The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series, Dan Sugralinov [the read aloud family TXT] 📗

Or the gates of floor 666, which definitively killed the one who lifted the seal, had different mechanics.

The pain soon pushed all other thoughts from my head. It was comparable to the pain inflicted by a Living Sieve, but this time the tentacles of the seal seemed to stretch through to my very heart, tearing and burning it from the inside. My whole world turned into blinding pain. As Oyama said, it was just weakness leaving my body, but that thought wasn’t much help in the moment. I shouted and twitched in convulsions, my hand stuck to the seal, my legs giving out beneath me. In the end, my usual mantra ‘it’s just a game, my real body is safe!’ was enough to help me grit my teeth through it.

Despot shifted from foot to foot nearby, breathing heat on my back and even grunting in what might have been sympathy. My eyes darkened. The pain of that first attempt paled in comparison with this. The lazily shifting numbers of the cast and the boosts to my Resilience were all that kept me sane:

Resilience level increased: +4. Current level: 52.

 

Removing seal: 54.165%… 54.44%… 54.715%…

 

Wh-wh-oo-oo-oosh! I collapsed into ashes again. I’d never wished for death so badly!

You are dead.

 

Remaining time to respawn 9… 8… 7…

 

My desire to get this over with fought with an urge to delay the torture as I hung patiently in the great nothing of resurrection…

But then I hit a snag. The timer counted down to zero, and I was sent to the Cursed Chasm cemetery.

Second Life didn’t proc, and I finally realized: the perk must have diminishing returns, dramatically dropping the activation chance after every death in a short time period.

The world glowed in monotonous black-and-white through the semitransparent interface. Players breathed life into the Cursed Chasm for only a short time. They would leave, the graveyard would be empty again, grass would grow over the trampled paths, vines would ensnare the leaning old tombstones, but right then… I found myself in a hellscape.

Just like after my last death here, I didn’t see my body — I had become a spirit, one of many hovering at the graveyard, fearing to resurrect. The figures of the living stalked the cemetery. Marcus’s raid wreaked havoc, cutting down defenseless contestants from Meister and Destiny’s groups. Somehow, some of Destiny’s people were among the attackers… And they were killing their allies of yesterday!

Laurie the level 2 fairy chef resurrected before my eyes, then instantly fell. I was almost right on time!

A little off to the side, penpusher Jokemaster and mystic Lordmance were fighting back, but didn’t last long: the first folded up bristling with arrows, the second puffed on a pipe full of mystical herbs and threw himself bare-handed at dark knight Caville, and even managed to cover him in acrid smoke, but fell to a single careless sword-swing. After wrapping the wailing mystic’s guts around his blade, Caville pulled the weapon out, then wiped it fastidiously on his victim’s shirt.

The gnomish engineer Joker from Meister’s raid appeared right next to me and started running away, but didn’t get far before an icicle pinned him to the ground. The second spear from the ice mage finished him off.

I looked for Destiny, but couldn’t see her anywhere — my spirit was bound to the one spot, and I couldn’t see all those involved in the slaughter from where I was. I decided to take care of the silver ranger later — I had bigger fish to fry for now. I needed to stir up the enemy ranks, buy time for my allies to escape.

Your soul’s connection to your body is fading!

 

Return to it, otherwise you will be forcibly resurrected with the Despair debuff (-25% health)!

 

Forced resurrection in: 00:59… 00:58…

 

I’d seen enough. I revived and immediately went into Stealth. At rank two, nobody had a chance to detect me. I might not even need to use Clarity.

The main thing was to avoid the random area-of-effect spells firing off all over. All the space around me flared with multicolored flashes of enemy magic, and whirlwinds stormed their way through the churchyard here and there. They juggled deadly sparks of all colors that ground up their almost level-zero victims. The screams and cries of the wounded and the dying, the clank of metal, the whistle of arrows, the hum of roaring magic all melded together into a single deafening song of war.

Laurie the fairy chef, for some reason in a hurry, revived again. No sooner did she appear than she tried to fly away, but a dwarven bullet broke her wing. Twitching, Laurie fell at the feet of vampire rogue Riker. He waved a bony hand and the poor fairy threw up her arms to defend herself… But the sadist changed his mind. He took out a blade and quickly flicked his wrist, cutting off both her wings. The fairy flopped on the ground like a fish out of water, blood spurting from the stumps on her back.

“Now try with your legs, dumb little fly!” Riker said, grinning and stamping his feet, but the fairy stayed sitting. Tears flowed down her young face, but she was crying soundlessly. “Don’t you want to run away? Too proud, huh?”

I remembered that Laurie was Clarissa Giovanni, a friend of Joseph’s. She was an old woman over eighty, and I hated to see how Riker was treating her. It would be wrong to show myself. First I needed to find Marcus, watch and hear what he was planning, and only then methodically pick out and kill the leaders! Then there was a chance that the fighters would concentrate their efforts on me, and the crafters would have time to get away.

But my mind gave in, my anger overflowed. Clenching my teeth, I attacked.

Less than a second of