Enemy of the Inferno (Disgardium Book #8): LitRPG Series Read online

  “Nah…” Fen said dismissively. “I’m on the Moon, buddy. If only you could see what they’ve made of Silver Harbor!”

  A casino hall glittered behind the top-one player in the world. A palladium chip worth one million phoenixes danced across Mogwai’s fingers. The face of a young Hollywood star whose name Liam couldn’t remember appeared on one side. The girl moved in to hug Fen.

  “What’s with you?” Liam asked in surprise. “It’s a class-A Threat! The first in Dis!”

  “They won’t find him until he shows himself, bro, believe me,” Mogwai said, rubbing his eyes, yawning and spraying some Accelerant into his mouth. He looked tired, as if he’d spent days at a poker table. “Listen, I already said all this to Hinter ten minutes ago. We agreed that I’ll come back when there’s something concrete…”

  Fen hung up, and Liam, frustrated, asked Yary for furlough and headed to the island of the White Amazons to blow off some steam. Elizabeth’s taste and stringent standards for applicants were the envy of the best modeling agencies. Discipline was strict on the island; outsiders and males generally weren’t allowed in, so when broad-shouldered and tall Liam arrived, it was like Christmas for the girls.

  He spent almost half a year on the island, enjoying all the privileges of the clan leader’s nephew. To the Amazons, Elizabeth was everything, playing the role of mother, best friend and employer.

  In early April, Liam flew off to Distival. Before the opening ball, his aunt pulled him off to one side, pointed at a comely girl wearing high-heels and a black evening gown, her blond hair carefully styled.

  “Her name is Melissa,” she said. “Tissa, from the Awoken. Champion of the Junior Arena.”

  “You want to recruit her? She’s kind of… clumsy…” As he spoke, the girl walked to the champagne table, slipped on her high heel and stumbled.

  “We can teach her etiquette. In all other respects, she’s a suitable candidate. Sure, she’s an ugly duckling now, but a little work and we’ll make her into a swan. Anyway, that isn’t why I’m telling you about her…”

  Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have looked at her twice, and if he’d known what sort of family she was from, then not even once. But Melissa Schafer turned out to be Alex Sheppard’s girlfriend.

  Hinterleaf was sure that boy was the fabled top Threat. For everyone else, Scyth was just one of many suspects, but the old man had a nose for such things. Liam didn’t know what the head of Modus had said to his girlfriend Elizabeth, but his aunt, which meant Hinterleaf, had given the order to find a way into her good graces. So Liam had to play at falling for Tissa, no matter how little he liked it.

  He managed to sweep her off her feet, of course, although their relationship hadn’t gotten to the best part yet. It wasn’t the age of this girlfriend he’d been lumbered with that stopped him, it was just that an underage abuse scandal was the last thing Elizabeth needed, so he had to keep a grip on himself, so to speak. His aunt shepherded the White Amazons’ reputation more fiercely than her own; reputation was the main thing that separated her clan from the Damsels. So she gave her nephew strict instructions not to cross the line.

  On top of that, he felt embarrassed next to Tissa, like an elite stud next to a mutt from the slums. But refusing would cause him trouble – he had a few serious misdeeds in his past that he couldn’t be proud of. If information about them ‘accidentally’ leaked from Yary’s database, then Liam Driscoll could say goodbye to his reputation and citizenship category alike.

  In crafting the illusion of love between her nephew and the girl, Elizabeth tried to ensure that all the Amazons, and any of Liam’s old or new flames, would forget all about him. Nothing could ruin the romance of the moment; the stakes were too high. Modus was casting a wide net to catch the Threat, and would check out even the most unbelievable theories. They went through all the profiles of all the finalists of every tournament in existence. They monitored the champions of all the types of Arenas and Battlefields, anyone who had an achievement in the First Ever and First Kill categories, the champions of the crafting tournaments, the finalists of the Gryphon Races… They checked even the winners of the Ditch and the most exotic Circle.

