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

space port, Galboa taught me this one critical principle: always control the situation. That has been my guiding light in battle since then. Whether it’s setting my traps, fighting on my own turf, having an ace up my sleeve, or manipulating my opponents, it’s what I always have in mind.

It’s easier to think when logic has free rein over your mind without emotion. The fallen god has at least twice the strength, and there are a few other facts to remember as well: he repels maximum damage, his movement is limited, and he’s far too overconfident.

The first step is the trap. I set up what I need for a ritual I can use twice, and then I send a meteor crashing down on him just like the first time. I knew it didn’t have the caliber to kill him, so I’m not surprised to see the antlered beast crawling out of the crater and hovering over the earth before heading in my direction. The red ribbon around his neck pulses with the raw magic energy surging through it.

I set the destination for my leap spell and jump over to my second altar, which is a hundred meters away. Just the look of the fallen divinity floating over the earth in the orange light of his divine shield is enough to affect my psyche regardless of the resistance I’ve built up. The aura is just so yellowish-green, the kind I’m used to seeing from healers and priests. He combines life and death in one, and the combination is revolting.

My second line of attack is strong enough for ten maximum-strength spells. It’s set up under a small tree, giving me the mana I need, and Talamei’s shield takes the brunt of chain lightning, mental spears, fireballs, and even a light hammer.

The fallen divinity is flying over my first altar when I activate a sphere of darkness. Everything within half a kilometer is bathed in gloom, though he can still see me with his magic vision if I use even one spell. So, I do just that.

“Leap. Maximum.”

A divine spear slams into the spot where I was just standing, turning the ritual area and tree into a pile of ruins. But I’m now at my first altar right behind him. His feet and my head are just half a meter apart in the pitch darkness, and I activate my destroyer gift.

Pick the effect you would like your ritual to have:

 

One-time spell amplification

Your spell will be amplified several times over, depending on how developed your ritual magic skill is.

Mass undead raising

All the dead in a radius of 1000 meters will be raised, though they will all take you for an enemy.

Altar self-destruction

The altar on which the ritual was performed will self-destruct. The ritual slab will absorb all the necrotic energy, after which it will explode and do mental damage to everything around it.

I go with the last option and say a prayer in my head that my plan will work. Using just my mind, I activate a gravitational well and send myself hurtling upward through the divine shield. Huh! Apparently, it can be pointed outward or inward.

As soon as I throw up my own magic shield, I take a hit from a powerful divine whip.

Damage received: 13750000 (ignored: 25000000)

38498/38498

Bastard! The blow demolishes my shield, knocks me out of my gravitational well, and sends me sliding ten meters through the blood with it in my face. I swallow quite a few mouthfuls of the stuff on the way.

Just like other kinds of divine magic, the whip disintegrated when it struck its target, doing mental damage to everything nearby. It’s actually a good thing I was thrown a ways away.

Level 2938 unlocked

5 attribute points available for distribution

…

Level 2941 unlocked

20 attribute points available for distribution

The altar detonated inside the divine shield, which is exactly what I’d been counting on. The mental damage it did really didn’t even look like physical destruction—material itself crumbled, leaving empty space behind it. It was pretty similar to a nuclear explosion, actually, though the shock wave burned out immediately rather than flattening everything around it. All that was left was sinking soil.

When the altar and the fifty victims on it exploded, it demolished the fallen god’s body up to the middle of his rib cage. The ribbon around his neck rotted away, the horns disintegrated, and that was the end of a version of Talamei I’d never seen before.

Next, I have the city of Litirad and a month of fruitless searching. I run around all the human streets twice in search of any mention of my parents, but they’re nowhere to be found.

One thing I’m happy about is that I don’t come across any dead gods. I don’t have a great relationship with them, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one were to stab me in the back.

Sagie… I spent the best years of my life going through trials that would leave a normal person an invalid no longer capable of seeing the world in the same bright colors. In fact, I almost went insane after all the times I pushed myself past the edge. LJ, my compensator, saved me time after time, taking me to the quiet area. Sagie, you can be whoever you want—an optimist who everyone loves, a fierce warrior, or a kind mage. Your psyche is so flexible right now that you can pretend to be any of them if that’s what you want. But you’ll never be normal. We’ve done too much to probe the depths of human emotion for that.

After Litirad, I jump right into the next trial. If my parents aren’t there, they must be somewhere else.

Current location: House of Contempt.

 

The entire location is covered in a dark forest. The tree trunks feature the trapped bodies of people I despise, while creatures that are half plant and half human attack every once in a while. The problem is that I can’t sense them against the overall field of strength. On the other hand, I get