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

of “beat the kid” with a deadly outcome. I’m punished, thrown up against the ceiling with such force that I’m left with just 4% of my health. Then, I come crashing down to the floor with just as much force. It takes death less than a second to realize that I’m able to completely restore my health in the time it takes me to fly between the floor and ceiling or vice versa.

I’m thrown up and back down again fifteen times. Thirty bone-crushing hits. The strongest creature I’ve ever seen is just drumming his fingers on the armrest to the rhythm of my bodyslams, but that’s where it ends.

I sit up on the floor and cross my legs. A happy smile spreads across my face.

“What are you so excited about? Want some more?”

“Nope.”

“Want to get chased around the hall again?”

“Nope.”

“Did Absolute Happiness hit you too hard?”

“Nope.”

“Then why are you smiling like a cat who just took a dump outside my door?”

What am I supposed to say? That I’m happy to see him? Hey, it’s been a while! Seen my parents? And why am I feeling so giddy?

“I’ve been looking for you for a while.”

“Usually, you’re running away from me. And how you always run! Remember how you drowned the boatman? How you ran away from Talamei and the other gods? But no, you’ve been looking for me. I’m the one who comes for you!”

“Just wondering—are you a he or a she? And what should I call you?”

“For your miserly mind, it’s enough to say that I don’t have a gender. But you didn’t come here to ask what I’m hiding under my robe.”

“My parents died–”

“I didn’t ask for your story. I expect to hear what you want from me.”

This is more than just a simple conversation. One wrong word, and it’s over for me. Death isn’t about to play games. I know how easily he could kill me.

“I want you to resurrect my family and return them to the outside world.”

“Well, then. And what can you offer in return?”

He clearly isn’t a genie about to grant me three wishes. There won’t be any indulgences, and everything could be swept away if I make a single mistake. Not even a mistake; if I show weakness even. Everything about death screams that he’s an enemy out to eat me if I give him the chance. He isn’t human, isn’t a god—he’s something more, something bigger, greater, and infinitely more powerful. It’s the sensation of the strength he demonstrated more than his emotions that leads me to this conclusion.

“The souls of all the young gods, and the old ones, too, if they’re still around. I’ll send them all to Hell.”

“No, thanks. You’re offering what’s already mine by right—is that all your little brain can come up with? Is this really Sagie, the person who sent me my first god in five hundred years?”

Death sits down on his stone throne. Darkness covers his face and throne, and his voice betrays neither emotion nor interest. But he gave me a clue. A very big clue!

“Death, what did Bernard offer you in exchange for letting him go back as a wanderer?”

“Immortality is something more than you can understand. You think too narrowly, bound by time and correlation. You think you can demand answers from me, you worm?”

“Oh, Death.”

“Stop calling me that impersonal name! You’ve earned the right to call me by my true name: Tiamat.”

Huh! Death’s Sumerian roots are interesting, and that offers me a very different picture of the Project Chrysalis world. Tiamat was the living ocean of chaos from which the entire world grew. I wonder if what happened in the original is going to happen this time around, too.

“Tiamat, what do I have to do for you to resurrect my family?”

“Everything and nothing. The beginning and the end. You have no idea what you can give me. Bravo, human! You realize that I’m not interested in anything material, and you’re now strong enough to provide me a service equal to my resurrecting your parents.”

Ye-e-e-s! There’s a chance! Ten years of searching and two years of torment were worth it just to hear this one little phrase.

“And what is that?”

“Remove the seal from the otherworldly portal at the center of Tanatos.”

∞ ∞ ∞

Tiamat sent Sagie back into the outside world, a smile spreading over his face as he went back to his home at the bottom of the Sea of Madness. Besides him and Krash, there were three other officers in his office who were responsible for the human world as well as their official representative’s assistant.

Idzumi was smiling himself, but he had to ask.

“What was that show for? He could’ve died twenty times over during the battle, but no, even that wasn’t good enough. You had to try killing him thirty more times!”

“He had to answer for what he did!”

Krash, who’d been having a hard time containing his emotions during the event itself, exploded.

“What did he do?! He did what even Akashi couldn’t, and he hasn’t even progressed all the way. And what was that nonsense with the trials? Since when does Project Chrysalis go up to Level 20000? What is the keeper doing? And then you, Tiamat, decided to bury one of the best chosen ones!”

Death just shrugged confidently.

“He had to pay for what he wrote!”

Tiamat was the only one who didn’t laugh. Set rolled around on the floor, seized by fits of laughter. The shapeshifter did the same, switching back and forth from cat to human form. Idzumi just covered his face and turned away. Laughing at your senior officer in his office isn’t the best idea. Three minutes later, everyone, with the exception of death himself, was on the thick carpet.

Krash looked hopefully out the window, where an enormous whale was swimming off in the distance with another whole whale on its back.

“The exodus is beginning, Akashi. You won’t be lonely anymore.”

∞ ∞ ∞

It was a warm summer night in Kurg, on the continent of Radaam. After the city became a cultural landmark, thousands