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

I took a slash to my left lower arm, the force staggering me, even as the armor protected my limb, leaving me with a vicious bruise instead of losing a hand, but the armor was dented, and I knew it’d not survive a second attempt.

Something hammered into my right knee and I staggered, then slashed out at the greatsword wielder, driving him back.

I was getting hammered, basically keeping them mostly at bay, and I didn’t have time to see how Grizz was doing…

But I didn’t need to do more than that.

In the blur of the fight, and with Stephanos distracting the archers, they’d all missed Tang.

He had flanked them as Grizz had ordered, and the first thing they knew about it was when one, then the other archer screamed out and fell, pierced through by huge black arrows.

The third shot slammed into the face of a man facing me, sending him backwards in death, and the odds had changed drastically.

Without Stephanos having to distract the archers, he could concentrate on the guards, and his own arrows drove them back as they frantically searched for Tang.

I slammed my Naginata into the guard brandishing the greatsword as he stabbed out. As I finally made contact, =he stiffened, lightning discharging down his weapon and stunning him. I wrapped the bladed end of my weapon around his, spiraling it, twisting it around and around, until I managed to get the blade under his left wrist just as the stun wore off.

He’d kept a death grip on his weapon, teeth gritted, determined, but as the tip of my blade flashed under and behind his wrist, I drove the opposite end of my weapon down, hooking his arm and lifting his sword up. With the massive weapon out of the way, I stabbed forward, driving the point of my blade into his chest, between the breastplate and his pauldron.

The blade dug in and cut through the muscles of his left arm, tearing deep, and I yanked it back, spinning around and dodging the frantic downward slash he managed to make with just one working arm.

The blade clanged off the ground, and I sent mine blurring horizontally across, taking his head from his shoulders in a single, powerful slice.

“Stop this!” Hannimish screamed, panicked pleading clear in his voice, and I realized he’d been shouting since the battle was truly joined, desperately trying to get everyone to stop.

I paused for a second, unsure, and then he was there. Joshua, lunging forwards, teeth bared, began stabbing at me, an evil, black-bladed dagger aimed at the weakened armor of my left forearm.

The little bastard had lunged out from behind one of his men, using him as a shield, until he was close enough to stab down at my arm. The blade should have had no chance, aimed as it was at my vambrace, but it sliced into the metal like it was made of butter, deflecting slightly, but still cutting into the plate and digging into the flesh below, drawing a deep line across my arm that immediately started notifications flashing.

I slashed at him, but he’d jumped back and grinned at me as the remaining guards tightened in around him and Hannimish.

I swore, backing up and looking at my arm. Shaking it and trying to get a sudden numbness out of it, I could feel my gauntlet filling with blood.

I saw the joy, the satisfaction, and the goddamn certainty in his eyes, as he straightened up at the back of the group and pointed his dagger at me.

“Now, surrender or die,” he snarled, the earlier hesitation and politeness wiped from his face and replaced with an arrogant sneer.

“Joshua!” Hannimish pleaded. “Boy, you saw what he can do; stop this, I beg…” Hannimish didn’t get to finish before Joshua backhanded him and snapped at one of the guards.

“Restrain the old fool!” he snapped, and I saw the look of shock on Hannimish’s face as one of the guards grabbed him and dragged him away, yanking his arm up behind his back and gripping him by the throat.

“Boy…!” Hannimish gasped, horror and fury on his face. “You’ve… gone too… far… this time!”

“No, you old fool: I’ve won!” he crowed, then turned back to me. The remaining guards had fallen back, and Grizz had stepped in close to me, glancing from me to my forearm, to the blade that seemed to glow darkly in Joshua’s grip.

“Feel free to read your notifications my lord… I’ll wait…” Joshua said, sarcasm and greed clear in his voice.

I pulled up the notification and gritted my teeth.

Beware!

You have been infected with: Necrotic Feasting!

The infected flesh is dying, and as it dies, the curse multiplies, spreading faster and faster through the body until death claims you!

-50HP per 60 seconds until death, increasing by 1.5x per 600 seconds

“Really?” I said grimly, hitting myself with a ‘Battlefield Triage’ spell and checking the wound. I paused, knowing what I had to do, clearly seeing why he’d discounted it, and why he thought he had me.

“Yes, you fool! The only way to stop the spell is this dagger. He who holds it, controls the curse, but it can be neither removed nor cured otherwise, so you’re out of choices now, aren’t you!” Joshua said, clearly delighted with himself. “But… I can be a merciful lord…”

“Let me guess…” I said distractedly as I examined the details and nerved myself up to what had to be done. “I just have to, what? Declare you a city lord?” I asked.

“Declare me Lord of Dravith and Scion of the Empire in your place! Refute all rights to the throne, and…”

He cut off in horror as I slammed over a hundred mana into the naginata, extending my left hand out to Grizz, who knew what I was going to do.

He gripped my hand, pulling my arm straight as he dropped his sword and flipped the catches on the upper vambrace, freeing it from my elbow.

I looked at him as I felt waves of heat flaring off the naginata,