Limitless, John Gold [best novels of all time .TXT] 📗

body, the curves of your actual figure. I’ll never have your scent, see you blush, listen to your real voice.”

The girl let his hand go and took a couple steps away.

“No, you aren’t getting anything.”

That didn’t bother Isaac in the least.

“You don’t understand. I get that you don’t accept my feelings, but please, let me stay with you. I don’t care who you live with, who you love, or who you sleep with; all I need is to know that you’re happy, and that I can continue watching you. You’re my sun, my love, my family, my entire world. You’re what gives my life meaning.”

Femida couldn’t help but be embarrassed. Isaac had never said anything half so flattering.

“Your life is your choice, so follow whoever you want.”

The girl turned away to hide the telltale flush creeping across her cheeks.

“In that case, I’m going to follow you and live for your sake.”

Femida realized what Isaac meant but didn’t say aloud. I’m going to protect you, darling. Again, he would be a weapon in her hand, her fortress, the sacrifice on the altar of her happiness. She knew that even if she didn’t know how.

Isaac took her tenderly by the hand and led her over to the enormous window, both of them looking out to see whales swimming on the other side. He was twenty-four; Femida was twenty-three. Both of them looked like teenagers. When Isaac felt that the pause was dragging on too long, he decided to ask the question that was worrying them both.

“Where do you think Sagie is right now? He misunderstood everything. That keeper, whatever he was, set you up; from Sagie’s point of view, you tried to keep him from attacking the keeper by stabbing him in the back. That drop of light was a trap to get you to throw your trident at Sagie.”

Femida barely had time to process what he said before a message popped up in front of her.

Sagie blacklisted you.

Sagie deleted you from his contact list.

 

“Idiot! I’m going to tear your head off!”

Isaac was perplexed.

“What? What did I… Oh, you moron!”

“He deleted you, too?”

“Yep. And the Hunters are saying he blacklisted and deleted all of them. He’s cutting ties.”

Femida glanced over at the giant whale and realized that she had to fly over to Sagie and explain everything. Finally, he would realize what it meant to be her chosen one.

Two portals flashed open on the other side of the room.

“I think that’s a hint for us to part ways. Isaac, you’re going to find me, right? Feel free to send me a message.”

The young man smiled in parting and walked into his portal first. As it closed behind him, Femida got a message from Akino. She was in another room in the interworld. When Femida stepped through her portal, she ended up in her own room, as well. She was without armor, though she still had her Valkyrie sword and jewelry. Evidently, players all had a room in the interworld.

Welcome to Papilio

∞ ∞ ∞

Akashi waited almost twenty-four hours for Tiamat to come back. He had time to get some sleep, measure how many strides it took to get across the room, figure out the problem with the unhappy masses, and work on quite a few other issues besides. Regardless of how many there were, he was able to take care of them all. Finally, a portal opened, and the senior officer in the order of knights, also the senior judge in the trial of humankind, walked out.

“Listen carefully and don’t interrupt. Nothing I’m about to tell you can ever be repeated, recorded, or even hinted at. This conversation never happened. For as long as there is no keeper in Project Chrysalis, I, as the senior judge, have access to the raw logs of everything that ever happened. This usually happens once every astronomical year when the keeper leaves for the council, but this is different. The keeper made things unbelievably hard for Sagie from the very beginning, battering his intellect and psyche to push him to the edge. He was selected as a sacrifice, at least, the keeper had everything in place for that to happen. Sagie made it through Hell, where the keeper got involved in the trial to ensure that he was constantly under psychological stress. Sagie ran like a rat from enemy to enemy until he grew strong enough to kill them. After that, the keeper weakened his emotional susceptibility using a seventh-order effect on his mental body. Sagie didn’t understand that, and he couldn’t see the message in the chat about how his sensitivity had been intentionally boosted. He started feeling the emotional pressure that mental auras exert twice as powerfully as he should have.

“Congratulations! The kid turned out to be smart enough to think up and create activated weapons in primitive conditions. The keeper didn’t have anything to do with that, though he did step into the trial and almost kill Sagie. When Idzumi showed up, the keeper decided to summon an officer from another world to wipe Sagie’s character. The boy didn’t have a shot at winning except for the fact that the officer was stupid enough to showboat in front of his victim. Idzumi saved Sagie at the last minute, addressing the keeper directly. In Hell’s ninth trial zone, the giants had an expanded detection range. There was interference with the boy’s seventh-order mental body, too, to the point that I didn’t even notice the changes. But Sagie got lucky again. Idzumi decided to cut the trial short and send him back into the real world. I confiscated the weapons he made and the abilities he picked up, all in keeping with the rules for testing new civilizations.

“After that, the keeper kept throwing up new challenges for Sagie, pushing his psyche and intellect far beyond normal bounds. There was the supposedly random encounter between the boy and Idzumi’s pet, the goddess’ curse, and the meeting with Talamei, not to mention the mutual hatred that kindled. All of this