Edge of Reality (LitRPG series Phantom Sever: Book #1) by Andrei Livadny

Edge of Reality (Book #1) Prologue

Darkness hung low, veined with crimson, growing and swelling like an abscess. From time to time it spewed clouds of ashen discharge, rapid and greedy, that melted rocks and evaporated the cracked earth, then dissipated into a toxic gray haze.

The hill towered over a spine-chilling sea of statues.

The mist disgorged the petrified figures of warriors. Steel had crumbled to rust. Silver and mithril glistened defiantly.

The scarce reddish light seeped through the eternal fog, forming bloody droplets in the curves of my armor. It trickled snake-like down my sword blade, shaping a runic script on the moon silver.

The castle's ruins rose on top of the hill. Ramparts circled the slopes. A barely discernible ash-buried road led to the castle's main gates that were formed by two monolith ledges of limestone. Once snow-white, they now looked dull and ghostly, tinged with red. Above the gate towers' liquid outlines, the donjon loomed through the toxic fog.

I stopped, glancing over the statues' faces.

My heart was empty and cold. I must have known some of the petrified warriors in the past, but I couldn't remember any of them anymore. Where were those happy days when excitement ravaged my thoughts, its waves running up and down my spine, pushing me into the thick of events?

The ash reared up, its swirls encircling me, transforming into the figures of dark guards. Their eyes were ablaze with gloom.

They charged at me from every direction all at once. Playing solo, I performed a well-practiced combo, stripping the most brazen ones of their hits. The Sky Shield ballooned out, causing a dozen Curses of Stone and some weaker debuffs to dissolve into a fountain of pure flames as my Paladin's unique abilities transformed them into a cleansing wall of return fire.

The moon blade quivered, impatient to join the battle, but the monsters had already crumbled to dust. My level was way above their league.

I'd been trying to delay this moment for as long as I possibly could. The last quest castle. The last tiny blank space on the now completed map of the game's enormous world. Another reality I'd traveled far and wide.

I took another step. More ashen twisters flared up, disgorging the blurred outlines of new attackers, but...

Boring. Even my new sensation-enhancing device didn't help me much with its ability to experience things beyond the usual human range of feeling. My perception had been enriched with unique gameplay phenomena: I could feel energies coursing down my armor, the very fabric of Creation flowing in these veins of the level-430 Paladin that I now was.

My path led toward the donjon. There I would take out an artifact I'd found long ago and lay it onto the cracked altar. The crimson abscess of the sky would finally break, sunrays bursting through the parting thunderclouds. The disappointed screams of the dark guards being cast out into the gloomy depths of the virtual world would be replaced with a pure crystal chime. The castle's walls would shake themselves free from cinders and the bubbled molten crust as its majestic buildings would once again rise from the dust of oblivion.

The light would take me in - to no avail.

The game developers had nothing left to reward me with. Not one of them would consider creating a new patch for a single player, opening new mind-blowing locations or introducing new quests unachievable for all the other gamers.

I had made too much progress. Now I had to leave. To seek new experiences in the vast expanses of the Net - something yet unknown and unexplored. But was this at all feasible?

It had to be. It was purely a question of luck. And a lot of it. No matter how clever the game designers and script writers believed themselves to be, I didn't think they could offer anything truly new to my seasoned eye.