  It was all done quietly, of course. They gathered information and notes, questioned acquaintances: ‘So you’re Mr. Pontiac’s neighbor? Yeah, Frankie. Has anything strange been happening with Mr. Pontiac recently? Yeah, I know he won the Gryphon Races… Champion of Dis now, right?’ Of course, they weren’t really all that clumsy, but nobody revealed their methods to Liam, so he could only guess.

  The clan’s reconnaissance division did its thing, and money went to outside informants. Everyone knew that Modus paid the highest premiums for intel on Threats.

  Because of all this, it was entirely natural that every junior champion in the Awoken became an object of close scrutiny. And not just by Modus, so there was a need for extra caution. The Alliance of Preventers was tightly knit only in public; in fact, the clans fought over every Threat detected. Hinterleaf and Horvac were the only real friends in the bunch, more or less.

  The situation turned tense when Mogwai declared at Distival that he was not only returning to the game, but creating his own clan – the Elites. By the next morning, the world’s leading player had a full-fledged lineup of the strongest players in their class. Apart from his old friend Ignatius – that is, Criterror from the Azure Dragons, – Mogwai also poached Laneiran and Biancanova from the Children of Kratos, Ronan from Sharp Blades and a couple from Excommunicado: Cray and one of the most beautiful girls Liam had ever seen – Angel…

  There was a spot for Liam, too, who Hinterleaf himself sent off to the new clan:

  “Stay there for now. I need any information Mogwai reveals about the top Threat.”

  For an entire month, Liam had been torn between the goals of the Elites, assignments from his aunt Elizabeth and Hinterleaf, and Tissa, who stubbornly laughed off all his attempts to learn anything about Sheppard.

  After learning that Scyth had plans to visit her father, Liam seized his opportunity. The girl was too naive, floating in the clouds, believing in ephemeral concepts like friendship and love. She was unlikely to break up with Sheppard over comm, so surely she was going to meet with him.

  His prediction wasn’t wrong. Sheppard and his pathetic loser friends were throwing a party in the hellhole they called home, and Liam asked to go with Tissa. He even skipped out on joining the clan in their assault on the Sleepers’ temple in the Lakharian Desert.

  Shame his plan came to nothing but a waste of time. Liam coaxed the boy into an open conversation and deliberately provoked him, hoping that the schoolboy wouldn’t be able to resist bragging about something special in response to insult. He might have at least threatened Liam with punishment in Dis… But no, Sheppard had behaved so humbly that Liam decided that Hinterleaf was mistaken. This Sheppard was no Threat. Just an ordinary nerd from the slums, hoping Dis was his doorway to polite society.

  A day later, it turned out that Liam was the mistaken one. The top Threat’s name echoed throughout the world: Alexander Kiran Sheppard, a sixteen-year-old schoolkid from North America, also known as Herald Scyth.

  That would have been fine in itself, but a day before, Liam had insisted to Hinterleaf that he had a ‘sense for these things,’ and that he wasn’t wrong: the kid was a dud. The Modus leader went out of his way to call him back:

  “You’re the dud, Driscoll. If it wasn’t for your aunt, you’d already be cutting down trees for me somewhere on Holdest!”

  That day was a stressful one. In the battle against Shazz the lich, the entire main contingent of the Elites got infected with Plague Dust and received an offer to switch to the new faction and play as undead. Imagining himself as a rotting corpse, Liam shivered and almost pressed ‘Decline,’ but it occurred to him to check Mogwai’s position first.

  Exiting his capsule in the clan base, he saw that the others were already discussing their new abilities in the hall, and he sat down
on a couch next to Fen.

  “What’s there to think about?” Mogwai snapped, addressing the girls. “Yes, undead! Yes, zombies! But no climate debuffs!”

  Right, of course… Liam thought. This guy only cares about progress. It doesn’t even occur to him that Dis won’t be any fun anymore!

  Naturally, he kept his mouth shut. It was decided that they would change factions.

