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

waving Thomas forward. He ran a little faster, buoyed by the joint feelings of comradeship and a building bloodlust. The bloodlust was an old friend, always there in battle, and had been back in the old world as well, when he’d been crossed, but since swearing to Nimon, he’d found it easier and quicker to rise.

Thomas grinned at Coran as the pair ran side by side. The trail they followed was well-trodden by the time they hit it, the green leaves and reaching fronds smashed aside by well over a hundred other soldiers before them.

The hours of running, of constant drilling and pushing that the Dark Legion had instilled in them every day suddenly made perfect sense to Thomas, as they ran at a speed barely below a sprint for hour after hour in full armor.

The Trail-Masters, specialist mages of the Dark Church, hurried along with them, men, and women whose only points, it seemed, were invested in Intelligence and Wisdom. They flew atop disks of air, their voices echoing as they chanted the great ‘Trail-Song’.

The marching spell boosted the constitution of those who heard it, while decreasing the weight of the world upon them.

“Gravity magic!” Thomas grunted enviously, staring after them longingly as they flowed through the air, making it possible for the Dark Legion to literally run down horses and still be able to fight at the end of it, all in full armor.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to try to learn that next!” Coran called to Thomas, grinning as he ran alongside him. “Twenty years’ service, that calls for, on top of the standard!”

“And it’d be worth it!” Thomas called back. “Besides, you know you’re only pissed because they wouldn’t teach you the Force-Push!”

“It’s stupid!” Coran grunted. “Imagine being able to use that in a fight; parry, Force-Push them over, stab, and you’re onto the next one!”

“True, but we all know you only wanted it to be able to lift Mella’s dress!” called Sergeant Belladonna from ahead of them as she laughed, and the others joined in.

“Seriously, how many people did you tell?” Coran gasped, glaring at Thomas, who laughed and ran harder, resolving to stand out to Belladonna if it was the last thing he did.

Thomas was part of the Advance, a place of high honor, he’d been told, as the team of three hundred rushed forward, closing the distance to the Great Tower. They were to get the Portal Mages there and hold the territory until they could create a stable bridge for the rest of the army, all five thousand of them, to cross over.

Such a portal was horrifically expensive, not just in material costs, but in lives. At least some of the twelve mages required to build it were guaranteed to die in the casting. Literally years and years of specific, dedicated training went into each mage, and most would be able to cast such a great working only once or twice before being drained to point of death or crippling injury.

The survivors would be rewarded, and the dead bundled away. Part of Thomas rebelled against such waste, but the new part, the part that was growing to glory in the fight, in the sheer relief of not having to worry anymore, of each day being fresh, filled with opportunities to test himself, to fight and to grow, that part reveled in it.

Thomas jumped over a large rock in his path and landed with a crunch, his black and gold breastplate bouncing slightly atop his chain-mail hauberk. He grunted, resolving to get his straps checked by Coran when he stopped, even as he shifted his bags to a better location, keeping a constant watch on the sides of the trail and hoping some monster might try its luck.

The march; hell, the sprint, he might as well call it, had been worked out as just over four hundred miles, apparently. The column could do an average of ten miles an hour, slowed substantially because the damn terrain was so heavily wooded. Two of the Trail-Masters were literally charged with smashing the trees apart as they went, then the soldiers would run over the wreckage. Each company got half an hour in the lead before dropping back, and the next one cycled forward to stomp the ground flat.

Four hundred miles, with the soldiers running for ten hours a day, gave an estimate of four days for the Dark Legion Advance to reach the Tower, and another day to set up the portals.

Thomas couldn’t wait. Five more days, and he’d be able to gut the fucker that had claimed his brother’s name.

He glared out of the full-face helm, hearing his rough breathing echoing raspily, as the constant anger, one of Nimon’s Dark Gifts, bubbled along, directly competing against the steady low-level rage he’d spent his life filled with.

The result was a warrior who was rising fast in the Dark Legion, and who had already caught the approving eye of others, as well as inciting jealousy and hatred.

That was good, though.

As Nimon taught, only the strong could live. The weak were food.

The End of Book Four

Facebook and Patreon

Hi everyone, well, there’s a steadily growing Facebook group you’ll find here at https://www.facebook.com/UnderVerse-105675691131178/, where you can message me, leave comments and I occasionally run giveaways… (This will be happening more, its just a question of time!)

There’s my Website, where you can sign up to the mailing list: https://theunderverse.co.uk/

And lastly, for those who’ve got a hankering for the next book already… there’s the Patreon site, where once this book goes live, I’ll be uploading the first few chapters of book 5 :-)

https://www.patreon.com/Jezcajiao

The LitRPG Guild

Who we are: The LitRPG Guild is a community founded by a group of authors dedicated to the LitRPG, Gamelit, and Progression Fantasy genres. We are trying to spread the word of our favorite genres by working together and introducing new people to amazing books. Our goal is to expand the genres that we love, while bringing fans and creators closer together.

Like free