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

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.