The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series

by Dan Sugralinov

  The hall broke out into laughter. The woman smiled and asked another question:

  “What do you think of your former friend Infect’s music? Mr. Abdualim applied to enter one of our bard contests.”

  I could have answered that we all started to cover our ears when Infect started wailing, but I didn’t want to seem petty. Instead, I answered as tactfully as I could:

  “Malik writes good songs. He makes a better musician than a friend.”

  “Still, which of his songs do you like best?”

  “Sorry, I can never remember songs or music,” I shrugged. “I can carry raids, but not tunes…”

  After the press conference, Kerry walked me to my room, silently entered behind me and showed me her palm. Something was handwritten in dark red on her hand: Sorry. They’re recording, better not to talk at all. I read it, nodded and my assistant licked her hand.

  “Ketchup,” she explained, smiling. “Good night. If you need me, call, I’m in the hotel.”

  Once alone, I sat at the table for almost an hour, watching the expanded highlights. My lists of groups needed updating.

  I brought up the current contestant leaderboard. All my allies were at the bottom of the table, beneath even the neutrals. Not counting me, Marcus’s people occupied the top spots, with Destiny’s raid following right behind them. Although some of them were probably part of Jansson’s group too.

  Leaderboard of contestants as of end of day five of Demonic Games XIX

  1. Scyth, Human, level 102 Herald

  2. Marcus, Orc, level 36 Bruiser

  3. Inchito, Human, level 33 Light Priest

  4. Youlang, Dark Elf, level 33 Spellcaster

  5. Caville, Orc, level 33 Dark Knight

  6. Geyserix, Barbarian, level 32 Berserker

  7. Enigma, Orc, level 31 Saboteur

  8. Frankie, Dwarf, level 30 Jockey

  …

  18. Urkish, Lopher, level 27 Torturer

  19. Messiah, Shapeshifter, level 26 Magician

  20. Destiny, Elf, level 24 Silver Ranger

  That first line warmed my heart every time I read it. I was basically set up for a win now, but it was too early to relax. Considering there were no penalties for level differences here, I still couldn’t stand up against a large raid. They’d just keep me stunned. As for picking them out one by one, grabbing them and throwing them into the Pitfall… That could backfire: one particularly long stun and my motionless body would drop into Abaddon’s grasping clutches. I had to seriously examine every possibility; these weren’t noobs from the sandbox I was going up against, but some of the world’s leading players.

  I needed to come up with multiple plans, just in case. Was it possible that Despot might not be able to leave his floor? Absolutely, like the Companions or Abaddon, who couldn’t cross the threshold of their dungeons even with the gates open.

  If Despot couldn’t, then what would my strategy be? Going through the options, I sighed in annoyance. I couldn’t come up with a full-fledged plan. There just wasn’t enough information. And I didn’t know what reward I would get for being named best player of the day.

  And I still had to discuss it all with my allies. Nothing stopped me from just forgetting all about them and heading to, say, floor 200 to grind solo. That would make sense! It might even be the right thing to do for achieving my goal. Spending time on helping my allies was a risky distraction, but… ‘Unity is strength!’ was baked into my consciousness. And I’d promised Meister’s raid that I’d tank for them and we’d get through the Demonic Games together. Like Hinterleaf had told me: ‘In all times, one thing has remained unchanged: the ability to keep your word says more about you than anything else.’

  I wanted to call Michelle Ardi over too, but Meister was insistent:

  “The girl talks too much! I’ll tell her everything she needs to know tomorrow.”

  My allies assembled in my room late that night: Joseph Rosenthal — Meister, Vito Painter — Hellfish, and… Renato Loyola — Quetzal! The titan destroyer accepted the offer after all.

  “We saw Marcus coming out of Destiny’s room,” Hellfish said. “Like an angry bear.”

  “No wonder,” Meister chuckled. “Scyth spoiled all their fun!”

  “No, there’s something else going on there…” Quetzal said thoughtfully.

  A little later, standing by the wall with an energy drink, I felt out of sorts in that company, to put it mildly. Honestly, it was like I was at an exam. Vito Painter was the youngest among them and he was well over forty. And I was expected to manage these people. Meister, the most senior and experienced member of the council, occupied the single armchair, a glass of red wine in hand as always. He was dressed in a black two-piece suit with a white shirt. Hellfish crouched down opposite. Quetzal preferred to stand, like me.

  In almost a week at the Games, this was the first time I’d spoken to all my allies at once. And, contrary to my fears, the guests were friendly. They were all in a good mood despite the day’s losses, as if already imagining the mighty Scyth arriving with his invincible tame demon in tow to punish all the bullies of the sandbox.

  “I remember when the neighborhood MacMillans used to bully me,” Joseph Rosenthal said. “And then one time my aunt and uncle came to visit from Israel, and they had their son Elizar with them. And let me tell you, he was a feisty guy, training for the army, and when he arrived and I complained to him about the MacMillans, he promised to talk to them, take care of it. I stayed awake that whole night in anticipation…”

  “And..?” Quetzal asked, frowning at the old man. “Your cousin helped, then left and the problem came back?”

