I could only come up out of the torrent of shit after a minute. I didn't even realize when I gained a body. A body that was drowning in shit and screaming that it was going to die. Finally, with a breath of stinky air, I was able to calm the panicked thoughts of my new body and focus on my abilities. There's contact! The magic is working, the chakra is in place, the psionics feel fine too. I just need to get in sync with my new body and the universe, and I'll be a mage again.
The flow of shit in the sewers calmed down, and a lamp appeared ahead. It was a dim lantern on the wall, with a stream of filth rushing past it. There was a small area of floor beneath the lantern, and I decided to get to it so I could take a little break. Suddenly, out of the darkness of the sewers, a figure in a dark cloak stepped forward. It was a brutal man in a black suit and black raincoat, his head covered by a black protective helmet that left the lower half of his face open. But most importantly, I immediately recognized the 'ears' protruding from the mask. Batman!
Gotham's protagonist stepped forward, looked at me splashing around in the shit, and raised his hand with a pistol in it.
“Nothing personal, it's just a game.” - He said and pulled the trigger.
The gun shot out and blew my brains out. I tried to use magic or chakra or psionics, but at the moment none of them were strong enough to protect me from an armor piercing all-metal bullet. If I'd had five minutes, I'd have trussed that Batman up. If I'd had a minute, I could have defended myself and run away. But I didn't have a second, so all I had to do was dutifully take a bullet to the forehead, making only a pathetic attempt to cover myself with my arm and dive under the water.
“You lost.” - I heard the voice of a trumpet a second later.
I was already in the Void, and the Players were crowding in front of me, staring at me greedily and emitting emotions of anticipation. Honestly, if the local Judge bitch hadn't forcibly ripped me from my body, I'd kill Batman without even a brain. Why would I need brains? It's easier without brains. No brain, no pain. I wouldn't have to adjust to my body, and I'd be able to hit with magic right away. After all, 'life' is a state more designed for torture than for normal conscious existence.
“You ripped me from my body before the battle finished. In fact, even before it had begun.”
“Silence!!!” - The Judge roared. – “You dare tell me what's according to the rules and what isn't?”
I looked around to the crowd and noticed that the Being wasn't here. Son of a bitch, throwing me at the mercy of those bastards who don't care what the rules are.
“I want to use the Justice Point to come back to life.” - I said it back. There's no point in arguing.
“What? What Justice Point?” - The Players get worried. – “It's against the rules.”
“Silence!!! You dare tell me what's against the rules and what's not?!” - The Players shut up, looking at me with unkind eyes, but the Judge continued his speech. – “I am the law, judge and executioner here! According to the rules, I may take one Justice Point to resurrect the game figure Cheater. No objections accepted. Go ahead.”
I was immediately squished and thrown away.
This time I appeared in the body of a grandmother in a high-rise apartment. At least my glance out the window showed a blue sky and a distant horizon, not the walls of the building next door. But as soon as I pulled my head away from the bed I was lying on, another enemy burst through the window of the apartment in a whirlwind. I didn't even have time to react to him. All I had to do was speed up with my psionics to see how the red-suited Flash had smashed my head with his fist.
And again, I was ripped out of my body, without even a chance to survive using my abilities.
“You lost.” - I heard the Judge's voice.
Basically, he didn't say I died. I lost. But the fact that, for the second time, my opponents appeared a second after I came to my senses was not a good indicator. The parasite, like a parasite, is sleeping without a hindrance. If this keeps up, I'm going to have to use it.
“I want to use the Justice Point to come back to life.”
This time the Players got a lot more excited.
“What? We've already paid twice. How much?”
“I don't have any funds left.”
“This is extortion!”
The whispers of those present merged into a silent chorus filled with anger and greed.
“All right.” - The Judge looked at me graciously. – “Resurrecting.”
This time I woke up sitting in an armchair on the veranda of a house in the countryside. In front of me were the fields, overgrown with dead grass. I immediately summoned all my strength to subdue my magic and psionics, at the same time commanding the parasite to prepare for battle and opening the seal on its hiding place.
But before I could even take a breath or two, a human silhouette flew over me in the sky. It was a man in a red and blue tight suit with an 'S' on his chest. He hovered a couple hundred meters in the air, then burned me with his `fire look'.
“You lost.”
This time I had nothing to object to, because all that was left of me was ashes.
When I looked around, I saw the 'bloodshot' eyes of the Players, ready to grab me and tear me apart.
“I want to use the Justice Point to come back to life.”
“How many times?! Rascal!” - One of the Players screamed, radiating waves of pure hatred. – “How many Justice Points do you have?”
“How many do you need? Let's see which ends first, my justice points or your money?”
