Path of Spirit (Disgardium Book #6): LitRPG Series Dan Sugralinov (e novels to read TXT) 📖

Underworld, a plane inaccessible to players. Nobody knew whether Snowstorm planned to make it playable, but for now, players’ only interactions with the Inferno involved summoning demons from it. Warlocks frequently used them as servants, and all kinds of ghouls and devils could be found in cursed dungeons and castles. The satyr and succubus were another example of how Dis and the Inferno interacted.

I remembered that Kusalarix was waiting for me, but first I had to go back for the boys and Irita. I could talk to the guardians at the same time. Emerging from the temple, I cast Depths Teleportation to Mengoza.

If the former guardians couldn’t tell me how to get to the Inferno, I didn’t know who else to ask. Damn game conditions! I was sure that Tiamat could have protected us from the deadly influence of the frost — she was a goddess! What did weather matter to her? If it weren’t for the artificial limitations… The world continued to evolve, but some things were hardcoded into the kernel forever.

Without distracting my friends, I went straight to Flaygray and Nega; thankfully, my clanmates showed up on the minimap. They were guarding the workers at the mine. Just as I thought. In fact, the guards were engaged in their favorite pastime: sitting around a campfire and drinking. Not all of them — Anf, at least, was out patrolling, — but most were draining barrels of wine and talking drunkenly. Although… For them, that was normal; I hadn’t really seen them sober, which meant their conversation was ordinary too. They needed the fire to stay warm. Before turning undead, the satyr and succubus had always been cold, and they felt it again now that they were alive. Maybe they just weren’t used to the island after the heat of the desert, where they felt at home.

Ripta greeted me with a screech, Flaygray raised two fingers to his forehead, his way of greeting, and only Nega got up to hug and kiss me.

“How’s it going, boss?” she asked.

“I need to get to the Underworld!” I said.

Flaygray choked on his wine, spraying ruby droplets all over the raptor.

“Why?” Nega asked, raising her tail and placing it on my forehead. “Hmm… No fever, and you don’t seem crazy. What’s going on, boss? There are easier ways to end your frail existence, you know.”

“Here, boss, have a drink. You’ll feel right as rain in a moment, your head’ll clear right up,” the satyr suggested gently. “Elvish wine, I’m afraid, there’s no better to be found in this dump.”

“I’m serious!” I snapped.

“Well, alright,” Nega answered, crossing her arms. “Then first tell us why you want to go to a place that even Flaygray and I have no burning desire to return to.”

“Certainly not a burning one,” the satyr confirmed. “Burning in hellfire isn’t the most fun way to spend your time, boss, let me tell you!”

I told them what I’d learned from Fortune, then looked at their stunned faces. Flaygray scratched the back of his head.

“We don’t know how to withstand the frost. But we do know a thing or two about the Coals of Hellflame.”

“Mortals think the Underworld is down there,” Nega pointed down. “But down there is only the earth’s crust, mantle and core. Otherwise the sentients of Disgardium would have already found a way to drill down to it.”

“Yes, it isn’t down there,” Flay added. “Underworld is purely figurative. Our home plane was initially a chunk of firmament in the great nothing. There is no sun there, no stars, no light. Before us, there was no movement whatsoever, which meant that absolute cold reigned supreme. In the time of the first banishment, Diablo got so cold that when he returned to Disgardium, he immediately set to thinking of ways to improve his existence if the Sleepers sent him back to the Underworld. And he found a way. Azmodan created a spot of mayhem to distract the gods. In the meantime, Belial pulled Hephaestus into a deep conversation and Diablo crept into his smithy, stealing several Sparks of Eternal Flame, which, when infused with the Chaos of the Great Nothing, turned into Coals of Hellfire.”

“They say Hephaestus noticed nothing,” Flaygray laughed. “When the New Gods came, those three ran through into Chaos. The fabric of orderly creation itself tore asunder, and the three became Fallen Gods, descending into the Underworld. Along with all their followers.”

“And that’s how demons came to be?”

“Uh-huh. Chaos corrupted our ancestors.” Flaygray took a few generous gulps from a hole in his barrel, his Adam’s apple and goatee bobbing rhythmically. Done drinking, he threw the empty barrel aside and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Listen, boss. A mortal gets to the Underworld only if none of the gods want his spirit after death. It is final death, you understand? You don’t plan to pay that price just to test out flighty Fortune’s dumb advice, do you?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Then there’s only one way left,” the succubus declared.

“The Demonic Games?”

“What?” the satyr asked in surprise. “No, what do they have to do with anything? Entering the Games will bring you no closer to the Underworld.”

“Flay speaks true,” Nega nodded. “Here’s how it works, boss. Certain particularly gifted mortals make deals with demons. Usually, it’s a soul at stake — theirs or another’s, but if one wishes to obtain truly powerful demonic gifts, only one’s own soul can suffice. You must find one such idiot, someone who has sold his soul to one of the higher-ups, and… then… you…”

The satyr drew finger across his throat slowly.

“End his life’s path. That will open an infernal portal that will pull in the unfortunate fool’s soul…”

“And then you have to not let it leave and go in its place,” Nega finished the thought, pointing to my Reaper’s Scythes. “You have a tool for that.”

“And where, and