  “No, of course not,” Joseph waved a hand. “The MacMillans beat the hell out of Elizar. Afterwards, he was afraid to poke his nose out of the house until the last day. But what I felt that first night… Right now I’m feeling something similar.”

  Surprisingly, the difference in age wasn’t noticeable. We spoke as equals. These guys were boys caught up in the excitement of a game, just like me, only they were older.

  They all seemed to have forgotten what happened in the first days. Now we were real allies. Cold thought told me that anyone would want to play with me now that I was the strongest contestant and had an imba pet, but in my heart I knew: Quetzal had placed the Aegis long before my rise up the leaderboard. Hellfish had organized the back-attack against those who wanted to kill me on the floor of the Pitfall without any requests from me. As for Meister, without his Escape Pentagram, I’d be packing my bags right now.

  “Our people are hiding in the cleared instances,” Hellfish said.

  “Mine too,” Quetzal admitted. “I doubt we’ll be much use tomorrow.”

  “Ours are spread out,” Meister shrugged. “Some in the woods, some in the tavern. Some got camped into the graveyard, but survived. For now. They’ll probably get zeroed in the morning.”

  “Alright, that means my first job is to protect the ones at the graveyard,” I said. “I’ll try to chase off the Markers and Desters, then we’ll go to the village and rendezvous with you and your people at the tavern, Joseph. What’s the lowest floor reached so far?”

  “Marcus was planning to clear forty, but didn’t go, decided to help Destiny instead,” Renato answered. “The seal and boss of level 25 are gone, but the floor isn’t clear. The previous two are still teeming with mobs as well.”

  “Then we meet on floor 22,” I said. “If my demon can leave his floor, I’ll use him to block the entrance to the Pitfall. If not… Well, then we take our raid to floor 100. I doubt our enemies will follow us…”

  “100?” Vito whistled. “Don’t you think we should be a little more realistic? Maybe start at 23…”

  “You can farm 23 if you want, Mr. Painter. But then I can’t guarantee that we’ll reach Abaddon together…”

  We sat talking until two in the morning. Joseph flexed his phenomenal memory by giving us a breakdown of all his surviving fighters and their skills. Renato and Vito pl
anned the formation of the joint raid and the groups within it, its rotation and tactics, both in PvP and against bosses and mobs. I didn’t let my lack of experience get in the way, just yawned and told them I’d be the tank.

  As we said goodbye at the threshold, Joseph stopped:

  “Wait! What’s our group going to be called? The Allied Raid of Meister, Hellfish, Quetzal and Scyth? Too long…”

  “Scyth’s Raid,” Renato said simply. “What’s there to think about?”

  “Agreed,” Vito nodded.

  A strange feeling overtook me. Even if nothing else happened and I got thrown out of the Games, in that moment, victory was already secure.

  Chapter 24. Food for Abaddon

  AT PRECISELY MIDDAY, I appeared on level 531 in the middle of a spacious corridor with twenty-foot-high ceilings. And the first thing I saw was a gleaming message:

  You were named the best player of day five of the Demonic Games!

  Reward: Tactical Retreat artifact.

  To someone else, the place I was in might have looked pitch black, but my leveled-up Night Vision allowed me to see even the streaks on the walls and the shining louse-like insects scurrying across them.

  By the far wall, a pile of bones appeared to smolder. It was suffused with a glow that rose up and turned scarlet, like a tongue of flame. The huge fiery flash formed into a demonic shape. The flame darkened and began to solidify, and Despot appeared in all his glory: burning eyes, halberd arms, smoke billowing from his forge-like mouth. The sight of the demon alone could deprive an enemy of the will to resist. There was nothing left to do but bring Despot out into the light, show him the world and all the tasty enemies in it.

  Approaching, my ally emitted a questioning sound:

  “Grorrghr?”

  “Grorrghr! Hello to you too, Horns! We’re going to go fight, just give me a minute to figure out this reward…”

  Despot answered with a rasp like an iron bar scraping on asphalt. I opened my inventory. A strange black cube with a single red button had appeared there. I pulled it out, turned it in my hands: small, about the size of a fist, but heavy and somehow pleasantly rough to the touch.

  Tactical Retreat

  Engineering artifact.

  If the fight is turning sour and you’re taking losses, remember ancient wisdom and run away! But reassure yourself and your allies: it isn’t really running away, it’s a tactical retreat!

  One-time use: instantly moves you and the members of your raid group to the nearest safe location.

  “Damn…” I muttered.

  There was nothing about the artifact that would give me an advantage in combat. I got the feeling that the great random function wanted to make sure the best players survived. Tissa had been rewarded with Banshee Queen’s Cry, Quetzal with Aegis, Roman with Raging Bloodthirst and Meister with Escape Pentagram. And now I got Tactical Retreat. All of them were more defensive than offensive or supportive. Did Marcus have something similar too? It was still a mystery to me what the orc bruiser had received as the reward for best player of day four. As long as it didn’t ruin the day’s plans…

  “Never look a gift horse in the mouth,” I muttered, talking to my pet out of old habit. “That’s what Uncle Nick said when he gave me a horse for my sixth birthday.”

