Damage Notification:
You have received 9,998 damage from Fetrasch
I lay there on the ground as he towered over me, his foot pressed down against my chest. I knew he would be overpowered for only several seconds, but he could end it in a single second with my shield gone and my body numb. The uppercut had shattered my jaw, and I couldn’t even open my mouth to speak. I was a pitiful sight, but I wasn’t going to give up. No matter what.
Screams echoed from somewhere behind me where Melina had been standing along with the others. I glanced over my shoulder, shuddering from pain, and saw both Mark and Edge holding her in place. The idiot would have rushed in and died along with me if they hadn’t caught her.
A sudden thought came over me. I still had something I could use. I swung the hammer and let go, making it look like an accident, and the Zanoxian blocked his head just as I pulled out a small container, pressed the button on top, and threw it at his chest. The explosion wasn’t strong, far from it, but it released a green goo that was so sticky that both his arms merged with his chest.
Fetrasch raised his foot to stomp down on me when Bassy slammed into him and knocked him over. The Zanoxian roared in anger, and I would be lying if I said that shivers hadn’t run down my spine, but they did. The brute exuded such strong power that it was insane. He ripped one arm free, but then… he stopped glowing. He looked down at his free arm and then at me and Bassy.
“Sorry, but I don’t think we can be friends, Fetrasch.”
My hand wrapped around the canister as it was still inside the subspace and activated it. I pushed off the ground and threw myself backwards as the last bomb Loravian had given me struck the Zanoxian’s chest and exploded.
The blast wave sent me flying even further and accidentally caught my dislocated arm as well as Bassy, who had shielded me from the explosion. A notification popped up and then another and another.
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED:
Last Man Standing
Defeat all rifters and become the last one standing.
REWARDS:
1. Permanent ownership over the living rift
2. Fetrasch Rift Pouch
3. Wish up to the third rank
The arena disappeared and was replaced by green grassland just as it had been before. Every single deity was gone in an instant, and all who remained were Krajolik, Veles, and a new figure who had appeared. Or rather a glowing shape of light. All my power was sapped away immediately, and I felt like puking, but it only lasted for several seconds.
“Rise, child,” a voice said directly in my mind. “I am the Supreme’s avatar and have come to give you your rewards. Are you ready?”
“Wait, please. I’ve been doing this for over a year without any real answers. Am I allowed to ask some questions?”
“Is that what you wish for your reward?”
“No, no,” I replied hurriedly as new sweat started forming on my brow. “I’m sorry, Your Supremeness. We humans are naturally curious.”
“Human champion, I do not have the time to waste on such trivial matters. Tell me, what is your wish?”
Krajolik appeared next to the avatar. Veles joined them several seconds later. I stared at her, and she still had that smug look on her face as if saying “no matter what happened, I am the winner.” Well, fuck that.
“How big can my wish be?”
“Anything you desire. See, you have defeated someone who had been granted two wishes already. Wait, that’s not right. How about this? You can have one world-altering wish, or two smaller ones.”
I grinned. The Supreme was an interesting one, and I liked him immediately, almost as much as I liked Krajolik. He changed the rules because he could do so and because I had earned it.
“Would making a deity mortal or absorbing his or her power be considered a big or a small wish?”
“A small one, of course. Why? Do you have something in mind?”
I nodded. “Can you make Veles mortal and as weak as an ordinary human? I’d like to hunt her.”
“Wait, what?” she hissed. “What the hell is that kind of wish? The only person who is getting something is him!”
The Supreme didn’t say anything; no, the avatar just remained there, floating and pondering. Veles’s eyes met mine, and she was promising me bloody murder. Fuck that. I was going to teach her what it meant to backstab someone.
“Deal. I can take all her powers away and make her a mortal. I’ll even place her in this rift for one wish. That’s the best I can do, though.”
“Do so right away, please. Before I change my mind.”
Veles was about to freak out. She was glancing between Krajolik and the avatar and then me. “You can’t do that! I won! I’m a champion as well!”
A shimmering dome appeared around her body, and she cried out.
“You will lose all your bonuses that have anything to do with the deity Veles. Are you sure?”
I nodded again. “Hell yes! Let her feel what it is to be betrayed by someone you thought of as an ally.”
“Deal.”
Thunder reverberated throughout the clearing, and lightning bolts struck… the heavens? Everything looked as if it was going in reverse. A massive power surge erupted from her as she cried and pleaded, but I wasn’t going to let her off the hook.
“You will pay for this!” she yelled. “I will kill that child of yours!”
I put up my hand and showed her my middle finger. “See you soon, Veles.”
“What now? The first wish is done. What is your second wish?”
I looked over at Melina, who was sitting on her knees and staring at me with a dumbfounded expression. Not just her, but everyone was lost on what I had done just now. But not me. I had a plan, and I was going to see it through.
“Can you exempt this planet from any further living rift games? The ordinary rifts aren’t so problematic, but the big ones can cause a lot of death.”
He nodded and appeared before me, not even a foot apart from me. “You’re an interesting one, human. But yes, I can do that. But if you do that, everyone will get to see who saved the planet. They will know your name, what you look like, and how strong you are. Do you wish to proceed?”
“Yes, please,” I replied immediately. “That’s just perfect.”