  Upset, Liam flew to the island of the White Amazons – to unwind and to try to learn something from one who knew more about the undead than him.

  He and Tissa spent the evening walking on the beach, hand in hand beneath the stars. The ocean rumbled. The pleasantly cool sand tickled the soles of their feet. The moment was as romantic as they get, and if Tissa had been old enough, Liam would have dragged her to bed. Actually, he wouldn’t have had to drag her at all, he was sure of that.

  “You told me you didn’t know anything about Sheppard’s Threat status,” Liam said sadly, feigning disappointment at her dishonesty.

  “Pfft…” the girl snorted. “It’s not like you share all the Elites’ secrets with me! Don’t forget, Liam, I’m in the Awoken, and my friends are too! Sorry, I really couldn’t tell you anything about them! And I still can’t!”

  Tissa saw that he was upset and was trying to console him. Liam played to her sympathies:

  “Your ex is undead too, right? Do you know how to play as undead?”

  “I don’t know anything, really. We don’t talk. Why do you want to know?”

  Weighing his words carefully, Liam explained that the Elites had decided to change their faction. He was always a good storyteller. He shared his fears with the girl, giving a graphic description of zombies and complaining that he wouldn’t be able to live in Dis without touch and taste. Her laughter rang out across the beach.

  “You’re worrying about nothing, Liam! Taste, touch, smell… You can switch all that off or on in your character settings!”

  Liam felt like a bloodhound on a scent. The girl was still happy to talk on any subject, even the most explicit, but as soon as he got her talking about Sheppard or her former clan, her mouth locked closed. But now the lock had clicked open!

  Liam slowly pulled an Accelerant spray out of his pocket, fired a shot into his mouth and offered it to Tissa:

  “Want to try?”

  She did want to, of course, but she hesitated. Her hand froze in indecision halfway to the bottle.

  “Come on, nobody will know,” Liam whispered conspiratorially. “Auntie won’t find out, if that’s what you’re worried about! It’s totally safe, not even addictive. Don’t worry!”

  After a moment, the girl took the small bottle, which looked like any breath freshener. A legal narcotic available only to the rich, thanks to its exorbitant cost.

  “Try it!” Liam urged her on. “Come on, try it or give it back!”

  Tissa tried it, and used it more than once again that night. Accelerant always worked that way on first-timers: they hesitated at first, then found it irresistible. The drug gave an incredible burst of energy, lifted the mood, cleared the mind, sped up reactions. No matter what you did, you’d always do it better with Accelerant.

  That night, Tissa let slip that she left the sandbox using a teleportation skill obtained in an instance and visited the Awoken fort. Another effect of Accelerant – it loosened tongues.

  “Fort?” Liam echoed derisively. “What, they don’t have enough money for a decent castle?”

  By the morning, having spent all her energy reserves under the effect of the Accelerant, she passed out, and Liam left her. He feared to admit it even to himself, but Tissa was beautiful. He barely managed to resist taking advantage of the situation – only the fear of his aunt stopped him. Overexcited, he first went to see one of the Amazons, Lexa, to blow off some steam, then flew to the base of the Elites. His clanmates knew about his ‘relationship’ with Melissa Schafer, and they assumed the girl had long since become a notch in Liam’s bedpost.

  When he came back, events started to career out of control. The Elites’ character regeneration had ended, and something happened that none of them had dreamed of. They became legates of the Destroying Plague!

  Their breath caught at the possibilities that opened up before them, but the lay of the land started looking even sweeter when the Nucleus of the Destroying Plague belittled Scyth right before their eyes!

  As they lay in wait for him at the stronghold in the desert, the legates felt sure that their fairytale day would end in an ultra-mega-super-duper event – the elimination of the class-A Threat! The closeness and realness of the event had even Liam’s normally level head spinning, never mind quick-tempered Mogwai!

