Sleeping Player (Project Chrysalis Book 3) by John Gold (novel24 TXT) 📕

carefully. The buildings are closed, and there are red crosses and circles on the doors, but I don’t see any ghosts—none at all. Nothing moves. Then, my perception highlights a spot on the road. It’s barely visible, no more than a meter in diameter…but it’s moving. One, two, three…five! They’re all moving blindly.

Ghost, Hell Python Spirit, Level 2518

Damage received: 108000 (ignored: 12500000)

6400/6400

Part of the street is behind me, and this is where I’m attacked. The spot shows up under my feet, and what looks like a giant snake latches onto me. Happily, it only has a mental body, which means it only does mental damage. Its friends start slithering over to introduce themselves to the unlucky traveler. Another couple appears near an alley.

I can’t use ranged spells where I am, though the same isn’t true of my tattoos.

“Gehenna fire! Maximum!”

Damage received: 515710 (ignored: 1177204)

6400/6400

The road under my feet hisses and pops, and the stones around me start looking like pans that have been used to fry meat. The snakes wriggle, dying in the hellish oven, and ten seconds later, I’m alone in the street.

Finally, I can look around more carefully. I don’t see any snakes or moving spots. It’s the same lifeless, soundless emptiness, just my breathing and the crackling stone breaking the silence. Even with how quiet it is, I move in stealth mode as softly as I possibly can. Nobody’s behind me. I don’t have to turn around—my perception is so strong that I practically have eyes in the back of my head. Suddenly, that changes, however, and I do turn, expecting to see anything, even death or the gates of Hell, but just not that.

Near the house where the snakes attacked me, right in the corner, a demon is hiding. All I can see is half his face and one broken horn. In his hands, which don’t have a hint of skin left on them, he’s clutching an enormous sledgehammer in his hands. He peeks out of his hiding place as if playing hide and seek. But this time, I’m the rat he’s going to chase. His lifeless eyes gleam green, his jaw swings open and closed without making a sound, and we stare at each other.

Shaking myself out of my stupor, I dash toward the intersection. I neither see nor hear my opponent—we’re running through enemy territory, though the devil himself wouldn’t scare me with someone like this demon behind me.

I get to a turn and duck left around the corner.

Damage received: 33260 (ignored: 81422)

6400/6400

The corner of the building shatters with the blow from the sledgehammer, shards of stone burying themselves painfully in my leg, and I collapse. The demon raises his weapon for a final blow.

“Dwarf hammer! Dragon breath! Wind of death! Dwarf hammer! Weaker healing! Rose of death! Lightning! Lightning! Tornado!”

Not enough mana

“Ma…”

The wall is long-since gone, the foundation has been shattered, the street is boiling…but the demon is still alive. In complete silence, he stares me dead in the eye… From now on, we’re blood enemies. He raises his hammer, and I dash headlong down the street. He’s a monster! His resistance is incredible, he has ten times my health, and his level is almost two thousand above mine.

The wall of the building to my left explodes, and I look back to see the handle of the sledgehammer poking out of it. I shouldn’t have turned—the demon is close. The only way to explain the fact that he missed is that he has one eye and a bunch of rotten muscles.

The demon sprints after me and throws out his hand, catching the sledgehammer as it flies toward him. Telekinesis! I don’t have time to think through what that means for me, as my pursuer hurls his weapon at me again. This time, it smashes through the overhang of the building in front of me. That was his second throw to find the distance, so the next one isn’t going to miss. But half a second to dive to the side is a lot when you’re running fifty meters a second.

An enormous paw whips over my head; the sledgehammer whistles past on its way to rejoin its master.

“Light hammer! Maximum!”

It’s been a little less than a minute, and I have enough mana for a hammer blow with ten streams. It costs all of the 10000 mana I have.

The spell pounds the demon into the ground. There’s an explosion, and I’m thrown across the street.

Debuff: Blinding 3… 2… 1

Still unable to see anything, I leap up and keep running. The fact that the explosion didn’t make a noise can mean only one thing: the demon is still alive. Using the time I’ve bought, I turn to see how much health the demon has. He’s already up on his feet and running after me, and he’s still at forty percent. What a beast!

There’s a crossroads up ahead, so I decide to see if I can duck out of his field of vision.

But no sooner do I look in front of me than the demon is right there. That beast teleported!

He’s already winding up for a blow, and I’m dashing right into his arms. At the last second, a dwarf hammer knocks his aim off enough for the sledgehammer to go flying over my head.

The battle is pushing us both to the limit. He uses silence, speed, teleportation, and focus with his sledgehammer; I have my mana regeneration and a wide variety of spells.

The sledgehammer buries itself in the ground all the way to the shaft. I throw myself at the demon’s legs, and he falls to the ground.

“Dragon breath! Maximum!”

I won’t be able to use that again for another twenty minutes, and my tattoo would kill me. The demon’s whole left side is burnt away, the hefty bones and spirit inside