Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4)

by Jez Cajiao

  “I can use my power once per day,” Ty’Baronn said coldly.

  “Well, that’s just fucking peachy. Next time, you save it until I tell you,” I snapped at him, moving on to Yen. “I want the most powerful Flamespears you can manage, and I want them all around the palanquin. Make them land one after the other in a circle, that way, the blast will reinforce itself.”

  “You are from Earth,” the rough voice rose again, and I paused, putting the multiple keys together with the bodies I’d seen so far.

  “So are you,” I called back. “Lost your key for the portal though, didn’t you!” Silence greeted my words for several seconds.

  “I will permit you, and you alone, to leave right now, by my Oath. Carry whatever else you want, but you leave your companions and any manastones and portal keys,” the voice said, suddenly forceful and demanding. “You cannot win this fight, not without likely dying. You know this… and what are they to you? I need the bodies. In fact… I’ll go one better. Name your patron, and when I return to Earth with my minions, I will spare their life, by your grace,” the voice offered, slowly stepping out of the palanquin.

  At last, I could see the figure, and I shook my head in disgust.

  “Holy shit, you’re ugly; you know that?” I called to him. He was tall and rail thin, the pallor of the dead gleaming out plain to see, even at this distance. “You don’t look healthy!” I jeered, and he growled in anger, lifting one hand between us to flex the clawed bony fingers.

  “I was trapped here, cut off from my supplies, from any escape, hemmed in by revenants and twisted insane gnomes. I took the chance I was given and used the knowledge of the Vault to transform myself into a Lich. While not the existence I’d hoped for, it is satisfying, and there is no more mortal hunger, no thirst, no need for food or companionship…”

  “Still fugly, though,” I retorted, bracing myself. “When I start moving, hit them with everything you have,” I muttered under my breath to the group before turning back to the Lich, who glared at us. “So, you’re ‘Barry the Lich,’ then?” I called to him. “Now there’s a name to inspire fear!”

  “Bartholomew!” he screeched at me, lifting one hand and summoning a ball of necrotic energy, while I started circulating mana through the channels to my tattoos. “My name was Bartholomew! Never Barry!”

  “Looks like Barry to me, mate; even says so when I ‘Examine’ you!” I called back, not bothering to check if that was true or not.

  “Bartholomew!” he screamed, thrusting both hands forward in a necrotic display of temper. The bolt flew straight for me, a sickly black and mottled green that glowed in the darkness, splashing harmlessly across my hastily raised magical shield. I let out a sigh of relief, as it’d literally coalesced less than a second before the impact, and I’d thought it was going to be too little, too late.

  Thankfully, unlike the spell hurled by ‘The Master,’ the dickbag that had been abusing the gnomes… this was powered mainly by anger and didn’t have the same kind of effect as a spell powered by a manastone. I paused, then grinned, sighing in relief as the magic was sucked into powering my shield instead of slamming into my body.

  “Oh, come on, even the wanker in charge of the gnomes put up more of a fight than that!” I called to him, slowly walking forward, trying to close some of the distance between us before he realized.

  I knew that, as a Lich, he was the linchpin here; the freeing of the revenants had removed the inhabitants that were roaming under their own power, and when I summoned Bob, I was warned that if I stopped powering him, he’d die. I had to assume it was the same here; kill the controller, and the undead would collapse.

  That, or smash us into paste, but as it was the only plan I had, it was the one I was going with.

  “You killed Grant?” he growled. “You killed my brother?!” He screamed wordlessly, the sound raw and full of fury as every undead in the room shifted, and the Lich’s eyes began to glow a sickly green. “You murdered my brother!” he shouted again. “Now die!”

  The room exploded into movement as I swore and lunged forward. I heard the others behind me starting their spells, and felt the Iceshield growing around the group, while I sprinted forward, trying to get close enough to the Lich.

  The first dozen meters were open as I ran to get clear, but then I reached the first of the incoming undead, and the battle began.

