Tower Climber (A LitRPG Adventure, Book 1) by Jakob Tanner (interesting books to read for teens .txt) 📗

a pretty intense fall, thought Max. Such a descent and crash landing would probably do a serious amount of damage to either one, but was it enough to kill them both? Maybe. Had that been the climber president’s plan all along?

ROARRRR!

The sounds of a tail whipping back and forth, smashing parked cars in its wake, echoed from down below.

“Uh oh,” said Casey. “Sounds like the dragon is still alive. What about the climber president?”

If the climber president was already dead that would be the worst-case scenario. He was the only other A-ranked climber in the city. He was the only one who had a true chance at taking out Samuel Archer, the city’s other powerful A-ranker.

GROWLLLLL!!!

Casey turned to him. “Dragons don’t growl, do they? Snarl? Roar? But growl? That’s more of a wolfish thing, no?”

Bursting forth from the clouds of smoke was the dragon and the climber president clinging on its back with his werewolf claws.

“There they go,” Max shouted.

Falling however many stories high would clearly not be enough to kill a dragon or a climber president turned werewolf.

The dragon flapped its wings, zooming upward into the swirl of stormy clouds.

The dragon flew higher and then did a loop in the air.

“It’s trying to throw the president off,” shouted Casey.

Max and Casey clung onto the drake, he had control over. They needed to help the climber president, but he wasn’t sure what they could do to turn the battle in their favor.

The dragon did another loop and the werewolf lost its grip.

The werewolf dangled with one hand onto the dragon’s scaled back.

“He’s losing his grip,” said Casey. “He’s going to fall.”

As with their previous crash landing, a fall wasn’t enough to kill either creature but it wasn’t as if the climber president didn’t have any wounds or bruises. Max could see a slight tremble and shiver in the werewolf’s body, aches and pains it was trying to ignore. One more fall might not kill him, but it might shift the balance of power in the dragon’s favor.

The climber president dangled on the dragon’s back as the monstrous beast flew faster and more haphazardly now, trying to remove the werewolf pest from its back.

The climber president dug its nails deeper into the dragon’s scales and, with all of his strength, pulled his fallen arm up and dug back into the dragon, securing his place on the monster’s back.

The werewolf growled and then took a massive bite of flesh out of the dragon’s back.

“The climber president just bit a chunk of that dragon’s flesh off,” said Casey in disbelief. “That’s so badass!”

Max and Casey were getting closer in the air to the fight and, thankfully, Max finally knew what they had to do to end this.

Max took the reins of the drake and flew them closer to the fully grown adult dragon.

“Why are we going so close?” shouted Casey.

“Trust me,” said Max. “I have an idea. Wait here.”

“What do you mean, ‘wait here’!? Where are you goin—!”

Max disappeared in a burst of shadow and reappeared on the dragon’s back, just above the climber president.

The wind rushed through his hair and he felt his stomach lurch as upside down and right side up became absolutely meaningless in the chaos of riding on the back of an enraged dragon.

He had a plan. It might be the only way to stop this horrible monster from destroying their city and killing the climber president.

He pulled himself up on the dragon’s back until he was right above its skull.

He then placed his hands on the monster’s head and attempted cellular manipulation.

Nothing happened.

What’s going on!?

He was using Samuel Archer’s cellular manipulation trait at double the power. He should be able to take back control of the dragon, or at the very least, relinquish Samuel’s control over it.

But nothing was happening. Why couldn’t he undo the manipulation Samuel had put this dragon under?

He then looked around at the skyscrapers below and saw multiple random climbers standing on the rooftops.

They were buffers!

They were increasing and strengthening Samuel’s cellular manipulation power, enough so that his mimicked version of the ability was still weaker at double the power.

But then how come he had been able to free the climber president?

Ah! Because the flame instructor had taken out the nearest buffer in that previous area.

Max knew what he needed to do now.

He triggered shadow blink once more and reappeared alongside Casey on the drake.

“Looks like your totally batshit plan didn’t work,” said Casey.

“No, it will,” said Max. “We just gotta go take out those buffers first!”

102

Blood gushed out of Sakura’s wound.

She placed her hand over it to stop the bleeding, but she was in so much pain, she kept losing focus on the task of stopping the blood loss.

“Tick tock,” said Samuel. “It’s just a matter of time now, Sakura.”

Crap. She only had a few minutes to live. What was she going to do? What options did she have?

She kneeled on the ground from the pain of the wound. She kept one hand blocking the blood and with another tried to push herself back up to her feet.

Her whole body wobbled and she couldn’t muster the strength to push herself up.

“Pathetic,” spat Samuel. “The great Sakura The Golden Blade killed by a couple of shield slimes.”

The patronizing bastard made her sick, but he was right. She was about to bleed out and die. Was this really it?

Samuel stood over her, laughing at her dying in pain.

“Face it, you can’t win, Sakura.”

Fifteen years ago, Sakura received her copper badge with the letter E engraved on it.

The climber president smiled as he pinned it on her chest.

“Well done, Sakura,” he said. “I expect great things from you.”

The climber president’s words filled her with joy. Not many people had believed in her during her term at the climber academy, but to have the optimism and approval of the strongest climber in the city meant a lot.

After the graduation ceremony, there was a wine and cheese reception in the banquet room of the climber’s