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

snapped at her, and Yen sprinted for the edge of the upper deck, leaping off and twisting her body to land facing the door inside.

I ran to the edge of the deck, looking down, as the deck hatches were thrown back, revealing my team hurrying upwards.

“Grizz!” I shouted, waving my own good arm frantically, but seeing nothing in response from the now heavily opaque shield over the gnomes. “Fuck! Stephanos, get Grizz!” I shouted at him as the big man clambered out onto the deck. He saw where I was pointing and started running, even as the ship lurched to one side, the engines all firing seconds after Yen made it inside the wheelhouse.

The others were spreading out, confused as they looked around for the enemy, and I whirled in place, trying to watch in all directions at once, while praying I was wrong, and that I’d only wasted some of our last mana reserves…

“There!” Miren screamed, and I spun, following her pointing finger.

At first, I didn’t see what she meant; then the wind gusted harder, blowing some of the cloud cover along, and I saw an entire patch where the clouds moved wrong, slower, trying to match the air around them.

“Fire!” I screamed, frantically swapping my naginata to rest against my left side in the rook of that arm, as I freed my right hand for casting.

Seconds passed, as everyone realized what I’d seen in a horrified moment of clarity.

They’d hidden behind an illusion once already, sneaking up on us… now they’d done it again, leaving an illusory force lagging behind while they’d burned mana hard to catch up.

There was a heavy ‘twang’ of Miren firing her Drow bow, followed a second later by Stephanos, who’d finally gotten Grizz’s attention, then I hurled my Fireball at the blur, and Arrin launched his Magic Missiles. Yen rushed out onto the deck and started to cast, and Grizz started running towards me.

Just before my Fireball would have reached the illusion, it was pierced by the arrows, making the spell warp, trying to match the arrows in flight, and then it broke, shattering into a thousand fragments of illusory cloud, before fading away, revealing three of the ships, the two cruisers and the black one, all well within range now.

Once they realized the spell had been disrupted, the soldiers on the black ship let out a roar of bloodlust, and the catapult fired with a deep clunk and whoosh of release as the arm slammed forward, a black mass flying through the air towards us.

The first shot passed the side of the ship in a buzzing, screaming mess, disintegrating to the left as we frantically turned aside, only to see it breaking down into dozens of DarkSpore that flew at us.

“Here!” I screamed down to Grizz, throwing him my naginata, and seeing the wide smile on his face as he caught it.

I reached into my bag and yanked out one of the black vampiric swords, glancing at it and seeing it was the health leeching one, I nodded to myself and ordered the others to stay clear of the upper deck, as I started to cast ‘Cleansing Fire’, determined to keep as wide a space clear as possible.

I’d almost completed it, when the first of the DarkSpore hit us, and were hit in turn. Miren and Stephanos basically ignored them, trusting in the others to keep them safe as they worked to pick off soldiers and sailors on the ships chasing us, their summoned creatures by their sides protecting their backs.

The world dissolved into a confusing maelstrom of magic and blurring steel. We fought to keep the gnomes safe, as they finished the last sections of the collectors on the deck, then a scream echoed up from below, and I cursed.

“Grizz, Jian! Get below and sweep for DarkSpore!” I shouted, having seen Jian appear on the deck, leaving Tenandra to fly in his place. I threw the sword down to him, and he dropped his scythes to catch it. Looking up at me, he nodded, clearly understanding the need to use a magical blade instead of a normal one.

As he and Grizz rushed for the hatches, the catapult fired again, and more DarkSpore came screaming towards us, just as Yen finished her incantation and heaved her arms forwards, a pair of hastily conjured Flamespears flashing through the air to slam into a shield over the catapult.

It flared black, then faded into invisibility again, the mana coursing down the shield to sink into the deck and making the ship surge forward slightly.

“They’ve got better mages than us…” I grunted to myself as the ‘Cleansing Fire’ spell rolled out, covering the upper deck, and setting the first DarkSpore that reached it alight.

I yanked the mana-stealing sword out and stabbed the screeching, buzzing mass, killing it, and feeling ten mana flow into me through the sword, even as ten health was torn out, quickly recovered by the spell I straddled.

Two more DarkSpore flew at me, each dying as quickly as the last. Suddenly, I was blasted from my feet, a black and green fireball slamming into the deck behind me.

I flew through the air, hitting the railing and tumbling over, falling from the ship with an instinctual scream as the black ship cut across our wake. Three mages on her deck were throwing spells at us that I only now realized were the main attack.

The DarkSpore were a god damn diversion!

I tumbled end over end, panic making me freeze up, a hasty wish that there was something I could have done, some way I could have a second try at that fight, a way to NOT BE FALLING TO MY GODDAMN DEATH….

Then it hit me, and I reached out, activating my newly gained ability.

It felt strange as I picked up speed, tumbling even more wildly, but as I looked up, the world flashing past, and I locked my gaze on the underside of the black ship… I growled in fury, feeling the wind around me,