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

“There’s going to be a lot of food for Abaddon today, Marcus Jansson, and you’re the first bite!”

Still ignorant of his fate, he began to fall, his brown face still frozen in fear. Once he got control of his character back, there would be nothing he could do.

The people in the clearing were still running around in Fear when I got back… Very slowly, but their poses and positions had definitely changed. The Ghastly Howl didn’t hit Destiny. She had already pulled out her bow and loosed an arrow at Urkish’s face.

The arrow swam lazily through the air and had moved only a couple of feet by the time I took off again, this time with a new cargo — Inchito. The lopher was closer to me, but why not let the silver ranger enjoy a little vengeance? I considered the light priest the second most dangerous enemy after Marcus.

After the third snack for the high demon — spellcaster Youlang — I only had enough Clarity left for two or three runs, which allowed me to add Urkish and Caville to Abaddon’s diet.

Returning to the others, I put them down with ordinary Hammerfists to gather all my enemies in one place — the graveyard, then went back to normal speed to save a few seconds of Clarity just in case. Magnetism pulled in loot.

Only then did Destiny see me.

“Thanks,” she said. She wanted to say something else, but stopped herself.

Not answering, I grabbed her beneath the arms and carried her to the village with Flight. There was nobody on the street except NPCs — Meister’s people must have already been ejected from their private rooms, and were now being killed at the graveyard. I had to hurry.

“What next?” Destiny asked when I dropped her off on the ground.

I took out the loot and threw it at her feet so as not to lose my Talon:

“Take whatever you want, keep the rest safe. Then go to the tavern and wait there. Don’t stick your nose out until I come get you!” The rest I said while taking off: “The way there is safe, all the enemies are at the graveyard. Run!”

There was no time for conversation. Every second could cost someone’s life. I’d done a lot, but there was still plenty of work to do — now I had to save my people, wipe out my enemies, and only then would I be able to think about the rest. Including Destiny…

As I flew closer to the churchyard, I left Stealth. I needed to save my spirit.

The graveyard blazed with the flashes of cast spells. Metal clanked, the wounded groaned and cursed, the attackers laughed triumphantly.

“Hope you die!” I heard a painfully familiar voice say, and rushed to my allies’ aid.

I had no time to take a good look around, but it wasn’t hard to tell friend from foe. Almost all my allies were garbed in basic canvas gear, with some missing equipment. The enemies paraded around in full armor or magic cloth gear.

Every strike brought death. I went into a battle frenzy, a state in which nothing remained but bloodthirst. Like a furious beast, I hit every enemy I could reach, and when a target was too far away, I destroyed anyone closer and then chased down my enemy, not letting them escape. The headless enemy raid divided into individual groups which then split off in various directions instead of uniting when they sensed danger. Now the fearsome raid was more like a scattering of fleeing roaches, which I kept on crushing, crushing, crushing…

My fist broke through the back of a fleeing elf girl and burst out of her chest. A second strike took off the head of a minotaur, who screamed and fell, his hooves twitching. As I looked at my third target, I was surprised at his rare race — a draconid! There was no time to look closer before my Hammerfist caved in his scaled armor and sent the dragon-man flying.

I was no longer using Clarity, instead attacking with the usual flow of time, but Flight allowed me to move far faster than on the ground, and my Hammerfists fired from Stealth must have seemed to my enemies some terrible punishment from a fearsome god. Anyone watching the reckoning from the outside would think the bodies were exploding in fountains of blood all on their own, heads smashing like overripe melons.

I had learned my lesson from the morning; this time I stayed silent, tried to make no noise. After each attack, I carefully watched to see whether Stealth fell, so that I could go straight into Clarity if it did. After all, Smoothie was still around somewhere with her Ephemeral Web of Pacification, and the other contestants might have another surprise like Overburdened up their sleeve. I had no right to take risks. Any delay meant the downfall of my allies.

One of the ones I killed five minutes ago in the forest learned what was happening from the logs and shouted:

“It’s Scyth! Use crowd co…” And started choking on his own crushed jaw.

It was hard to control or stun an invisible target. And they had about as much chance of detecting me, with three times their level and a highly advanced ability to remain in stealth even in combat, as sandbox noobs had of taking down a Ravager.

I cut through them, and even the most desperate enemies stopped rushing to resurrect after their second or third death. The graveyard had already been littered with corpses, but I tripled them.

Finishing off an unfamiliar centaur — Rindzin’s Ghostly Talon sliced open his neck and he fell down dead, — I shot toward another reviver, pulled back my arm to strike and… stopped. Before me stood the gawping gnome Hox, a tailor from Meister’s