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

Looking around, I realized there was nobody to attack. Our enemies were huddling in spirit form in the center of the cemetery. Hox saw some other resurrected allies and ran after them.

I flew up and saw that all our allies who had realized what was happening had moved out of the graveyard and gathered a hundred paces away. They were hiding, clustering in defensive formations in the bushes, but some kept poking their heads out to call over newly revived allies.

The hedge parted before Hox, letting him inside. The role of tank went to destroyer Quetzal, warrior Kart, bogatyr Arioch and three paladins: Blondiecat, Equilibrium and Yermak. Behind them, around twenty yards into the woods, the surviving crafters and clothies hid.

I spent another minute looting the fallen until I got overloaded, and only then flew to my allies. I picked it up by hand to avoid filling my bags with garbage.

Quetzal and Hellfish watched the space around the now bare graveyard anxiously. The titan still looked powerful, but was clad in rags like a hobo. The werewolf looked no better, and instead of his rifle, he now clutched a gnarled club.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said, approaching them and unloading my loot. From outside, it looked as if gear was dropping straight out of thin air from two yards up. “I think there’s a decent rifle here, Hellfish. Take a look, I’m going for another pass.”

Stealth meant they only saw me when I was right next to them. Leaving them stunned, I went back to the graveyard, took out a couple of resurrected enemies, picked up the remnants of the loot with Magnetism and returned to my people. This time, the flood of equipment and weaponry was less of a surprise to my allies.

“Scyth,” the werewolf sniper nodded impassively. “Stay in stealth, just in case…”

The few survivors from his group greeted me too, along with Quetzal’s people. They were already rooting through the gear.

“Thanks for helping at the Pitfall,” I said to the leaders. “Those seconds might have saved me.”

“We weren’t headed there to help you exactly,” Quetzal muttered. He had put on some gear and looked more like a gladiator again. “You didn’t show up, and we realized you were in trouble. There was no point in staying hidden, they would have found us anyway… So we decided to fight.”

“And die a worthy death,” Hellfish added. “Not like those other guys.”

He cast a glance back. The crafters looked dazed. Meister and Roman sat silently, their faces in their hands. The jeweler’s shoulders shook. Bloomer seemed in better spirits, but even he was deep in thought, pacing back and forth, muttering poetry with his hands behind his back.

The crafters couldn’t see me — the system didn’t consider them allies since they weren’t in the raid. The poor guys were exhausted — it had only been two hours since the game day began, but they had all died at least once. Meister and the others who spent an hour in the tavern were lucky, but those that began the morning in the graveyard had a rough time of it. I hoped that at least some of them had gotten out, otherwise my attack and the capture following it were pointless.

“They didn’t take it easy on them,” Quetzal said. “We’ve seen it all in the Arena, we’re used to pain, but it’s all a shock to the system for these guys. No pain filters here, after all. It’s no wonder their raid is out of it, to put it mildly.”

“All the same, I take back what I said. They aren’t all cowards,” Hellfish said. “We’d almost reached the top when Laurie found us. The fairy told us what happened to you — she hid in the bushes after you freed her to recover and grow back her wings. She saw you getting dragged away and came looking for us…”

I looked around, but didn’t see Laurie. Quetzal answered my unvoiced question:

“She was with us when we attacked Marcus. On her last life…”

Grinding my teeth, I looked over my allies — less had survived than I’d hoped. And almost all were below level four. Some had only one life left.

“How many of ours survived?”

“Twenty or so,” Quetzal answered. “I’ll add Meister’s people to the raid to count up…” He turned around and shouted: “Meister, Roman, Bloomer, I made you squad leaders. Invite your guys, and hurry up!”

“Give Scyth a squad too, so he can invite any of our people he runs into,” Hellfish said.

Before answering the invitation, I left my group with Destiny. Her presence would raise questions, and this wasn’t the time.

“Let’s wait a couple more minutes,” I suggested. “Someone might be stuck in the graveyard, and if they are, then I need to be close by.”

I told them about who I’d thrown into the Pitfall. When he heard Youlang’s name, Hellfish grunted:

“She’ll save herself before she hits the bottom! She has Feather and Levitation!”

“Marcus will escape too,” Quetzal sighed. “He’s a bruiser, he has Breakthrough. He can use it to move through the air! I doubt he survived, but he could have moved to land on the stairs.”

“So he might already be at the graveyard? And Youlang is somewhere in the Pitfall and…”

“The others probably weren’t eaten by Abaddon either,” the titan destroyer said, finishing my thought. “Takes a long time to fall down there. They could have thought of something. The lopher has Sail from his elephant ears. Sounds stupid, sure, and he won’t fly like Dumbo, but… Caville has his version of a paladin bubble too, he could use that to survive the fall and escape from Abaddon. So nothing is certain yet.”

“I’m going to go check the graveyard,” I said.

Leaving my allies, I returned to the churchyard and hovered, looking for friends and foes and considering what to do