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

uttered a spell. In the west, something red flashes as Beelzebub pulls herself to her feet. Six battle flies are rushing in our direction.

The archmage relaxed to the point that he even turned his back to me. How’s that for confidence?

I almost miss the moment the castle is obliterated. A Galileo comet, the third and most powerful meteor spell, slams into it from orbit. Its power is on par with at least forty meteors, and there’s nothing left of the walls or main keep, just an enormous crater. For fifty meters in every direction, the ground is littered with the remains of what were once fortifications.

The battle isn’t in our power to win, no matter how hard we try. Five minutes, and we’re no better than little children. Femida is melted into the wall and can’t move; Ekron in her Beelzebub visage lies at the bottom of the giant crater left by the Galileo comet. She’s alive, though she has hundreds of debuffs that are going to keep her out of the picture for a good while.

Even without turning around, the archmage starts using a sphere of darkness followed by dragon breath and a dwarf hammer. My legs and arms are broken; my ribcage is crushed by a blow from his staff. My whole body is encased in stone up to my neck. And that is how the archmage of the Academy of Magic for all the human lands fights.

Human, Tiberius Sen, Level 3201, archmage

I didn’t take any debuffs, unlike Ekron, so I come to pretty quickly. The archmage just stands there watching as I get myself fixed up.

The crown and the long gray beard, the comfortable doublet with the mountain of amulets and convenient pockets—he’s wearing three non-level items, he’s a universal mage with a +200% bonus for all types of magic, his level is absurd, and he has battle experience coming out of his ears. We didn’t stand a chance. In this moment, I feel like the thought that my journey is going to end here is driving me out of my mind.

The archmage looks at me dubiously, telling me something I wasn’t expecting to hear at all.

“Five years ago, there were rumors of a boy who could use meteors at Level 0. He wounded a god the next day during probation with the Hunters, and half a year later, he killed two gods with one attack before finishing off Margul, the dragon god, in close combat. But what do I see? Six years have gone by, and that inexperienced kid has nothing that can stand up to me! And here I am, far from a god. You dare call yourself Bloody Sagie?”

“I never called myself Bloody Sagie—you all came up with that.”

The archmage thinks to himself. A variety of emotions fight for the upper hand, but the strongest is hope…in me.

“My god left this world, and I want to follow him, but I can’t do that as simply as others might.” Tiberius steps closer. “Look at me very carefully, Sagie. Feel it? I’m 1572 years old, the oldest and strongest mage in the world. I’ve studied you, your story, and your abilities, and I know what you can do with the forbidden magic arts. Even more, I know that you practice them. You wounded Talamei using a simplified self-sacrifice ritual. You made scalable items by sacrificing thousands of intelligent creatures. And there’s more than that you’re hiding inside. Yes, I sense it all!”

Something alien, evil, and all-devouring lurks in the archmage, and I notice that his muscles and ligaments all look poisoned or even dead. But he continues. “But forget that. The secret to my long life isn’t alchemy or Life Magic, like the rest. You can sense what’s inside me—yes, I’m cursed, and I can’t just die. I’m half-living, half-undead. If I die, a lich will take control of my body in whatever condition it’s in, and it has to be destroyed to completely kill me. I saw the recording of the battle in Kurg, so I know that your lich can do the same thing as mine. But I have yet to meet the person who can stop mine. And so, I’m here to talk with you as the strongest dark mage alive today. You have the best chance of killing me as well as the lich who lives inside me.”

I realize why the archmage has placed his hopes on me.

“You have the evil death curse? Why do you want to die? Just remove the curse and live your life.”

“It isn’t that simple, young man. My soul won’t leave this world until the lich is killed, as it’s irrevocably tied to the curse. That was the main condition for my long life.”

“So, talk to the gods. I’m sure they’d be happy to find a replacement and help someone of your status with the curse. Why can’t they just remove it?”

The archmage sighs and shakes his head.

“That was the condition my god laid down. I have to die at the hand of a worthy adversary before I can rejoin him. I’ve followed him all my life, and I will follow him into the kingdom of the dead. There’s no way you can understand the depths of my belief in my god and my devotion to him.”

I have suspicions eating at me that need to be confirmed.

“After death, you’re going to be reborn just like your god, right?”

The mage responds well. Not a single muscle on his face twitches, though the tempest of emotions whirling through him tells me I’m right. At least, it’s what he’s hoping for.

“I can’t say what will happen after my death. All I want to do is follow my god, and I ask you to help in making that happen. Defeat me in a fight to the death and become the archmage. There isn’t a single mage in this