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

“What ya lookin’ for in the woods? Don’t go to the woods! Wait at the bottom, we’ll come! I’ll give you rings and earrings, young man… Hic! We’ll kick their asses!”

Shaking his fist at an invisible enemy, Meister walked into his room. I headed for my own and then spent some time in the bathroom. Once my stomach had calmed down, I washed, staggered over to my bed and collapsed.

Despite my fatigue, I tossed and turned a long time, going over the events of the day, and when I finally fell asleep I felt like it was only for a few minutes.

I opened my eyes to someone shaking me by the shoulder and shouting:

“Wake up, Alex! The Games are about to begin!”

It was like I was falling, but I was really lying face-down in the pillow. There was a thought bouncing around my skull, remnants of a nightmare — that I’d forgotten to set my alarm, overslept the Games and my defenseless character had been killed by the gankers. And Smoothie had arms like Abaddon’s…

“Good morning, Alex!” Kerry’s shout woke me up.

My former assistant stood by the bed, holding out a Home Doctor toward me. Her other hand held a cardboard coffee cup. I rubbed my eyes, then pinched myself, but she didn’t go anywhere — I wasn’t imagining her.

“Come on, Alex, the clock’s ticking! You’re late!”

“What time is it?” I said, barely managing to push the words through my dry throat. “How am I here? Weren’t you fired?”

“The court of contestants let you off, and that means I get another shot too. You’re my responsibility again, kiddo! I heard you went to the club last night. Come on, put the wristbands on, let the doc set you right.”

“Hellfish! I need to talk to him before the Games start!” I jumped out of bed. “What time is it?”

“Ten minutes to the start…”

“I need to talk to Hellfish right now! I need to warn him…”

“Tell me what to tell him. I’ll try to catch him and pass it on. In the meantime, hurry up!”

“Tell him I’m in the forest south of the village and I’m surrounded by gankers… Oh, and! Destiny's raid will join them and I have a penalty… What else? Bottom line, I! Need! Help!”

“Got it, consider it done,” Kerry nodded. “Now get moving!”

My helper left me the coffee and ran out of the room. I spent the next five minutes jerkily getting dressed, spraying some tooth elixir into my mouth at the same time. That damn Home Doctor took its time cleansing the alcohol from my blood, so although I managed to freshen up some, I ended up even later than I expected.

Gulping down coffee on the way, I ran to the immersion level, burst into my capsule room while pulling my clothes off and climbed into the capsule just seconds before the start.

The new day meant that Scyth would appear with full health, mana and spirit. So my plan was simple: try to fly away, and if that didn’t work, then use Clarity to quickly kill the gankers and get away before Destiny’s raid got there. Whether I could do it depended on what the debuff was.

The capsule filled with intragel, the world flickered and I woke up in the Cursed Chasm. The figures of Smoothie, Phobos and Riker were already appearing nearby. I activated Flight and started climbing… Very slowly. As if in one of those dreams where you’re running away from danger at a snail’s pace.

A debuff icon explained why:

Sloth’s Blessing

The soul of a sloth has taken a liking to you. Sloths are famous for conserving energy by moving slowly. Your metabolism is slowed and your movement speed, attack speed and cast speed is 75% slower than usual.

Duration: 24 hours.

Smoothie the mage found me with her eyes and threw her net without hesitation. Riker went into Stealth. Phobos picked up his dropped trident from the ground, drew his sword and bared his teeth, activated Charge…

Chapter 18. Enemy of the Inferno

I STOOD ALMOST dead center in the wide clearing. The nearest trees were too far away, and my quarter-speed Flight wasn’t enough to get me there in time, but my spirit bar was at 100%, guaranteeing me seventy-four seconds of Clarity, minus whatever I spent on spirit moves.

The slow made Ghastly Howl useless — the distorted howl didn’t work on enemies. So, roughly three feet in the air, glancing down at a twisted orc face, I activated Clarity and only then howled — just in case that made it work.

“Die-e-e-e-e-e-eee…” the orc shouted, his furious roar stretching out in my slowed perception of time.

This activation wasn’t like the other times. Entering this state before had practically stopped time, but now the world kept moving, just slower. But even that was a good thing: Clarity not only fully compensated for the speed loss from Sloth’s Blessing, but it also doubled my speed in comparison to the rest of the world. But that meant that my sped-up howl sounded so high-pitched that the ability was wasted, scaring nobody:

“Woo-woo!”

Phobos kept gaining on me, sped up in his warrior Charge. The orc, his head down like a charging bull, was a couple of paces away when I decided not to spare the spirit and activated a ranged Hammerfist. The thickening air took on a ghostly impression of my fist, with Rindzin’s Ghostly Talon extending out of it. It smashed into Phobos’s chest with the force of a cargo flyer, throwing him down in Surprise. The warrior’s armor gave way and exploded at the point of contact. Blood slowly fountained out. In my accelerated perception, the warrior’s corpse raised up into the air and fell down like a leaf on a gust of wind.

My first kill!