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

the floor, and spitting again as a wax seal broke in my mouth. I chugged the potion, feeling a weird grittiness in the liquid, before my eyes shot open and I lunged to my feet.

Whatever was in the ‘Greater’ potion, as opposed to the weaker ones, I needed that recipe.

It felt like I’d been given a triple espresso, a Redbull chaser, and then a hit of cocaine, all while plugged into a defibrillator.

I practically flew forward, grabbing my shield and gripping Bane’s dagger by the hilt hard enough to make it creak as I ran from the balcony and into the first suite of rooms.

They were different to the ones below, in that they were clean, tidy, and had an almost familiar feel to them. One wall was covered in a rough painting, one that looked scarily familiar, like a twisted re-imagining of one of my favorite childhood movies, but here, the evil Empire was the good guys. The apprentice sorcerers that were leading the rebellion against them were shown with mocking smiles and glowing eyes, and as I paused in shock, the small bear-like helpers of the rebels… were gnomes…

I glanced around, seeing more, drawings, devices, strange things that looked almost like they’d fit in back home.

I glanced around and set off again, racing for the single path to the next room, seeing a shimmering wire stretched across the doorway at ankle height at the last second and jumping over it.

I landed, skidded on some debris and scanned the space. This room was huge and circular, with cabinets and display cases ringing it, and a solitary massive device in the middle. It was ringed in concentric circles of runes, and it struck me with a powerful sense of ‘wrongness’ as I looked at it.

It was connected to an arched doorway, with the outer edge twisting as it went, until it became the inner, and then the outer, and try as I might, I couldn’t see a second edge on it.

I froze as I realized what it was.

A portal. Just like the one I’d been sent through to come here, and like the one that was at the top of my own Great Tower.

On the far side of the portal was a cage; a cage with two bodies in it, slowly rotting and slumped in death. The room around me made a twisted sense, suddenly, as I looked about, noticing the almost-familiar sights of home.

I also saw a rack on the wall stacked with portal ‘keys.’ There were four of them, with a space for a fifth. I remembered seeing the gnome with something that had looked like a key, and I swore loud and long.

There were three ways out of this room: the hole in the roof and demolished wall that went down to the ground on my right, the doorway to my left, and the large doors out onto the balcony ahead, and one of them had to hold someone like me.

Someone from Earth, sent by the Baron and his kin… and they were responsible for all of this. The roof was unlikely, I decided, where the ceiling had come down when I’d taken out part of the building earlier. There was no point to fleeing me now, only to fall to your death when the floor gave out. That left the balcony ahead, or the room to the left.

I chose left, sweeping up a big rock and throwing it at a half-hidden tripwire strung across that doorway as well.

There was an explosion, followed by a scream, and I grinned, seeing the wall collapse that led to the room, exposing the black-robed figure as it reeled back, arms pressed into the cowl of its hood.

I had thirty-seven mana left, and I spent twenty on a Lightning bolt, hurling it through the gap in the wall to smash the robed figure from its feet and backwards into the edge of a four-poster bed.

It fell onto the bed, thrashing and screaming, and I stepped through the remnants of the doorway, hefting the dagger and looking around. There was nobody else that I could see, and I strode forward, determined to end the fight as quick as I could and go looking for the red-robed one to free my friends.

I made it to the bed, tore the cowl back, and saw the ruined face of a red-headed woman. The flesh was burned and pocked, her eyes white and milky, and her lips missing, exposing broken teeth. I paused for a second, seeing the injuries and wondering what had caused them, knowing that only two were new: the gash that ran from her left eyes to her ear, and that had possibly blinded her entirely, when the explosive went off, and the burned patch on her shoulder.

Then she howled at me like a mad dog and tried to bite me, aiming for the hand that gripped her shoulder.

I stabbed down without pause, ramming the blade into her heart and pinning her to the bed.

She seemed to freeze for a second before sagging back, and a look of peace and relief crossed her face. Pain suddenly ripped its way up my left leg, and I collapsed to the floor, seeing the evil grin that covered the face that looked out at me from under the bed, as the black tendrils wormed their way up my leg, and pain continued tearing into me.

Beware! You have been afflicted with AsVier’s Darkest Domination!

I gritted my teeth and tried desperately not to piss myself as the black veins ate their way up my limb, digging deep into my flesh and traveling along my veins, surging faster and faster as each panicked beat of my heart spread them throughout my body.

I shook as I tried to crawl free, rolling to my right and starting to drag myself along, reaching out with a shaking hand to grab onto the doorframe in an attempt to drag myself free of the room. I glanced back, to see clambering out from under