Limitless by John Gold (best e reader for android txt) 📕

As I dig up my altar, I feel like a child looking for presents under the Christmas tree. A total of twelve ponderous stone slabs lie under the mine in a neat pile, but they aren’t giving off a permanent curse.

I go back to the books on malefism, reading them from cover to cover and analyzing how seals are made. One experiment after another goes by. Finally, it’s with horror that I realize I’m just a week away from losing my demigod class rank.

Ten minutes later, I’m back to digging through the sketches of the rituals, having resigned myself to my loss. Just one false move could cost me everything.

It’s at some point during the second week of reading, rereading, trial, and error that I finally convince myself that there just isn’t a seal for creating accursed locations. That means, it’s more about the ritual than the seal.

It takes me half a day to form a theory on how accursed places are created. Another half a day goes by as I test the theory. The altars themselves become part of an enormous seal, while the ritual makes them work together to transmit the same effect. It’s a twelve-pointed star with a single-use altar at the center. The ritual turns out to be an inverted version of the seal for mass, lifelong curses, with each altar intensifying the effect after activation. I place the last sacrifice on the new altar in the middle before activating my destroyer gift.

Pick the effect you would like your ritual to have

Mass self-sacrifice

Everyone within the zone of the ritual seal receives 22700000 mental damage

Curse of weak legs

Permanent 90% loss of strength

Curse of one lung

Permanent 75% cut to strength supply

I take the curse of one lung and immediately remove it with a panacea. But it’s back up in my panel of effects just a fraction of a second later.

The central altar disintegrates into gravel as soon as it’s used. A black cloud rises above the dissolving remains of the victims, splits into twelve parts, and rushes toward the second part of the reverse seal. Then, the bodies piled at the nodal points collapse into dust, creating a black haze that seeps into the twelve altars around the perimeter of the accursed seal. I did that! I created a mobile accursed place with my own two hands.

Experiments show that the kind of curse depends on the strength of the victims. The order and strength of the curse depends on how well developed those strengths were. For instance, I used Grunt, a hand-to-hand fighter, for my first experiment, after which hirelings, marauders, and a couple priests all got a turn.

The next day is spent dragging altars to where the battle is going to be, and then arranging the right victims. Rachel puts up a fight, though not for long. I stun her, run eight hundred kilometers, and finally have my victim.

Debuff received: Goblin foundling

Effect: -90% intellect

Duration: Permanent

The altars are buried, the dummies set out randomly, and the debuff removed from me. Then, I take a week to grow a tree that overshadows with its crown the entire area where the seal will be. The cherry on top is setting a spot for my leap spell to make sure I can quickly exit the seventy-meter area where the seal will be active. It’s time.

All I have to do is get within fifty meters of Talamei to trigger some kind of defensive perimeter and get a dozen angry banshees popping out of nowhere. The fallen god also comes over to look for me. One of the spirits notices me, and they all come rushing in my direction, forcing me to hop away with a leap spell. The recharge time is ten minutes, so I’m going to have to make a semicircle around the seal.

I run, sending deadly spells at my enemies to let them know where I’m going. Talamei’s footfalls are easier to hear than see. He’s laughing revoltingly and following the banshees, though he steps into the accursed area just as the last spirit dies. One wave of a hand, another, and the curse is permanent. Ah-ha! Your intellect is down to just two thousand, and you’re right in the middle of the seal.

Talamei looks around at the dummies and starts taking out the actual altars. Damn it! He can see the streams of magic energy!

“Gravitational well! Maximum!”

Oh, god, that hurts so bad.

I let a charge with a hundred times the usual amount of energy go through me, expanding the strength and area of the spell by a factor of ten. The spell is costing me a million mana a minute. I’m practically handing over my soul for this one!

The thirty-meter column shoots skyward, leaving the fallen god to flounder awkwardly as he feels around for something to push against. Four real altars from the edge of the seal fly up along with him. The whole lot is traveling at fifty meters a second, and I have enough health to keep my gravitational column going for twenty minutes. Ah, the pain!

After twenty minutes of hellish agony, I still have all kinds of health. Damn it! I realize that’s because of my survivability, which restores 56000 mana a minute, and the tree, which helps tremendously. Damn it! I could do another seven hours of this. I forgot about the gods’ magic vision, their ability to see the world as a spectrum of energy being released, and that screwed up my whole plan. I can barely take it!

Talamei disappears, and I’m lying on the ground in misery. Theoretically, he should be launching out into open space at this point. The lack of oxygen will kill him, at least, if undead need oxygen. Space is absolute cold, too—50 million damage. I also wonder what kind of effect cosmic radiation might have on him.

My whole being is desperately fighting the pain, doing its best to maintain concentration and avoid losing control of the spell. It’s this