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

just showed up as a dark spot of unexplored space. Following the corridor around the wall in the hope of finding an entrance, I saw there was nothing of the kind. The wall was like the trunk of a gigantic tree, seamless all the way around. It was clearly different from everything I’d seen so far.

Despot’s steps approached, but I decided to take the risk of trying to break through the wall.

Remembering how my attack on the demon ended, I went into Clarity just in case and delivered a series of strikes. My attacks didn’t meet the resistance of stone; the wall was soft like jelly. My fists plunged in and threw out scraps of flesh and muddy crimson liquid in all directions. The slime stuck to my face, slowed my movements. My fists cracked against the wall like machine guns, and although it took no damage, my arms went in deeper and deeper.

A final Hammerfist smashed through the obstacle before me, and part of the wall collapsed with a squelch. The sludge dripped away slowly, revealing a narrow passageway into a small room filled with orange light.

Leaving Clarity, I darted inside and stood before one of the weirdest looking altars I’d ever seen… I don’t know what the game designers were smoking, but it was clearly something strong! It looked like a nerve cluster interwoven with pulsating vessels, like the ones they showed us in anatomy class. At its top, fine threads enshrouded a transparent chest. Something alive was struggling to get free inside it, like a chick trying to break out of an egg.

Below, the nerves and vessels descended into the floor, which shifted and trembled. Holes opened here and there, shot out streams of foul steam — a creature breathing? Not far from the chest, a mass wrapped in veins opened and an unblinking eye stuck out of it, staring at me.

At the same time, Despot squirmed and stamped outside. The boss reached an arm through the hole I’d made, but his chitinous spines got him stuck and he couldn’t get through.

I had to hurry. If I could break through the wall, then nothing stopped Despot from doing the same. Flying to the altar, I grabbed the chest and pulled. I recalled the Caressing Creeper — I was putting in the same effort now as then, but the chest seemed to be rooted to the altar. It wasn’t easy to tear from the pedestal. Once the final roots snapped, bleeding out brown blood, my momentum threw me back into the wall. I stuck into it.

I didn’t risk dropping down to the living mass, which pulsed and breathed, growing tentacles and eyes that stared with hatred. Hovering not far from the altar, I tried to open the chest, which was filled with a murky yellow liquid. Something splashed inside. Two dark, clawed hands pressed against the glass. I nearly dropped the chest in shock. Turning it in my hands, I regretted leaving the sword behind; I could have used it to just cut the chest open.

Now I had to figure out a way to open it. There was only one option: the keyhole, but where was the key?

As if sensing something, Despot roared and began to smash himself against the living wall. Woah. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I sped up my search for the key, but couldn’t find it even after flying around the room.

What next? I stopped to think. I had no lockpicking skill, and I doubted I’d be able to open the chest without lockpicks anyway. That meant I had to think along other lines. Break it? No. That couldn’t be the answer. Hmm… It wasn’t a given that only a rogue could get in here — here I was, and I was no rogue. That meant there was another way…

A strike came from outside. The floor vibrated, bristled. Despot no longer roared — he boomed like a rocket taking off, deafening me and causing the living walls to swell as if trying to crush the interloper.

Getting as far as I could away from them, I thought for a moment. If the game developers planned for anyone who came in here to be able to open the chest… Then that meant there had to be something that could do it on this floor, and that something must be… The demonic gold!

I suddenly remembered how Meister had used it to remove Abaddon’s buff. There was no point in eating the money, I thought, but what if… I pulled out a coin and it fit perfectly into the slot on the chest.

Then things got weirder, although I didn’t think they could!

The chest burst open and some kind of small imp stuck out a puffy face, spitting sticky acid slime at me. Screaming, I jumped back and my health began to drop — Demonic Poison Spit took away 1% per second.

My eyes burned, and while I wiped the slime off my face, the imp jumped out and began to trot along the surface. After brushing away the poisonous spit, I just barely managed to dodge a fireball headed straight for me. Just the edge of the fireball hit me, but took away 13% health! The imp cackled with a baby’s laughter, the outline of a second fireball forming in its chubby hand. Little bastard!

Clarity!

I dropped down on the imp with all the rage I’d been building up, all my seething indignation. The world froze, as did the sounds coming from outside. I heard only my fists working, boom, boom, boom, like in a nightclub. The monstrous face was thrown from side to side.

I kept beating on it, taking a moment to realize that the demon was already dead. I didn’t get any of the experience I so badly needed either.

The imp’s body, skull caved in, twitched in agony and wasted away