The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series by Dan Sugralinov (e book reader free .TXT) 📕

I had to shift gears. Not the goddess Venus, the planet Venus. The second planet from the Sun… That was it! I remembered the boys and I discussing an astronomy lesson where we learned that the clouds on Venus are made of sulfuric acid, and there’s acid rain there. They were talking about Terrastera! Its atmosphere was like on Venus, and that’s where they were going to build the third temple of the Sleepers while I was gone. Great! Three temples meant I would get new abilities and the ones I had would be stronger… Plus, there should be a whole bunch of new positions for priests and followers of the Sleeping Gods. And the bonuses from Unity would be so high that… Nether! That was it!

I drank down the rest of my soda in excitement and opened another can. From the very beginning, Behemoth had taught me that even worst enemies can become allies. That might not apply to evil as absolute as the Destroying Plague, but as for everyone else…

Ed, Hung and Malik couldn’t stand me back in the day, and it was mutual. And the two thugs bullied Malik, from what I remembered. But now? The Nether with Malik, he could go through a Living Sieve for all I cared, but those two were my best friends!

And Crag the ganker, aka Tobias Asser, had seemed a total moron, but it turned out he was a good guy and a reliable friend.

Just like Trixie the idiot, who first attacked me and took away the donuts brought for Andrew Clayton. Not alone, of course, but with other inhabitants of Cali Bottom.

Like drunk Patrick O’Grady, who gave me a curse so strong that the game mechanics just gave up.

Like the lich Dargo, who killed me hundreds of times before giving me a Threat ability.

Like Otto Hinterleaf and Horvac Onegut. They had been the definition of sworn enemy to me!

Like Hairo Morales and Wesley Cho, who had both tried to blackmail me. The latter really had been our worst enemy in the sandbox; nobody else played so many mean tricks on us even in big Dis.

And now? Now I could call any of them friend, or at least ally.

And the more friends I had, the stronger the abilities from the Sleepers. Take Sleeping Invulnerability — the more people in my group, the less damage I take. And Unity — what was that if not a direct indication of what to do?

Without temples, I could gather thirteen followers. With one — a hundred and sixty-nine. With two — twenty-eight thousand five hundred and sixty-one. What about three? That depended on what the algorithm was, and I hadn’t figured that out yet. But we were talking about a minimum of almost five million. If we could bring in that many followers, then we won. Nobody would be able to resist us. Every priest would get a million points to every stat they had. With that much stamina, their health would be measured in the billions. And then it was good game, well played, no rematch. Dis would never be the same again.

And that meant I should use my final hours in the Demonic Games as fruitfully as possible — both for my future gameplay in terms of my strategy of turning enemies into allies, and as part of my goal of gaining Concentrated Life Essence. Because how could I make a deal with the champion once they were named? I’d be on Kharinza and in Cali Bottom, while the winner would be in the forest palace of elvish king Eynyon, inaccessible to me. And then probably in their own castle. And what would stop them from just drinking the essence right away? No, I had to act now!

My doubts and fears disappeared, no trace of my despair remained, it all burned out in the landscape of opportunity opening up before me. My emotions ebbed. I started to think rationally not only about the future, but about my own position in the Games.

Formally, the organizers were right, contact with the outside world is forbidden. But even from the few conversations that I couldn’t help but overhear, I learned that this rule was taken with a pinch of salt. Some used an assistant’s comm to call their children or answer business calls, some checked the comments on Disgardium Daily in search of messages from friends or family. Which is why, when I asked Kerry for the favor, I felt sure there was nothing strange about it. I wasn’t trying to get information on the Games or the other contestants, after all. In the end, I’d gotten no in-game advantage from contacting Ed.

Could I hope for help from the viewers? I doubted my meditation under the dome was much fun for them, but I gave them a show at the end of the day. After my fight with Abaddon, the viewers might be on my side. If it was aired, of course.

I opened my comm and went to Disgardium Daily to read the comments and get a handle on what the viewers thought of my play. I scrolled down the news feed, but couldn’t find anything about my battle, or the demon’s name that I’d revealed. But there was some news that stunned me: “Ian Mitchell, renowned journalist of this publication, has been hospitalized after an aneurysm.”

I felt cold sweat run down my spine. Had Snowstorm decided to get rid of the inconvenient journalist? I thought for a moment, then discarded the notion. Ian was too well-known a figure. Anyway, he had a love of alcohol and cigarettes, and he might not have had enough savings for the usual health procedures.

With me, on the other hand, the corporation wouldn’t stand on ceremony. But something stopped them from taking extreme action, so they were trying to get by with ‘game methods.’ Like today: Snowstorm saw the chance to get