End of an Era (Project Chrysalis Book 2) by John Gold (popular books to read .TXT) 📕

him and…catches it? Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to kill him?

Talamei looks down at the meteor and then back at me. For some reason, it’s almost like he’s upset.

“Weak! Worthless worm!” Space vibrates with the sound of his voice. “Know your place!”

The god raises a hand, preparing to attack.

Oh, I know, but I’m going to outdo myself.

“Blood Magic! Final seal! Self-sacrifice!”

***

Fem ran toward the portal using triple amplification from her armor. In that mode, she could run another two minutes, but she decided to stop, look back, and see what Sagie was up to. He wasn’t running. In fact, he was starting to attack the god, covering the group. There was less than a kilometer to go to where the boy was. Femida took off running again, knowing that Sagie didn’t joke about anything.

The bodies of the sacrifices started to crumble into a darkness that rushed toward the boy. The shadows pouring into his body terrified her to the depths of her being, and then the boy started crumbling, himself. Suddenly, a star began to fall from the sky. There was a deafening roar like a hundred shuttles taking off, and the enormous star blazed with a bright red light that was ten times larger than the meteor. Even the god had to set his shields.

Femida looked around for cover, but it was too late.

“Sagie, you’re a fool!”

Nobody heard her cry. The wild crash of the explosion drowned out any other noise. A shock wave threw her fifty meters, and the only thing that saved her was the fact that she hit a tree and then tumbled into a lake.

A giant crater was all that remained of where the god had been standing, some two hundred meters in diameter. Talamei himself was lying on the bottom laughing. It wasn’t an angry laughter; he was almost happy. His health bar had dropped by just five percent.

Sagie died to make his attack, and he hadn’t even been able to do much damage.

“Hey, woman, I hear you! Tell that worm that we’re going to meet again, and that he’s going to pay dearly for daring to injure me.”

A wild, animalistic fear gripped Femida, pushing her to make a dash for the portal. Every word the god uttered left the fabric of space quivering. Her whole body was permeated with terror and the sensation of his total power.

***

I respawned in the assembly room fourteen hours later. Yes, that was quite the ride.

You got a debuff: Bodily energy channels devastated

Effect: All your main and derivative attributes have dropped by 99%.

Duration: 69 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds... 58... 57…

Achievement received: First among equals

You were responsible for the strongest strike the world has ever seen.

Reward: +20 to all attributes

Damn it, nobody warned me about that! Self-sacrifice boosts the strength of one magic attack by a factor of ten, though there are a bunch of conditions. Apparently, you get a week of the debuff for each factor. Damn it! That’s more than two months without magic. I won’t even be able to run!

“Attribute window.”

Name: Sagie

Level: 170

Experience: 610722/672500 (61788 left until the next level)

Race: Human

Class: None selected

Basic attributes

Strength: 2 (151)

Agility: 4 (362)

Stamina: 3 (344)

Intellect: 19 (1987)

Wisdom: 8 (818)

Available attribute points: 0

Additional attributes

Speed: 4 (377)

Athleticism: 2 (229)

Morale: 5 (500)

Survivability: 4 (535)

Derivative ratings

Physical damage: 1 (strength/2, but no less than 1)

Carrying capacity: 5 kg (strength*10/4)

Mana: 15330 (wisdom*10)

Health: 30 (stamina*10)

Strength: 30 (stamina*10)

Health restoration: 40/minute (survivability*10)

Mana restoration: 50/minute (morale*10)

Strength restoration: 20/minute (athleticism*10)

Running speed: 7 km/h (1+speed/10)

Defense: 55

Resistance

Physical damage: 15.27% (damage ignored: up to 81422/second)

Poison: 12.60% (damage ignored: up to 47368/second)

Fire: 35.62% (damage ignored: up to 1177204/second)

Electricity: 18.35% (damage ignored: up to 292021/second)

Mental damage: 35.52% (damage ignored: up to 1155597/second)

Skills

Cooking: 250

Trap setting and disarming: 19

Archery: 250

Swimming: 250

Breath-holding: 250

Stealth: 250

Life Magic: 266

Mind Magic: 255

Space Magic: 254

Earth Magic: 254

Water Magic: 250

Fire Magic: 261

Air Magic: 259

Light Magic: 255

Dark Magic: 250

Meditation: 268

Hand-to-hand combat: 92

Perception: 172

Necromancy: 250

Blood Magic: 252

Chimerology: 250

Ritual magic: 252

Artifact creation: 250

Poison-making: 25

Ointment-making: 25

Metal reinforcing: 25

Wood reinforcing: 25

Body enhancement: 26

Professions

Herbalist: 250

Fisherman: 250

Tailor: 250

Blacksmith: 250

Carpenter: 250

Miner: 25

Skills

Imp eye

Undecuple consciousness

One of our own

Shroud of darkness

Gifts

Meeting deferred

What? Forget running; I can’t even walk! My clothes weigh seven kilograms, and there’s all kinds of junk in my pack. How am I supposed to even move? One odd note is that my morale should be around seven hundred, but it’s only five hundred. I guess that’s as high as it goes.

The good news is that I have an ocean of mana and strong resistance to just about everything. Time to go out, kill things, and work on my skills. I wonder what a meteor would look like with these attributes. Given my current speed and carrying capacity, I’m going to need a pack animal.

A minute later, Fi shows up, wild-eyed and shaking.

“What was that, you idiot? The god just laughed at your attack! And I just about died…” She stopped, walked over, and looked closer at me. “Wait, what’s wrong with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You look like a vampire. Your skin is pale, almost transparent, and I can see all your veins. Your pupils are yellow, too.”

“Got it.” I throw my hood over my head. Not even the god can see me now.

“Wait, what was that debuff you got?” Damn it, I should’ve left our group. “Are you kidding me? Where’s the normal debuff you get when you die? Is that all because you committed suicide?”

“You moron,