Just a Guy and a Gate to the Multiverse - Chapter 28 (Patreon)

Chapter 28 - I am my own King

— Varden Side, Burning Plains, 8000 AC —

Matt’s POV

As expected, Eragon lost his battle against Murtagh. Even with his full energy reserves, he couldn’t overcome the advantage those Eldunarí gave Murtagh. I just wanted to see how far a fully rested Eragon could push him without assistance.

And he actually did quite well.

If Eragon had won, that would have been a bit troublesome for me. I needed that bug on Murtagh at all times. One of these days, Galbatorix would find the Name of Names and share it with Murtagh, whose true name he already knew.

A true name in the Ancient Language is like a description that summarizes the entire existence of something or someone. Knowing a true name gives you power over whatever it belongs to. You can literally control another person with it.

That is how Galbatorix maintains his control over Murtagh. He is a master at figuring out true names, and he usually studies and breaks a person until he discovers theirs. A fate that would be awaiting Eragon and Saphira, if Galbatorix ever gets his hands on them.

The Name of Names is also a true name. But it is not the true name of a person or a thing. It is the true name of the Ancient Language itself, the language that governs most magic. Once Galbatorix has its true name, he can truly control it and decide who can use magic and how it is used in the entire world. That would give him absolute control over every Magic User.

And, of course, I want to learn the name too. Who knows if I will ever return to this world? I also want it as security in case any of my plans go wrong, and lastly but most important, I obviously want to have it for my research!

Unfortunately, I don’t know the name yet, even with my canon knowledge, since it was never explicitly stated in the books.

My chances of improving my body beyond its current limits would increase immensely if I knew the Name of Names, since it can control, alter, and identify all spells. Basically, with it, I could learn what a spell does before casting it.

That would make sure I don’t fuck up a body modification, which is extremely rare, advanced and risky. Without being sure of my success, I wouldn’t do it.

Anyway, I had no time to rest. While Eragon had lost his fight, we had still won the battle. But the work was far from over.

Stepping out of my Power Armor, I began to walk through the battlefield of the Burning Plains, and I was greeted by a sight I truly hated. There was so much blood and pain. Hollow-eyed men watched the devastation in shock. I didn’t like it, but my experiences in the Wasteland of Fallout had already hardened me to such a view.

Instead, I moved toward the first critically wounded soldier I found. He was breathing heavily as his life slowly bled out of him. A spear had pierced him through the gut. Normally, such a wound would be deadly at the current level of medicine in this world, even with the help of magic.

After all, this world’s magic acted on the principle of equivalent exchange too. Healing a fatal wound would pretty much cost the caster his life. At least, it normally would.

With a determined pull, I yanked the spear out of his gut. Blood splattered everywhere, and his breathing grew ragged. Then alchemical lightning flashed around the hole in his stomach as it began closing in plain sight. Moments later, there was no sign of the wound left besides a hole in his armor.

Fortunately, I had the ultimate cheat to bypass equivalent exchange with me.

“W-what? How? That’s not possible—” the now completely healed soldier stammered as his hands touched his intact stomach. “I should be dead!”

“Well, lucky you, I guess,” I said with a shrug as I looked around the battlefield again. Then I gave him an order. “Now be useful and help me search for the critically wounded so others can be just as lucky as you!”

“Yes, benefactor!” he cried out instantly. Even though he was young, he had just fought in a war. That experience changed a person and made him able to quickly assess the situation.

With the growing help of the soldiers whose lives I saved along the way, I kept scouring the battlefield for more and more people at death’s door. I ignored those with simple flesh wounds or scratches. They would be fine if healed by normal healers. My targets were those with missing limbs and fatal wounds.

I preferred doing this over the slaughtering I had to do earlier.

While I was admittedly efficient on the battlefield, and probably saved a ton of innocent lives in the process, I still hated it. I had searched for one magic user after another, each one shielding the Empire’s armies with their wards, before taking them out with my sniper rifle.

Those magicians stood no chance. Their wards simply broke under the force of my bullets before they were taken out by clean headshots. At the same time, it was the path that required the least killing from me.

I didn’t kill the troops who were left unprotected without their unit’s magician. I just took out a handful of the most dangerous people on the battlefield.

Letting out a sigh as I restored a missing leg, I couldn’t help but admire my handiwork while glancing at the blood-red stone now sitting on another ring on my finger. Coming to this world had been far more valuable than I originally thought.

The main reason I wanted to come here, besides getting some proper training in fighting and upgrading my skills, was exactly the Philosopher’s Stone. It had only been a brief idea back then, but I found it worth a try.

