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

course, but there was nothing I could do! My hits dealt no damage. They grabbed me by the arms and legs, started carrying me off somewhere. It seemed a raid was forming not against the boss of floor one, but against the Threat. Rare unity…

“Throw the bastard into the Pitfall!”

The face of a titan loomed over me, a label flashing above him: Quetzal, Titan, level 1 Summoned Destroyer. He laughed and pointed to his name.

“You wanted to know my nickname, small fry? You’ll remember it, I promise!”

“Of course I will,” I said. “You won’t mind me paying you a visit after the Games, right?”

Quetzal spat and disappeared into the crowd. I forgot him about him right away; I had more pressing concerns. It was obvious I was about to die, but what then? Where was the respawn point? Would Cursed Cripple persist through death? Where would I run afterwards? I’d spent a long time lying awake the previous night, thinking about my strategy for the Games, but no matter how you plan, life always has a way of going awry. Sure, I’d expected something like this, but not right away! The village was a peaceful zone! I thought they’d ambush me or gank me inside the Pitfall…

I was dragged out of the village, and apart from the ones holding me, all I could see was an eternally dusky sky, empty of sun and stars. I couldn’t tell where the zone’s light came from.

Someone spat right in my face. The brown-skinned orc Marcus gripped my arm tightly.

“Tail between your legs now, huh?” he laughed. “And you were so brave before, ha-ha! What now, buddy? Out of gas, huh?”

“He never had any to begin with!” the spellcaster Youlang answered. “What do you think, Marcus, should we feed him to the boss after all? We can make him break the seal and throw him inside…”

“Nah! No need to complicate things, we throw him off and that’s that! He’ll die, no doubt about it!”

“Are you sure it’ll work?” Tissa said, appearing nearby. “He’ll definitely die?”

“Of course,” Meister the gnome answered affably, his quavering voice easily recognizable. “I’ve fallen down before. The pathway down over there is ve-e-ery narrow! Some moron pushed me over the edge once! You fall for a long time and it seems slow, but the end is the same no matter how high your level. Nobody can survive that fall. Game mechanics!”

I couldn’t see the jeweler, but I could clearly imagine him raising his index finger.

“Can’t we just carry him outside the village and kill him there?” Infect asked.

I couldn’t see the bard, which was a shame — I would have tried to stare a hole in him.

“C’mon, kid, are you new?” Meister answered. “The whole Cursed Chasm is a peaceful zone on the first day. But the Pitfall is another matter entirely. Like night and day!”

“What if you die? Where do we respawn?”

Damn, he never shut up! That said, Infect’s questions were to my benefit.

“The same place we all end our fleeting journey, kid! The graveyard. But that won’t help Scyth, we’ll just grab him and throw him off again. And then that’s that, the end of our little Threat, hee-hee-hee!”

The others added to Joseph’s high-pitched laughter, and judging by the number of voices, at least half the contestants were part of the procession. Maybe all of them — I doubted the mob would let anyone start grinding while the rest were solving a problem for the whole group.

I listened to the people and tried to make out the village, but I couldn’t see anything through the mass of players around me. Only once did I see a local through the crowd: Ogden, Tavern Owner.

Finally, the procession stopped. The earth turned blackened, ash-covered. I caught the scent of cinders, felt heat rolling over me in waves — the Pitfall was near.

“Cast him off! Cast him off!” the crowd started to chant.

The noise of the crowd grew, but Quetzal’s roar cut them off:

“Hold here! Everyone shut up!” He waited for silence and then spoke again, addressing everyone at once: “Due to the new rules and Amnesia, the old plan won’t work! We need to discuss this.”

The titan destroyer and a few other leaders of the conspirators moved off to one side. While they discussed what to do, the rest shared their impressions. Loran, the shapeshifter Messiah, pushed his way through to me. He was in human form and looked similar to his real-world self. After seeming so friendly before, now he leaned over me and whispered:

“Sorry in advance, Scyth. Last night’s agreement is canceled. I can’t go against the crowd. No hard feelings, right? Nothing personal, you’re cool. I’ll be happy to hang out after the Games…”

“Quiet! Hey!” shouted Frankie the dwarf, one of my neighbors at the opening ceremony. He kept on shouting until he had the crowd’s attention. The cacophony slowly subsided. “You do know that Scyth can fly, right?” the jockey asked. “He’ll just fly away after he resurrects! Have you thought of that?”

“Of course!” said a familiar voice from off to the side.

Quetzal pushed his way through the crowd, stood next to me and turned to the others.

“Here’s how it’s going to go, people! Stay calm, we figured all this out yesterday. All Scyth’s abilities are learned! The only thing we have to worry about is his ability to fly. We don’t know how much mana he’ll need for that, or whether he’ll have enough in the first place, but we’d better make sure.”

“What about his teleportation?”

“That won’t help him!” Infect shouted. “It’s useless at level one, and has a long cast time…”

I ground my teeth. You bastard, Malik. You’ll regret this!

“Alright,” Quetzal said, satisfied. “Destiny’s group will throw the Threat…”

“With pleasure!” a woman interrupted him, her voice smoky and luxurious.