by John Gold
It’s a little trickier for me. My choices are my old outfit, the one priests see in a bloody aura, or Almark’s empty outfit. I decide to compromise, going with my blood suit for battle and Almark’s clothes the rest of the time. I’ll have to just depend on my own strength when I’m him.
“Attribute window.”
Name: Sagie (Almark)
Level: 913
Experience: 6150/2216620 (2210470 left until the next level)
Race: Human
Class Mage
Main attributes
Strength: 924
Agility: 2071
Stamina: 1944
Intellect: 10338
Wisdom: 5154
Available attribute points: 0
Additional attributes
Speed: 500
Athleticism: 705
Morale: 705
Survivability: 705
With my clothes back on, I’m twice as strong. How do I celebrate?
“Meteor. Maximum!”
Birds fly up into the air, waves kick up, and an enormous shadow covers the nearest island. A giant ball of flames pierces the clouds and rushes toward the island. My parting gift slams into the protective dome above the island, causing a commotion among everyone on it.
“What was that?”
“Just a quick hello to an unpleasant doctor. If I had more mana, I’d have made a meteor twice as powerful.”
Given the heightened magic field coming from Tanatos, my mana is back two and a half minutes later. Logically speaking, Project Chrysalis assumes that players will gravitate toward places with a stronger magic field. That’s where mages can maximize their battle potential, after all.
For now, we need to get to Gimza in Radaam, where the next trial for the Hunters will be starting in four days. We’re on our way back to the River of Life and all its natural portals we can use to move around the game.
A shadow streaks toward us under the water before shooting out of it, blocking our path.
Merman, Tilesh: lesser natural god
He has the torso of a young, black-haired man.
Instead of a greeting, a water blade comes flying at us. We jump in unison, though it’s followed up by a water whip. The magic shield I throw up just a second before absorbs all the damage, even if it doesn’t keep us from being thrown backward.
Merman, Malesh: lesser natural god
The two twin mermen apparently get their jollies by giving poor travelers a hard time.
“Team chat.”
“Got it.”
Fem, we can’t win this. I can’t do any more than eight million damage, and they have resistance up to twenty-five. There’s another one in the water. Jump.
“Lightning. Maximum.”
Jumping around like rabbits trying to confuse our tracks, we run across the water, fighting off summoned creatures and blocking ranged attacks. The three mermen work like a group of experienced hunters chasing down their prey. Flying fish, sticky seaweed, and remoras spend the next six hours letting me know that it’s too early for me to think about a trip to Tanatos. I couldn’t even kill one of these little gods, not to mention a squad of them. Rage at my powerlessness bubbles up, anger at how brazen the trio can be without fear of retribution. I’ve only ever felt this much hatred for Leon and Talamei. My black list gets three new names added to it.
Even the worst things come to an end eventually, and we’re able to get to the River of Life before the mermen can use a trawling net. The first time, Femida cuts it with dissection. The second time, the gods join forces to create one that’s much tougher. I’m forced to use leap, a weaker teleportation spell that takes us to a predetermined point. No sooner has dissection failed than we are half a kilometer ahead. But the mermen quickly figure out what happened and change their strategy, with two up ahead of us to hold a huge net underwater while the third follows us from the rear.
“Meteor. Maximum.”
Of course, running into the epicenter of the blast is crazy. The mermen, on the other hand, are impressed by the size and scatter.
Fem, stay close—I’ll cover us.
The magic shield takes most of the damage, and our resistance is strong enough to cover the rest. While I’m coming to, Femida grabs my shell-shocked body and dashes off toward the River of Life, which is just a kilometer away.
And that is how our trip to the Clover clinic ends.
***
Bernard was in the first attacking line, and just wrapping up a large fiery seal. His job was to be the vessel for the spell’s combat power; the other mages in the ritual were there to absorb the recoil. For that, he needed fifteen fire battle mages with about the same level skills. Ten of them dispersed the energy around the outer circle, while four more gave the mage in the center their mana and took on their share of the recoil.
At the center of the seal, Bernard was there to receive the group’s combat power. An hour later, he would be a helpless beginner just starting the game.
The seal was analogous to the final seal for ritual magic—self-sacrifice. It included ten-times amplification and complete depletion for ten days, with ninety-nine-percent reduction for all attributes, faster metabolism, nausea, random stunning, and seizures that made it the last weapon used in a siege.
The battle for Pragada, the home of Veresal, the patron of mages, was in its fifth day. The trinity was able to take the fight to Veresal, though neither side had the strength to win the day. Veresal always leveraged the difference in experience fighting magic duels to win. The trinity fell back to redraw its plans.
Neither storm nor siege could capture the city. The old god had been able to combine the city’s mana storages with his own source of strength in the astral, turning the latter into his main altar. Only Veresal’s death would be enough to capture the city, and he had enough strength to last another month.
