The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series by Dan Sugralinov (iphone ebook reader TXT) 📗

Five seconds left on the Iceblock. I was frozen with my head thrown back, able to move only my eyes, so all I could do was relax and pray my unexpected allies won.

By then, all the contestants had already landed. A chaotic fight continued on the ground and it was hard to say who was fighting for who. Once they felt solid ground beneath their feet, the meleers roared and rushed to take vengeance.

Hellfish’s people were forced back toward the wall. The paladin Equilibrium ran to their aid, jumping into an uneven skirmish against Marcus, Caville and Urkish. Equilibrium got help from… I whistled under my breath: Anna the sculptor wielded her long silver spear expertly, wrapping the enemies’ guts around it. Did that mean Miss Commonwealth from the White Amazons was on my side? Elizabeth’s clan was an ally of Modus, after all, so it made sense. But that raised another question — why was Tissa, soon to be another Amazon, not in that group?

It was as crowded as a rock concert on the floor, and that saved my allies for some time: they pressed into a crowd and successfully deflected close-range attacks while the mages held back their area spells out of fear of hitting their allies. All the same, the forces were unequal, the ring around us tightening. I couldn’t see Filex or Berstan anymore. Beautiful Anna got her head cut off before my eyes.

By the far wall, silver ranger Destiny stopped trying to kill herself, gulped down a potion and rushed to the aid of her comrades. A rider galloped as if out of nowhere to meet her — the hobbit Dave! On a ghostly white horse! He loosed arrows at Destiny as he approached, then pulled out a thin elongated blade and slashed at her. Screaming, the elf girl managed to block the blow with a gauntleted hand, but the blade still slid across her neck. Blood sprayed… She somersaulted backwards and shot a volley of arrows at him, all blending into one.

In the first few seconds after Iceblock melted, leaving me in a filthy puddle, I got another four (!) shields — not as strong as the ice, but still effective enough to delay the moment of death. The buffs I got were: Frost Armor, which absorbed a thousand damage; Lightning Shield, the active version, which fired electric charges at anyone who attacked me; Antimagic Shell, which absorbed all magic damage for 30 seconds; and a Small Defensive Dome capable of reflecting another thousand and a half. I’m alive! I thought, trying to figure out who was helping me. There was someone else apart from Modus and the Travelers.

But even in the instants between the effect of Iceblock and the new shields, my health fell by half. And help came — this time in an obvious form — from Michelle the dryad. Healing Wave restored my health. Abaddon’s Curse deprived me of my own health regeneration, but nothing stopped others from healing me! To top it off, some shaman stuck a Stoneskin Totem down beside me, lowering my damage taken.

I started celebrating too soon. All my allies got pushed back and bogged down in skirmishes, and there was nobody left to help me. And soon, one by one, the shields began to fall. Inspired, my enemies redoubled their efforts, quickly dropping my health into the red.

Thirty feet away stood Destiny, still alive and grinning wickedly, her bow aimed right at my face. She smacked her lips as she pulled the string taut:

“Take this!” she snarled, releasing the string and showing me her middle finger.

I prepared for death once again, staring at the demise flying straight for me. The arrow was tipped with silver.

Time as if slowed, the enemy arrow grew before my eyes, and then…

Then a miracle happened. The arrow evaporated only a foot from my face, along with all the other enemy shots heading toward me. Their attacks just petered out as if an invisible and all-absorbing shield had appeared around me. No flashy sparks, no light effects, all the attacks just faded soundlessly, as if flying into a whirlpool without so much as a ripple.

The wonders didn’t stop when the meleers surrounded me. The invisible barrier gently stopped the weapons aimed at me. Swords, axes and halberds seemed to get stuck as if in thick jelly, stopping an arm’s length away.

All that reached me was the players’ astonished curses. Coming to my senses after being unexpectedly saved once again, I studied the interface and saw an icon. The description read:

Aegis

You are protected by an Aegis, a perfect shield that absorbs all damage. The Aegis does not expire, but the shield will disappear if you move beyond its edge!

I read the text over again, unable to believe my eyes, then pinched myself — no, this was no dream. The contestants tried furiously to break through the protective dome. My heart pounded with exhilaration. The Games weren’t over for me just yet!

I carefully ran my hands in a circle around me, finding the boundary of the Aegis. In the meantime, the contestants seemed to go into a fury: spells raged in from all around, swords and daggers and speartips flashed against the shield, some players even beat their fists against it, but the Aegis had an endless supply of durability. The important thing was to stay right where I was, and I had no trouble doing that. I wasn’t going anywhere with my feet stuck to the floor.

There were actually two benefits to this: a portion of the players were distracted with me, and not attacking my allies. All the same, they had no chance to survive — all they could do was try to get a high price for their lives. In less than a minute, all those who had openly