Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4)

by Jez Cajiao

  The front of the building had held two large doors; I say ‘had‘ because the Badunka that I’d crashed had taken not only the doors, but the entire front of the building out, including a section of the upper floors with it.

  I winced as I stepped through the shattered doorway, ducking my head to avoid a gently swaying section that hadn’t fully fallen yet, and I saw the bodies.

  There were at least a dozen, although none appeared intact. Bits of bodies were everywhere, along with sections of wall, roof, and door, not to mention blackened Badunka remnants. I searched quickly, making sure of what I knew in my heart. My naginata wasn’t here.

  I growled and moved forward, slipping on an uneven section, and feeling a strong grip grab me from behind to holding me upright. I looked back and nodded my thanks to Lydia, catching the grim look in her eyes through the slit in her helm.

  “Yer need t’ be more careful,” she grumbled, supporting me as I cleared the section of uneven ground, then almost slipping herself, before I caught her hand. We grinned at each other and moved on, passing into the next section of the building, and as I looked back, I noticed Giint attaching a thin line to a box and looping it over the middle of the path we’d followed. I looked at Tang, seeing that he was close to the gnome, and he nodded, indicating that it was okay, and he was watching.

  We moved through two more rooms before coming to a halt in the first one that seemed solid. The walls and ceiling, as well as the floor, were coated in dust and filth, but it also contained the looted remains of chests and display cases around the outside, with a sturdy door in and out of the room on either side.

  Bane was waiting at the far door, as he had been each time, and he gestured onward and shook his head. There was nobody waiting outside, and by now, we could hear the snuffling growling approach of the Leviathans from outside.

  “We make a stand here,” I said grimly. “We…” I was cut off by a screech of pain and fury from outside and the building shook again as a shockwave of light, noise, and debris flooded the room from where we’d just been.

  There was a moment of shock, then we all looked to Giint.

  “They attttte my giiirl,” he said grimly and glared at the doorway we’d just come through.

  “So, what, that was fucking bomb?” I asked, aghast. “In a building that’s practically falling down already?” I gestured around at the solidly built room. Giint looked at me, then shrugged.

  “They deaddd,” was all he said in a flat, grim voice, and I gestured wordlessly to the door. Tang and Yen slipped through quickly, and I looked to Bane, who shook his head from the far door, indicating there was still no sign of anything that way.

  They were gone less than a minute, before Tang moved over to stand next to Giint and Yen came to me.

  “One Leviathan was dead, the other gravely injured, Jax, but whatever he used… it was powerful, like your mortar of my Flamespear going off in a small space. It literally shredded the first one and took the second’s front legs off, partially cooking its face. Tang killed it, but I don’t like the idea of the crazy little sod carrying shit like that around when we hardly know him,” she said grimly, watching Giint, who glared round at the room while fingering a bulging pocket. I nodded to her and picked my way over to Giint, clearing my throat and making him squint up at me. Te battered and cracked lenses in the goggles he wore perched on his head made him look even crazier than the drunken dwarves I was used to dealing with.

  “I don’t know you, Giint, or at least I barely know you, and yet you gave an Oath to me. I’m sorry to have to do this, but I order you to tell me the truth,” I commanded, and I saw him stiffen as the magic took hold. “Giint, are you a danger to me and my people?” I asked, and he glared at me before croaking out a single word answer.

  “Yesss.”

  “Why?” I asked, trying to keep the anger from my voice.

  “Becaussse I hate them! I willll do anyyything… anything at all to freeeee my peoplesss... and to make upppp for whats I did,” he said, his voice laced with fury, gesturing out at the remains of the Leviathans as he spoke.

  “Okay, well that’s understandable,” I sighed, rubbing my chin and trying to figure things out. Oracle called over, interrupting my musings.

  “Giint, if you want to fight them, you need to swear to try your best to help us, to protect the party, and to do no intentional harm to any of us. If not, Lord Jax will send you outside, and you won’t get your revenge…”

  “Noooo!” he snarled. “Musssst fight!”

