Tower of Avarice: A LitRPG story

Floor 65: A Coup.

In the dead of night, when the moon was at its zenith, the gates of the capital were thrown open from within, and the kingdom's fate was sealed. Prince Vael, once the cherished heir, stormed the royal palace with a legion of black-cloaked soldiers.

With the Sorcerer, Malagar, by his side, the wards protecting the castle shattered, and the royal family were tossed into prison. As dawn broke, Vael ascended the throne and declared that the kingdom would follow a new god, the god of Erroneous Adoration.

Remove Vael from the throne, eliminate Malagar and restore the royal family to power.

Aurendale, once the gleaming heart of the kingdom, was now silent under a sky filled with dark clouds and smoke. Its once-radiant towers, carved from shimmering white stone, bore deep scorch marks. The elegant spires of its buildings were cracked and crumbling.

The great domes that had once reflected the morning light like polished gold were now tarnished, their surfaces marred by creeping veins of dark magic. Along the wide, cobbled streets, shattered stained glass windows littered the ground with fragments of colour that had once depicted heroes and legends.

The Grand Plaza, once bustling with merchants and artificers, lay in disarray. Stalls containing enchanted magical items sat abandoned, their goods scattered around them. Black-cloaked soldiers patrolled the streets, their armour and swords made of black metal from the Obsidian Wastes, while wizards followed along behind them, their dark magic ready to be unleashed at a moment's notice.

The city was no longer a magical place to live. Instead, it was held hostage by its own prince, who now stood on the throne. He was a figure that had shed the magic of his lineage for a darker power. His blue eyes were now dark and hard, and the kindness inside them was replaced with malice.

He sat on the throne and watched as his father, mother, and sister knelt on the cold floor in front of him. They were wearing tattered rags and covered in blood, but there was still a hint of pride about them.

At the prince's side stood the Sorcerer, Malagar, who was tall, gaunt and wore a robe of the darkest black. He had a staff made of bone in his hands, topped with a skull adorned with two rubies for his eyes.

Vael, lounging on his throne, drummed his fingers against the armrest as he stared at his family in sadistic amusement.

"The dungeons feel too merciful, Malagar. My parents and Lysara deserve something more appropriate for their station. It sickens me to see them still breathe the same air as us. That is a problem I would have rectified." Vael murmured, his voice laced with malice.

"A problem with an elegant solution. Erroneous Adoration is ever-hungry, my Prince. And what is a new reign without an offering to the god that made it possible?" Malagar said as he dipped his head slightly in order to whisper in the prince's ear. The folds of his dark robes barely stirred as he moved, as if the magic he wielded had a physical weight.

Vael's lips curled into a smirk at the suggestion.

"A sacrifice. Fitting. Their lives were given to something far greater than them, just as they always claimed mine was meant to serve this kingdom." He tilted his head toward Malagar as he paused.

"What would please Him most?" Vael asked, and Malagar's eyes began to glimmer with amusement.

"Blood is common, but suffering is the sweetest gift of all. The god will accept their lives and their deaths, but the pain is paramount."

Vael chuckled in response.

"We will conduct the ritual from the highest spire in order to let the entire city see. Let them know their former rules are gone, never to return."

Malagar inclined his head at the order.

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"A grand display! The blood of a royal bloodline, all given in a single night? That is a gift that god will not soon forget." Vael's grin widened even further at the thought.

Vael's smirk had barely settled on his lips when the heavy doors of the throne room burst open. The magical lighting orbs that lined the walls flared brilliantly in response to the prince's agitation, demonstrating the power he held inside him and his lack of control.

A black-cloaked guard stumbled inside, breathless, and his armour smeared with soot and blood. He fell onto one knee and pressed a fist to his chest in a hasty salute.

"My lord! Forgive the intrusion, but there is trouble at the wall!" The guard panted, his voice strained from the effort of running.

"Is it the Alliance's army?" Vael asked in confusion. The Alliance was a collection of small city-states that had joined together to fight against the forces of the Obsidian Waste. With Vael's defection and submission to the god of Erroneous Adoration, he knew they would send an army to attack him.

