The Builder's Greed (The Legendary Builder Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

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  Also by J. A. Cipriano

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Thank You for reading!

  Author’s Note

  Litrpg

  The Builder’s Greed

  The Legendary Builder Book 2

  J. A. Cipriano

  Copyright © 2017 by J. A. Cipriano

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Want to get this FREE?

  Also by J. A. Cipriano

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Thank You for reading!

  Author’s Note

  Litrpg

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  Also by J. A. Cipriano

  World of Ruul

  Soulstone: Awakening

  Soulstone: The Skeleton King

  The Legendary Builder

  The Builder’s Sword

  Elements of Wrath Online

  Ring of Promise

  The Vale of Three Wolves

  Kingdom of Heaven

  The Skull Throne

  Escape From Hell

  The Thrice Cursed Mage

  Cursed

  Marked

  Burned

  Seized

  Claimed

  Hellbound

  The Half-Demon Warlock

  Pound of Flesh

  Flesh and Blood

  Blood and Treasure

  The Lillim Callina Chronicles

  Wardbreaker

  Kill it with Magic

  The Hatter is Mad

  Fairy Tale

  Pursuit

  Hardboiled

  Mind Games

  Fatal Ties

  Clans of Shadow

  Heart of Gold

  Feet of Clay

  Fists of Iron

  The Spellslinger Chronicles

  Throne to the Wolves

  Prince of Blood and Thunder

  Found Magic

  May Contain Magic

  The Magic Within

  Magic for Hire

  Witching on a Starship

  Maverick

  Planet Breaker

  1

  The look the archangel gave me when I touched her hallowed flesh made me think my hand was covered in dog shit. As I turned my gaze to where I gripped her hand, just to be sure, she snatched her own hand away and stared at with shock and horror.

  Her button nose scrunched up as her crystal blue eyes swiveled back to me. “No.” She swallowed so hard her entire body seemed to convulse with the movement. Her wings twitched behind her, causing her to lift a few feet in the air before she recovered.

  “What’s going on?” I stared at the Archangel Gabriella completely lost. “I thought you wanted my help?”

  Only a few minutes earlier, the archangel had smashed through the ceiling of Hell in a burning golden comet that had left a hundred-meter wide crater off in the distance. Then she’d come toward us like a bat out of hell and demanded I come to Heaven to help them defeat the Darkness.

  She’d seemed to know I was the legendary Builder then, but now? Now I was completely lost. Was I not supposed to touch her? Had I infected her with my normal human maleness or something?

  “I think you broke her,” Gwen, the super-hot succubus said. She had brought me to Hell to help them fight against the Darkness. She shook her head, letting her dark locks flutter around her head.

  “You’re weak!” Gabriella exclaimed with so much force, the sigils on the warding around the town flared like Christmas lights. The sky overhead boomed, and the whole of the world trembled as she stared at me. “How can this be? Have you not collected the Armaments?!”

  I stared at Gabriella in confusion for longer than I should have. The angel was staring at me like she could see into me and found what she saw wanting. There was a problem though. I had no fucking clue what she was talking about.

  “Armaments?” I asked, rolling the word around in my mouth before turning my gaze to Gwen. I was glad not to be looking at the unnerving archangel. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”

  “I don’t.” Gwen crossed her arms over her leather-clad chest, drawing my eyes to her breasts. Her eyes flickered with amusement when she caught me looking, and as my cheeks heated with embarrassment, she flicked her gaze to Gabriella. “But she’s probably lying. You never can tell with angels. They’re a tricky bunch. Always twisting the truth of their words until what they say no longer matches what actually occurred.”

  “That’s not helpful,” I said, waving off her comment while making a mental note of it. I wasn’t sure if what she said was true or not. Gwen had been on the defensive from the moment she’d first seen the angel. Which was sort of fair because I was here protecting her town and her lands. If I left, well, who would do that job?

  “Do you really not know what the Armaments are?” Gabriella asked. Concern filled her voice as she spoke. She flapped her mighty feathered wings, adjusting her height until she was eye level with me. I was equal parts impressed and jealous as I watched her. Gwen and I were standing atop a huge wall, and she had made the ascent easily. And I couldn’t fly. Everyone could fly but me, and I was getting tired of having the girls carry me around.

