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

through a cloud that lunged at his face, it filled the air with a high-pitched buzz, crumbling into ash that floated away on the breeze.

“Why did you have to teach him that?!?” Yen screamed at me, her eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed with stress.

“Sorrynotsorry!” I shouted back, lifting my left hand to cast a spell, and cursing as my lack of fingers, or a hand came back to haunt me.

Again.

“For fucks sake!” I shouted, booting a Sporeling in the face to drive it back, and grunting as Grizz spun past, disemboweling it almost casually, even with his little blade.

“Seriously can’t hold it much longer!” Yen called out through gritted teeth, and I swore, seeing her arms shaking violently. The giant Flamespear that she’d created was now pulsing an angry red and white.

Then I felt it, a change in the air, almost like the static when Grizz and I were randomly slamming the manastones into the holders.

“Grizz!” I shouted and held the naginata out. He grinned, pinned the Sporeling to the deck with his dagger, and left it there, taking the naginata from me as I started to cast.

“Oh, yeah!” he shouted, spinning around and around, the blade flashing and glowing blue as he channeled his only spell, Iceshield, into it.

Clearly judging from the effect that it had on the DarkSpore as he tore through them, it imbued the weapon with Ice, rather than a shield, so that was a relief.

The ship that the SporeMother rode on bobbed closer, and I glowered at it as I felt the ship shudder and creak ominously beneath our feet. A loud cracking noise came from somewhere below us as the ship shifted.

“That’s not good!” Grizz shouted, and I grunted in agreement before taking a last look at Yen; she’d sunk to one knee and was on the verge of losing control entirely.

I scanned the repurposed manaengines as fast as I could, locating the biggest, and the one most surrounded of them, as the one that Giint had been working on.

There were Sporelings, undead, and DarkSpore crawling across it and the floor nearby, burying the stunted trees and fungus deposits that littered the ground under a black, creeping tide of death.

“Hold on; just two more seconds!” I shouted to her, then finished my casting of Fireball and hurled it at the biggest and angriest glowing collection of manabombs that the gnomes, primarily Giint, had made.

It tore through the air, taking out a falling DarkSpore on its way and leaving a smoky wisp of soot behind to mark its passage, before slamming into the pulsing engine.

The impact seemed to freeze the world for a long second. The Manaengine itself let out a little puff of blue-white steam, like dry ice when something disturbs it.

Then there was a second wave as the air shimmered around the engine, sucking inward. It lasted less than a second before it reversed direction and slammed outward with explosive power.

The nearest Sporeling and undead were vaporized, the DarkSpore simply ceased to exist, and the entire section of the barricade was blown outwards in a blast of splinters that destroyed dozens more.

The explosion set off a chain reaction of further detonations as the rest of the manaengines went off, entirely shredding the wooden sections of the barricade and sending huge chunks of metal and splinters of wood flying in all directions.

Mainly, though, they went outward.

The closest ship, having just landed on the other side of the barricade, was shredded, then crushed, as a slab of thick metal over eight meters long and five wide collapsed atop it, snapping the deck like a twig. Flames burst out of the manaengines on its own sides.

The two ships just beyond that were driven into the ground as well, as if by the hand of an angry toddler-god.

The fourth ship, the one that the SporeMother squatted atop, was hurtled backward, and the shield that protected it, and her, was riddled with splinters, before finally shattering. The helmsman that hunched behind and above her, was taken in the chest with a ‘splinter’ that was at least two foot long and six inches across.

I saw him being hurled from his feet in a spray of blood as the SporeMother screeched in fury and pain at the destruction of her forces, and I screamed to Yen.

“Now!”

She heaved her arms forward, collapsing limply on the deck. She was left with barely enough strength to squint through the mana-migraine at the bolt of destruction she’d thrown.

It slammed into the side of the enemy ship and hit an engine, making it explode. The ship that was already reeling went crashing into a collapsed building.

The SporeMother was hurled unceremoniously from her hiding place and out into a patch of sunlit ground, the snap of one of her great legs audible even at this distance as she screeched in fury and pain, frantically scrabbling to escape the searing light of the sun.

Our ship, the Interesting Endeavor, lurched and shuddered again, then unexpectedly leapt free of its earthen constraints. The creaking and cracking sounds rose in volume as we lifted into the air.

We slammed into the side of the building, careened off, and lurched forward again, before twisting and firing all the engines at once.

Where we’d been frantically holding on for dear life mere seconds before, now we were slammed to the decking and pinned there by the force of the acceleration as we hurtled upwards.

I heard the SporeMother screeching in pain and fury below us, the noise dwindling as we soared higher at insane speeds, headed straight for the roof…

Chapter Thirty-One

The pressure of the acceleration keeping us pinned to the deck lessened suddenly, and we veered to the left with a lurch, before slowing and tilting alarmingly to the side as we curved around to line up on an opening in the overhead cover.

The ship lurched again, as far too much power was rammed to the engines, and we drove forward at top speed. The sides and roof of the cavern seemed only inches away,