  “Groghrgh?” the demon flamed.

  “No, not a live one. It was plushy, didn’t have any teeth to look at. Its mouth didn’t even open. And come to think of it, it was actually a unicorn…” Putting the artifact away, I placed its icon in my quickbar and raised my head. “Let’s get out of here, budd… What the hell?!”

  I stopped like a deer in the headlights and stared at the gates. They were the same gates as before, nothing new about them, but they weren’t open! Did I have to push them..? I looked to my ally, pointed at the gates and ordered:

  “Despot, smash!”

  The demon looked at me like I was an idiot. His forge-mouth chuckled and he didn’t move an inch. Right… This wasn’t Sharkon I was dealing with. Now there’s someone who would happily make Swiss cheese out of the place!

  “How are we supposed to get out of here then?”

  “Groghkhr!” Despot pointed a halberd arm at the center of the gates.

  “Some good you are…” I muttered, walking toward the exit.

  As I approached, I saw the seal. It wasn’t like the ones on the outside — it was smaller, as if it had melted and seeped through to this side, but not yet fully. It was the second minute of day six of the Games. My allies were dying somewhere up there, and I was stuck down here!

  Nether! A seal at this level would take off 531% health. Less with my Resilience, but still fatal, certain death. Whatever, I couldn’t lose more than 100% anyway. Unless I put down Spirit Shackles on the off chance that Second Life didn’t proc? A couple of moments of thought and I abandoned that idea — better to save it to catch the souls of fallen enemies later!

  Touching the seal with my hand, I felt a thousand needles digging into my palm, thirstily sucking out my blood…

  …and saw a cast bar before me:

  Removing seal: 0.274%… 0.549%… 0.824%…

  I lost 1% health with each tick, but the progress was too slow. The seal peeking out from between my fingers began to redden, and the more blood it sucked out, the less health I had left.

  Resilience level increased: +3. Current level: 48.

  An instant before death, my arm reflexively twitched, but couldn’t pull away, as if it was bonded to the seal. A wave of hellflame ran from my wrist to my shoulder and my body collapsed into a pile of ash.

  The world plunged into darkness.

  You are dead.

  Remaining time to respawn 9… 8… 7…

  I saw nothing but the revival timer ticking down, but the cast bar was burned into my consciousness — at the moment of death, the seal removal progress was at 27.22%. How!? Kharmo’Lav the paladin was able to open the gates to floor 666. It had cost him his life, but only once!

  Second Life! You managed to dodge death!

  Would you like to revive where you died or go to your linked respawn point at Cursed Chasm Churchyard?

  Remembering my allies dying above, I wanted with all my heart to revive at the graveyard, but the thought of leaving Despot locked up stopped me. I had to figure this out. I revived where I died.

  “Groghhr!” the demon greeted me.

  I was sure he was sentient, but it seemed Despot’s vocal cords needed some work. Or he just didn’t speak common.

  “Scyth versus gates, round two! Fight!” I announced triumphantly for the viewers as I grabbed the seal…

  And breathed a sigh of relief — the progress continued, it didn’t start over.

  Removing seal: 27.495%… 27.77%… 28.045%…

  Second Life protected me from the penalty for dying, saved my experience, and at this rate, the damn seal would be gone after four tries!

  The needles bit into my hands and melded with them, sticking into my blood vessels. My health dropped, the seal reddened. I tried to ignore the pain, distracting myself again with the puzzle of Kharmo’Lav. Either the paladin’s class abilities lowered the damage from the ticks, or… Or the gates of floor 666, which definitively killed the one who lifted the seal, had different mechanics.

  The pain soon pushed all other thoughts from my head. It was comparable to the pain inflicted by a Living Sieve, but this time the tentacles of the seal seemed to stretch through to my very heart, tearing and burning it from the inside. My whole world turned into blinding pain. As Oyama said, it was just weakness leaving my body, but that thought wasn’t much help in the moment. I shouted and twitched in convulsions, my hand stuck to the seal, my legs giving out beneath me. In the end, my usual mantra ‘it’s just a game, my real body is safe!’ was enough to help me grit my teeth through it.

  Despot shifted from foot to foot nearby, breathing heat on my back and even grunting in what might have been sympathy. My eyes darkened. The pain of that first attem
pt paled in comparison with this. The lazily shifting numbers of the cast and the boosts to my Resilience were all that kept me sane:

  Resilience level increased: +4. Current level: 52.

  Removing seal: 54.165%… 54.44%… 54.715%…

  Wh-wh-oo-oo-oosh! I collapsed into ashes again. I’d never wished for death so badly!

  You are dead.

  Remaining time to respawn 9… 8… 7…

  My desire to get this over with fought with an urge to delay the torture as I hung patiently in the great nothing of resurrection…