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

and feeling the engine starting to shake, as even more steam erupted out and hissing started up.

I knew the Badunka wouldn’t last long; it was too damaged, too badly built, and too… cack-handed, basically. The entire thing looking like it was someone’s first draft, made out of scrap for someone they really hated, to send them to their doom.

“You okay?” I threw out to Oracle.

“Yeah, is that…what are you doing?!?” she asked abruptly, horror and jealousy clear in her voice, and I remembered how much she’d loved riding the Airships.

“Told you I’d get their attention!” I said, grinning maniacally to myself. Gonna need some destruction dealing soon, and some fucking healing!”

“I’ll be ready,” She said simply, and I nodded to myself, hunching down and leaning over. My left knee clinked against bits of metal as I used it to corner, before straightening up.

I saw that the red-robed figure had stopped casting spells, clearly either out of mana or happy to leave them to be mobbed by the gnomes, now that the siege tower was so close.

I twisted the throttles and took another corner, then grinned as I shot out of the rabbit warren of streets, bursting into what I assumed was farmland. I was suddenly surrounded by enormous mushrooms and glittering pools of clearly contaminated water that glowed with a dim silvery light. Just then, I saw two things ahead of me.

First was the mansion; there were switchbacks that led up to it on the far side of the cavern, but the way was clear now, even as the pack of gnomes I’d been hunting hurried through the gates and vanished inside. They had my naginata; I’d seen it gleaming as they vanished, and that was a relief, even if it was in there.

The second thing was that the siege weapon was even more rickety than I’d thought it was at first glance, and I’d found the track to it again. I checked my mana and released the right lever, holding on grimly to the left as my fingers twisted and the arcane syllables fell from my lips, torn away by the wind of my passage.

I swerved almost at random, occasional spells hurtling past, and screamed invectives as they tried to close the distance.

One of the Badunkas pulled up alongside, and the rider swung a mace at me, the head gleaming white with power, I ducked, feeling it pass by mere inches as I rammed my spell into his face.

The goggles covering his eyes and his mad grin vanished into the Fireball, as did his head, leaving a sickly-sweet, pungent odor of cooked meat to float on the breeze as he reached for his face, then crashed.

He flipped end over end, disappearing in a fireball, with the wreckage taking out two more Badunkas.

I frantically thrust the Fireball back, aware that containment had been broken on the spell and wanting it far, far away from me when it went off.

I felt the spell leave me, the draw of mana cutting off, even as I drew hard on my mana again and started building another Fireball, trying again when the first detonated.

It flew behind me a dozen feet or so, the spellform shaking and twisting as it broke apart. Then it exploded, the wavefront pouring outward, tearing up the mushroom fields and flinging shards in every direction.

I swore, frantically clinging onto the Badunka, and barely managed it, even as the following Badunka Riders ploughed straight into a maelstrom of fiery destruction.

I finished my incantation and hurled the spell away from me at my target, grabbed the levers, and twisted them aside, flinging the Badunka onto a new trajectory and hurtling towards the switchback.

I tore left and right, weaving through the fields and grinning maniacally to myself as I heard the explosion behind me, followed by a loud, reverberating scream of rage as the siege weapon tilted ominously.

My aim had been true, and the Fireball had taken out one wheel of the thing, the front right. Its own motion and weight had done the rest once the spell detonated, setting fire to the wheel and shattering it. As the wheel crumbled, it twisted the tower, then, instead of following the carved, circular path on the rails, the edge of the tower crunched into the ground on that side.

It dug in, making it tilt, and the three wheels that were left creaked and groaned, before the back right gave way as well.

When that wheel went, the entire structure dipped; then the weight of the Badunkas played their part. The gnomes were bouncing and hollering, screeching with bloodlust and fighting amongst themselves, looking for all the world like drugged-up baboons desperate to kill and maim, and their movement was the feather that finished the structure off.

It tilted further, grinding to a halt, then more beams and cross-members snapped, and the entire thing twisted and fell, smashing into the nearest wall, detonating as first one, then another of the Badunkas, went up in flames.

I heard the furious and terrified screams coming from the tower, and from the Badunkas Riders that had survived, but I didn’t care, as I took the last left and right, racing up the final stretch towards the mansion doors, then gunned the engine all the way to the end, forcing the wheels to top speed… before straightening up, letting go of the controls, and digging my boots into the ground. I rolled backwards off the Badunka, tucking myself into as tight a ball as I could, as the Badunka rocketed into the doors and detonated.

I bounced and rolled across the floor for a good dozen feet before slamming into a wall and nearly knocking myself out.

It easily took dozens of minutes before I could make enough sense of the world to know I’d fucked up. Literally. Everything was ringing, spinning, and all I wanted to do was throw up. I laid there, occasionally trying to get up but just making the world spin more, until hands grabbed me roughly and dragged me