  “No.” I swept my eyes over her once more. As I did, I realized how amazingly beautiful she was. Now, m
ost of the women I’d been surrounded with since arriving here were fifteens on a ten point scale, but there was something about Gabriella that was, well, different.

  The archangel exuded innocence and kindness. She reminded me of a girl from high school who I’d wished I’d dated but had been too busy chasing future sorority girls to notice at the time. Crazier still, even though the angel was fully clothed, and bared little skin beyond her arms and neck, I could tell she had the body of a Playboy Bunny. The curves underneath did not lie.

  Gabriella watched me expectantly, one hand on her hip. “Well?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.” I shook myself from my gawking and met her eyes. “Can you say that again?” As I spoke, Gwen harrumphed.

  “I don’t understand,” Gabriella said, her blue eyes sparkling with confusion. “Was I unclear with my words?” Her cheeks turned red, and she took a little breath. “I’m unused to speaking to humans. I haven’t done so since the time of Adam.”

  “No, dear,” Gwen said before I could respond. “He was staring at your tits.”

  A surge of embarrassment hit me as I turned my gaze to the succubus. Had she just straight-up cock-blocked by me? I found her face filled with an emotion I’d never seen on her. It wasn’t jealousy per se. No, it was worry. She didn’t like Gabriella. That much was obvious, but there was more. It was worry for her people. Gwen was afraid I’d leave with the angel, and that there’d be nothing she could do to stop it.

  “Gwen,” I began, wanting to assure her I would never leave her behind nor leave Lustnor undefended.

  “You were looking at my breasts?” the angel replied. Her brow furrowed as she touched her chest with one slender finger and stared down at the neck of her flowing white gown. “I do not understand. Why would my breasts be of interest to you?”

  “Are you serious?” Gwen said with a roll of her eyes. I was inclined to agree. Gabriella had some amazing breasts. It was taking a lot of willpower not to resume staring at them. It wasn’t so much their size or shape that threatened to enchant me so much as it was their everything. They were, excuse my phrasing, the total package.

  “What should I do?” Gabriella asked, glancing at the succubus for guidance. The poor angel had a look of complete and utter helplessness on her face. “I need to speak to the Builder, to learn why he hasn’t found the Armaments so we can return to Heaven and rout the Darkness from our lands. I cannot have him distracted.” She dropped her hand from her breasts and took a deep breath. “Is it because I have bound them? Is that not the normal custom here? Would freeing them help?”

  I’ll be honest, everything in me wanted to say yes. I didn’t, but trust me, I wanted to say yes. Only that wouldn’t help me. Not now anyway. No, it’d distract me from the Armaments business. That seemed important.

  I shook my head. “No, I was just distracted by how pretty you are.” I smiled as Gwen once again rolled her eyes next to me.

  “You find me attractive?” Gabriella replied, more shocked than ever. “You mean…” Her eyes widened even more, and this time she flushed so hard, her chest turned pink. “As a woman?” She swallowed. Hard. “You wish to mate with me?” Her wings fluttered erratically as she met my eyes.

  I’d never been more embarrassed in my entire life. Hell, I hadn’t had anything even close to this. I wanted to find a hole somewhere and crawl into it. No, I needed to not exist.

  “Trust me, sugar tits. It’s not you in particular.” Gwen gestured at the town as she spoke. “He wants to bang almost every girl here. It’s actually kind of frustrating.”

  “Oh.” That one word had a lot of emotion in it. Like the whole of Gabriella’s world had been lifted upon high before being thrown to the floor to shatter into a billion pieces.

  “Gwen, be nice,” I scolded while deliberately failing to address the fact she was telling the truth.

  Before she’d been captured by the Darkness, there had definitely been a lot of sexual tension between us. Sure, some of it had been simply because she was hot in that whole long black hair, big-breasted flawless skin sort of way, but I’d definitely felt a connection to her. After all, she was the one who had brought me to the world, the one who had helped me realize my potential as the Builder.

  Only, while she’d been gone, I’d found myself drawn to some of the other girls in the camp. They’d assured me Gwen wouldn’t care, that my strange Earth sensibilities didn’t match up in Hell where promiscuity was a very real way of life. Besides, Gwen had been a succubus. She literally fed off sex with people.

