RED ALERT!
Objective: Neutralize the destructive effects produced by the xeno object known as THE BLACK MOON on PLANET EARTH.
All means are hereby authorized and all further information is classified.
The Seven Keys have been collected, and the world created solely to entertain has come alive. The one who gains control over them will rule Sphere. Who will it be—the Demon King, the digitized players, the corporations, or the people hiding under the masks of the Seven Brothers? The stakes are higher than ever, and the merchant’s life is once again at risk—after all, he holds one of the Keys that grant the power to create and destroy worlds at will. Together with Weldy, who has become a Lord of Libros in her own right, Cat will have to brave the most dangerous place in all of Sphere—the Cloud of Bones. His smarts, his cunning, his luck, and the Law of Balance are on his side. And behind him is the might of the Starlight Fleet.
Now that Grey has delivered the city from the attacking hordes, he still has a lot of work on his hands. He needs to pay the Bina Shea a visit, find the Bullet Star, investigate the mysterious Project Aurora-and above all, he needs to restore the First Legion to its former glory.
But most importantly, he must eliminate the Daat and cancel the deal that Prometheus struck with the treacherous demon many centuries ago . . .
They say that the Sphere of Worlds has no limits and that its players enter a new universe brimming with mysteries. And this universe is now readying to defend itself. Whoever has got involved in the game just can't stop anymore. In the search for the Keys, Cat and Weldy set off for the Abyss—the netherworlds of the Sphere—where Cat is about to play against the strongest of all the oracles: the legendary Demon King. And the stake in the game is horrendously simple: Cat's own life.
'I hereby command:
To connect the military orbitals as to the Sky Strike scheme.
To launch a synchronized strike targeting the Black Moon as soon as it comes into range.
To ensure the complete exhaustion of the missiles' Absolute reactors to trigger annihilation processes.'
By the time Grey had come back with an army of new allies, the Legion had been defeated. Many an Incarnator had fallen as heroes, leaving the City on the brink of destruction. Thousands of souls still trapped inside the Cube are trying to break free from their extradimensional prison while the Star watches impassively from its celestial heights.
But it's not the A-monsters, Shivas, or Possessed Ones who present the main danger. It's he who'd launched Project Stellar-and who's now revealed his true face, threatening the very existence of Incarnators.
Pandorum is launching a massive offensive, aiming to destroy Cat and his clan. As they’re blazing through everything in their path, thousands of players clash in battle, and the biggest alliances of Sphere join the fray. Can Cat stay on the sidelines? After all, he’s able to buy and sell almost anything in the game—even victory itself. Cat fights his own war in economics and trade. Which role will the merchant play in a bloody war fated to go down in the history of the game as the Battle for the North?
Meet Cat. He thinks everything has its price. You can pay in gold, or you pay in steel. And for the right price, even the entire Sphere of Worlds can be bought. Ever the merchant, he pays in souls, freeing the Goddess of Darkness in the astral fortress of Pandorum and becoming the archnemesis of the most powerful alliance in all of Sphere. Even as an enormous bounty is placed on his head with hunters trailing his every move, he never wavers. His patron, the God of Shadows, sends Cat to the twilight world of the Hole to find the third of the seven Keys. There, the merchant will have to traverse the dangerous waters of an underground ocean to reach the Isle of Madness, proving once again to be worthy of divine favor.
Now that Cat has discovered his sword’s secret and received the task to collect the Seven Keys, he’s not in a hurry to complete the new quest. Why would he care about the future of the world when he has much more exciting things to do, like claiming his place in the clan, participating in the redistributing of trade influence, and just plain making money? Cat starts building his own trading empire—and ends up getting involved in an all-out economic war. Having gotten the taste of real money, he travels to the Bazaar, the world’s biggest marketplace at the crossroads of trade routes, intending to finally show all the Sphere’s tycoons what he’s capable of. Cat is serious about making it to the top, earning influence, money, new risky deals, new friends and new enemies in the process. And once he finally makes it big, he suddenly gains a new patron: a stranger who turns out of be the god of shadows, rogues, and traders who takes interest in the brazen merchant. Following the route his new patron god has shown him, Cat arrives at the legendary Helt Acor, the Endless Paths of the Ancients whose finest web permeates the very fabric of Creation. Their tunnels form the most perilous dungeon in the whole of the Sphere. Only the one in possession of the Ancient Gene can tread in the footsteps of the long-perished race and find the most amazing of all treasures. And in the end of their journey, the daring adventure-seekers should brace themselves for a surprise…
Cat is a wannabe merchant who specializes in procuring in-game valuables to sell for real money. He's a cunning trickster who wriggles his way out of trouble thanks to his quick wit and his trading talents, and his credo is “Anyone can be bought provided the price is right. He starts from scratch, using every opportunity to advance his plans. The first book in the Rogue Merchant series, The Starlight Sword is the story of this common trader’s rise to becoming the world’s newest legend, the most famous merchant in the entire Sphere of the Worlds—a worldwide multiverse comprised of hundreds of worlds, from horrible Infernos ruled by Demon Lords to mechanical worlds inhabited by sentient constructs. In the Sphere of the Worlds, gigantic markets have sprouted at the crossroads of trade routes, and players use astral ships to travel between worlds to avoiding having to venture into the perilous underground tunnels of the Endless Paths. Dozens of powerful clans share this delicious pie, scheming or waging wars against each other. A classic might-and-magic-style LitRPG series with elements of manapunk, the Rogue Merchant series focuses on the economics of this game world, including various trade methods, such as regular and auction trading, as well as social and political interactions between clans and players. There's plenty of intrigue and espionage, betrayal, trade wars, besieged castles, and epic air battles of flying ships!
Worum geht es in diesem Hörbuch? Es geht um die uralten Mysterien der Erde, auf die es geheimnisvolle Wesen von jenseits des Randes abgesehen haben. Es geht um den Schwarzen Mond, der über der letzten verbliebenen Stadt steht, und um deren Legion, die einst von den Inkarnatoren gegründet wurde. Es geht um die Besessenen, die von der Macht der urtümlichen Dunkelheit verändert wurden. Es geht um die Krieger, Verzauberer und Technomanten, die sich vor langer Zeit erhoben haben, um die Menschheit vor dem uralten Bösen zu beschützen. Und es geht um einen Mann, der im Körper eines jungen Legionärstributs feststeckt und seine Reise durch die Welt fortsetzt, um das Geheimnis um seine Vergangenheit zu lüften und erneut herauszufinden, welche Aufgabe er zu erfüllen hat. Doch damit ihm das gelingen kann, muss er die Reise erst einmal überleben.
Als die Trümmer des 'Schwarzen Mondes' auf den Planeten Erde stürzten, ließen sie Kontinente auseinanderbrechen und überfluteten sie mit den tosenden Ozeanen. Dunkelheit senkte sich auf unsere Welt herab. Eruptionen feindlicher Energie von jenseits des Randes verdrehten die Gesetze der physikalischen Welt und erschufen neue Lebensformen, die nun kurz davor sind, den Planeten zu übernehmen. Die wenigen verbliebenen Überreste der Menschheit kämpfen verbittert ums Überleben und haben dem Ansturm nichts entgegenzusetzen.
Es ist Zeit, die Inkarnation zu aktivieren: die letzte Anweisung von 'Projekt Stellar'. In einer Situation, in der nicht mehr genug Lebewesen zum Schutz des Planeten Erde existieren, müssen sich die toten Kämpfer den Reihen der Verteidiger anschließen.
