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

is enough to kill the entire Darin Empire in a week—everyone. They come at me with area stunning, debuffs that hit my mana regeneration, and areas with sharply reduced mobility. In those latter spots, the air gets so thick that Fire Magic burns out and disappears before ever reaching the target. Even my bone blade’s force strikes are blunted by the defensive barriers. The angels themselves use Light Magic to attack, the injuries my mental body takes each time doing more and more damage. My strength regeneration falls by 57% when I let a light blade blow slip by and kill one of the angels with a blow to the eye. The bone blade in my arm pops out at the last moment, not giving my opponent the least chance to react. And when he drops dead, his partner goes crazy, attacking me over and over without giving it the least thought. I catch his hits to my neck and back with my chimeric shield. But then, I break his knee, smack him in the eyes with an open palm, crush his windpipe, and hit his solar plexus. When he doubles over, I bring my bone blade down on the back of his head.

I barely have time to loot the bodies of Ablom, Cerubiel, and the pair of angels when an entire squad of punishers led by an archangel comes at me.

Angel, Carenius V, Level 9201, second grade

 

It’s Carenius who shows me that a light hammer can be so strong it leaves nothing left of the target. His artifact hammer can cast the spell at any angle and with any level of strength, and the fact that he has ten floating familiars tells me that the spells the weapon casts have an effect imbedded in them. He takes 500 million durability off my chimeric shield and sends me flying the exact same way Cerubiel did. I even get a new rank. On the other hand, fighting in the water without the protection of my tree and an empty source in the astral turns out to be problematic. I’m up against eleven opponents with a mutilated mental body and no tricks left up my sleeve.

You died and will respawn in 3 hours and 59 minutes…

 

Logout

 

∞ ∞ ∞

When I climb out of the capsule, I notice ten missed messages from Femida. She got the video, which means she’s going to be yelling at me or patting me on the back. Maybe, she has a bunch of questions. My neuronet switches on a voice channel and connects me with her.

“Hey, you little idiot! What possibly made you think to attack a peaceful population?”

“It’s good to hear you, too.”

“Moron! After you killed the cherub, the entire world got a message about a fractured relationship. One angel down. Wait, why three?”

“Check the third video…”

“Idiot!” Femida falls silent. She needs time to calm down and make a good decision. “So, if you’re going to keep killing them, they’ll start hating all humans, and we won’t stand a chance against them. Stop it and give yourself up. Once you’re in their jail, you can work on rebuilding your relationship and…”

“Enough! I have a quest to open an interworldly portal in the middle of Tanatos. The angels aren’t going to let me through. Sure, there are multiple ways to skin this cat, and most people would think my decision was a dumb one, but this war is much better for me than you think.”

Femida is no fool, and she quickly realizes what I’m talking about.

“An achievement?”

“Yep. Though the requirements are brutal, and I’m the only one who can get it.”

The girl on the other end of the line sighs heavily.

“Do you have any idea what the angels are going to think about humans after your war with them? Or what they’re going to do to you? They’re a good 5000 levels higher than you!”

“Oh, that’s another thing, check the last video I sent you. I die in it, so Leon will appreciate that. And we can make money off it!”

“How?”

“The angels showed me their true battle potential. Leon was right to be afraid of open war with Tanatos. They have artifact weapons, maximum spells, they make you fight on their turf, the fauna is aggressive, and so much more. Just one angel is worth an entire army.”

Today, I’m able to convince Claude to take me swimming in the open sea. Galboa taught me that people don’t like begging or whining, so better tell them what’s in it for them if you want them to do something for you. I persuade him that swimming once in the ocean is much more effective and useful than swimming every day in the pool. He even lets me swim out to where the island I’ve seen lots of times over the past three years should be, but I don’t see it. I can feel it out there, but I can’t see it. Masking fields haven’t been invented in our world, not to mention fields big enough to hide an entire island, though my senses are all yelling at me that it’s somewhere nearby. It’s like the way you feel an energy generator: my hair is standing on end, my brain is tense, and my motor skills have deteriorated. I’m positive there’s a powerful source of energy nearby.

Having found nothing, I swim all the way to shore with Claude whistling out a pace behind me. He likes our trip. We got to head out to sea, something everyone who lives in space can only dream of, and he also got me to swim five kilometers. Claude works the oars—motors are long-since prohibited; I head back under my own power. It’s unspoken punishment for missing two days of therapy.

The war can wait. I really like the idea of a masking field for the ArtIn I’ve been developing in my free time. Even with my ability to use eleven streams of consciousness in the astral, the project seems somehow unattainable. The scale, the difficulty, describing and creating