Gestation, John Gold [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

all come in pairs. I’m not going to make it to the five hundred I was hoping for.

Sun-eater ring

The great wolf Fenrir was a terror of his time. Many monsters in the world suffered in the face of his strength, though Fenrir was punished for biting the hand of a god once. Since then, nobody has heard of him, and one of his toys is all that’s left.

Effect:

Stamina +5

Athleticism +7

Survivability +3

Strength +7

Intellect +3

Requirement: Scalable item

Durability: Indestructible, with damage to it taken out of the owner’s health

∞ ∞ ∞

How strong do you have to be to bite the hand of a god?

This time, I emphasize strength and stamina. The more my victims have of each, the more pronounced they are in the ring’s effects.

I end up having to venture farther into the desert, boosting my resistance to fire and mental damage as I go. My cart starts to fill up. If it’s going to be like this the whole time, I’m going to have to sew new bags.

One interesting thing about the desert is the variety of fauna. At the beginning of my trip, I just came across small monsters who occasionally formed groups. The deeper I’ve gone, the stronger they are. Now, in most cases, I get loners, though they’re incredibly powerful.

In a week, I find a good stone area and Level-400 monsters who throw in some magic.

Monster, Lamia, Level 402

She’s half-woman, half-snake, and her attempt to come at me with a mental attack is met with a powerful defense. An hour later, I’ve collected my first dozen of her sisters. The pile of womanly bodies with snake tails looks beautiful, of course, but dragging them all around is tough. Just one of them weighs as much as ten men. Even in Hell, they weren’t this heavy.

It’s evening. I’m up to my normal ritual on the stone area, and I have my pile of lamias to work with. Just another ceremony with eighty-five sacrifices.

Red master ring

The Red Master was a well-known ruler, though not many people know him by that name. There were no women in his harem; only slave girls. He collected them on his many travels, always charming his victims before carrying them out in his red stole.

Effect:

Speed +4

Agility +2

Survivability +2

Morale +7

Intellect +7

Wisdom +3

Requirement: Scalable item

Durability: Indestructible, with damage to it taken out of the owner’s health

∞ ∞ ∞

That’s interesting. It’s my first item to add speed. The additions to my intellect and wisdom make sense: lamias use charm to defeat their opponents.

I decide to use nothing but lamias to make the rest of my five rings since they give me the best combination for magic damage. Plus that speed.

Finally, I get what I’m looking for, so it’s time to make some things.

∞ ∞ ∞

War is the destiny of men, at least, that’s what Leon thought. That day, he had been able to emerge victorious near Romada. Four clans had attacked the castle of the Golden Hand, and all they’d suffered was the loss of two of their own. Their assault had led them right into an ambush that also exploited the lowered guard Leon had been anticipating.

That evening, Leon’s military alliance, with the support of Margul, was going to fight a pitched battle with the combined forces of the young gods. The battle of Romada, like the other six, were all diversions.

The start of the battle was sudden and well planned. A group of mages teleported to the front lines and launched a suicidal attack, creating several incredibly powerful fire vortexes before succumbing to a hail of blows. Explosions rang out along the right flank. The second group of mages was using meteors to demolish the enemy formation. The enemy decided to take out as many as they could with one blow.

“Raise the shields and prepare the archers. We’re going to create a field that will increase their range.”

All this was yet another diversion. Leon sent his own group of mage killers around to the opponent’s rear. This was when the main battle supposed to begin, as soon as the signal was given. Leon and Margul were going to handle the gods.

Margul soared over the field of battle in the form of a giant dragon. He was much larger than ordinary dragons, at least five times as big. His aura engulfed everyone fighting below. Leon couldn’t muster the strength to do the same, and the issue was Margul’s followers. They were in every corner of the world, living in almost every territory on the planet.

The flow of belief energy—prana—depended on the number of followers each god had as well as how they were worshipped. The geography of where the true believers were located was important, too—the more there were in a region, the more powerfully the god could express his abilities there. Their supply of strength was in the astral and tied to the world via an altar in the main temple of their cult. The better the altar, the stronger the god could appear in the real world. There were all kinds of requirements for how to improve altars, all of which had to do with the believers and where they were located. Once those requirements were met, the god could select a path for development and move up into the large pantheon. Leon was at that point just a god in a small pantheon without that many followers.

Thunder crashed on the enemy’s side, followed by a flash that illuminated the entire field.

In the commotion, Leon was the only one who could see the scale of the disaster.

The gods had combined their strength for a single, exceedingly powerful attack on Margul. The lightning that struck him distorted space, opening the path for all kinds of beasts to arrive from the astral. The dragon lord himself, his back scorched, tumbled to the ground, though he immediately tried to pull himself up. The entire army was hit with debuffs, losing both their hearing and vision.

The enemy army, forty thousand strong, moved in, and the war began.

∞ ∞ ∞

Margul got in touch with