own black blood to write the books. He then asked me to absolve his sin, and so I did."

"Wait... You can absolve sin?"

"Yeah, yeah... I can absolve sin." Jack decided not to let the cat out of the bag on this one. He still needed to figure out how his light show spell went off without saying the spell... He wondered if saying the Latin phrase made the light show, but that didn"t make any sense.

"Does... Do you just do these things, without thinking about them. I mean. No one can remove sin, but divine beings and the creator. Even the Spider G.o.ddess can"t do this, and she is supposed to be a divine being, a literal G.o.d."

"It"s not that big a deal."

"No... I don"t think you get it. You have great power, almost maddening power. How do you not go mad? I mean... I thought you were the mad king for killing all those people, but now I know better. what"s worse though, is I feel like I"m back to square one. You are mad."

"Just because I freed some people from the shackles of sin? So that they can lead better lives, I must be mad?"

"No... You"re too powerful... Absolute power; corrupts absolutely!" Emily spoke harshly, but with a trace a fear in her voice.

[Where have I heard that before?] Jack mused.

"I don"t think it"s that big of a deal." Jack said, as he shrugged.

"You absolved this Jordan person?"

"Yes. He begged, and I granted him absolution."

"What happened?"

"He Uhhh... He broke through from being a commoner to being a Grand Master Ranked Cultivator."

"...You know what... I"m too numb, now. I"m not even surprised." Emily said.

"Well that will make it easier on me to explain the rest."

"Go ahead... Nothing is going to surprise me now."

"I wouldn"t bet on that." Jack said while laughing, before he went on, "Alright... So, he took a disciple from one of the Jail quarter guards, and I have the Grand Minister taking care of him."

"You didn"t forbid him from talking about this?" Emily tilted her head again.

"Huh? No... I mean how did he even know I could do this?"

"Wait? He wasn"t your first absolution?"

"No... Yesterday, I absolved a group of brothel ladies that Leslie"s mother brought back. You know Leslie"s mother, she was the one with us sitting on the couch yesterday evening."

"Was she the one that wanted to become you"re consort, as well?" Emily asked with a mixed tone.

"I"m sure she was joking to lighten the mood." Jack waved this off.

"A mother and daughter pair of consorts... How lucky." Emily said while looking deeply at Jack.

Jack would have to lie to say the thought never crossed his mind, but this was differently not proper, so he tossed the thought. He decided to not even make another comment about it.

After another moment of silence, Emily picked up on Jack"s unwillingness to speak further on that subject, and so asked, "So just yesterday was your first time preforming an absolution?"

"Yes. For the Light"s sake, why are you so stuck on this?" Jack said tiredly.

"Because I want to know when this started... I"m finding it hard to believe that you don"t seem to understand just how powerful this is..." Emily said this like she was out of breath, even though she didn"t need to draw it.

"Alright.... Again, We have seriously side-tracked, you"re missing the point..."

"That he says you"re the new G.o.d of the Undead?" Emily tilted her head cutely, as she looked at her Husband-to-be.

"Exactly!"

"Well... My kingdom has known about this for about eight hundred years." Emily said knowingly.

"How???"

"...The prophecy..." Emily said speechlessly.

"No, seriously... You guys don"t really believe I"m going to become a G.o.d..."

"The way that I see it... You are a G.o.d, you just haven"t ascended, yet. My mother had me, solely to become your wife and queen, before you truly ascended. So that way, I could save Neolith from whatever is going to happen."

"Or your mother planed for all possible outcomes." Jack said as the first thing that came to his mind.

Emily thought for a moment before saying, "Maybe..."

"Also... What do you mean by ascended?" Jack asked a very serious question.

*******

Jack had left Emily"s room. He had already messaged Lucius, and asked him to arrange for her a room like Leslie"s in a better area. Lucius, of course, said it would be no problem.

Jack had one last stop to make before his retreat. He needed to speak to Boss Crag. He hadn"t even spoken one word with him since his return. Jack had been tied up with various matters... Let"s just be honest, Jack was really enjoying his Consort.

While Jack was making his way to where Boss Crag stayed, he thought back on what Emily had told him about G.o.ds and ascension. Her being the princess of Neolith gave her special permissions, such as knowing a bit about G.o.ds. Even her, and by extension, Neolith didn"t know everything, but what they did know was that G.o.ds were at one-time mortals.

Before the Lich King, and other such beings rose in history, there were the times known only as... The Old Times. Jack marveled at the unoriginality of the name. At that time, G.o.ds rose from the races of the realms, from mortals to G.o.ds. Each realm had one G.o.d, so in effect there were at least nine major G.o.ds, and many minor G.o.ds. Things went on, and a cataclysm happened. Many different races call it various names, but one stuck with all of them... Ragnarok.

Jack had heard of the name Ragnarok before... The great Norse battle that would see the death of the G.o.ds... He could only shake his head. Did his world have something like that too, or did someone from this one go to his and bring the story. He didn"t know.

With Ragnarok, almost all the G.o.ds died, and the ones left disappeared. The Spider that Neolith worshipped, as told by Emily, was one that was left. The spider had leave various heirlooms behind, and had disappeared. No one knew what happened to them.

All of this didn"t bother Jack the most, but the last thing that Emily mused out loud...

She said, "Well... Maybe it"s a cycle, and We don"t live long enough to see it come full circle. Maybe you will be in the next generation of G.o.ds, and you will have to face Ragnarok."

Jack didn"t really want to be a G.o.d... He didn"t know what it would feel like, but he already had enough to deal with... What would be being a G.o.d mean?

Before he knew it, he was in front of Boss Crag"s door. He gathered himself up, and knocked.

From inside the room, "Huh? Who"s it now?"

"You know who it is." Jack said trying to gain back the act he had put on before.

"Boss?!"

Quickly the door was open, and Boss Crag"s ma.s.sive frame beckoned into Jack.

Jack came in, and made no pleasantries immediately walking to the only desk in the room, and sat behind it.

Crag made a funny face, but only for a moment.

"Why didn"t you call for me?" Was Crag"s first question.

"Crag, when were you in a position to question me?"

"Ah, well... I just thought..."

"Thought what?" Jack pressed.

"Just pardon old habits of mine. What can I do for ya?" Crag walked to the front of the desk and sat.

Jack liked Crag"s desk, though he wasn"t as good as his. It was big enough for him.

"Crag... Have you already looked into what We talked about before?"

"Yeah. I got some boys working on it now. It shouldn"t be long before I take over the South Eastern Undead Trading Company." Crag smiled.

"This is very good. After that, We can absorb you into the Kingdom, and move onto the next point. I"m very pleased that this is going smoothly."

"Yes. Very smooth. This CEO John and CEO George. They seem to be smart guys. I think they can see the writing on the wall. It won"t be long before they are in this office as well. If ya would like that, that is."

"Yes. This would be good."

Crag decided that it would be a good time to take out the burnt offerings. It was already sat on the desk, but he hadn"t lit it this morning. He had been meaning too, but got caught up in reading reports from his men.

"Let me just get this going... I don"t know about ya, but I could use a bit."

"That"s not a bad idea. It will differently help what I"m going to be telling you next."

Startled, Boss Crag looked at The Holy Witch King. "What"s going on, Witchy?" This was the nick name that Boss had come up with, and Jack never bothered to stop him. He would change between boss, and Witchy. Jack figured Crag only called him boss to feign subservience, and flatter him. It worked, but even then, Jack still knew he was doing it for that purpose.