  “We can’t trust him, Jax,” Grizz said grimly, shaking his head. “He’s useful, he could be, but he’s also totally batshit and would happily kill himself to take out whatever the SkinWalker is. Tell me you’re honestly happy with him having your back in a fight.”

  “Hell, no,” I snorted. “Giint I order you to stay to the rear of the group. You have ranged weapons; you can use them only if you judge there is no danger to the rest of the group, and you cannot use any weapons or means direct or indirect to harm any of my party. Swear that you agree to this, and that you will obey the spirit, not only the wording of the Oath, or you can go wait outside.”

  He growled in wordless fury, scowling at me, before finally spitting out the Oath again. This time, I watched him as the full effect took hold, and he slumped, dejectedly accepting that he was a ranged fighter, and not, as he’d seemingly intended, a walking bomb.

  I glanced at Grizz, who grimaced but nodded that it was the best that could be expected, as did the others. We moved out, heading into the next room, and then finally into a huge open area at the heart of the building.

  As we walked out, the entire group paused, observing what must once have been a stunning room. The walls were covered in long-dead magelights, with cases situated directly below each one, almost all plundered. Dust and filth coated everything, and here, there was a strong tang of sea air, floating up from a black cage at the back, where a huge form dangled from a makeshift cradle, and two more Leviathans grimly scooped up seawater and flung it over the caged monstrosity.

  The creature itself was constrained by the cage, trapped and prevented from growing, with rings of metal sunken into flesh that had grown around it over the years.

  The limbs had atrophied, and the tentacles looked to have been severed at their bases, leaving rounded cylinders of flesh that hung suspended, dripping ichor and filth over a wide secondary cage, where smaller, freshly-born Leviathans mewled and thrashed.

  “It’s breeding ’em,” Lydia said in shock. “Whatever th’ SkinWalker is, it’s breeding th’ goddamn Leviathans.” She hissed in shock, her expression horrified.

  “Wait, surely not; why would its own young…” Stephanos started to say, and Yen cut him off with a single word.

  “Magic,” she said, shaking her head. “Dark magic, Domination or something similar…”

  “So, what, the SkinWalker controls them, makes them feed and care for the parent as it breeds more of them? Why were there only a few of them out there?” Stephanos asked, and I pointed to a grim sight.

  Next to the smaller cage where the newborns were contained was a slab of metal obviously rigged as a bench, and it was stained black with the inky black ichor the Leviathans had for blood.

  “They eat them,” I pointed out quietly.

  “Fuck, that’s crazy brave,” Arrin said, the first words I’d heard him say in a while, and I looked at him curiously. “Seriously,” he said, nodding to the gnomes. “I know they’re crazy; gnomes always are, but a species that would subjugate them, turn them all crazy and then live here? Surrounded by them and happily eating Leviathans? Is it too late to walk away?”

  “Yeah. Way too late,” I said, pointing to Giint. “Whatever twisted him up that bad needs to be gutted and nailed to the wall by its balls… if it has any.”

  “Ah, well, as long as I can hammer the shit out of something with magic? I’m fine with it, I guess….” he said philosophically before pointing at the Leviathans that were th
rowing the water up at their parent. “One question, though… how come they’ve not reacted to us?” Yen snorted in derision.

  “Whoever dominated them didn’t give them orders to do anything if someone came in. Clearly, they’re idiots, whoever they are.” Yen spat on the floor. “Can we go kill them already?” she asked grimly. “I hate this place.”

  “What will happen to them once we kill whatever controls them?” I asked, and she looked sick.

  “They’ll be free, and they’ll do whatever is in their nature; probably kill the adult, and then go hunting anything else they can kill in the area.”

  “So, the weakest die before they can,” I said, and she nodded.

  “Want me to start it off?” she asked, then started to cast at my gesture of approval, and Lydia ordered the ranged fighters to get ready.

