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

“Are they evil?” I asked dubiously, thinking I should have asked for these details earlier.

“No,” she reassured me. “Well, not in the way you mean. They’re literally denizens of a hellscape; their realm is all war and fire, so don’t be expecting a discussion on the scholarly pursuits… but they’re not evil.”

“Scholarly pursuits?” I asked, grinning.

“A Warlock that used to live in the Tower used to summon his demon regularly to… entertain… him. He said it was in pursuit of the scholarly arts. Personally, I never really understood it.”

“Why…” I started to ask as she stepped in closer and hooked a thumb under the edge of her top, lifting the red outfit up into view before going on in a low whisper.

“This was an outfit his demon used to wear for him.”

“Seriously?” I gaped, frowning as a sudden mental image of an enormous bright red demon from the pits of hell dressed in that came to mind. I shuddered as Oracle went on.

“Yeah, it was what she wore for him on occasion; that’s what gave me the idea. So, moving on, the Spellbooks for summoning demons aren’t so much for any general demons, as they are each for an extremely specific demon. As near as I can remember from the things I overheard, the demons themselves create them and use their magic to seed them through the realms. Part of most pacts with one involves helping them to seed another book through the Warlock, as once a book is used, that’s it; it’s destroyed. The creator of the book is tied to that summoner until death, but they live much, much longer lives than most, usually into the thousands of years range, so if they ever want a chance at being summoned again, they need more books out there. As they’re tied to a particular demon, you can’t summon the same one if someone else has already read the book. As near as I can remember‒and bear in mind, he didn’t spend much time in the Tower talking to her‒the deal is that if you summon a demon, you get a fragment of their power, and they get some of yours. You get access to their abilities, and they get a small portion of your level increases, more Strength, Intelligence, and so on. You summon a specific demon, and once they’re summoned, if you then use a second book, and it belonged to the same demon as you’d already summoned, they gain the ability to make pacts in their own realm, and they help to find you a new demon that fits your needs. They don’t want to do that though, generally, as they then get less of an increase due to your levels being split across multiple beings. Whenever Dimi would suggest it to his demon, she would distract him, making sure he forgot about it.”

“Wait, was she a succubus?” I asked, suddenly remembering the species, and Oracle nodded. “Oh, thank god; I had visions of Hellboy in that outfit…” I shuddered involuntarily. “Urrgh!”

“Ass,” Oracle muttered fondly, and I grinned at her before going back to watching the corridor.

“Yes, yours is amazing; thank you for reminding me,” I whispered, shooting her a wink in between long glances down the pitch-black tunnel.

A few minutes passed, and in the distance, we could hear occasional noises; clanks, crunches, and every so often, the floor would shake, but when Bane rejoined me, he shook his head as I asked if he could sense anything.

“Whatever they’re doing, it’s creating a lot of vibrations, which is making it hard for me to see… but I think there might be a lot of them down there…” he said, worry clear in his voice. “As near as I can tell, there’s nobody coming around the bend, but…”

“Okay, mate. might be a situation where you sit this one out, then,” I offered.

“No, but thank you,” he said adamantly.

Chanting rose behind us, and I turned to watch, knowing that Bane was monitoring the corridor far further than I could see.

Jian stood to the side of a small circle he’d drawn in his own blood on the floor and was chanting a series of words over and over from the book he held. Each time he finished the chant, the blood would flare with an inner light, then die away. The light continued getting brighter and lasting longer each time, until, on the fifth rendition, it flared upward, forming a cylinder that shuddered as the space between the walls of light seemed to fall inwards. From the collapsed column, a new shape arose, lifting into the air inside the circle.

“Holy shit…” I muttered, straightening up and tightening my grip on my naginata.

“Wow…” Oracle whispered, wide-eyed. “I don’t remember seeing anything like that before…”

The newly summoned demon was maybe five and a half feet tall, with a flat head and wide horns that flowed out to either side, then arced up and curled in toward a disc of golden light that hovered in the center. The being wasn’t particularly heavily muscled, more… wiry in frame, with a humanoid shape and glowing eyes.

It touched down in the circle, having lifted into the air as the portal below it closed, and it raised its right hand to the glowing wall, drawing a single clawed finger down it in wonder, trailing sparks and a burning ozone smell.

It turned and fixed Jian with a glare, and the two of them seemed to freeze in position. Long seconds passed, the only sound being a solitary low growl from the creature and occasional grunts from Jian, as though he was in pain.

I shifted my grip on the naginata, growing more and more concerned, and saw that the rest of the group was doing the same, when Bane spoke up.

“They’re coming…”

Chapter Sixteen

I swore and spun around to look further down the corridor, and although I couldn’t see anything yet, I could feel a reverberation in the floor.

“Grizz, Lydia, with me. Bane, Tang, back it