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

covered in black veins that crawled and multiplied, and his arms spun and dipped, each holding a different dagger.

He sprang at me, and I dove aside, rolling and coming to my feet, planting a foot against the wall and kicking off, jumping to the side as he followed me, blades flashing and slicing through the air.

“Bane!” I shouted. “Stop, man!”

He didn’t respond beyond a low grunt of pain as he closed the distance between us.

He lunged, hooking out and down with his upper arms, digging the curved backs of the daggers around my shield and kill-stick, then grabbing with the lower arms, having dropped his blades to hold me fast.

Then he let rip with a blast of Worldsense that jarred me to my teeth, before stomping down on my left knee, forcing it sideways.

He clambered up me, using my knee as a stepping point and shifting his grip on his lower arms to hold on, while he lifted the upper arms and stabbed down, aiming for my exposed throat and face.

I dropped the kill-stick, unwilling to use it on my friend, slamming the shield into his back instead. My two arms were fortunately stronger than his lower arms, and I managed to bring my armored right arm up to deflect the daggers in time.

I cried out as one sliced my right cheek to the bone, then I grabbed his right wrist in my right hand and spun, throwing myself from my feet.

He’d not been idle, though; when his first stab had failed and his right arm was locked down, he kept ahold of me and brought his free left upper dagger back, stabbing it down into the gap in in my armor at the back of my neck.

The blade dug deep, missing my spine by luck more than skill on my part, and I felt horrific pain from it, and more so when I landed on him, fully armored, and smacked him into the ground.

He tried to use the grip he had on the dagger embedded in my upper back to stop me, and I grunted in agony before releasing my shield and shoving up with all my strength, pushing myself almost to my feet.

He came with me, grunting in pain, but determined to hand onto the dagger he’d managed to get into me, even as he yanked himself back and forth trying to break my grip on his wrist.

I saw his mouth open wide as he drew in a deep breath, about to blast me with a stronger Worldsense, and I knew that’d be it. If I lost the grip I had on him for even a second, he’d slit my throat, and I did the only thing I could think of.

“Relax! That’s an Order!” I snapped frantically, and just as the first high pitched note washed over me, I felt Bane’s body forced to relax by the magic of the Oath.

It lasted only a second, as the Domination warred with the Oath, but it was enough.

I head butted him, then whipped my arms up, wrapping them around his and yanking down hard, pinning his arms to his sides.

I pulled back and nutted him again, and again, aware from our conversations where his species had their sensing nodes in the front of their ‘faces’. With each blow, his tendrils flared out in shock and dropped, and he took longer to recover.

After the fourth hit, his body went limp, and I let go long enough to flip him over and get my arms around his neck, one in front and one behind in a triangular choke hold, grabbing onto my opposite arm and squeezing for all I was worth.

As he recovered from the blows to his face, he reached up, clawed hands frantically grasping at my arms, searching for a weakness, a way to break my grip.

I felt tears burning my eyes as I doubled down and forced his airway closed, choking my friend out. He kicked and thrashed around frantically, trying to get free, or to injure me, and I managed to slam his face into the stone floor again.

This time, it was enough, and he went limp. I was about to release him when I saw his symbol in my vision. It was flecked with a warning redness that pulsed, and I somehow knew this was to show he was Dominated, but it didn’t give the same ‘sense’ that I’d had before when someone was unconscious.

I almost released him anyway, fearful I’d kill him, and then I gritted my teeth and held on, two seconds more, four; at seven, he seemed to come to life, panicking and kicking and slapping again, but now, was too late, and his blows landed with less force than a summer rain.

Three more seconds… and he was out. I saw the flash on his icon, and I knew it in my heart; he was unconscious.

I released him and shoved his limp form aside.

I desperately wanted to heal him, but I didn’t dare, and I forced myself to my feet, staggering, then got to the balcony wall and coughed, before shouting down to the struggling groups below.

“Lydia! Jian! Miren! I order you to drop your weapons!”

I staggered as the Oath pulled at me, draining me of… something… as it took hold, and I saw all three freeze and drop their weapons for a second as the others jumped on them.

I turned back, looking at the entrance to the final series of rooms at the top of the building, and I dismissed the rest of the group. Either they’d be okay, or they wouldn’t. I couldn’t take any more time now.

The best chance they had was if I stopped the assholes controlling them.

I reached back and let out a scream of pain when, after three attempts, I managed to tug the blade free of the back of my neck, sending me collapsing to my knees. I pulled the ‘Greater’ healing potion out of my bag and bit down on the top, spitting the cork onto