This time the stares directed at me were full not only of hatred, but also of surprise. It was like a small louse talking to you and threatening to kill you if you didn't let it go. But in the current situation, I was still under the protection of the Judge, who was beaming with positivity and full approval of my actions.
“Resurrecting.”
This time I appeared on the beach, lying on a pebbly beach. I immediately strained all my abilities, but my opponent was faster.
Aquaman literally flew out of the water at supersonic speed, which actually tore my body to shreds. I didn't even have time to figure out if I was a man or a woman.
“You've lost.”
“I want to use the Point of Justice to resurrect.”
After these words of mine, the Players glared at me with hateful looks and one by one disappeared into the darkness.
“Ha-ha-ha!” - The Judge laughed. – “Thanks to you, I made more profit today than I did in my whole life. These Players were so eager to avenge you for your victory in the last game, that they were ready to pay unbelievable money so that I could tell them where you'd appeared.”
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“Isn't that against the rules?”
“No, of course it isn't.” - Judge grinned. – “It's not forbidden, though not encouraged, to find out the coordinates of a game figure's appearance.”
“What about telling the coordinates to your own game figures?”
“And this, of course, is against the rules. Do you suspect that the Players have violated the rules?”
At these words the Judge literally froze in anticipation of future profits. Okay, I'll figure out how to get the bastard later, but right now I need to make these bitches happy.
“As the only representative of the Being present here, I declare that I have solid evidence to suspect the other Players of violating the rules of the game by passing information about the time and place of my appearance to their game figures.”
“Great! I will immediately start a fair and unbiased investigation of this incident.”
“Why do they think they have any rights towards me at all?” - I asked.
“So, the Being told them that if you lose this game, they can do whatever they want to you.”
What a bastard. I'll remember that.
“Okay, I accepted the complaint. It's time for you to go to the game. As compensation, I can organize the next incarnation according to your wishes.”
“I want to appear where no one will find me for at least 24 hours.”
“Very well.” - Judge nodded.
“By the way, what are the conditions for winning?” - I asked, while I had the chance.
“The conditions are different for everyone. But in your case, you have to kill all of the other game figures on Earth.”
“On Earth? What if they escape into outer space, won't I have to hunt for them?”
“No. Your area of responsibility is a million kilometers from Earth.”
“Okay...”
At this point I was flattened again and shoved somewhere.
After a dozen seconds, I realized that I was in the body of a sentient being. I was not even remotely human at first glance. So, knowing the Judge's promise, I started to integrate myself into the body, scanning it with magic and psionics at the same time.
Pretty quickly it became clear that I was in the body of some techno octopus, which was lying at the bottom of the sea at a depth of eight kilometers. It wasn't the Mariana Basin, but it was close. Apparently, it was some kind of alien, lost in the vastness of the world's oceans. However, I was not interested in his technology. I had enough of my own.
When I got used to the body, I activated the spell to create a crystal for Vritras's body. The sandstone on the bottom was not very suitable as the source material for the crystal and the body itself, but in general it was possible to live. And in ten minutes I was sitting inside the strongest thing in this universe, 'digesting' the octopus body and creating a normal Vritras body for myself.
All right, that's it! I wasted four Justice Points because of those bastards. Only three left. I'll be merciless this time.
I swam along the bottom, searching for the metal deposits I needed. After all, the carbon-aluminum base was too fragile for my body. After only fifty kilometers I reached the rocks protruding from the sedimentary strata. There it was! Drilling into the rock, I began mining the necessary elements.
By the way, here lies an actual cobalt deposit. How about a radioactive Apocalypse for the locals? A simple spell could release cobalt from the base rock and turn it into cobalt-60, an extremely radioactive and toxic substance. Because I' m not too keen on chasing after those 'heros' around here. The best thing would be to finish them all off in one blow, and then deal with the survivors.
Without much thought, I created a spell that used lithium deuteride in the seawater as fuel to turn ordinary chemical elements into radioactive isotopes. Within fifteen minutes, the water around me began to heat up and glow with a ghostly green light. The only reason it didn't blow up was because the salt water is a good absorber of neutrons and gamma radiation, so there was no chain reaction.
Meanwhile, Aquaman was approaching me at supersonic speed. Come on, let's find out who's who! Only the result was disappointing. The amphibian was dead before it could even get to me. After all, the radioactivity around here was beyond all reasonable limits. The ocean would soon boil from the heat produced by radioactive decay.
However, it would be too slow, within the borders of the Earth, to try to kill all life with radiation. After all, the planet is a big fucking thing. Something else is needed here.
