Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) Jez Cajiao (top ten books of all time TXT) 📖

crew and the Imperial Forces, as well as the undead. The gnomes basically reinforced the area and settled in to try to build up enough weapons to fight their way free. Whatever the ‘Master’ is, it came about fifty years ago, and it took over, fed on them, both magically and occasionally physically, apparently. He calls it ‘the master’ or ‘the Skin-Walker,’ depending, and I don’t think even he knows what he means. Evidently, it took what it wanted and killed anything that tried to stand up to it. Then it took the water, and whatever cleaned the saltwater to make it potable. The Gnomes only had whatever rainwater made its way down here through the various holes, and it was contaminated with all sorts of poisons. They tried to clean it, but the SkinWalker stopped them, killing any that tried. Over time, the gnomes, well, went feral. They stopped trying to fix things and started attacking each other. The buildup of poisons twisted them, and the Skin-Walker and its Leviathans preyed on them all. The gnomes stopped caring as long as it wasn’t them, and they followed their instincts in making new and wonderful things, but they were all geared towards war, and... well, they used the fastest and lowest effort methods, so everything breaks regularly, and they steal everything from each other, so they ended up like… this,” she finished, waving her arm generally around the cavern.

“So, there’s a couple of fuckers left inside; then what?” I asked the team, and Bane was the first to speak up.

“There isn’t a way out from here, apparently,” he explained. “But there are passages that lead deeper into the territory that is claimed by the undead. They were filled with the revenants as well, but you already freed them, so?” He waggled a dagger in suggestion.

“So we kill the SkinWalker, and its Leviathans; then we go kill the undead, and hopefully find a way out,” I clarified, repeating the information back. “If there are any books or good magical shit left in the gnomes’ territory, I’m betting it’s in there, along with my naginata,” I said, nodding to the building and trying not to wince as a section of the roof fell in slowly with a loud crash.

“Is everyone okay?” I asked, getting nods and gestures, mostly rude, but given in good faith. At some point, I was going to have to explain the gestures I’d taught them, but for now, it was too funny. I checked my mana and found that it was just over half, thanks to the last mana potion that Oracle had forced down my throat, and now I was out of potions entirely.

I paused, wondering if I should meditate and try to recover more, until the choice was taken from me by a howl further down the switchback, as the pair of larger Leviathans came into sight, one with a twitching arm dangling from its beak. It threw its head back and gobbled the limb down, hissing in pleasure. Then it hunched down and pointed its beak at our group, who quickly ducked out of sight.

There was a brief burst of the sonic attack, but it mostly missed us, serving only to make everyone angry.

“Fuck this shit,” I snarled. “Let’s get inside, and then we can kill those fuckers when they come looking.” I said, deciding that possibly fighting on both sides would be better than getting blasted with the sonics out in the open.

I drew my remaining sword from my back, and we hurried through the front of the building, barely taking the time to note the way the metal was more corroded than anywhere else I’d been, yet still solid, somehow, as though it didn’t get much in the way of disturbances, yet was rotting from within.

The building itself was fairly large, almost huge, in comparison to the buildings I’d seen in Himnel, easily thirty meters across to a side, and built into a hexagonal shape, as near as I could tell by the collapsed sections. It had probably been beautiful once, stunning, even, with large sections of what looked like glass in the remains of windows, and heavy crenellations on the walls. The front had previously been surrounded by gardens of some kind, but now there were only the rotting remnants of bodies and encroaching mushrooms and other fungus. Here and there, the glowing lichen that seemingly provided most of the light in the cavern would colonize a wall or section of ground, producing an uneven, almost diseased glow to the place.

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