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

my own tongue off in the process, and scowled at the creature, even as I felt the weird subsonics that had been in its voice tugging at me to obey.

“Lord?!” it whispered in a voice that carried before dropping to a lower octave and assuming a wheedling quality. “You were a lord? A lord of where? Of what? Are there… are there more? More fleshlings?” it whispered, its face splitting in a wide smile as it nodded frantically. I got a horrified impression of the creature under the skin that was trying to get free, before he barked out a roar of pain, and then a self-conscious little giggle. “I’m sorry, you shouldn’t see that; oh no, not him, he's been naughty, you see, so he can’t come out to play now… but you have to tell me what you know, okay? Tell me… TELL ME!” he screeched, his lips growing flecked with foam and an uncontrolled shudder flowing up and down his body.

I gasped and tried to reach up as pain wracked through my body again, but I stayed frozen in place, barely quivering, as he lifted his right hand and waved it almost negligently, the fingers twitching spasmodically as he glared down at me.

“You will tell me the truth; then I’ll let the spell finish, and you will be mine. The only choice you have left now is how painful you make this!” With his words, the spell shifted, the blackness filling my veins, twisting and flowing back and forth, tearing the vessels as it went, making me bleed into myself. “It’s your own fault, you know…” he added conversationally.

“Jax! We’re coming!” Oracle sent to me, and I found I could respond.

“He’s got me! Dom… argh!!!” I broke off the mental sending as pain ripped through me, and the red-robed figure hunched down close, glaring at me.

“What was that?” he growled, drool escaping from a drooping right lip. “You… felt different, wrong! What were you doing!” The last words came out as a scream, with both voices demanding the answer at once.

“Telling your… momma I missed… her!” I ground out, knowing how stupid it was, and how I was going to pay for the comment, yet unable to think of anything else to distract him from looking too closely with his magic at me.

“My…momma?” he said, looking more confused than annoyed. “What is this foolishness?” He staggered back as he lost his balance, then cursed as he heard shouting from outside.

“We’re coming!” someone called, and I gritted my teeth, wishing they’d kept their goddamn mouths shut. He gestured to me, and my body obeyed, lurching upright, grabbing my shield, and attempting to draw my second sword from the sheath on my back.

Fortunately, the thing that annoyed me the most about having sheathes on my back struck again, and I was left with my arm extended overhead yanking and trying to clear the last few inches. By the time I managed to wiggle it free, thanks to my body being essentially controlled by him, and not by myself, I’d drawn his attention away from the others again.

“Who sent you! Was it my father?” he snarled, reaching out and drawing his right hand down my face in an incredibly awkward gesture, but one that trailed a red mist-like substance that floated through the air.

It touched my skin, and I started to scream in earnest as my flesh began to bubble and melt.

“I warned you! I told you! You tell me what I want to know, or you will suffer…” he said, drawing the word out in a sing-song voice. I glared at him as my body moved at his direction, and I felt the black filth drawing in again.

There was a noise from the doorway, and I moved against my own desires, stepping between the red-robed shitbag and Tang, who eased in slowly, crouched low, with his bow in hand.

“Jax, if you can hear me still, you have to fight it,” he said slowly, and I glared at him, the most control I had over my body. “He can control you, but only if you let him. Domination is an insidious magic, but it’s rooted in making you believe you have no choice… he’s giving you orders, but your body is the one carrying them out. Don’t listen to him.” He drew back on his bow and aimed at me, knowing his target was hiding directly to my rear.

I thought about what he said, even as I felt my body take its first step forward, bringing the shield up and pointing my sword at Tang.

“It’s all in my head…?” I said to myself, concentrating and reaching deeper into my mind, remembering the fight with Amon, when he’d tried to take over my body, and then I remembered how I’d stopped him from using my own body and power against me.

I concentrated harder and spoke a single word in the silence of my mind.

“Aegis!”

The pain that was tearing through me became a distant thing, weak and insignificant, and I spun, moving so fast that Tang almost shot me by reflex.

I slashed my sword across the figure, and he brought the naginata he’d been holding across to block me, barely deflecting my blow from taking his head.

“H…how!” he squealed, throwing himself backward and staggering as his foot caught on something on the floor.

Tang fired then, taking him in the right shoulder as he tried to lift his palsied hand, making him shriek with pain.

I slashed down, the Drow-made blade slicing easily through his extended forearm and taking the hand that gripped the naginata off at the wrist in a spray of blood.

“How?” I asked, stepping forward and hooking my right foot behind his left ankle while punching him in the face with my right hand, the pommel of my sword breaking at least one of his rotten teeth. “How about, how fucking dare you?!” I snarled. He fell backwards, dropping the naginata and it reverted to its customary appearance, the black necrotic