After all, the Philosopher’s Stone was nothing more than a crystallization of lifeforce and souls into a usable form. Once it ran out of energy, it would shatter and cause an alchemical backlash. That was the main reason why I had used it sparingly before, and only in an emergency.

Knowing that the world of the Inheritance Cycle used lifeforce to power its magic, and could even absorb, transfer, and store it, I knew it was worth coming here. My idea was simple. Maybe I could use this form of lifeforce manipulation to charge my Philosopher’s Stone again, so I wouldn’t be as limited with it and wouldn’t risk a dangerous backlash with every use.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t try this whole thing earlier because this Philosopher’s Stone was made from the souls and lifeforce of thousands of innocent Ishvalans suffering inside the stone. That was something the elves would easily be able to sense, and it would bring the wrong kind of questions.

At least, that was what I thought.

The reality looked different now. All of the souls inside the stone were completely devoid of consciousness. They were just empty souls, nothing more. It had already been different before I tried to charge it. At first, I thought maybe they had created this Philosopher’s Stone differently from the others. I had no comparison, after all. Before coming here, I had no method to actually see or sense the souls in the stone, and I was not mad enough to transmute it into my body and become a human Philosopher’s Stone.

But then I realized the answer. Inside the stone were human souls. Real people, even without bodies, were crammed into a small object. When I left the Fullmetal Alchemist universe, I was the only person who could leave it. My skill hadn’t even advanced enough to take a single person with me.

It must have ripped the consciousness, the part that made them people, out of the stone while we were passing through. It sent them to the afterlife of their home universe while leaving only empty soul husks inside the stone. At least, that was the best explanation I had.

Just a plausible theory with no way to confirm it.

So there I was, sitting all alone in the Hadarac Desert while keeping an eye on Eragon thanks to the bug in Zar’roc. That was when I finally tried to charge my Philosopher’s Stone. I knew I would be going off to war soon, after all.

I had been gathering as much lifeforce as I could every day, storing everything I had left over inside the ring the elves had gifted to me. And that was when the big change happened. The moment I tried to charge the stone, it changed on a fundamental level. It was like a world attunement, but just for an object.

Honestly, I had expected an explosion or some kind of backlash. Instead, it started greedily sucking in the energy inside my ring, and I couldn’t stop it anymore. For a moment, I had even been scared that the stone would suck my life out.

But then the first few souls turned semi-conscious and started to produce their own energy, lowering the drain on my ring. A few turned into tens, then hundreds, and slowly, all few thousand souls began to produce their own energy, just like an Eldunarí would.

The entire Philosopher’s Stone had turned into an artificial human Eldunarí, with thousands of empty human consciousnesses producing energy for me and instantly making me one of the most powerful magic users in this world.

Of course, there was a difference between empty human souls and actual natural Eldunarí containing a dragon soul. Even a young dragon’s soul was stronger than a human one, and it would grow throughout its entire life. The question was just how big the difference was.

And I got my answer after getting a good read on Murtagh today. I was slightly stronger than him, and he had between forty and fifty Eldunarí belonging to young dragons with him. So a dragon was worth about fifty human souls. More or less, since every soul was different, and all of the souls with me had no actual consciousness.

I stood no chance against Galbatorix, but I could fight pretty much anyone else.

Looking around the section of the battlefield I was currently in, I realized there were no more critically injured people around me.

Unfortunately, before I could reach another section of the battlefield, my path was blocked by a small group of soldiers pointing their weapons at me. They were led by a dark-skinned woman with dark, moss-like hair and another dark-haired woman with startling blue eyes, both of them wearing form-fitting armor.

“Be careful. Those are sharp,” I said calmly to the soldiers, just as I felt a presence trying to invade my mind.

Without hesitation, I crushed it and threw it out of my mind, making the blue-eyed woman let out a startled cry of pain. The soldiers gripped their weapons even tighter.

“It is impolite to invade someone’s mind. If you are looking for compliments, all you have to do is ask,” I chuckled, unbothered. Even if I was not in my Power Armor, with my Philosopher’s Stone, they were no threat to me. I had several wards around me, blocking anything they could throw at me.

I would prefer to avoid a fight. If I was right, then I was standing in front of Nasuada, the leader of the Varden. And the blue-eyed woman had to be Trianna, their most skilled magician after Eragon.

“Who are you, stranger?” Nasuada asked me directly.

“I am Matt.”

She just looked at me blankly, showing no sign of recognition. So neither Eragon nor Arya had told her about me yet. Well, it made sense. I was kind of a secret with all the shit I knew. And Eragon had only gotten back a few hours before this entire battle started.

