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

a few seconds, and I grunted. The feeling of Tenandra pulling on my mana was like giving blood, but infinitely suckier.

“He’s trying to meditate, Jian,” Tenandra said, and I ignored the pair of them, closing myself down as much from the world as I could and envisaging my boxes slamming into place around me.

Constrained by a mixture of concern for the others, for the ship and myself, and the definite feeling that we were constantly on the edge of falling out of the air, meant that it took much longer than it should have for me to get my meditation up to speed again.

I reached the second box, the lid slotting in and my compression rate stepping up. Mana flooded into me, just as the door banged open again, making me start.

“We’ve got a problem!” Arrin said, and I gritted my teeth, trying to not shout at anyone.

“What is it?” I sighed, getting up.

“That black ship,” he said simply, and I turned, focusing on the deformed image of the ship as it edged ahead of the others, gradually picking up speed, while I tried to make out what was being assembled on the deck.

“You can see it clearly from above,” Arrin said, and I nodded reluctantly.

“Fine, I’ll go look; what’s your mana like?” I asked him, and he paused, looking at it.

“Uh… not bad?” he replied hesitantly. “I’ve got seventy left?”

“Then take over here as a living battery for Tenandra; meditate and see how you do.” I ordered, while deliberately not asking him about his mana usage. I just knew the daft sod had been lobbing Magic Missiles at the ships.

I strode past him on the way out and nodded to Tang, who still lay in a deep sleep.

“Give him the potion of Somnolence, it’s that deep blue one with the green flecks, then hit him with a ‘Cleanse. ‘He should be okay for now, it’s but best to keep him under so he can’t screw up the healing I’ve already done.” I ordered and Arrin nodded to me, squeezing my shoulder in reassurance as he passed by.

I left the room, shoving the door closed again, the swollen wood making it grate against the floor, and I held up a hand to brace against the storm’s initial onslaught, the wind having picked up a hell of a lot from when I was out last.

I snorted in amusement as I saw the frantic speed of the gnomes that raced everywhere, orders being shouted, arguments breaking out, and occasional fights. The elders screamed directions over it all, and the gnomes worked their magic, building totally new parts into the ship’s super structure, even as other stripped things apart. I saw pans and rusted weapons, kill-sticks like my own, and an occasional section of engine produced and torn apart, as others worked to integrate the parts.

I turned and clambered up to the next level; the short distance I climbed up stairs steep enough to almost qualify as a ladder, made all the more difficult by the gusting winds and only having one damn hand. Once I was on the upper deck, I made my way to the rear railing and looked out, easily able to spot the four ships that trailed us.

Arrin was right; even with the distance, it was a clearer picture from here, as whatever magic made it possible to see in the wheelhouse had distinct faults that were warping that ship.

I could see the black ship was in the lead, maybe five hundred meters behind us, with the cruisers on either side of it, and the merchantman bringing up the rear. Even the decking of the black ship was tinged black, as at least one mage worked to keep the sun from hitting its decks, while the sailors worked frantically, assembling what my brain tried to decide was either a Mangonel or a Trebuchet.

Either way, it was a problem, as a second SporeMother glared at me from under its own awning, with the tell-tale patches of mobile darkness and nightmare I just knew to be DarkSpore flitting around her.

“They’re going to use the catapult to bombard us with DarkSpore…” I snarled, and the others nodded in agreement. “Give me options…” I half-ordered; half-begged.

“Not many to give,” Grizz answered, and Yen nodded in agreement. “They’re too far out of range for the archers, and they’ve got more than we do, so that’s no good.” He nodded toward the dozens of men I could see milling around with bows in their hands on the enemy deck. “As to magic, well, we might be able to hit them, but they’ve got a shield, so we’ll probably waste it all getting through that, and then have nothing left to kill the DarkSpore. Our own cannon doesn’t have enough power to fire, not to mention being on the wrong end of the ship…”

“So, we can basically only fight them when they come to board us now?” I asked, and he and Yen nodded.

“Joy,” I said slowly, scowling at the ships that were slowly closing the distance.

“What should we do?” Miren asked me, and I glanced at her and smiled. She’d changed so much since she’d joined Lydia’s squad; truthfully, they all had. Her transformation had been just as clear and overt as Lydia’s. The Optio had gone from a half-starved slave that hated the world and believed everyone was out to get her, to a heavily muscled warrior-tank who stood tall and proud.

Miren had started out a waifish girl, barely out of childhood. Her combination of youth and her half-elven heritage combined to make her slim and almost weak looking, but now, she stood strong. She’d grown into a beautiful young woman in the weeks we’d been together; the constant leveling and point gains combined to make changes to her that would usually take years. She’d grown at least several inches, put on a lot of muscle, and definitely filled her clothes in ways that made me think Jian was a lucky guy, but more