But it was far too soon! How could they have known he had taken the city when even his own parents had been taken by surprise?!

"It's not an army, Milord. It's a single person! He's killing us!" The guard shouted in fear, and his words were punctuated by a deafening explosion and the palace walls shook around them.

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The guard squinted against the light of the sun, and his fingers tightened around the spear in his hand. At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. No one had tried to enter the city since it had fallen, especially not alone and with a sword, but there he was. It was a lone figure that walked toward the gate with calm, steady steps as if he had all the time in the world.

The man moved like a swordsman, but his stance was too relaxed. He had a blade in his hand, and the weapon gleamed in the light. It was the strangest weapon he had ever seen. It had a flat end and was far too large for the young man who held it.

But it was the man's clothing that was the oddest thing about him. He wore no armour, and had no sigil of a kingdom or robes like a mage. Instead, he wore strange trousers with torn knees and a black jacket.

"You seeing this?" The guard asked his companion as he turned away from the young man.

The other soldier nodded as he shifted uneasily.

"Aye. I don't like it." The soldier was a veteran of many campaigns against all sorts of beasts and monsters, but he had never seen anything like the young man walking toward them.

"Give 'em a volley."

The guard picked up a bow that had been beside him, a weapon nearly as tall as himself and made from rare wood harvested from the Elven forests.

Taking an arrow made of dragon bones, he fitted it and took careful aim. Using his mana to enhance the strength in his arms, he strained to draw it back, before letting it loose. The arrow arced through the air, trailing light behind it, before falling toward the young man.

The young man didn't slow his steps at all as he raised his head, tracked the arrow, and slashed out with his sword. The arrow was split in half and fell uselessly to the ground beside him.

"Shit!" The guard shouted as he began to call for reinforcements. Dozens of guards started to raised their bows. Oddly, the young man bent responded by raising his left hand and snapped his fingers. Even from the such a distance, the guards could hear the sound clearly.

Without warning, the air itself seemed to shudder with a deep, unnatural 'Whoosh' that reverberated through the stone beneath their feet.

Then, came the fire.

It erupted from nowhere in a blinding column of flame that roared to life with a deafening explosion. It surged upward furiously and swallowed the sky in its wrath. The inferno the young man summoned with a snap of his fingers stretched impossibly high to the point where it began to consume the clouds.

Heat blasted outward in a wave, searing everything around the pillar of fire and warping the air.

The great stone wall, though unbreakable with its magical enhancements, blackened and cracked within moments. Flames devoured its surface and reduced it to molten slag and crumbling ruins. The few clouds that remained glowed in the orange light that was brighter than the sun in the sky.

The city beyond reeled from the sudden eruption, and the guards that patrolled the streets stumbled as the ground buckled.

With another snap of his fingers, Mathew banished the summoned flames. Satisfied with the results, he reached out and grabbed an object from his inventory. It was a small statue of a Wyvern with details so intricate that it looked alive.

Gently placing it on the ground, Mathew funnelled a small amount of his mana into it. The object grew in size until the creature towered over him. With a leap, Mathew landed on the Wyvern's back and directed the enlarged beast to take flight.

When the prince and the Sorcerer Malagar ran outside of the palace to see to the defences and understand what they were facing, they witnessed a winged beast flying overhead with a young man on its back, hurling magic at their people below.

Once the pair entered the fray, Mathew dismissed the Wyvern and faced them on the ground.

The battle unfolded in a blur of flashing steel and swirling arcane energy. Vael and Malagar fought as a pair, a deadly duo with Vael's strikes fast and unyielding, while Malagar used dark magic that twisted and warped the air around them.

It wasn't long until the balance tipped in Mathew's favour, and a sudden, powerful surge of mana sent Malagar's dark energy off course. Mathew closed in and slashed the Godslaying Blade of Wrath in an arc that cut the Sorcerer in half, followed soon by the Prince.

When the Royal Family were finally free, they could only catch a glimpse of their saviour before he disappeared into a flash of white light.