There was only one way to get them out of this body.
A spirit image of Grave Oath appeared in my hand, glowing black. I began to move through the Emperor’s body, hacking and slashing at the purple tendrils. The parasitic cords screamed and roared with the Warlock’s voice every time I severed one of them. The crushing pressure exerted on me became even more extreme, but I fortified my muscles and bones with more Death energy and resisted the Warlock’s attempts to crush me like a bug.
“He’s fading away, Vance!” Anna-Lucielle said. “I’m using all of my power, but I’m losing my grip on the Emperor’s mind and soul!”
“Just a little longer,” I said. “Just hold on to him a little longer, I’m almost there!”
The Warlock was pouring all of his strength into trying to crush me, but I was moving at speed through the Emperor’s body, severing every parasitic purple tendril I could find.
“Quickly, Vance, he’s slipping away!” Anna-Lucielle cried.
“Almost there, hold tight!” I gritted my teeth against the immense pain.
I reached the Emperor’s heart, but when I first laid eyes on it, it was barely recognizable as such. So many purple tendrils were wrapped around it that it looked more tendril than heart.
I went to work on the ball of tendrils, slashing and hacking with a maniacal fury. The Warlock’s screams of rage and agony rang with piercing clarity in my ears. The pressure he exerted on me made me feel as if my bones would splinter in my limbs. My muscles and flesh felt like they would burst. The agony only drove me to cut and hack with an even more determined madness.
The tendrils fell away, and as they did the heart beneath them was revealed. It was weak and atrophied and shrunken. The pulse was so weak that the beating was barely perceptible. I could feel Anna-Lucielle’s Charm magic working on the heart, but even though she was using all of her power, it wasn’t enough. The Emperor was dying.
I slashed the last few purple tendrils off, and with a final shrieking wail the Warlock was gone, expelled from the Emperor’s mind, heart, and body. The feeble heart in front of me was about to stop beating, though. I couldn’t let that happen.
If pulling a piece of my life force from my own heart was enough to raise the dead and resurrect dead goddesses, surely it would be enough to save a barely living person? I had to try it.
I reached into my own heart, pulled out a glowing chunk of my own life force, and shoved it into the Emperor’s heart, before I exited his body and jumped fully back into mine.
His eyes bulged and he gasped and screamed, then he sucked his lungs slowly full of air. I released him from my headlock, and he sat up straight. Color immediately began to return to his face, and the yellow jaundice faded from his eyes.
“I’m … back,” he said slowly, holding his hands up in front of his face and staring at them as if it was the first time he was seeing them.
Then he jumped up from his throne, stared in horror at the ongoing fight between his troops and mine, and held one of his hands aloft.
“Stop fighting, all of you!” he commanded.
The few warriors who were still alive immediately ceased fighting and bowed before him, and I called off my fighters too. The Emperor stared at me and Anna-Lucielle with a look of wonder and gratitude on his haggard face.
“You two, the God of Death and the Goddess of Charm, you did what nobody else could. You saved me from that foul demon who possessed me. I owe you not just my life and soul, I owe you my kingdom. Never did I imagine that the day would come where an Emperor of Yeng would have to rely on two foreign gods for salvation, but here we are. Ask anything of me, and I will do everything in my power to grant it.”
“I will ask two things of you, Glorious Emperor,” I said to him, sweating and breathing hard from the effort it had taken to exorcise the Warlock from his body and mind. “The first is that you give me the lost Dragon Gauntlet. The second is that you allow me to bring my army into Yeng. We will fight and crush the Warlock and his army, then we will leave your lands.”
“You do not want gold, jewels, a lordship in Yeng? You ask only for these two things?” the Emperor asked.
“Only these two things.”
“Then you truly are worthy to be a god. You shall have these two things you ask of me, and I will grant you one additional thing too, even though you did not ask for it.”
“What might that be?”
His eyes hardened as he stared at the kneeling warriors before him. “These sniveling cowards who have the audacity to kneel before me as if they are my loyal servants,” he hissed, “are traitors who gladly served the demon who possessed me in return for promises of lands, titles, and wealth.”
“No, Glorious Emperor!” one of the warriors protested. “We were just—”
“Silence, you lying snake!” the Emperor roared before he turned to face me. “These traitors I give to you as slaves. Do with them what you will.”
“Oh, I know exactly what I’m going to do with them, Glorious Emperor,” I said with a grin.
I walked over to the kneeling warriors with Grave Oath in my hand. A minute or two later I’d taken all their souls and resurrected them as my own undead warriors.
“I will gather the officers and lords who remained loyal to me, who these traitors expelled, and rebuild my army to assist you in your fight against the Warlock,” the Emperor then said to me. “Because the battle against that evil usurper is mine as much as it is yours.”
“With all due