  The success of the Elites, which was supposed to explode onto news feeds all over the world, dangled in front of their noses, lured them in, teased them and then disappeared into the ether! That bastard Sheppard, who had seemed to be in a hopeless position, just nonchalantly pulled two aces out of his rotten sleeve: imba battle pets and the ability to fly!

  Worse, the Threat had found an ability that let him change his race without regenerating his character! Yes, Scyth had lost his Destroying Plague abilities, but Mogwai could no longer summon him as a legate either. So they’d missed their chance.

  The bad news didn’t end there. As it turned out, all their funds in the Commonwealth and Goblin League banks were frozen! Mogwai, who had never been in the habit of saving, was in a rage hotter than any Plague Fury. When he learned of the losses, Fen shot out of his capsule, grabbed a baseball bat and smashed a new Audi Decima into garbage. He would have moved on to the Ferrari Falco, but Ignatius-Criterror stopped him in time.

  After calming Fen down, they all gathered for a clan meeting. As they racked their brains for a way to catch the top Threat, Liam remembered that Tissa could teleport, and knew the location of the Awoken base. Fen took up the idea right away, deciding to use Subjugate Mind, an ability of the Supreme Legate, to get to the Awoken fort and catch Scyth.

  Yes, Mogwai managed to get to the fort, but the effort went no further. Although no longer a legate, the Threat still had some tricks up his sleeve. He disarmed Mogwai, locking him in the cellar of the Widowmakers’ former castle. But Fen noticed that Scyth had logged out of Dis on the spot, which meant that he should reappear in the same place! There it was, a real chance to finish off the Threat!

  But first, Mogwai needed to get out of the blocking cell, and the Elites got help for that from Eileen Waters. Giving her the position of ninth legate seemed a low price for freeing the clan leader. How wrong they were!

  Eileen helped, Criterror saved Mogwai. Everything seemed to be going as planned, and so it was at first. The dark elf and the Supreme Legate awaited Scyth together, and even killed him! But they argued over the right to eliminate him as a Threat, and let the opportunity slip through their fingers. Scyth escaped again. More than that, the contract had to be kept; Eileen was turned undead and made the ninth legate.

  For a day, Fen hid away from everyone, to ‘talk to his inner voice’ and think. This run of bad luck seemed to have transformed the leader of the clan, made him more coldblooded. When he came back, he seemed to have forgotten about Scyth. He wasn’t at all burning with the desire to get revenge.

  It turned out Fen was having problems: his creditors were out for his blood, and his personal financial consultant warned him that Xiaoguang was close to bankruptcy. That was when the first alarm bell rang in Liam’s head, and he thought about leaving the clan.

  All the Elites at once seemed to latch onto the idea of following Scyth’s example and earning from the from spoils of war, correcting their financial position at the expense of the rich Alliance of Preventers. None of them saw much risk in the plan: when far away from each other, the legates were immortal, and as for traps… Well, how many could Scyth have? Mogwai put an ultimatum to the top clans, threatening to destroy their castles if they refused to pay him an ‘undead security tax.’ Putting it lightly, the clans turned down his off
er, which was entirely predictable. The surprise came from elsewhere – Modus and the Travelers forged an alliance with the Awoken.

  Mogwai was the first one captured. Worse, the Threat somehow used some broken ability to drop the druid down to level 166! And then all the other legates got grabbed, all except Eileen. The girl flatly refused to help them – she was busy powerleveling.

  And what did the Nucleus do? Instead of concerning itself with the fate of its minions, the dumb AI determined that Mogwai had become weak, and that out of all the others, Eileen was the strongest at level 600, and made her Supreme Legate!

  The news that Eileen had overtaken Scyth to become the top player in the world rocked the media, and Waters herself told Fen about the change in the Destroying Plague’s hierarchy – Liam was there and heard it all. For a long time, she ignored all attempts to contact her, but not long before the Demonic Games ended, she called back all of a sudden:

  “Hey, Fen! How’s it going, babes? Still sitting in that cage?”