  I’ll be honest, part of me had expected her to be mad, or for us to have some kind of conversation about it, but we never had. Worse, while she’d teased me a few times since then, we’d never moved beyond that. No, she had been teasing me in a way that let me know she no longer wanted to sleep with me. It was infuriating, and I’d tried to ignore it, but then she’d go and make quips like she had.

  As I glared at her, I could tell she wanted to contradict me, but I also saw her decide not to. Instead, she met my eyes. For the briefest moment, I could have sworn I saw her mouth an apology. Well, that was new.

  “I am sorry, I should not have presumed,” Gabriella squeaked. She shook her head. The motion sent her flowing, golden hair into a tizzy. “As I said, I am unused to dealing with humans, and there are no males in Heaven.”

  She took another breath, and I watched as a mask of confidence settled over her. “Now, please explain yourself. We must go to the Stairway and ascend it to Heaven. But we cannot do that without the Armaments.” She looked me up and down once again. “Please go get them.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.” I rolled her words over in my mind. I hadn’t seen a literal Stairway to Heaven, and I had no idea what she meant by ‘the Armaments.’ “This is all I have.” I patted my sheathed sword, Clarent. “It is what allows me to modify the abilities of my friends and allies.” I shrugged. “You know, make them stronger, faster, smarter. That sort of thing.”

  “I know of Clarent, but it is only one of the tools of the Builder. Do you really not have the others?” Gabriella fixed her gaze on me. “The Boots of Power? The Crown of the Conqueror?” She frowned. “Dred has all but two. That is why he is so powerful and what makes him such a vicious champion for the Darkness. If you have collected none, how will you stop him?” Tears filled her eyes. “All is already lost. I knew it was stupid to come. To think you could help.”

  As those tears fell from her eyes and dribbled down her cheeks, I felt my heart break for the woman. I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by the Armaments, but I remembered the vision of the Darkness’s champion, Dred. He’d been impossibly strong. Impossibly powerful. Even the former Builder had amounted to little compared to him. Was it because of those Armaments? That made sense.

  If there were more artifacts like Clarent out there, more sources of power to level the playing field, then going up against him without them would be suicide.

  Still, the idea gave me hope. I’d been beating myself up about the fight between Dred and the former Builder because I knew I could never beat the guy one on one. The last Builder had been much stronger than me and he’d been handily defeated. However, if what Gabriella was saying was true, then the gulf between their powers was made up of items. If I could find them, maybe I had a chance.

  No, not just a chance. I’d have a real shot at winning. Still, that left a problem. Those Armaments, as Gabriella called them, had to be found. Otherwise, any progress we made against the ever-encroaching Darkness would be for naught.

  There was just one problem. I didn’t know anything about them. Other than Gabriella, none of the beings I had met here had ever mentioned them.

  After all, if they existed, wouldn’t the former Builder have had them before he had charged into the breach? Of course, he would have, assuming he’d known about them. Only, if he didn’t, it was likely no one else did either, no one but this angel, anyway.

  “Can you help me find the Armaments
?” I met the archangel’s eyes.

  She stopped sobbing and wiped her eyes with the back of one pale hand. “I can try, but my powers are limited here. Already I can feel Hell sapping my strength, drawing it back into the ether. If we do not succeed soon, I will be reduced to a mere mortal and my ability to find the Armaments will be greatly diminished.” She smiled at me, and determination flashed through her eyes. “But if the task were easy, it would have been done already.” She thumped her chest with her hand. “Yes, Builder, I will help you find the Armaments, and then we will ascend the Stairway together, victorious!”

  “About that.” I looked at Gwen. She just shrugged at me, clearly as lost as I was. It was good that Gabriella wanted to help, assuming she could, but at the same time, that whole Stairway to Heaven thing might be a problem because we didn’t have one.

  “Is there another problem?” Gabriella dropped her gaze to her clothing. “Oh!” she brightened, nodding before I could reply. “If you are worried about the barrier, it will not be an issue.” She extended one hand. As her fingertips touched the barrier of magic surrounding the town, white sparks rippled out along its surface. I watched in awe as the sigils flared like suns before fading in favor of new symbols that appeared all across the barrier. Then the archangel stepped through the barrier like it wasn’t even there and settled on the wall next to me.