War is expensive. One of the trinity’s visages offered an enormous reward to the Black Rose clan, the young gods understanding that normal players could face the god. They needed the mercenaries’ help in their battle with Veresal. The scales needed to be tipped in their direction by blocking Veresal’s divine avatars, not to mention the best mages on his side. And there was no forgetting the three holy saints on the old god’s side. They could stand against any of the young gods, and it fell to the group belonging to Bernard, the second-strongest mage in the world, to counter them.
Margul and his squad covered the mages during the ritual. But Bernard could see for himself how Drako was checking for the fifth time that minute that his sword slid easily out of its sheath.
“What’s wrong?”
Margul took his helmet off and paused before replying.
“I’m positive there’s a third power at work here. It’s like my brain itches—they’re here watching us. I can sense it, almost as if their seeker spirits are palpating me.”
There was still some time left before the ritual, so Bernard used a lesser spirit sphere. It showed all the active immaterial beings within a radius of ten meters. Immediately, no less than a dozen spirits appeared, all looking awfully nasty.
“Demons.”
Margul spat at the skinless snakes slithering around his body.
“That means they’re somewhere nearby, too. Tell the warriors to get ready. We’re going to open a weaker infernal gate. I’ll tell the other clan leaders.”
Four former gods joined the battle, covering the trinity in the fight with Veresal. Their squads cut the divine avatars off from the trinity’s visages as they began their organized assault on the old god. Bernard activated his seal and began shelling Veresal’s holy mages. Lightning, meteors, superior fire elementals, and golems rained down on them. Then, Bernard turned to his deadliest spells. Even if he was cut off from his divine arsenal, he was still none the weaker. He was a god of war, and he had more experience in fights like this than the whole small pantheon put together.
The trinity forced Veresal back onto his heels. Thirty avatars attacked in con
cert with the trinity’s visages, bringing all their weight to bear on the old god’s magic shield. But Veresal’s lips moved incessantly, and Bernard noticed out of the corner of his eye what the old scoundrel was up to. Erdo was one of the strongest spells requiring divine energy. The last time it had been used collectively, it had destroyed the entire Manay Caliphate, turning it into the Hashan Desert. Ten gods had merged their strength to kill Idzumi, but the latter had merely scoffed at their attempt. And there Veresal was. The curse was the last card he had up his sleeve.
High above the field where the trinity’s battle was playing out, a large sphere of light appeared. It pulsed for three seconds as it let out a piercing sound. Then, everything started to go dark. The sphere burned brighter, absorbing all the light as it prepared to detonate.
What set erdo apart was its duration and infinite scale. The more divine energy was invested in it, the larger the area it covered, gobbling up the light around it and exploding when it reached critical mass. Their fear of Idzumi had pushed the gods to expend all their prana on it the last time, and it had been strong enough to destroy an entire nation.
That time, all the warriors in the field died in the first second after the explosion. The trinity’s avatars lasted another four, though even their shields were powerless to stand up to the destructive power. All three of their visages were thrown to the ground by the shock wave. The siege machines were crippled, the army camp was razed to the ground, and the fertile soil layer burned away to reveal the rock underneath. Only the old god stood tall, maintaining his magic shield. A moment later, and he was standing atop one of the trinity’s visages.
“Worthless creatures calling yourself gods! Know the wrath of a true god!”
The eyes of the man lying on the ground grew wide with fear.
“Please…”
Global notification: Artos, a god of the small pantheon, is dead. The trinity has lost one of its visages.
The sharpened end of the old god’s staff plunged into Artos’ eye. Vulnerable points were just as vulnerable as ever, and the young gods had grown careless.
The effect of erdo ended a second later, though the old god headed tenaciously for the next trinity visage lying on the ground. Each of the gods knew that this one was the last—it was time to pull out all the stops. As Artos’ body disintegrated into a pile of sparking dust, eight pillars of blood-red light shot up into the sky to cover the entire battlefield and all of Pragada in a gigantic eight-sided seal.
Global notification: Veresal, a god of the large pantheon, is dead.
Global notification: Finerius, a god of the small pantheon, is dead. The trinity has lost one of its visages.
Global notification: Bargan, a god of the small pantheon, is dead. The trinity has lost all of its visages and is no more.
Global notification: Beelzebub was summoned to the real world by Ekron.
Global notification: Ekron received the Visage of Beelzebub and Body of Beelzebub abilities.
Global notification: Satan was summoned to the real world by Ekron.
Global notification: Ekron received the Visage of Satan and Body of Satan abilities.
Global notification: Lucifer was summoned to the real world by Ekron.
Global notification: Ekron received the Visage of Lucifer and Body of Lucifer abilities.
Global notification: Petbe was summoned to the real world by Ekron.
Global notification: Ekron received the Visage of Petbe and Body of Petbe abilities.
Global notification: A demon invasion has begun in Katain. The Hellish Gate has been opened.
Everyone taking part in the siege on Pragada fell victim to the ritual that summoned the higher demonic beings.
Not a single human god remained in Katain, though legions of demons did start pouring out of the four large infernal gates.