I crammed myself into a crevice at the bottom of the sea and pretended to be a rock, and began to go over my options for the rapid destruction of planets. And soon I found one. Back in the world of the Stargate, I was testing the technology of converting ordinary matter into quantum liquid. Then the victim of my curiosity was an alien ship. Now it will be another reflection of Earth. The only thing to do is to tweak it so that the resulting substance does not decay over time and has a density comparable to neutron-derived matter.
The mathematical calculations took only five minutes, after which I finally managed to get a spell for the magic of spiders. But I didn't activate it, because I had no protection against such tricks with reality. Not even my ultra-protected Vritras crystal could save me.
So I left the magical gift at the bottom of the sea, and I quickly rushed upward. After thirty seconds, I flew out of the water and continued moving upward, increasing my speed. My goal was the moon. Only distances of cosmic proportions could keep me from turning into a microscopic drop of quantum liquid.
I made myself comfortable inside a small crater with an excellent view of the Earth, and checked the operation of a couple of hundred magical constructs that were supposed to act as cameras watching a planetary-scale disaster. After making sure everything was working, I took a large glass of popcorn and pressed a button on my imaginary TV remote.
The triggered magical mine activated the process of matter transformation, after which the reaction became self-sustaining. As the quantum liquid was very dense, to an outside observer the transformation process looked like the disappearance of matter. The thin silver membrane collapsed downward, pulled down by gravity. At the same time, it began to expand sideways, forming a kind of funnel. Seawater poured into this funnel and promptly 'disappeared without a trace'.
In just a few seconds, the funnel grew to several hundred kilometers in diameter. The matter inside the planet was denser, so the speed of its transformation was higher there. Because of this, the edges of the funnel began to curl inward, while fading at an ever increasing rate. The rotation of the Earth began to have an effect on the shape of the funnel, and it looked less and less like a cone or a hemisphere. The Earth now resembled a deflating ball that had been stepped on by a titanic being.
People sensed the approaching apocalysys by the strong earthquakes that shook the planet. Near the vortex, the air began to fly away toward the anomaly, creating the strongest winds. This could lead to the fact that part of the Earth's surface became orbited by it, and therefore the entire planet was enveloped in a magical field that slowed down any movement. It was relatively weak, but at cosmic distances such an effect ensured that anything that flew up would definitely fall down.
Beasts, humans, and superhumans were like dust carried by the winds of destiny. All of them, sooner or later, transformed into a silvery liquid that rushed toward the center of the planet. Some tried to resist, some to escape.
The latter was best handled by Barry Allen, better known as the Flash. He and his girlfriend ran across half of the globe, only to realize that there was nowhere to run. He even tried to travel back in time, but space-time perturbations prevented him from doing so. What perturbations? Well, the ones created by my spell that hindered everything and everything.
The only one who could truly escape was Superman. He hovered in space with a pompous attitude, watching the destruction of the planet from a safe distance.
Finally, the transformation of matter ceased, all the 'shit' settled down, and only a huge silver ball 20 kilometers in diameter was left in place of the Earth. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this whole scene was that such transformations were not accompanied by huge bursts of electromagnetic radiation. In fact, the surface of the quantum life was absolutely black, and not a single quantum of light could leave it. Moreover, the observed effect of silver metal was only a consequence of emission of photons due to a special interaction of this kind of matter with the structure of space.
After making sure that I had dealt with all the heroes and Superman was in no hurry to leave, I decided to deal with him personally. To be more exact, not personally, but through a remotely controlled 'doll', inside which a gift in the form of the same quantum liquid was supposed to be waiting for him. But considering the information I knew about Superman's 'X-ray vision', I created a body that was completely similar to a human even at the level of biochemistry. In fact, it was almost a living person, inside his body was an isolated network of capillaries, filled with quantum liquid.
And then, this fake went to Superman and challenged him to a fight. It would take a long time to describe the pompous words spoken by the game figure who stepped into the role of savior of mankind, but to me it was all just empty air pollution. Or rather, an empty vacuum, because there was no air left in the surrounding space. Then a brief duel with a ray gun ensued, after which Superman decided to end the battle by punching my doll's face with his fist and accepting the blow of my doll's fist on his chest.
As a result, both the superhero's chest and fist changed their form of existence, and a second later all other parts of his body turned into a tiny droplet of quantum liquid, which would be difficult to see even under a microscope.
I think I'm finished here. I shook off the remnants of Superman, and they flew straight to the remains of the planet, where they merged with it. Well, where's that Judge? I demand a bonus for quickly and efficiently destroying the planet.
But in a second, I saw not the Judge, but the Being's hateful face.
“What's wrong with you? Why do you always win? I don't even know where I can put you. Just stay here while I take care of this issue seriously.”
Before I could even quack, I was grabbed again and carried somewhere.