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

next instant, Coover fell down unconscious. The other droid held a shield aloft and bore down on the others like a bulldozer, moving both them and the gathered crowd of onlookers away from Kerry and me. My assistant took advantage of her opportunity to dart into the elevator, pulling me in behind. The first droid curled itself into a ball and rolled toward us, while the second stayed behind to cover our retreat…

Back in the hall of ceremonies, where dinner was already underway, I felt the angry stares from the mages who were out of the Games thanks to me. This was their last supper, a tradition: even contestants who were knocked out had to stay until the morning of the next day, to watch the highlights, give interviews, and if they felt like it, say goodbye to the others. On top of that, they were still holding out hope that the audience would save one of them.

I chewed my food unhurriedly, keeping my head down and trying to shake the feeling that everyone was staring at me.

After dinner, gamesmaster Guy Barron Octius made another appearance to comment on the best moments of the day and declare the results of the viewers’ vote. I raised my head, unsure what to expect. I felt like I gave a good performance. Sure wasn’t boring, at least… But it all depended on how you looked at it. The viewers might see Ghastly Howl and Flight as imba abilities, and the treatment for cheaters was the same in all eras: they were hated and brought low at any opportunity.

Octius spent a good portion of his time showing scenes of my limp body. Not a nice sight, that’s for sure! Especially when the camera zoomed in to show my slack jaw, dripping drool… I wanted to hide my face.

The gamesmaster feigned grief as he described the debuff I was hit with. Then he delighted in my rise to the 50th floor, and made sure to praise the Companions, giving the game designers their due. The Companions, goat-faced creations of the Inferno with gleaming grinning maws, looked as sinister as ever.

“I assure you, the mages Karlesh, Mario, Shade, Ducknose and Pilgrim couldn’t have imagined such a death in their most terrible nightmares! I’m sure they were expecting anything but that when they logged on this morning!

Scenes of the Pitfall swapped to the defeated faces of the mages in their interviews after their final death. It was obvious that they’d just climbed out of their capsules and gone into the corridor, where the journalists were lying in wait for them. Unlike the Readers, the mages took the loss gracefully. They were from different factions and clans, but now a shared defeat united them.

“The worst thing we expected,” Shade murmured, sighing heavily, “was losing progress from maybe dying at Scyth’s hands. We didn’t know what his debuff was, but we hoped it was something bad. Once we saw him under attack from the bosses, we thought we had him…”

“I saw the debuff icon first and read out the description,” Ducknose butted in. “Paralysis! There was no way we were going to fail to knock Scyth out!”

“Right,” Cardinal nodded. “Heh… When his health dropped below 3%, I thought that was it, he was a goner! And then disaster!”

“Something strange happened,” Pilgrim remembered. “My ball lightning almost reached Scyth. He was done for, barely alive! It was a guaranteed one-shot! But the Threat somehow blinked away and the charge missed him. What was that ability? We went through all Scyth’s skills and there was nothing like that!”

Mario and Karlesh declined to comment. The interview cut off and now the mages were shown sitting in the hall. They were seated at a table near Octius and looked gloomier than the clouds over Terrastera.

“Let’s take a closer look and figure it out together!” Octius said sympathetically. “Let’s see! We will now show you what may have been the most dangerous moment for Scyth!”

The holocube lit up, instantly zooming in on my Trixie expression, the bubbles forming at the corners of my mouth and my dumb stare like a drunken ogre, then the camera retreated. It all slowed right down. My character was frozen, his arms hanging loosely, three taut chains of energy glowing behind his back, the ball of lightning suspended three feet from him and about to explode, emitting a crackling electrical discharge only a couple of inches from Scyth. The playback paused.

“Now let’s look very carefully!” Octius shouted.

The tongue of lightning stretched out another half inch and I, still the same shapeless doll with my tongue lolling out, suddenly shot around twenty feet off to one side.

“No, this was no mage’s Blink! This was something else, but what?” Octius smiled coyly and headed towards me. “We have the unique opportunity to put this question to Scyth himself!”

The master of ceremonies moved through the hall on a disc that couldn’t be anti-gravitational — science hadn’t yet reached such heights, — but outwardly it looked close enough; no propellers or jets, just a flat silver disc around three feet across, hovering just above the floor. Another new invention from Snowstorm that hadn’t yet reached the market.

The music faded, the voices and whispers of the contestants quietened. They were all waiting for my explanation. Octius flew closer, gave me a high-five, quietly congratulated me on my clever play and then turned back to the hall:

“My dear friends, I am pleased to present to you a sensation of the Demonic Games! Herald Scyth, also known as Alex Sheppard! A man twice chosen by the audience as the worst player of the day! By now, anyone else would have been ejected from the Games as if catapulted, but not Scyth! Instead, not only has he sent home ten of his fellow contestants, he did it paralyzed! This boy has really stirred the pot today! Whatever