Limitless

by John Gold

  The trial is also different from the others in that it’s the first time I come across other people. There are locals who are also giving it a try, though I keep them in front of me, don’t team up with anyone, and just coexist as we all go through the trial. I stopped trusting anyone after the love trial—and that goes double for people I don’t know. Given the wild, barely contained rage everyone is feeling, I’m not surprised there are a couple murders, three attempts, and one group that just completely implodes. That all happens at the first few intersections before we learn how to control our emotions.

  After that, I realize that the locals there are part of the trial. You have to work through your differences and hate, working together if you want to win. Now, I switch on my life aura to restore health as fast as it can in the corridors between intersections. Glowing mushrooms appear on the walls; moss and vines grow on the stones under our feet. That also helps with the unwanted emotions.

  I feel guilty about a good dozen dead, who heroically covered everyone else’s retreat. When groups trade places fighting especially strong opponents, I fire away using my most powerful spells, killing the defender and doing heavy damage to the guard. Nobody expresses resentment towards me for it, either. I understand their silence better than they can imagine —they’re almost all unarmed, unequipped, and weak, and there I am, a lethal weapon. If I didn’t do it, even more of them would die.

  Taking out the last three opponents comes at a high price. They have the most health and do the most area damage, so I do my best to block it. It’s the first time I see heroes rushing out to distract the demon from me, and the first time I see the weakness of my fighting style. My strongest spells all do area damage. None of them work for fighting underground.

  When we come up against the last opponent, I have a group of 337 people behind me. And they’re just the ones who survived. We spend four days waiting for the people we lost to respawn and join us, bumping our numbers up to 433.

  Demon, Irukai the Personification of Hatred, Level 19950

  The final demon guard is the king of the entire dungeon. He has six bodies merged into one, with three superior demons five meters taller than my youngest companions serving as his legs. He can see and attack across a 360-degree arc, too. None of my attacks are enough to kill him with one strike—he has almost 80 billion health.

  The battle turns out to be the most unusual of my entire life. I stun, paralyze, and curse my opponent while our gallant company does their best to knock his health down. In fact, I don’t do a single point of damage throughout the battle. I’m too busy controlling and weakening our adversary. I use all my shields, not to mention the aura of amplification that’s been gathering dust in my spell book. More than that, I even hand out my last food and potions left over from my blood magic experiments in Crazyman’s Forest. It all goes toward reinforcing my comrades in our hours-long attack.

  It goes without saying that the demon has complete resistance to all kinds of damage. Still, neither his resistance nor his sixfold survivability can stand up to the onrushing horde.

  As soon as the demon dies, we all feel the hate lift. A joyful shout goes up, and oddly enough, they push me out the exit first.

  But my worst fears are realized. Instead of a city, I find myself outside a hall with enormous doors. The carvings on them tell me that I’m about to enter the palace of death, and there is a pair of columns with gargoyle gatekeepers towering in front of the entrance to complete the picture. As soon as I take my first step, the gargoyles fly off toward the doors, which open slowly with a heavy creak. The eyes of the creatures carved into the door gleam. The shouts of hundreds of monsters greet my ears.

  Only an idiot wouldn’t be afraid of death. With that in mind, I decide to get my strength and survivability as high as they’ll go before I walk through the door. It may not be much, but it’ll mean I have a little bit of an edge if I have to fight him. Death!

  I’ve never buffed myself for three reasons. First, because of my high resistance to mental damage, neither these nor auras really work on me. Their duration is directly dependent on how receptive the subject’s mental body is. In my case, even the strongest buffs don’t last longer than thirty seconds, with an effect so minimal that using them is a waste of time. One exception is divine buffs and debuffs. These make temporary changes to your mental body itself, driving the desired effect. In other words, gods act on a deeper level than most superficial buffs. But the second reason is my mana restoration speed. The higher your morale, or survivability for Hunters, the less time it takes your mental body to get back to normal. And it treats all deviations from the norm as harmful, getting rid of them as soon as it can.

  The third reason I’ve always skipped buffs extends from the first two. The duration and effect are just too weak for me. Experience has shown me the folly of relying on temporary effects, as you don’t want battles to depend on unknown variables.

  The same is true of potions. The higher your resistance to poison, the poorer their effect and duration. That rule applies to all kinds of potions and alchemical products.

  I suppress my fear and…delight. Death is so strong that I can feel the waves of power swimming through the air, penetrating my flesh. Incredible! He’s a fascinating opponent. Oh-h-h…no, not like that. Oh-h-h!

  When I walk into the hall, I realize that nothing could have prepared me for an opponent like the one standing before me. Three of his faithful subjects flit out of the shadows to stand five meters away, blocking my path and covering their master from potential attack. The three lords can’t hide their levels from me anymore.

  Companion of Death, Absolute Fear, Level 10000

  Another thirteen are hiding in the shadows along the walls in the enormous hall. My buffs start counting down from twenty seconds, while the potions will work for another ten seconds after that. I have +22% to my strength, agility, and intellect, plus thirty from the potions.