  I stepped aside and peered up the stairs that led upwards in the corner of the room to spiral around the building. There were balconies that lead out to rooms and floors on each level. Somewhere up there, I could hear movement, and my mood had only gotten darker since coming down here.

  Inside of my mind, I could hear Amon. I could hear his maddening grumblings, and the worst part was that I found myself agreeing with them more and more.

  Since our confrontation, when the fragment of his soul lodged in me had somehow reconnected with the rest of him, floating in unquiet death on the other side of the veil, he’d become more conscious, more rational, and more terrifying.

  I’d grown up with his mumbling, screaming, and random crap. I’d learned to live with it, to ignore it even, but now? He was watching and mumbling about how this shouldn’t be allowed to happen, and I agreed. I agreed wholeheartedly, but I also knew that he’d intended to steal my body and live again, to bring fiery death and destruction to the realms, to slaughter everyone, the good and the evil alike, so that he could then grant life again to the good, as he saw them.

  The most terrifying part was that when I saw things like this cavern, I felt more and more like it was a real solution. Not that killing everyone would be the way to do it, not really. But these gnomes? If I had to kill them all to stop their actions, as they were all murderers and worse, would it really be that much of a loss?

  I considered Giint, and I wondered if it would be better to do that, to simply kill him now, for his own good. To kill them all, bringing justice for the victims. Who knew how many he’d killed…? As I looked at him, I felt it slowly stating to build, the tingle of my magic.

  It was uncontrolled,; hell, I’d not done it deliberately, but as I’d focused on killing Giint, it had started, a faint tingling in my body, flowing down to my fingers, where it sparked to life.

  As I stared at my hands, entranced, I saw something coming to life. It started as a spark, then a flame, a black flame. It boiled and stuttered, flaring and dying, roiling across my fingers and backs of my hands. A smoke spread from the flame, like an oily, black mist, and it formed into tendrils of… something.

  I looked up at a feeling and found Oracle hovering before me. She gazed into my eyes, and I felt the soul-bond between us pulse. I felt the love she felt for me, and the trust, and I nodded slowly to her unspoken request. I lifted my hands and closed my eyes, willing the magic back to quiescence.

  It took several seconds, but eventually, it died away, and I looked back at Oracle in silent question.

  “Jax, I’ll explain when we have time, but for now, please, don’t use that,” Oracle said in our bond.

  “What…?” I started to ask, when the ‘whoosh’ of Yen’s Flamespear erupted through the air, a superheated wash of air flooding out as three spears of glowing, spitting, and roiling fire hurtled across the space between her and the Leviathans. The individual smaller creatures took one each, the spears slamming into them hard enough that they staggered, while the third and final one embedded deeply into the caged beast and sank into its maw, blowing a section of the flesh that surrounded the beak free.

  “Dammit,” I growled, shocked at myself for getting so distracted. I turned back to join them, and froze, looking up. I’d seen movement up there.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Bane!” I hissed, gesturing upwards to the balcony on the far side of the room.

  I got no response, but I couldn’t see him anywhere when I glanced around, and I guessed he’d gone to investigate. Instead, I turned my attention to the Leviathans. Seeing them getting hit over and over, in their weakened, mentally dulled state, they didn’t last long.

  First one, then the second died, and then everyone concentrated their fire on the caged parent.

  “Infidels!” came a roar of fury, and I twisted around, tearing my eyes from the one-sided fight to the balconies above us. The first was empty; the second, where I thought I’d seen movement, was empty as well, but where the stairway spiraled upwards, opening onto the third floor, there stood a figure, and its arms were upraised in fury as a spell built between its hands.

  “Run!” I shouted, matching action to words as I sprinted for cover, rushing for another doorway and throwing myself inside, rolling as I hit the floor and coming up with a wall between me and whatever spell the creature was casting.

