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

life just as the figure released its spell, a giant spear of glowing energy forming in the air between us before flaring one last time with power and hurtling across the cavern to smash into me.

The world seemed to explode in fire and force as I was thrown sideways, slamming into the rear wall of the corridor, then falling as it collapsed. The series of impacts sent me tumbling down into the darkness, with tons of debris falling after me.

Chapter Nineteen

I fell slowly at first, stunned, with wisps of mana and steam lifting from my armor as I plummeted, stone, steel, and more falling with me. Then I hit a wall; next a roof, one that lasted long enough for me to roll off the far side, before falling debris demolished it; then I toppled a final time, realizing in a flash of panic that my naginata was gone.

I shook my head in a daze, trying to focus, as I slammed into a second roof. This one crumbled around me, and I plunged to the floor, slamming into the unyielding surface face-first. The world went black, ending the pain that tore through me, sending my nerves flaring with tingling screams of dispersing magic.

I was only out for a short period of time, thankfully, but as I came to, I found myself laid on my back in a half-demolished bedroom. Random metal sheeting, pipes, and shattered planks had been strewn everywhere. I stared up through a hole in the roof, seeing a magical battle being fought high above me. I was also not alone, suddenly aware of a hissing gnome crouched in the far corner from me.

He slowly stood, and judging from the swinging appendage, it was definitely a ‘he.’ The crazed creature lifted a pair of gleaming kitchen knives, licking his lips frantically.

The ‘Shield’ tattoo had activated in time to stop the spell’s effects from impacting me fully, but whatever the tattoos did for me in channeling and reinforcing the shield, they apparently didn’t work well when buried beneath armor, as I’d feared.

I lay twitching and shaking as the last floods of power from that fucker’s spell ran amok through me, shocking me again and again, while the little gnome darted forward, lifting his knives.

I tried to get up, but my body wouldn’t respond, just twitching and flailing weakly, so I sagged backwards, just as Oracle flew down through the hole in the roof, and landed on my chest.

She took one quick peek around the room, then turned back to me, checking me over even as she angrily pulled together a spell.

“I’ll give you one chance…” she growled roughly over her shoulder at the figure. “Run. Run now, or die.” I blinked at the constrained fury in her voice, and as the little figure hissed at her, she burst into light, a thigh-thick bar of lightning flashing from her to smash the gnome back through the far wall and out into the air. “Your choice,” she concluded before turning back to me.

“What the hell was that!” she snarled at me, pulling hard on our mana and slamming a healing spell into me, making me shake and gasp as my nerves regrew, and I idly noticed for the first time the way the world smelt of burned meat. “You just see a spell you don’t know and decide to take it on the god damn chin?!”

“Ch...est…” I managed to grunt out, lifting a hand that shook crazily, as I tapped my blackened, armored cuirass.

“What?” she growled.

“I… took it… to the …. Chest…” I said again, reaching down and slowly pushing myself upwards, feeling debris falling off me and clattering around the room. “What happened?” I asked, my body still feeling like every nerve was an abscessed tooth.

“What happened?” Oracle repeated dangerously, lifting into the air and hovering before my eyes. “What happened is you…” She broke off as a howl went up from the door, and a second gnome, this one fully clothed, thankfully, rushed inside, brandishing a club.

“Later!” I grunted, then coughed, tasting blood, before grabbing the nearest thing I could find: a length of steel that had once been a section of the ceiling. “Tell me later!” I ordered, turning to build up momentum and slamming the section of roof, a panel that was about a foot wide by three foot long, and maybe an inch thick, around into the oncoming figure. He was maybe two and a half feet tall, if that, and had been brandishing a section of metal tubing. My improvised club smashed both him and his tubing back and out through another wall, making the structure creak in warning.

I saw more gnomes appearing in the doorway, rushing towards us, and I growled in frustration.

“Find my weapon!” I ordered Oracle as I swiped back across, smashing the next gnome’s outstretched weapon from his hand and spinning him around with a shriek as his wrist was broken. Then I punted the little bastard in the ass, sending him flying headfirst into the wall with a crunch of breaking cartilage.

“On it,” she snapped as I struggled to get fully free of the piled debris. I could feel it shifting precariously under me as I discarded my ‘club,’ which was too big to use effectively. Instead, I reached out and grabbed the next gnome by the shoulder and punched him in the face, ignoring the length of wire he was attempting to use as a whip.

His nose, which had clearly broken at some point in the past, burst messily as my gauntleted fist slammed into it, and the little figure’s eyes rolled back in his head. I picked him up, hefted him overhead, and threw him at the growing group forcing their way in the door.

The tumbling creature caught a low-flying gnome in the face, and the pair fell to the floor with an almost comical sound of coconuts bouncing as their heads collided. The one on top screamed, as the next gnome in line took the opportunity