  Here we go! I’m sent into an emotional press, smacked around with a magic shield, thrown up toward the ceiling, and hurled down at the floor, all of that happening in just the first five seconds of the battle. In that time, my enemies all gather at the center of the room to form two circles around me. I fall back to the ground, where I cast a dark space and fire off a dead star. While it’s flying at the group, I dash toward a column and grab hold just as a gravitational well pulls all of death’s little pets into the center of the empty circle. If my amplification weren’t maxed-out, I wouldn’t have been able to cover the twenty-five meters between me and the column in two seconds. I even leave potholes in the floor.

  When the gravitational wave hits me, I feel the stone under my hands beginning to disintegrate. I throw up a new magic shield. Just then, the star explodes to wipe the column away and throw me off along with it. Death’s companions survive, however, losing 50% of their health and looking none the worse for wear. They eye me up. I realize I can’t sense any emotions coming from them…damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it! They’re all part of death, semimaterial chimeric pets. How do you fight immortal beasts?

  But I turn off my emotions and get to work fighting the unwinnable battle. Death is still sitting on his throne, not having moved an inch since the fight began.

  Shields of darkness hit my enemies with mental damage whenever they come in to attack physically. My aura of light blinds them, and stunning them buys me a second or two. Every blow I strike costs me ten in return. Leaping between the stone walls, earth shields, and columns goes on for a whole ten minutes, though I’m able to kill six of the beasts in that time. Still, I’m close to the end, as well. They’re working together, sacrificing one of their number to guarantee a hit through my shields and traps. Illusions, darkness, hard phantoms, traps, and feints are all used to great effect, an arsenal more befitting an experienced mage than a bunch of pets. I’m chased down and my defenses are battered into submission. But I’ve been using the time to save up strength for one more big attack.

  The sphere of d
arkness covers us all. A second later, however, a leap spell takes me to the next column, and I realize that I fell for another trap. A phantom axe slices through the column and takes out my shield. On the other hand, the blow isn’t strong enough to get through my resistance, and I’m able to counterattack.

  True darkness covers the part of the room where I sense my enemies are. Only mages using a spell can see through it, which means they’re blind.

  Six of them die, but I lose my sense of where the other two are. Death is crushing down on me with such power. Even before this I was having a hard time sensing them. Now, it’s like they practically dissolved into the darkness. Judging by the emotional pressure I’m feeling, Fear and Hope are the two still alive. How romantic!

  They’ve traded their bodies in for semimaterial versions, leaping out of the astral in two different parts of the room to hurl distance spells at me. I can’t find them or counterattack; all I can do is absorb their strikes. Although…

  I set a diamond shield and hide under its canopy. The first three attacks are accompanied by little spirit creatures where the companion of death pops out. A second and a half before it appears, the spirits tell me where the portal is going to open. Got it!

  The diamond shield bursts from a lightning bolt in the back; my magic barrier absorbs the rest of the charge. I’m supposed to turn and counterattack, but instead, I fire a dark spear at the portal which is in the process of opening. One down.

  I’m not able to kill the final companion—death decides to get involved. He’s tired of watching, and apparently decides to show off the difference in strength between us. As soon as I turn to find my last assailant, death yanks me over towards him. The rest of the fight is a game of “beat the kid” with a deadly outcome. I’m punished, thrown up against the ceiling with such force that I’m left with just 4% of my health. Then, I come crashing down to the floor with just as much force. It takes death less than a second to realize that I’m able to completely restore my health in the time it takes me to fly between the floor and ceiling or vice versa.

  I’m thrown up and back down again fifteen times. Thirty bone-crushing hits. The strongest creature I’ve ever seen is just drumming his fingers on the armrest to the rhythm of my bodyslams, but that’s where it ends.

  I sit up on the floor and cross my legs. A happy smile spreads across my face.

  “What are you so excited about? Want some more?”

  “Nope.”

  “Want to get chased around the hall again?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did Absolute Happiness hit you too hard?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then why are you smiling like a cat who just took a dump outside my door?”

  What am I supposed to say? That I’m happy to see him? Hey, it’s been a while! Seen my parents? And why am I feeling so giddy?

  “I’ve been looking for you for a while.”

  “Usually, you’re running away from me. And how you always run! Remember how you drowned the boatman? How you ran away from Talamei and the other gods? But no, you’ve been looking for me. I’m the one who comes for you!”

  “Just wondering—are you a he or a she? And what should I call you?”

  “For your miserly mind, it’s enough to say that I don’t have a gender. But you didn’t come here to ask what I’m hiding under my robe.”

  “My parents died–”

  “I didn’t ask for your story. I expect to hear what you want from me.”

  This is more than just a simple conversation. One wrong word, and it’s over for me. Death isn’t about to play games. I know how easily he could kill me.

  “I want you to resurrect my family and return them to the outside world.”

  “Well, then. And what can you offer in return?”

