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

“Scyth is mine!” the silver ranger shouted when she saw me.

Her arrow pierced Meister’s chest as he bravely attacked one of the rogues. The gnome dropped to his back, but survived. Michelle managed to hit us both with a Healing Wave before two rogues at once tore her to shreds. My view was blocked, but I could make out several of Meister’s people dogging Destiny, raining strikes down on her…

Who-oo-osh! Something rustled in my inventory. In the heat of battle, I didn’t notice right away that I’d gotten a curse from who knows where:

Overburdened

Your bags are filled with enchanted iron ore. It can’t be used or pulled out. The ore will disappear when the curse ends.

Duration: 30 minute.

“Aiaiaiaaaa!” screamed the fairy chef Laurie as she desperately attacked Marcus.

The orc bruiser swung his club like a baseball bat and sent the breathless fairy flying. A bloody cloud hung at the point of contact.

Marcus cast a glance at me, saw I was still caught in the web, chuckled and attacked Lordmance. That quiet boy with a permanent sleepy expression on his face had apparently answered Roman’s call and was sat on my back, trying to remove Smoothie’s web. His class of mystic allowed him to summon astral beasts by smoking a magical pipe. He managed to materialize one, weak and too small to tear the web, but it disappeared anyway after a sickening crunch and squelch that left only a wet mark of the mystic. The bruiser hit slowly, but every strike dealt colossal damage!

Marcus spat, looked behind him for another target, snarled. Then he walked around me; holding his club to the earth with one hand, he grabbed me from behind by the neck and started tightening his fingers. I struck randomly behind me a few times, but wasn’t fast enough.

“This is the end, Threat.” Foul breath drifted down to me. “Des is going to kill you, and I gotta tell ya, the right to do it cost her a lot. But she won’t lose anything, and the Windsors can afford it…”

“Quetzal and Hellfish are here!” came a cry from the edge of the clearing.

My heart quickened. Was help really here? Hellfish’s appearance cheered me up — Kerry must have gotten my message across, and the Traveler had made a rational decision. But I wasn’t the only one surprised by the arrival of Quetzal’s raid.

Marcus looked to the side and frowned. He shouted and swore, giving out commands:

“Back in formation! Tanks to the front! Rangers, to me! Des, finish off the kid!” I felt fingers closing around my neck, breathed in brokenly, but the orc wasn’t letting go.

“With pleasure,” Destiny wheezed, breathing heavily.

The silver ranger headed toward me from twenty paces away, unslinging her bow as she went. Bloody from head to toe, with half her health gone, she smiled. The way killers in films smile when they finally corner their victim.

What a shame my four-times slower Ghastly Howl wouldn’t work! I still fired one off all the same — instead of a terrifying howl, what came out of my mouth sounded like a dying cow screaming its last.

Destiny deftly drew back her bowstring…

Chapter 19. Escape Pentagram

…BUT DIDN’T HAVE TIME to fire before she froze like a stone statue. Only then did I hear the wail. The sound was like fingernails on a chalkboard amplified a thousand times over. My ears blocked up and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I didn’t bother trying to figure out what it was, just concentrated on my lucky break.

The web had already finished by then. Thanks to the new gear from Meister, I was still at over two-thirds health! Marcus still had his hand around my throat, although his grip had weakened. I twisted, failed to get free, but managed to turn round to face him, then fired off Storm Fists.

Transformed into an immobile mannequin, the bruiser just bared his teeth and twitched, unable to overcome the paralysis. He had a minute-long Deathly Terror debuff, the cause of the petrification.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Marcus withstood a dozen Hammerfists before he finally died. His fingers uncurled.

Now I had a chance to look around. I tried to take off, but fell back down again instantly — I could forget about flying with the Overburdened debuff.

Slow as a snail, I moved toward Destiny to kill her before the debuff ended. As I walked, I looked across the glade. It was littered with the corpses of Meister’s people.

Our enemies were frozen as living statues, becoming defenseless targets for Quetzal and Hellfish’s united group. The two raids of allies numbered a little over twenty, and they feverishly cut down the motionless Markers and Desters, as the players had come to call the members of the two groups.

The fact that they had become allies was clear by the titan destroyer, who put down Destiny’s people in droves, the rider Dave, cutting through the battlefield on his ghostly horse — the little hobbit wielded a narrow blade, slicing his enemies into cabbage, — and Tissa and Infect. The priestess of light imprinted Hand of Nergal on the enemies, and the bard inspired his allies and maligned the enemy with guitar riffs. Arioch the bogatyr, around the same height as a titan, broke spellcaster Youlang in half with one mighty blow from above. A careful and tentative, but joyful thought rose up inside me: Tissa had saved me with her reward, Banshee Queen’s Cry! What was this? Help from a friend, or an order from her leader Quetzal after he decided to protect me again?

The allies worked as a cohesive group: Berstan and Filex the rogues attacked our enemies in the back; Kara the mage, Olaf the warlock, Yen the archer, and the hunters Koba and Perant shot their targets like