“What are your intentions?” she clarified.

“Healing the next few wounded soldiers. You guys are kind of in the way. So, hush!” I replied, waving them away with my hand and making them glare at me even more. Yeah, diplomacy wasn’t really my strong suit. I knew I should be serious, but messing with them was too much fun.

And the worst of the worst was already taken care of, as far as I could sense. Now all that was left were the less critical cases.

“Do you know who you are standing in front of?” one of the soldiers barked.

“Someone, I suppose? What does it matter to me? You guys look fine to me,” I said as I started walking around them, only to come face-to-face with a sword pointed directly at my face.

Without hesitation, I touched the metal with my hand and disintegrated it into dust with alchemy. “Do that again, and next time, it will be your arm.”

“We can’t let you walk around here freely, stranger. You are an unknown. State your identity and let us check your mind.” Nasuada showed surprise at my action, but she was a leader and remained calm.

“I already said I am Matt. A wanderer. The rest isn’t going to happen! My mind is mine. Anyone trying to check it will get scrambled. I am not here to join your Varden. I am a free guy, so keep your ordering tone to yourself,” I replied coldly.

“Then we are at an impasse—” Nasuada started, but she was interrupted by a gruff voice.

“I will vouch for him.” King Hrothgar arrived with a retinue of dwarves. “Without him, I would be dead, and from what my mages tell me, if he wanted to kill any of us, he would have already done so. He is powerful enough that none of your men would be able to stall him.”

“I can vouch for him too. While I have no idea how he arrived here so fast, he has been a guest of Ellesméra for the better part of a year,” a calm, collected, but familiar voice chimed in.

“Oh, Arya! You look fine. It’s been a while since I last saw you,” I greeted the elf I hadn’t seen since the Blood-Oath Celebration.

“I’ve been fine, Matt,” she replied politely with a raised eyebrow while letting out a small sigh. “You are still as impolite as ever. The only people you show respect to are your teachers…”

“My teachers teach me stuff and have earned that respect. I am not one of their subjects. I am my own guy, the leader of my one-man kingdom, if you will. They didn’t show me the necessary respect either. Oh, don’t worry. My friends don’t need to call me King Matt,” I chuckled while she gave me a blank look.

But before she could say anything, Eragon arrived, and I was the first one to notice him.

“Oh, Eragon, you got your ass kicked there, huh?”

“You lost, Shadeslayer?” King Hrothgar couldn’t help but ask with worry.

“I don’t know how, but his power eludes me, even after my training.” Eragon shook his head in disappointment. “There was something strange about Murtagh and his dragon.”

“Murtagh? He is alive?” Nasuada asked, having decided to ignore me.

That made Eragon retell the story of his battle with Murtagh, how he was overpowered in every aspect, and finally, how Murtagh had revealed himself to be Eragon’s brother, with both of them being the sons of Morzan.

The entire leadership hissed, and I laughed.

This time, Eragon and Saphira actually glared at me.

“This is no joking matter!”

“It is. You actually believe that shit?”

“He swore it in the Ancient Language!” Eragon countered.

“Just because he believes it himself doesn’t make it true.”

“But his mother is the same as mine.”

“Great. Congrats, you got a half-brother!” I grinned. “Just ask Saphira if you are Morzan’s son.”

“What?” Eragon looked confused but communicated with his dragon mentally, only to look even more confused. “She says she can’t tell me. She says I should ask you.”

“Okay, then another approach. Why did Brom, the founder of the Varden, a former Dragon Rider, and Galbatorix’s greatest enemy, choose to spend the end of his life in Carvahall?”

This made many eyes widen as they realized what I was implying.

Only Eragon still looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“My god… did Murtagh hit you on the head or something? Brom is your father, you blockhead. He obviously made Saphira swear in the Ancient Language not to tell you!” I sighed.

“What—”

“Anyway, congrats. You are Brom’s son. If you want to know more, ask his old friend in Ellesméra. Since we are pretty much done here, and there are no more people in need of my help, I am going to take my leave!” I waved before turning around.

“Wait!” Eragon called out. “Do you know why Murtagh is so strong?”

“I do, but it’s not my place to tell you. Ask your teachers. It’s not my place to reveal it to you.”

“But you feel similar, yet different! How are you so strong? And how did you get here?”

“That is one of my secrets. It’s not repeatable, so I am going to keep it a secret. As for how I got here so fast, well, like this—”

And I disappeared right in front of their eyes. Appearing right besides my Power Armor, before grabbing it and vanishing.

[ End of the Chapter ]