1 Receiving A Long-Distance Call

Note that this is vastly different from the original chapter.

Original Story Title, The Last King

Current Story Title, The Azure King's Last Life

Original Author, Luc666

Current Author, Cupcakeninja

Original Story Page Link, https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/3356/the-last-king

Chapter 1 (remake)

Son of a bitch, Roland thought. Who the hell is calling at such a late hour?

He ignored the terrified scream of the blonde by his side. She was a pixie of some sort he'd met the other day at a club. The choice fast food shop for creatures with a penchant for sucking out the excess emotion of drugged up teens and horny adults.

Her name was...actually he wasn't sure he'd ever gotten her name. They didn't do much talking and for their purpose tonight conversation hadn't been a requirement.

Sex was one of the very few pleasures of life, why ruin it with talk?

You'd think a pixie of all people wouldn't freak out at seeing a magic circle. Then again pixies weren't technically allowed out onto the mortal plane in recent years and it's likely she thought there was going to be a bunch of angry Fae who were going to pop out and take her off to have her wings clipped.

Or maybe she thought it'd be her husband. Who knew? Pixies were never the loyal sort, it could very well be he'd just cucked some poor bastard.

It was neither though. Roland knew this kind of magic circle and it wasn't the sort just anyone could conjure up.

No, this here was powerful hoodoo of the highest order and it wasn't screaming "get away from my wife" or "you're going away for a long time."

Nah, this one was saying, "Oh gee good sir, won't you please save my bum from hardcore anal r*pe? I would be ever so grateful."

Basically a cry for help but a lot more desperate if they were willing to risk brain damage or, if lucky, an exploding head.

Summoning of this caliber was serious business. In fact Roland only knew one guy really proficient in this form of magic and that dude only used it for stupid shit like summoning angels for a quick booty call or teleporting the bag of chips in his pantry to his hand. Both of which were really fucking ballsy.

Now for most other people this level of summoning was less a "would you kindly" and more of a "you'll be coming with me" sort of deal.

Roland, however, could tell them to fuck off. It wasn't a matter of being more powerful than the spell or the beings it was capable of summoning. It was actually a matter of hierarchy. The cosmic one.

And while he might not know, exactly, where he fit on that hierarchy he was certain he was pretty high up. Missing a vital part of your soul would do that to you. Amnesia, if you could call it that, was a bitch.

So he didn't have to answer at all. Thing is though, this wasn't your average summoning. It wasn't random.

This one called to him. Called to his blood.

It was, once he realized the fact, overwhelmingly tempting.

...Should he take it? It wasn't as if he had more important things to do. Could be fun. Actually, who the hell stole his blood anyway? Fuckers. He felt compelled to go just so he could see whatever suicidal asshat was stupid enough to use it against him.

If you had the luck to get ahold of Roland's blood and had the magic know-how to use it you could power a city for a full thousand years and size would matter very little.

Instead you waste it on the hope for a favor just as likely to turn into a bloodbath?

A bloodbath because Roland really disliked people getting ahold of his blood just on principle. Last time that happened he had a hundred vampire lords with raging hard-ons chasing him from one half of the Higher Planes to the other.

It was fun beating them down but those bloodsuckers were nearly as immortal as gods are and twice as annoying. If they were beautiful women maybe he'd have been gentler, at least. But no, had to be a pack of old grandpas smelling of copper and dog fart.

Roland frowned at the memory.

Whatever.

He decided he should get to know who the guy disturbing his sleep is, then knock him on his ass.

Did it matter to him that he was going blind into a situation he was sure had to be hundreds of planets away, if not another plane altogether?

Not really. He had too few years left to accomplish anything in this life anyway and he was strong enough to handle pretty much anything. He was lucky so much of his power came to him in this life, at least from what he gathered by reading his past selves' journals. Roland was not an uber-powerful entity in all his lives, it seems.

Which made sense, otherwise he'd be a lot more well-known before this one.

He yawned, stretched, and stood up from his bed. The cold marble floors dispelled the last drops of drowsiness from his body

"The keys to the house are in the third drawer, take care of them since they control the wards to the place. Feel free to make yourself at home, I won't be coming back." Roland threw her a glance. "Oh and there's some women's clothes in the closet. When the other two wake up at least let them take a shower and dress themselves before you kick them out, will you? Thanks."

The woman had completely no idea what was going on. But by the time she got her wits together he was already long gone.