Harem Assassins : King Sekton's Harem Planet, Book 2: A Space Opera Harem Adventure by Baron Sord (top inspirational books .txt) 📗

quivering in place, as if my rings were still struggling to hurtle me forward but unable to move me even a millimeter closer.

“YOUR TRICKS GROW STALE, MORTAL. IF THIS IS THE BEST YOU CAN DO, SO BE IT. FRITTER AWAY WHAT ENERGY YOU HAVE ON THIS TIRESOME TACTIC.”

My eyes flicked to my ring’s dual-fuel doughnut.

It was circling down alarmingly fast toward empty.

I’d never seen it drop so quick.

11 o’clock on the fuel dial.

10 o’clock.

9.

8.

In the span of one second.

One.

I stopped my POSITION vector and the fuel drain stopped immediately.

There was no way I could win this fight.

None.

I needed to retreat.

Vector backward!

Nothing happened.

“YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE, MORTAL. YOUR BRIEF LIFE ENDS HERE.”

I hung there grimacing, hovering above the jungle, staring into the evil eyes of my dragon assassin.

—: Chapter 118 :—

Desperate to avoid death, I attempted to PATTERN-transform my titanic tormenter. Instead of turning the dragon into helium gas, I attempted to transform him or her into stone. A fitting and symbolic end. But, sucks to be me, my dual-fuel doughnut dwindled downward to 7 o’clock without doing a damn thing.

The dragon bellowed laughter. “YOUR DETERMINATION IS COMMENDABLE, MORTAL, BUT I AM AFRAID YOUR POWERS HAVE NO EFFECT ON ME! YOU HAVE FOUGHT VALIANTLY, AND FOR THAT REASON I PROMISE YOUR DEATH WILL BE SWIFT!”

Seconds away from being devoured or destroyed by my dragon assassin, I did the only thing left in my dwindling bag of tricks.

For the third time since getting the True Ring, I attempted to alter time.

I didn’t care how.

Stop it.

Slow it.

Reverse it.

Anything to get me out of this mess.

Hopefully this third attempt would be the charm.

I concentrated on TIME in my ring HUD menu until it flickered.

Ring, I thought, stop time.

ERROR_PROCESS_MALFUNCTION!

ERROR_INVALID_COMMAND_REQUEST!

ERROR_INVALID_ACCESS!

ERROR_BAD_OPERATOR!

SHEEBA_CODEX_CORRUPTED!

SHEEBA_DRIVER_DISABLED!

SHEEBA_PROCESS_ABORTED!

Exactly what I expected.

What I hadn’t expected was to end up dead.

Should.

Have.

Stayed.

Home.

“OH, YOU POOR MORTAL,” the dragon laughed. “WHEN WILL YOU LEARN? YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME WITH A ROYAL RING!”

The dragon waved a gigantic paw and my fuel doughnut spiraled down from 7 o’clock to 6.

Empty.

The HUD went dim.

Not dark like before when those pirates took me out. Just dim, like my rings’ dual-fuel tank was bone dry. Not that it mattered. It could have been fully charged and I doubt I would have been able to do anything against this dragon that it couldn’t deflect with casual disdain.

Then, sudden crushing pain.

Like being squeezed in a giant’s fist.

My arms pressed into my sides so hard, I felt my elbows stabbing into my ribs.

The pressure intensified.

Thousands of knives stabbed my chest as ribs cracked audibly.

“Fuck!” I hissed in instant pain, my voice thinning down to a whisper of agony as I felt the life pressed out of me.

Before I could make another sound, the dragon reared back its head, expanding its massive chest as it inhaled. It opened it awesome jaws and the plasma glow burned up its throat.

Still hovering helplessly in his telekinetic grasp, I winced in anticipation.

Just as the dragon lunged his neck forward to blast me—

He stopped.

He blinked.

The glow in his gullet faded.

His jaws clamped closed with an echoing CLOMP!

His scaly snout peeled back over clenched fangs.

His eyes fired with rage.

He shook his massive head in frustration.

A low growl rumbled in his throat as his head and neck twisted into an aggravated coil. He suddenly arched, throwing his neck and head high in the air. Then he wailed in frustration.

SKRA-GAAAAAAAGGGGGK!

The roar was so piercingly loud, it made Titano’s roar sound like a whimper. So loud it would’ve made Godzilla himself shit his pants. In fact, I almost shat mine, it was that frightening.

His head came crashing down like a falling building, almost smashing me but stopping level with my face and only a single meter away.

“TONIGHT IS YOUR LUCKY NIGHT, MORTAL!” He blasted a great gust of searing hot air in my face fuming from his nostrils. “HEED MY WORDS. IF I SEE YOU IN MY JUNGLE EVER AGAIN, THE BURNING FURY OF MY DRAGON FIRE WILL BE THE LAST THING YOU EVER FEEL. LEAVE ZALAXIA IMMEDIATELY OR PAY THE ULTIMATE PRICE! YOU HAVE UNTIL THIS TIME TOMORROW! BE GONE FROM THIS PLANET AND NEVER COME BACK, OR I WILL FIND YOU AND KILL YOU! DO YOU UNDERSTAND, MORTAL?”

“Ngh!” I grimaced, almost too overwhelmed by the pain of my broken ribs to comprehend or respond.

“LEAVE ZALAXIA IMMEDIATELY OR DIE!”

Crushing pain! My ribs were collapsing around my lungs. I tried to counter them with POSITION vectors that pushed outward, but nothing happened because my rings were out of fuel.

“DO! YOU! UNDERSTAND?!”

The crushing force around my torso and arms pressed harder. Something in my shoulder exploded and tore free. Something else in my opposite elbow cracked open and popped.

“Yes!” I yelped.

With a snarl, the dragon beat his enormous wings and spun in the air before shooting off impossibly fast and disappearing into the darkness.

Suddenly, I was falling.

Not that I noticed. My ribs were on fire from having been broken. I could barely form a coherent thought.

But gravity was a merciless master and insisted on dragging me down to my doom. I was at least a hundred meters above the jungle and my rings were empty. No POSITION vector was going to save me now. Lucky for me, my power armor was not dead. With a thought, I ignited my armor thrusters and slowed my descent to stop hovering above the jungle canopy.

I was badly shaken.

I needed to land and refuel my rings. Until I did, I couldn’t do anything about my ribs. Every breath I drew felt like someone had slid knives between each rib and were slowly slicing them around my torso in a complete circle, severing every intercostal muscle and puncturing my lungs in the process.

Wincing, grimacing in pain, and struggling not to pass out, I found the first gap in the canopy I could find and touched down on a sloped hillside. The second my boots touched dirt, PAIN! Something about putting weight on my feet tightened up my back which stabbed into my cracked ribs.

My vision blurred with tears.

I’d never been in