  He clearly isn’t a genie about to grant me three wishes. There won’t be any indulgences, and everything could be swept away if I make a single mistake. Not even a mistake; if I show weakness even. Everything about death screams that he’s an enemy out to eat me if I give him the chance. He isn’t human, isn’t a god—he’s something more, something bigger, greater, and infinitely more powerful. It’s the sensation of the strength he demonstrated more than his emotions that leads me to this conclusion.

  “The souls of all the young gods, and the old ones, too, if they’re still around. I’ll send them all to Hell.”

  “No, thanks. You’re offering what’s already mine by right—is that all your little brain can come up with? Is this really Sagie, the person who sent me my first god in five hundred years?”

  Death sits down on his stone throne. Darkness covers his face and throne, and his voice betrays neither emotion nor interest. But he gave me a clue. A very big clue!

  “Death, what did Bernard offer you in exchange for letting him go back as a wanderer?”

  “Immortality is something more than you can understand. You think too narrowly, bound by time and correlation. You think you can demand answers from me, you worm?”

  “Oh, Death.”

  “Stop calling me that impersonal name! You’ve earned the right to call me by my true name: Tiamat.”

  Huh! Death’s Sumerian roots are interesting, and that offers me a very different picture of the Project Chrysalis world. Tiamat was the living ocean of chaos from which the entire world grew. I wonder if what happened in the original is going to happen this time around, too.

  “Tiamat, what do I have to do for you to resurrect my family?”

  “Everything and nothing. The beginning and the end. You have no idea what you can give me. Bravo, human! You realize that I’m not interested in anything material, and you’re now strong enough to provide me a service equal to my resurrecting your parents.”

  Ye-e-e-s! There’s a chance! Ten years of searching and two years of torment were worth it just to hear this one little phrase.

  “And what is that?”

  “Remove the seal from the otherworldly portal at the center of Tanatos.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Tiamat sent Sagie back into the outside world, a smile spreading over his face as he went back to his home at the bottom of the Sea of Madness. Besides him and Krash, there were three other officers in his office who were responsible for the human world as well as their official representative’s assistant.

  Idzumi was smiling himself, but he had to ask.

  “What was that show for? He could’ve died twenty times over during the battle, but no, even that wasn’t good enough. You had to try killing him thirty more times!”

  “He had to answer for what he did!”

  Krash, who’d been having a hard time containing his emotions during the event itself, exploded.

  “What did he do?! He did what even Akashi couldn’t, and he hasn’t even progressed all the way. And what was that nonsense with the trials? Since when does Project Chrysalis go up to Level 20000? What is the keeper doing? And then you, Tiamat, decided to bury one of the best chosen ones!”

  Death just shrugged confidently.

  “He had to pay for what he wrote!”

  Tiamat was the only one who didn’t laugh. Set rolled around on the floor, seized by fits of laughter. The shapeshifter did the same, switching back and forth from cat to human form. Idzumi just covered his face and turned away. Laughing at your senior officer in his office isn’t the best idea. Three minutes later, everyone, with the exception of death himself, was on the thick carpet.

  Krash looked hopefully out the window, where an enormous whale was swimming off in the distance with another whole whale on its back.

  “The exodus is beginning, Akashi. You won’t be lonely anymore.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  It was a warm summer night in Kurg, on the continent of Radaam. After the city became a cultural landmark, thousands of tourists from around the world started to show up. The area around the Lone Tree featured dozens of entertainment venues and taverns.

  Groups of ten guards stood watch around the tree every minut
e of every day. Nobody was permitted to climb it or collect crafting ingredients there. Between the living and dead parts of the tree, there was a meter-wide passage running from the east, where the sun rises, to the west, where it sets.

  A stable, one-way portal opened at the eastern end of the passage. A young man holding a one-year-old girl tumbled out, nobody else with him. Nobody recognized his bone armor or his magic shield. The people had forgotten who it was that had grown and then destroyed the tree.

  New world structure: 4th level

  Fourth Sequence Limiter activated

  Current location: Lone Tree Field

  The world was seeing the return of one who had twice overturned Olympus.

  End of Part One

  Part Two

  The Keeper’s Game

  The other players thought I was a Lunar stooge; the gods wanted to kill me or throw me in jail; I just wanted a peaceful life. The only break I’ve caught is grabbing the books on dark magic from the basement of Teurus’ temple. Sure, I’ve met lots of people who have treated me well, but I earned their trust with hard work. Victories, gifts, deals, and reciprocation have bought me everything—nobody’s ever handed me anything on a plate. This is my last letter, and it contains my recollection of everything that happened in the last two and a half years. They’re the most colorful, interesting years of my life.

  I had no idea where I would end up when I was thrown into the portal, but my Lone Tree ended up being my path out of the world of the dead. The one-way portal is stable and stays open after I step through it. You can’t use it to go the other way, however.

  One-way portal from the Gray Lands

  It’s a lovely little title that makes the blood freeze in my veins. What if Tiamat invades the world with his countless hordes? He alone would be enough to chop up the continent in less than a day. The world might as well start counting down to the end of time.