  The smallest undead got to me first, the ones that had looked like gnomes. Their strange, tubular limbs flexed and crunched as they moved, but they seemed made up of joints, dozens on each limb, and the resulting range of motion both allowed them greater speed and flexibility as they darted around their slower, lumbering brethren.

  The huge amalgamations of bone that had carried the palanquin were moving as well, and the standard skeletons and crab-like undead between them and me were sent flying when the foremost lashed out to clear itself a path.

  I realized that the glow around the larger ones matched the Lich’s eyes, and I grinned, seeing that he obviously believed bigger was better. I fed a little healing magic into my naginata and started striking out, as I continued running for him.

  The first of the little ones bunched its ‘legs’ underneath itself and leapt for me, its short bald head opening as if on a hinge to expose a huge maw, filled with missing and damaged teeth.

  I smashed it from the air with the butt of the weapon, spun it around, and skewered a second one, catching the third on the haft and flinging it aside before kicking another back and sweeping the blade low to medium height. My blade made short work of cutting through ankles, knees, thighs, and in case of a few actual gnomes, throats.

  Then it all went to shit as I frantically dove aside, rolling and jumping, then diving again, trying to get clear of the impact point.

  The palanquin smashed to the floor right where I’d been, flung by one of the amalgamations, I guessed. I’d literally just seen it soaring towards me, and I’d dove aside, realized I was still within the edge of the target area, and had gone again.

  When it landed, it easily smashed a dozen smaller undead into splinters, with the larger group curving around to follow me as I rolled to my feet and started to run.

  We were encircled by the Undead, several hundred standard humanoid corpses, if I had to guess, with at least a dozen larger heavily armored aquatic crab things, dozens upon dozens of the little ones, and while there were only the four larger ones so far, there were ten of us. While the undead were generally weak individually, all they had to do was pin us down.

  That didn’t even factor in the bigger ones, or the Shir that could simply trample us, breaking bones before coming for a second lap.

  I just hoped we wouldn’t face another bone colossus.

  I ran headlong at the main body of the undead before me, saving my Mana-Overdrive for when I really needed it. I started swinging and keeping the enemies’ focus on me, until the wonderful sound of rolling explosions could be heard.

  The rest of the team had joined the fray.

  I stabbed out, taking a skeleton in the face, the blade crunching through the moldy remnants of flesh and punching into the skull itself, then I yanked the blade to my left, ripping the remnants of the skull free of the neck, and bringing the metal-clad butt up to smash into a second creature.

  It was sent hurtling into its fellows, the undead’s lighter weight making it less able to shrug off my blows as I dipped the blade down and spun. Extending the naginata outwards as I crouched, I continued sweeping around me in a wide strike, hacking and slicing through dozens of limbs before coming to my feet and getting kicked in the chest with the force of a car wreck.

  The remnants of my mana shield popped, and I was sent flying, slamming into a group of the undead and scattering them like a bowling ball through pins.

  I gasped, coughed, and shook my head, trying to get my lungs to work, for my diaphragm to stop clenching and damn well pull in the air I needed. I rolled to the side, grabbed a shifting, bony arm as the skeleton under
me tried to clutch my throat, and I forced myself up, half reaching, half gasping for air, then punched another in the face, knocking it backwards.

  My naginata was gone, lost somewhere when I was sent flying, and the mass of undead was rapidly closing in around me.

  At last, my diaphragm unclenched, the spasm relaxing, and I sucked in a deep lungful of air, relief flooding me as it came.

  I was surrounded, and the mentality of the Royal Marines rose in me as I grinned at them all. I wasn’t surrounded; this was just a target-rich environment, that was all.

  “As the Americans say,” I mumbled, pulling the components of a spell together, “’Enemies to the left, enemies to the right, enemies to the rear and enemies to the front…’” I forced more and more mana into the spell, ignoring the grasping fingers and the sword that clanged off my vambrace, sending a jolt of pain through me, but little else.

  “I HAVE YOU RIGHT WHERE I WANT YOU!” I screamed as I threw the spell. ‘Explosive Compression’ hurtled forward, slipping between the bodies before hitting the knee of a giant form and detonating.

  The giant staggered as the lower leg was cracked, entire sections of bone flying away or being reduced to splinters; then the second phase went active, and the stooping figure was yanked downwards, as was everything else in a three-meter radius.

  I’d wanted to make a bigger AOE, but I had neither the time, nor had I expected to get enough space to use it, so I spun, grabbing the nearest undead and throwing it in the direction of the compression.

  Dozens were being pulled in, the lack of screams made all the more eerie by the cracking and crunching of bones.

  I saw them then, as the Flamespears that Yen had been building up and charging were released, flashing through the air and aimed at the Lich, who was still controlling the giants.

  The first slammed into him directly, sending him flying to the ground, wreathed in flames. The second hit just to his left, then the right, then on the far side of him, barely missing his screaming head.

  The shockwave of the impacts, the flaming explosions and the sheer overpressure induced by the spell did horrific damage, but even as the damage began to hit it, a shield charm on its belt flared and activated, and I assumed the charm had been tied to its health dropping below a certain point.

  Protected from the strikes for a few seconds, it reached out, grabbing onto the leg of an undead that ran to it, and ripped the imbuing half-life free.

  The animating energy flowed into Bartholomew the Lich and began to repair the damage Yen had done, just as the second volley arrived.

  Magic Missiles, Firebolts, and more slammed into it, rocking the shield and making it flare and pulse, followed by arrows that shattered as a dome of black energy flared brightly around the Lich.

  The undead paused as it abandoned them, concentrating on a few that were close enough and pulling them in to defend it. The rest staggered as their driving force for existing wavered, and we struck.

  Grizz was the first into the fight, whooping with joy as he slammed out into the reeling undead. Lydia raced from the main group , barreling directly for me as the Iceshield was dispelled, and the others maintained their focus on the Lich.

  Lydia thundered through, activating her ‘Shield-Bash’ and practically flying across the intervening distance to slam three undead backwards, shattering the first and damaging the second and third, while I lashed out, punching, kicking, and tearing my way through the creatures.

  It was true what the movies had told us in one respect: all you had to do to destroy a standard animated undead was rip its head free. That was the focus of the spell; remove it and the skeleton was still ‘alive’… but its body collapsed to the floor in a clatter of bones, and the skull was suddenly rendered impotent.

  As much as I preferred to kill everything around me, for now, the most efficient method was to tear the corpses apart with my bare hands, so I snarled and kicked, punched and drove stiffened fingers into rotting flesh, grasping spines and jaws, ripping skulls free and tossing them aside.

  Lydia battled her way to me, smashing the bone-bags to the floor, before grabbing one that was clambering onto my back.

  She tore it free of me, lifted it overhead and smashed it down, stomping on its skull over and over until it shattered. I grabbed the next one, a decaying adventurer with a strange bell-shaped breastplate. I dug my fingers under the rim that ran around the neck and yanked it forward, clutching the chin in my right hand and shoving the jaw to the left as far as it would go, before releasing the chestplate and grabbing the back of the head in my left hand. I quickly snapped the neck, tearing the head free in a single rough movement.

  As the corpse collapsed, I turned, wild-eyed, then saw Lydia, grinning at the sight of her stomping her enemy into submission. Suddenly, I cried out as a blade sliced into my right jawbone, glancing off the joint and tearing half my ear away.

  I brought my right forearm up, blocking the spear that had been so close to taking my head, and grabbed onto it, just below the head, pushing it aside as I yanked a dagger free.

  I drove the blade into the skeleton’s face in retribution, snarling as I shoved, the flesh of my cheek and jaw torn open and flapping in the wind of my movement.

  The dagger entered its right eye, the blade scraping across the back of the skull, and I felt it for the first time clearly: the bundle of magic and animated half-life that drove the creature. I snarled louder, ripping the dagger to the left, tearing the skull free of the collapsing body.

  While we fought hard, especially Grizz and Lydia, who methodically smashed their way through the undead, the Explosive Compression spell ran out, and the undead that had been previously constrained, which had meant we only had to fight on three sides, were released to attack again.

  “Jax!” Lydia shouted. “We have to fall back!” She grunted and slammed her mace out, deflecting a sword that was thrust at my blindside as I whipped the spear up and around, driving the undead back in a display of wild force and aggression.

  I couldn’t keep this up much longer, I realized.

  The damage to my face was painful and distracting, but it was the stamina drain and the swarming undead that was the real problem. There might still be a way to win, I realized, but it was a ‘Hail-Mary’ pass.

  “Hit it again!” I screamed to the group, then shouted to Lydia. “Keep them off me as long as you can!”

  I hated trying to do this without Oracle, but I needed it. I wasn’t stupid; trying to alter a spell in a major way without her help would almost certainly fail, but the High Explosive version of the normal Firebolt/Fireball spell was one I’d used enough for it to be familiar already. All I wanted to do was overcharge it way, way past what it was supposed to be able to handle, in a truly short period of time.

  I went for it, even as Lydia screamed in frustration before seeming to go practically insane as she pushed herself past her normal physical limits.

  She drew in a deep breath as I concentrated on my spell, densely layering the mana into it as I went, and she called out, her voice reverberating in a way I’d never heard.

  The entire room seemed to pause as Lydia’s voice rang out, filled with a choral note, before a response seemed to come back, carried from some unimaginable distance.

  The single cry she’d roared out was suddenly echoing around the chamber, and it was suddenly filled with an entire choir of determination.

  I glanced at her, seeing her face, as it was suffused with joy and resolve, and as the cry went on, she started to glow.

  She began with a deep red, one that seemed to shine from her eyes and the joints of her armor. It slowly grew brighter and brighter, until she was glowing a steady golden yellow. That yellow then began to lighten to blue, and wings of white flame grew from her back as her cry broke off.

  “My life before his!” she roared, and the very air seemed to shake before she was off. She moved almost too fast to see, her mace blurring and crunching, smashing down weapons, upraised claws, and sk
ulls. She spun around me like a whirlwind of glowing retribution, every strike dealing destruction.

  Bodies shattered from her blows like they’d been hit with a shotgun at close range. Bones, armor, all of it practically detonated as she raced in a circle around me, driving them back.

  Yen collapsed to her knees as she fully depleted her manapool with a second barrage of her Flamespears. Firebolts were flashing out of the shadowy areas of the room, along with occasional arrows and daggers that sliced skulls free, as Bane and Tang continued to pick off the outliers.

  Miren’s Flame Atronarch flashed into play, slamming into the Lich’s shield just before the spears could, detonating itself and weakening the shield enough that the third and final spear of this barrage managed to break through, ripping the Lich’s left arm free in a flaming explosion, as I continued to plough as much mana into the spell as I could, making an already unstable mess worse by going too fast.

  Grizz cried out in pain as a pair of the small figures latched onto the backs of his knees, wrapping their tentacles around his legs and locking them straight just as a Shir slammed into him, sending him flying.

  Jian flowed forward, seeming almost to dance as he stepped from form to form, his blades glowing an icy-blue as he used an Ability called ‘Icewind’s Fury.’ Each time the swords landed, their target slowed slightly, until the two Shir that he kited around Grizz were stumbling and staggering, barely able to walk, and he took their heads.

  Stephanos’ Earth Golem was stomping about, smashing its fists into the undead that came too close to its master, shattering bones and ignoring their attempts to destroy it, taking only small injuries, but it was damage that climbed steadily.

  Arrin alternated between healing the group and sending wave after wave of ‘Magic Missiles’ at the Lich, but I could see his mana was dropping fast, and I gritted my teeth, going on.

  Lydia was audibly huffing as she spun past me, and I saw her symbol in my vision flickering, as though she was taking serious wounds.