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

and down fast, but I kept it tight enough that when a blow landed, I didn’t lose my weapon.

I stabbed out, cut, sliced, and swept the blade back and forth, taking an arm off here, a leg there, deflecting a badly thrust rotting spear and slicing off the arm that held it, then the leading foot the skeleton was braced on, then taking its head.

The battle dissolved into a flurry of stabs, cuts, and sweeps, and as I ran forward and jumped, using the base of my naginata almost like a pole vault, I slammed both feet into one of the oncoming skeleton’s skulls, catapulting it backwards in a pile of bones, before the room suddenly snapped back into focus, and I heard my labored breathing as my body tried to keep up with the demands placed on it.

I glanced about, seeing the room was filling with silent bones, and my team were still going, starting to pass me again.

“God damn it!” I grunted, digging deep and catching up again. Grizz dropped back to the third in line, behind Lydia, then me in second place.

We’d slipped into a routine, I realized, taking turns as the leading edge, smashing our way forward, then dropping back to third in line, catching our breath and refilling our stamina, before the second place stepped back up to take the lead, and the one who’d been in front moved into the third line, waiting for their turn again. It’d not been discussed, it just happened, like the way that Jian swept the injured and disabled undead up, smashing them and moving on, or the way that Tang and Bane appeared and disappeared, picking the outliers off; the way that Yen, who was skilling in magic, archery, and the sword protected and guided Arrin, Miren, and Stephanos, trading off with Arrin so they both had time to replenish their mana.

Lydia looked at me as she raced forward, her heavy Legionnaire armor fitting her more and more by the day, and I caught the flash of her grin as she went, returning it unthinkingly.

This was where she’d always wanted to be; maybe not underground in a sunken city out in the middle of the ocean, but adventuring, living on the edge, and being relied upon, respected as a warrior. I grinned as I remembered what I’d not told her yet.

Augustus had come to Restun, Romanus, and myself the day before we’d come down here, when we were talking. He’d explained that he’d named her Optio in the battle for the Airships, as he felt she deserved it, but he needed it ratified. The rank of Optio was apparently a rank that was ‘taken, not requested,’ Romanus had explained. You couldn’t apply for the Optio’s ranking; you had to be in the right place in the rankings, and show that you deserved it.

As leader of my personal squad, Lydia had the right of rank, and clearly the right of ability, so he’d named her, and now it was up to us to ratify it.

I’d taken great pleasure in approving it, and Restun and Romanus had agreed. She wasn’t a full Legionnaire, not yet. She needed a hell of a lot more training and to be brought up to a minimum standard of skill in all weapons, but that was coming.

As soon as we had time, she would begin her formal training, and as soon as she passed it, which none of us had any doubt would happen, she would be officially confirmed as Optio, the third rank a full Legionnaire could attain.

I grinned with excitement and pushed off again, digging in to take up my place in second behind her as we ran from the chamber, hitting the next corridor and racing down it.

We slowed as we hit a section of collapsed wall, covering half the corridor, then clambered up a pile of rubble that rose into the upper floor, finding the next wave of undead waiting for us.

This room was bigger than the last chamber, easily a hundred meters across, with a lower ceiling, but the circular room had recesses that were randomly filled with braced figures, and I felt my heart leap at the sight of them.

Golems!

There were dozens of Golems, easily thirty in sight, all ‘War’ models, but they were frozen in hibernation or death. I growled to myself as I realized that if they’d had the mana they’d need to respond to me, they’d have already swept the city clear of the undead.

Basically, they were the equivalent of being broke and visiting Fort Knox on a tour. There was all that wealth, and I knew I’d never get my hands on it.

I banished the annoyance and turned my attention back to the undead as the group slowed, realizing that they weren’t attacking.

I slowed as well, coming to a stop at the front of the wedge shape we’d unconsciously adopted, and I glared at the rows upon rows of silent figures.

The skeletons numbered in the hundreds, and I swallowed hard, knowing that this was beyond a problem. I’d been thinking we were cutting through them at speed, making our way to the Lich, and believing we weren’t far from escaping; now I saw I was horribly wrong.

While we’d been fighting the undead below, the Lich had essentially been keeping us busy as it got its real forces into place.

We were outnumbered. Horrifically so.

“What do we do, Jax?” Grizz asked, and I paused, looking around. The undead were at least three ranks deep. I couldn’t see beyond that in the darkness, not with the combination of lights and my DarkVision flaring in and out of focus.

Here and there, amongst the more standard humanoid forms, were others, some Xon’dike, a handful of Shir, a couple of huge crab-like things that seemed imposing, but the way the carapace hung on them, they looked like they might actually be weaker than the rest, and a collection of small figures. At first, I’d taken them for gnomes, when I realized