  “Oracle!” I called to her, and I felt her presence as she flew towards me. I moved to the doorway and glanced out, seeing the others had scattered as I’d ordered, but that while Yen and Tang were nowhere to be seen, Miren had fallen, Jian had stopped to help her, and of course, Lydia was standing over them, her shield raised in defiance.

  My heart froze, and I knew I should be out there, it should be me standing over my people, then all three of them vanished in a blast of dark light.

  The spell hit Lydia straight on, exploding out in a wash of blackness that seemed full of reaching, searching tendrils. Then they rolled back in, and all three of my people screamed in pain.

  “No…” I whispered, my heart clenching as the wash of darkness crushed in on the three, vanishing and sinking into them. It flooded into their mouths, their eyes and ears, and they collapsed, convulsing.

  I saw the skin that was exposed suddenly flooded with black veins, veins that seemed to twist and lift, spreading out and colonizing their bodies… before the three stopped moving.

  “Bring them to me,” the voice intoned from overhead, and I glanced out, seeing the figure in the red robes clutching the edge of the balcony with bleached-white knuckles as it staggered. The black robed figure appeared and grabbing the first under the arms, towing it away.

  I looked out, seeing Lydia and the others slowly climbing to their feet before turning and looking around the room.

  “Lydia!” Arrin shouted. “Are you…” He cut off with a gulp of fear as Lydia, Merin, and Jian spun as one, locking in on Arrin, and letting out hisses of rage that were clearly audible even from where I was. Their respective summoned creatures immediately screamed out and vanished.

  “Domination!” Yen shouted, stepping out from another doorway that she’d hidden in. “They’ve been dominated, all three of them!”

  “What do we do?” asked Tang, appearing on the other side of the trio, and I blanched, realizing he was asking me.

  “I… I…” I stammered, and Yen spoke up.

  “Either we kill them, or we restrain them. First option, some definitely die, second, well… some probably die… and those of us that are restraining them…” Yen called to me.

  “You’re not available to help me kill that fucker,” I said grimly, nodding my head. “Fine. Grizz, Arrin, Yen, Tang, Oracle, and Stephanos. Restrain them and try to free them. Bane, let’s go fuck shit up,” I snarled, looking up at the stairs.

  “We’ve got this, boss!” Grizz called out, and I waved grimly.

  “Be careful,” Oracle said to me, and I felt her concern, as well as her determination that she’d damn well heal the others and somehow free our people from the Domination.

  Lydia led the way as the three ran at Arrin, and he took off, sprinting as fast as he could, heading for Grizz. />
  I broke out of the room I was in, running for the stairs, my shield sliding out of my pouch as I reached in and freed it, then summoned the kill-stick I’d taken from the gnomes earlier.

  I’d nearly reached the stairs when the first arrow slammed into Arrin, dropping him and making him scream in pain as it took his leg out from under him.

  I glanced back and saw Miren aiming at him with a second arrow already drawn, even as Jian raced to intercept Yen, and Lydia went for Grizz.

  I swore and jumped over a small pile of bones, skidded on some filth, and jumped again, landing on the bottom stair and starting upwards. I heard the screech of metal on metal, and then another scream from Arrin, followed by my mana dipping sharply as Oracle worked to heal someone.

  “Motherfucking asshole spell-casting dickbags!” I snarled under my breath as I took the stairs as fast as I could, clearing them two and three at a time as I raced around the inside of the tower.

  The first floor flashed past, and glittering trash lay everywhere. I saw things hanging on walls and lying discarded on the floors.

  The stairs came and went again, leading up to the second-floor balcony, and here, I found a dead gnome, laid in a pool of blood, a crossbow abandoned on the floor next to it. I glanced into the rooms as I passed, seeing more broken bodies laid inside.

  They were covered in teeth marks and savage blows, and in the split second I had as I ran past, I noted they were all armed, and they had all faced each other. They’d fought to the death, and none had tried to run. Whatever this Domination was, it was powerful.