Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) by Jez Cajiao (beach books .txt) 📗

Tang was the closest, and he set himself ready to receive its charge, when two arrows slammed into it a second apart, staggering it back.

He lunged forward, stabbing out with both blades, and sinking them in deep. One carved a long furrow across its face before sinking into a cheek and practically destroying its face, while the other dipped into the space between its ribs and clavicle, burrowing in deep.

Tang grunted, then took a deep breath as the blades glowed suddenly. Red and blue lines snaked up them, traveling the length of the swords, up into the hilts and then into Tang.

He let out a little gasp of shock, then a groan of relief, like an itch he’d grown used to was finally scratched, and he straightened, seeming to grow taller as he slipped out of his habitual half-slouch.

The Sporeling shivered and shuddered, reaching up with weak claws to slap ineffectually at the blades, before slumping in death.

Tang yanked the blades free, then stepped back to join us, flicking the swords to free them of the majority of the blood.

“Now that was gooood,” He groaned under his breath, looking around for another enemy as I pointed with my naginata at the corpse behind him.

“The head,” I said simply, and he looked back, registering the slowly shivering skull as the DarkSpore regained control of its meat puppet.

He stepped back in, passing one sword to Grizz to hold, and took the other in both hands, slamming it down hard into the skull.

It cut deep, and a screeching filled our ears as the DarkSpore met the magical blade and had its life sucked away.

The DarkSpore collapsed into dust, and Tang shuddered again, swallowing hard and taking the sword back from Grizz hurriedly.

After that, it was seconds before the next appeared, only to meet the dagger wielded by Grizz. I’d worried that it might not work, but when he drove it deep into the skull of the creature, twisted it, and yanked it back in one fluid motion, the Sporeling collapsed bonelessly to the floor, and this time, the DarkSpore was dead as well.

“Okay, people…” I said, my ears pricking at the sounds of climbing. “This is where it gets real. Try to kill the DarkSpore as quickly as possible,” I said, before looking up at Stephanos and Miren and their summoned creatures. “Stephanos! Miren!” I shouted. “Get inside; you’re not doing any good up there.”

I didn’t have time to see their reaction to my words, as another two Sporelings and a cloud of DarkSpore rose to my right, but as I spun into them, my naginata glowing like the rising sun, I saw the archers clambering down the ladder and running to the wheelhouse.

I stabbed out, the blade sinking into the almost-insubstantial cloud before me, and I felt as much as heard the scream that was ripped from it as the parasitical creature was torn apart. I slashed sideways, left to right, cutting through three of them, then jumped back, lifting the shield, and feeling a soft impact, like a snowball with less substance, but as I glared at the nearest Sporeling, I saw the sooty tendrils reaching up and flowing over the shield, sinking towards my arm. I grinned, aware as it wasn’t, that the armor there was empty, and I dragged the naginata down across the front of the shield, stripping it of the contaminating creature of the night with a scream of joy.

I stabbed out, the bladed tip sinking into an eye socket of the Sporeling, killing it, even as the other one leapt onto  me, staggering me back and biting at my face.

Its teeth snapped shut inches from my eyes, spittle flying, and I had a frozen second to glare into its own hate-filled orbits, all of them glowing with a malevolent internal light, before it screamed, an arrow protruding from one eye socket.

The bolt distracted it long enough for me to yank the naginata up, and I punched it in the face with my closed fist where it gripped the haft, before yanking the weapon downwards. The blade was drawn across its skull, and as razor sharp and filled with magic as it was, it carved a deep groove, making the creature flinch away, releasing me and falling to the floor.

I kicked it savagely, my foot slamming into the wound; then I stabbed out, driving the blade into it and out the far side to slam into the wooden decking below. The crunch of bone and sizzle of dark blood was loud enough to hear even in the midst of battle, as the death scream of the DarkSpore rose to join the others around me.

I spun back, sweeping the naginata through the air and taking a DarkSpore that had been approaching from Grizz’s blindside, then spun again, searching for another enemy before sagging in relief. Tang was dispatching the last with a fast swipe of both blades, which freed its head from the body, before slamming his right blade into its skull, piercing the deck below the creature with the force of the blow.

I checked on my team, realizing the others were panting too, with Miren and Stephanos standing near the open door to the wheelhouse, firing their arrows in defiance of what I’d told them. I grinned and lifted my weapon in thanks, acknowledging the arrow that had distracted the Sporeling. Yen groaned under the strain of building her spell so long, and then I heard Tang shout. Our momentary reprieve was over, as another wave cleared the railings and attacked.

The next few minutes passed in a blur. We stabbed and thrust, moving as fast as we could, and not one of us was uninjured by the time we’d cleared the deck a second time, just in time to see another wave clearing the sides of the ship.

“I can’t hold on much longer; it’s too big!” Yen screamed.

“That’s what she said!” Grizz shouted back, slashing his dagger