***
Philip Polanki was born into a family of engineers and designers. His father Rolan had been invited to work for Lunar more than forty years before, and that was where he met a girl working on the same project who would become the future Mrs. Polanki. Fifteen years would pass before Philip was born.
For the first ten years, his father had hidden from his mother the ailment that kept him from standing out as an engineer. The doctors had diagnosed him at a young age with delayed latent thinking. On the one hand, that made him seem slow in everyday life; on the other, it enabled him to look at things from a bird’s-eye view. He could glance at a plasma engine and understand what it was made of and how it worked. Rolan couldn’t control this, however, and so it sometimes took him dozens of hours before he’d wrap his head around the equipment he was working on. Even after he finished his basic education at eight, he still had no idea how the outside world worked. He became a qualified specialist in six different areas related to space ship engineering at fourteen, and he earned his doctorate in space ship construction at eighteen.
But that was just a cover hiding the lonely, sensitive genius. For all his conscious life, Rolan suffered from his retardation. Only two people at the bureau knew what he looked like—the director and the scientific advisor Rolan had come to for his dissertation. Everyone else actually thought he was a janitor at what was a very promising project.
One ordinary day, just the same as any other, a guy came over with a question for him about the thermodynamic characteristics of the RJS-134 alloy used to make plasma engines. Rolan, without immediately realizing it, took the cup of coffee out of the stranger’s hand and started reciting a passage from his dissertation. The man just smiled and pointed out a dozen mistakes in his theory. But afterwards, holding out his hand, he said what any young scientist wanted to hear.
“Rolan Polanki, I was instructed to invite you to move to Lunar. We’re interested in your research and potential.”
The man everyone thought was just a janitor was lost in thought for a minute. Smiling again, the stranger said he’d send the official invitation via the infonet.
A week later, Rolan was already up and running at his new job. Lunar had given him everything he needed for his research.
The only person he was given as an assistant was Rosa, another scientist invited to Lunar. The miniature girl with the Asian features was hard to miss even in the darkest room. She accepted the young genius and his quirks unflappably, saying that they just made him more fun to be around. Rose emanated warmth and optimism, and she was crazy for science. After the first three days of non-stop work on neurostimulators, they slept together for the first time. That was the beginning of their odd relationship.
Sometimes, Rolan was woken up by explosions in the next room as an experiment went awry. Other times, he jumped up in the middle of a love-making session with Rosa to write down a good idea he just had. The two of them lived in their own little worlds that intersected when it came to science. And it was that peculiarity that helped them understand what the other one did, decided, and thought.
A year later, Rolan had to admit that Lunar had read him like a book. He and Rosa had both been able to unlock their scientific potential in that time, and that day, he handed over all of his completed personal projects to Lunar’s charitable foundation. With all his heart, he thanked his supervisor at the construction bureau.
“I’m so appreciative of you and the board of directors for inviting me and for Rosa. Without her, I wouldn’t have been able to become a scientist.”
The old man just smiled and patted him on the shoulder.
“I’m glad you realize that, my boy. You have a thousand new discoveries yet to make, both in science and in the rest of life.”
And that’s exactly what happened. Years went by, he married Rosa, and he moved on to bigger projects nobody before him had been willing to take on—thrusters used to transport meteors to where they could be mined, station engines, cold-plasma engines. Everything was going swimmingly until one day, Rosa mentioned having children. He broke out in a cold sweat. She used the special sign they had to let the other know when they
needed the conversation to be taken seriously, one of the many ways of understanding each other they’d developed over the years.
For a month, he couldn’t work on his projects. Just the thought of having kids scared him, though it wasn’t so much the problem of raising them and watching them grow up, or even the idea of having his way of life change. As someone who had devoted his life to science, bejng able to shift his habits around was as likely as suddenly acquiring a third eye.
No, it was his retarded thinking that scared him. What if the child inherited it from him? What if Rosa found out? What if it got worse?
Rolan told his wife everything, letting her in on all the fears he had related to children. Rosa accepted her husband along with his maladies, though she decided to hold off on the kids. Really, they could go through the rejuvenation procedure as many times as they wanted, so she didn’t anticipate any problems with conceiving or giving birth.
But four years later, all their fears dissipated when Rosa found out that she was pregnant. She decided she was going to carry and give birth to the baby no matter what it was like.
And that’s how Philip Polanki was born. He did, in fact, inherit his father’s slowed latent thinking, though it was less pronounced and could be controlled. His second deviation was a weak instinct for self-preservation that had almost killed him on multiple occasions by the time he turned fourteen. At eight, fascinated by how atomic power stations worked, he crawled into the plasma synthesis chamber and earned himself a hefty dose of radiation. That happened every time anything really caught his interest. All his morals and instincts went out the window, leaving him in a world fixated on a single idea. His father grew more distant every time that happened, burying himself in his work, while his mother just soothed him by telling him he’d be able to understand his father one day. It was at moments like those that a deep pain she tried to conceal flitted across her face. When little Philip calmed down, she would leave him in the care of their robot nurse. But Philip didn’t cry. He never cried, in fact, never really feeling any pangs of conscience.
