The Many-armed God of Dalaina

In the rectangular world of Dalaina, invented by Svyatoslav Loginov, everything is divided into squares, patches of land of fixed size, adapted for human life. Rather, not for life — for survival. The very Dalaina is located in a square-shaped basin filled with poisonous sludge. A monster dwells in the basin, a many-armed spawn of the abyss. The creator specifically made this world for the Many-armed, so that he would be distracted from fighting against him and wouldn’t disturb him, the creator, from contemplating the eternal. The monster harbors a fierce hatred for humans and seeks to destroy them. After all, by expanding their land territory, humans reduce the precious living space of its master, the cruel world. The creator himself is no helper to humans, and in Dalaina a person is doomed to become a victim of the many-armed god. But by the will of the creator, once in a generation, there appears in this world one who is capable of defeating the monster. The truth is, no one chosen by fate to perform this feat has succeeded so far. Will the young Shooran be able to rid the world of the monster, as he has been given the role of the chosen one in his generation?.. The novel «The Many-armed God of Dalaina» is supplemented with an author's afterword and chapters from the unfinished continuation of the book. The collection also includes the best stories by the writer from different years, one of which, «The Philologist», is published in book form for the first time.