Chapter 18: in the waking of death
After I woke up from my dream I felt different after I got water and assured everyone that I was okay everyone left the room.
I was asleep for two days and we had obviously won another fight so I eased my mind and tried to forget the battle.
Which led me to start thinking about my dream was everything real or was that just my subconscious guilt talking to me?
It would answer a lot of questions if it was the truth but it would also raise a bunch of others like who actually deserved to live in the body?
I shook off all those thoughts they were the least of my problems I rang the bell and kyle showed up apparently my father had given the titles I gave kyle, Elise and Reginald more substance since we were actually in wartime.
Making kyle and Elise basically royal advisors I asked kyle for a damage report on serothors army and a general report of the battle itself.
We lost 1050 people leaving only around 5000 people alive the battle itself was a bloodbath but serothor troops mostly only sustained heavy injuries compared to the tens of thousands of dead dust soldiers.
I wrote down all my orders the 1050 soldiers were to be buried and blessed by a priest as soon as possible while all the enemy bodies must be burnt to ashes.
The enemy soldiers we captured are to be stripped of all clothing and shackled to a horse drawn carriage with the next merchant caravan heading to the dust kingdom.
This way the story of the city's might can spread and people will think twice before attacking and by the time they do we will have reinforcements.
Our stocks of slime gel have almost ran out so we cannot make any explosives or traps so we were pegging everything on the imperial envoy arriving as soon as possible.
a few days passed as my orders were carried out as instructed with the authorisation from my father being absolute.
I had recovered enough to start walking again be it with a walking stick I have reason to believe that the god heart will restore me to my peak condition.
I decided to observe the departure ceremonies first the mass burial in a graveyard just outside the city for all the soldiers instead of individual headstones some craftsmen made a big column with the names engraved on it.
The bodies were put into stone caskets and doused in holy water to free their souls and keep their bodies from being possessed or reanimating.
There was a mass mourning fellow soldiers, family, and friends along with the royal family all attended the ceremony.
The next was the ceremony of burning we gathered every body and body part we could find and set fire to them after covering them in cooking oil the bodies sizzled and crackled.
When they stopped burning we crushed the bodies in closer covered them in more oil and burned them again until nothing but ashes were left of course we stripped them of all valuables first.
When they were nothing but a large pile of ashes I splashed them in holy water I wouldn't have unceremoniously burnt a bunch of human bodies like that if we could afford not to.
All the mines and traps that we set were all accounted for so we didn't have to worry about random visitors or citizens blowing off their limbs.
It was a day of mourning and death so I went to bed early as soon as I got into bed I fell asleep but it didn't feel like I usually felt when I sleep I was more conscious more aware.
I found myself in serothor's throne room with myself from earth sitting on the king's throne it felt strange to see myself like this.
My earth self started speaking.
"I told you we would be talking soon so how do you like the place?"
It felt quite creepy but I replied how I normally would.
"it is a pretty good place what exactly are you and how are you doing this?"
He smiled then spoke.
"You must have a horrible memory I've already told you who I am as for how I'm doing this it is the other way around your mental weakness created a crack in your soul allowing me more freedom to interact with you"
I spoke again
"So you're the original zeth? and you took advantage of my weakened state to gain more strength? in that case aren't you a danger to me?"
The original Zeth smirked and started walking towards me as he spoke.
"I am the original Zeth yes but as for being a danger to you I'm afraid not you see that ritual i used to summon you was meant to be a regular summoning ritual that tethered you to me and my goals.
Things didn't quite work out like that instead of your own body your soul went straight into mine and now we are basically inseparable our souls are tethered and there is only one body I couldn't hurt you if I tried."
By now he was standing right infront of me he reached out and touched my forehead with his index finger and spoke.
"That being said I won't just be sitting on the sidelines as you live out your life in my body you are stuck with me and now it's time for us to say goodbye again so... goodbye!"
The next moment I woke up instantly even more exhausted then when I went to sleep that's when I heard a voice in my head.
"I told you that you are stuck with me"
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone