Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4)

by Jez Cajiao

  It alone in the entire city seemed to still be powered, with a soft golden glow emanating from the walls to illuminate the eleven men and women standing around the building.

  As we arrived, the majority spun, falling into place to guard the two who were arguing in the center.

  They stood before the doors of the Vault, the younger man being shouted at by the older, and I recognized them as the Narkolt nobles as we closed the distance.

  Hannimish and Joshua were shouting at each other, seemingly oblivious to everything, until one of their guards frantically interrupted them.

  Joshua backhanded the man across the face with a snarl without a thought, and I saw the shocked look on Hannimish’s face. The guard seemed to barely notice, clearly used to abuse, and pointed to us.

  Joshua bellowed, pointing to us, and the guards spread out, ready to take us on.

  “Looks like they got reinforcements!” I grunted as I drew alongside Grizz, wishing we could afford to wait and wear them down from a distance.

  “Yeah, that means we get to have a real race!” he said cheerfully. “A gold coin says I kill more than you.”

  We were a little over forty meters from them and closing fast.

  “Hell no; make it something that matters!” I countered, again amazed by the improvements in my body. Running for more than ten minutes in full armor and I was barely winded; that was amazing! I’d be winning the Olympics at home, a little voice informed me casually, all of them.

  “Okay, a day with Primus Restun!” Grizz offered, and I staggered slightly, my foot landing wrong as every muscle tensed slightly in fear.

  A full day of being trained one on one with Restun? That was horrific, evil, even… but damn, now THAT was a forfeit.

  “Done!” I said, glaring at the guards before me. There were nine total; two had lifted bows and were readying themselves to provide ranged support, and seven had spread out to form a loose half circle. Of the seven, four held shields and short, wicked-looking curved axes, with the remaining three wielding swords, two of which had no shields and instead carried greatswords.

  I angled myself for the right outer edge, knowing that Grizz would do the same with the left, and I fed a burst of magic into the naginata at the last second, closing the final few meters.

  Lightning crackled out from my hands, flooding the weapon, and I leapt into the air, spinning my body and kicking out at the shield that my first opponent had raised. Simultaneously, I swept my right hand downward, aiming for a second man with my naginata.

  The speed of the attack, and the act of shifting from aiming for the outside into the middle at the last second, meant that I managed to avoid most of the weapons that were aimed at me. Stephanos provided last-minute distraction to the archers in the form of flashing arrows that hammered toward the nobles.

  I’d slammed into the guard’s shield hard. The weight of my body and armor, combined with the speed I’d been going, sent my target flying, while I used the shield to kick backward, landing upright. My naginata had channeled a powerful lightning spell down its length and along the sword that had been sticking out for me, stunning the wielder, and then the fight devolved into a blur.

  I swung the naginata base around and grabbed it with my left hand, yanking the weapon across to catch the semi-stunned wielder’s weapon on the haft, then slashed the blade across, slicing across the top of his left pauldron, then the top of the breastplate, and finally slitting his throat.

  As he dropped his weapon, hands going to the new wide red smile I’d given him, I twisted to my right and jumped back as a greatsword wielder swung for me.

  I dodged to the right, then struck at him, well aware I was allowing myself to become surrounded, but not having the time to play it safe.

  My naginata was deflected by his sword, and he struck again, moving through a series of fast, well-executed blows in sequence, driving me backward.

  I lunged to the left, then right, I swung desperate parries, and still he drove me back.

  I channeled a second Lightning bolt into the Naginata and slapped at his sword, and he yanked it back, having seen what would happen if he didn’t.

  I tried two more strikes, each time spinning and striking out at one of the figures to either side of me, and panicking as I went.

  I nearly triggered ‘overdrive’ each time, but I knew I had to save it, and that, at the rate we were going, I might not manage to get them all off the island before the SporeMothers arrived. If those got here, I’d need the damn thing then, and there was no guarantee I’d be able to beat them even then.

  I took a slash to my left lower arm, the force staggering me, even as the armor protected my limb, leaving me with a vicious bruise instead of losing a hand, but the armor was dented, and I knew it’d not survive a second attempt.

  Something hammered into my right knee and I staggered, then slashed out at the greatsword wielder, driving him back.

  I was getting hammered, basically keeping them mostly at bay, and I didn’t have time to see how Grizz was doing…

  But I didn’t need to do more than that.

  In the blur of the fight, and with Stephanos distracting the archers, they’d all missed Tang.

  He had flanked them as Grizz had ordered, and the first thing they knew about it was when one, then the other archer screamed out and fell, pierced through by huge black arrows.

  The third shot slammed into the face of a man facing me, sending him backwards in death, and the odds had changed drastically.

  Without Stephanos having to distract the archers, he could concentrate on the guards, and his own arrows drove them back as they frantically searched for Tang.

  I slammed my Naginata into the guard brandishing the greatsword as he stabbed out. As I finally made contact, =he stiffened, lightning discharging down his weapon and stunning him. I wrapped the bladed end of my weapon around his, spiraling it, twisting it around and around, until I managed to get the blade under his left wrist just as the stun wore off.

  He’d kept a death grip on his weapon, teeth gritted, determined, but as the tip of my blade flashed under and behind his wrist, I drove the opposite end of my weapon down, hooking his arm and lifting his sword up. With the massive weapon out of the way, I stabbed forward, driving the point of my blade into his chest, between the breastplate and his pauldron.

  The blade dug in and cut through the muscles of his left arm, tearing deep, and I yanked it back, spinning around and dodging the frantic downward slash he managed to make with just one working arm.

  The blade clanged off the ground, and I sent mine blurring horizontally across, taking his head from his shoulders in a single, powerful slice.

  “Stop this!” Hannimish screamed, panicked pleading clear in his voice, and I realized he’d been shouting since the battle was truly joined, desperately trying to get everyone to stop.

  I paused for a second, unsure, and then he was there. Joshua, lunging forwards, teeth bared, began stabbing at me, an evil, black-bladed dagger aimed at the weakened armor of my left forearm.

  The little bastard had lunged out from behind one of his men, using him as a shield, until he was close enough to stab down at my arm. The blade should have had no chance, aimed as it was at my vambrace, but it sliced into the metal like it was made of butter, deflecting slightly, but still cutting into the plate and digging into the flesh below, drawing a deep line across my arm that immediately started notifications flashing.

  I slashed at him, but he’d jumped back and grinned at me as the remaining guards tightened in around him and Hannimish.

  I swore, backing up and looking at my arm. Shaking it and trying to get a sudden numbness out of it, I could feel my gauntlet filling with blood.

  I saw the joy, the satisfaction, and the goddamn certainty in his eyes, as he straightened up at the back of the group and pointed his dagger at me.

  “Now, surrender or die,” he snarled, the earlier hesitation and politeness wiped from his face and replaced with an arrogant
sneer.

  “Joshua!” Hannimish pleaded. “Boy, you saw what he can do; stop this, I beg…” Hannimish didn’t get to finish before Joshua backhanded him and snapped at one of the guards.

  “Restrain the old fool!” he snapped, and I saw the look of shock on Hannimish’s face as one of the guards grabbed him and dragged him away, yanking his arm up behind his back and gripping him by the throat.

  “Boy…!” Hannimish gasped, horror and fury on his face. “You’ve… gone too… far… this time!”

  “No, you old fool: I’ve won!” he crowed, then turned back to me. The remaining guards had fallen back, and Grizz had stepped in close to me, glancing from me to my forearm, to the blade that seemed to glow darkly in Joshua’s grip.

  “Feel free to read your notifications my lord… I’ll wait…” Joshua said, sarcasm and greed clear in his voice.

  I pulled up the notification and gritted my teeth.

  Beware!

  You have been infected with: Necrotic Feasting!

  The infected flesh is dying, and as it dies, the curse multiplies, spreading faster and faster through the body until death claims you!

  -50HP per 60 seconds until death, increasing by 1.5x per 600 seconds

  “Really?” I said grimly, hitting myself with a ‘Battlefield Triage’ spell and checking the wound. I paused, knowing what I had to do, clearly seeing why he’d discounted it, and why he thought he had me.

  “Yes, you fool! The only way to stop the spell is this dagger. He who holds it, controls the curse, but it can be neither removed nor cured otherwise, so you’re out of choices now, aren’t you!” Joshua said, clearly delighted with himself. “But… I can be a merciful lord…”

  “Let me guess…” I said distractedly as I examined the details and nerved myself up to what had to be done. “I just have to, what? Declare you a city lord?” I asked.

  “Declare me Lord of Dravith and Scion of the Empire in your place! Refute all rights to the throne, and…”

  He cut off in horror as I slammed over a hundred mana into the naginata, extending my left hand out to Grizz, who knew what I was going to do.

  He gripped my hand, pulling my arm straight as he dropped his sword and flipped the catches on the upper vambrace, freeing it from my elbow.

  I looked at him as I felt waves of heat flaring off the naginata, and I saw Grizz nod to me that he understood. I shifted my grip, offering the blade of the weapon toward him, keeping a light grip on the haft and continuing to channel into it, as he gripped it by the head and slashed down.

  I felt the resistance, the slight snagging, as the blade first met my arm. It vaporized the leather and the cloth instantly; there was a hiss, and a smell reminiscent of burned bacon, then a shift as the blade angled slightly aside, diverted infinitesimally as it encountered the twin bones. Then it was shearing out of the far side, and I fell to one knee, hissing in agony as the reality of cutting off my own goddamn arm struck home.

  I released the naginata, and the room dimmed as the magic faded, while I fumbled with my belt, popping the cork off my healing potion and downing it.

  It was practically useless.

  It was an ‘average’ level potion, so it slowed the bleeding, and the sheer heat of the naginata had sealed most of the wound anyway, but it sure as shit didn’t help with the pain or the shock, let alone regrowing my damn forearm.

  But it was okay, I told myself as I straightened up, forcing myself to my feet and glaring at Joshua, who gaped at me in shock.

  I was alive, and as I hit myself with ‘Battlefield Triage’ again, I found no trace of the curse.

  Simple problem, simple solution.

  Not one I could have come up with before losing my hand, I had to admit to myself, but infinitely more doable than it would have been. Add to that, years of watching this kind of thing done on TV, and my outlook was a bit different to that of an essentially medieval society.

  I glared at Joshua and forced myself to show no pain as I casually spoke.

  “That was a mistake,” I said simply; coldly, even.

  “You… you… fine!” Joshua snarled, coming out of his shock. “All I have to do is cut you again… think you can keep hacking your own limbs off?” He hefted his dagger again threateningly.

  I smiled at him and spoke clearly to Grizz, and to Stephanos, who I hoped could hear me, and to Tang, who I had total faith would be damn close, by now.

  “Joshua is mine. Spare Hannimish, for now, and kill the guards unless they surrender,” I said.

  There was a few seconds’ pause as everyone waited for someone else to make the first move, and I took the chance. I had twenty-seven mana left.

  No point in saving it for the SporeMothers, after all, so I slammed it into ‘Mana-Overdrive’, slowing the world down as I blurred forward.

  I crossed the ten feet that had opened up between our groups in just under two seconds, ducking under a swung sword that moved like it was encased in treacle. I swayed, then crouched, slipping effortlessly between two guards, and I yanked a long needle-tipped poniard out of a sheath on the swordsman’s leg as I went, flipping it over and ramming it into the base of his skull and crunching into the bottom of his brain as I straightened up, my eyes locked onto Joshua’s.

  He snarled hatefully at me, slashing horizontally, as the swordsman’s body got the message that he was dead and collapsed, I simply stepped back, leaning slightly, as the blade ripped through the air before me.

  I stepped into range, Joshua staggering off-balance from the lack of expected resistance, and I grabbed his wrist with my right, and only remaining, hand. As I twisted, my greater strength and training became clear as I yanked his arm into a locked position.

  I straightened, then stamped down hard with my right foot on the inside of his left knee, forcing it to buckle, and then I leaned in, bending his arm around before he could stop me.

  I saw the look of shock, followed by terror, as he tried to grab at me, reaching up in a futile attempt to stop what I was doing.

  I had to weigh half again what he did, and that was without my armor; standing at nearly seven feet of solid muscle and barely controlled rage, augmented by Mana-Overdrive, a foppish noble was like a toddler trying to stop a bodybuilder.

  I sneered down at him, scorning the terror on his face as I pushed the blade closer.

  “That was my favorite arm, you little shit,” I growled, and he whimpered, opening his mouth for one last word.

  “Please…” he managed, before the tip of the dagger punctured his eye, vitreous fluid bursting around the blade as I drove it through the orbit and into the brain, the tip crunching out the back.

  As Joshua twitched and flailed in death, his body receiving a last-minute panicked barrage firing of neurons. I released him to fall to the floor, yanking the dagger free and turning to glare at the single remaining guard as Grizz yanked my naginata free of another.

  The guard dropped his weapon nervously, raising his hands in surrender, before he suddenly fell to the floor, an arrow sprouting from his forehead.

  “Sorry! My bad!” called Stephanos, just as Tang materialized directly behind the guard who’d been restraining Hannimish and rested his sword against the guardsman’s back, the tip pricking the skin right where the armor didn’t reach.

  “Now, that was lucky timing on your part, wasn’t it?” he whispered in the man’s ear, and the guard closed his eyes, whispering a brief prayer as sweat began to roll down his cheek.

  “Thank you!” I called to Stephanos. “That’s how you use that phrase! Speak to Oracle when we get back; make sure she gets it, okay?” I called, before turning to address Hannimish.

  “So…” I said, waving with my stump. “Want to explain this?” I swallowed hard as I released the overdrive and felt the hit to my stats.

  “Be very, very convincing and contrite…” Tang recommended quietly, yet in a voice that carried from behind the guard and the pale, trembling noble.

  “Ah… my lord… uh…”
Hannimish started, tears filling his eyes as he stared from me to the still corpse of his nephew on the floor.

  “Perhaps a little clearer? And from the beginning?” Tang whispered, and Hannimish closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath before letting it out in a long exhalation and looking at me again.

  “Lord Jax, I’m sorry. We received a communication before you arrived, warning us that there was a third party in the war between Narkolt and Himnel, and that we were to report immediately if we had any information,” he began.

  “I reported your approach to the city when you became clear in the distance, and I was ordered to do nothing to antagonize you, to see if you could be reasoned with or bought. We reported on the meeting and were ordered to attempt to salvage anything of value we could from the site. We were not to cross you, but if we could retrieve whatever was here first, then we were to return to Narkolt with it, or failing that, to see what kind of accommodations could be reached with you.” He shook his head sorrowfully, looking down at Joshua again. “The fool boy had a second diary, one he refused to share with me. Once we descended into the city, he… he split off. He seemed to know what he was doing, and had the majority of the guard with him, so I let him go. I thought I was granting him some independence…” Hannimish choked down a sob and pressed on with gritted teeth.

  “Then I received new orders. We were warned to get off the city, to escape, and abandon anything else. We were to warn you if we felt we could work with you; if not…” He closed his eyes, inhaling shakily. “I used a second device, a tracking wand, to find him, and when I did, he became irate, screaming that he couldn’t leave, not yet… then he told me what he’d done, and how he would use it to force you to give him what he wanted to become. I tried to stop him, tried to reason with him…” He faltered, his shoulders heaving with silent sobs. “My god, what will I tell my sister?!” he whispered, his hand coming up to cover his mouth in what seemed like genuine shock and horror.

  “How did you communicate?” I asked him.

  “Conjoined Diaries…” he admitted absently, still looking at the corpse.