Epilogue
Two weeks had passed, and not much had changed but the portal, which was active again. No new attacks, and no new bombings from Sylmar. So we took a vacation. All we did was sit around, drink, eat, and screw like rabbits. It was all I wanted and more. Especially after having gone through so much crap over the last year.
Bassy had mostly recovered, but his mass was displaced by the loss of a body part. He was barely five feet in diameter and several feet shorter. Nothing had changed aside from his usefulness. He wasn’t able to wrap around great monsters anymore, but at least he was still strong enough.
Mark and Sarah had taken a more active role with co-leading the association and getting into the fray. Edge and his wife made up the second half of the association leadership. Donald and Rita had become somewhat of house owners. They ordered people around to do odd things around the base zone. Everyone was working tirelessly aside from Melina and myself. I wasn’t in the mood after losing so much of my power, but at least we had survived. That was all that mattered.
By the time the first month had passed, Melina and I sat one night on the balcony, drinking and enjoying ourselves.
She suddenly asked a question that startled me. “Have you opened the pouch?”
My eyebrows rose into my forehead at the question, and I was genuinely surprised I hadn’t. The happiness was too great, and I hadn’t planned on killing anyone anytime soon, so it wasn’t like I needed the skill it would probably give me.
“No, why?”
“Why? Why not? Didn’t you promise me Sylmar?”
She was right there. I had promised her Sylmar and Farz, but I just wasn’t up for it. At least not yet. I was having too good a time lazing
around, sleeping until noon, and drinking all day.
“I—did, didn’t I?” I chuckled and pulled the pouch from my subspace. It was a pitch-black fist-sized affair that weighed as much as a feather. I really didn’t want to open it, as I had a bad feeling about it, but still. I couldn’t help it when Melina would nag me about it until I did it.
I opened the pouch and was graced with three items.
SKILL RECEIVED:
NAME: Overdrive
DESCRIPTION: Sacrifice 10 levels and gain a 300%
status boost for 2 minutes.
ITEM RECEIVED:
NAME: Rift Core x 2
DESCRIPTION: The core of a rift world can be used to link other cores to the user’s primary core.
“You couldn’t have kept your mouth shut, right?” I growled. “I just got two damned rift cores!”
“Whoa, now. What the hell are you yelling for? No one’s forced you to use them, right?”
“No one did, but knowing how annoying you can be, you’ll nag and nag until I use them.”
“Of course I will,” she mumbled. “So what now? Will you use them all?”
I didn’t really want to do it, but it had me curious as well. And maybe the prospect of having new worlds to discover would get my ass in gear again.
“Hold my beer.”
I activated the first core, but was immediately surprised by the notification.
NOTICE:
DO YOU WISH TO UPGRADE THE LIVING RIFT TO THE NEXT STAGE?
YES / NO?
“Yes.” I took out the second core and activated that one as well. The same image appeared yet again before me, and I accepted the prompt. For ten long seconds, nothing happened.
“What do you think is—you know? Did you break the rift?”
I frowned and rolled my eyes. She really knew how to make a stupid remark.
“No, of course I didn’t. What do you think me—”
The ground started trembling, cutting me off. I shut up immediately and looked around as the balcony swayed. A flash blinded me for—I had no idea how long. The first thing I noticed when I got back was that it wasn’t dark anymore. The second thing was the layout of our zone. We were surrounded by a twelve-foot-tall wooden wall. We’d never even started working on a palisade as far as I knew, but then again, all of this… whatever was going on, might have messed with my mind.
“Mel? What is going on?” I asked, my voice barely audible.
“I have no idea, but from the looks of it, we now have a castle.”
“Yeah, a castle looking out onto a horde of monsters that are fighting each other. And where’s the protective barrier?”
“I don’t know, but we’re definitely somewhere else.”
“No shit,” I muttered. “I can see as much myself, love.”
“Do you think they’ll attack the—wait, what are we now? A village with a number of buildings. Look, is that a real smithy? And is that a real bathhouse?”
“I have no idea, but I’m liking it so far. What do you think? Care to make this our new home?”
“Do we even have a choice?” She laughed. “Seriously. But yeah, the view is gorgeous, but I’d really like to know what the hell is going on.”
I found a blinking icon in my periphery, so I put my hand up for her to stop, and opened it. A large and pretty detailed map opened up, showing where we were. I stopped and counted the number of hexes and suddenly got sick. We were smack-dab in the middle of a map that consisted of more than four hundred zones. Great. No, I shouldn’t think of it like that. This was a new beginning; that was exactly what we needed. But shit, who was going to find that tramp Veles in here? She had been adept at hiding in a much smaller group of zones.
“Say, who even needs Sylmar? Fuck them! Let’s get brother Grawl and merge with them. We can think of scouting the place afterwards.”
Melina nodded, and I found her expression changing. She had a determined look on her face, and I felt the same way. Accident or not, plan or not, we were now at a place in life where we could start living at our own pace. We had a whole new world ahead of us, and all of it belonged to me. To the three of us.
I would be lying if I didn’t look forward to what was going to happen in a year, or five. There was one thing I knew, though. We were alive and had done the unimaginable. Now it was time to reap our rewards. And if something happened, well, we would take care of it just like we had last time.
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ALSO IN SERIES
BEGINNER QUEST
CRAFTING DEATH
CROSSROADS
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Crossroads: A LitRPG Cultivation Series (Towers & Rifts Book 3) Page 33
