City of Fallen Souls: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 3) by Jez Cajiao (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

Blood spattered the sand all around me, and I touched my hands to my face. Feeling wetness, I lifted them before my eyes. Evidently, I was bleeding from my ears, nose, and eyes. I shook my head again, forcing myself to grab for my Naginata.

I managed to close my fingers around it and searched for Oracle. Her arms shook as she weakly attempted to get up, obviously out of it, and I couldn’t imagine how powerful the full force of the attack had to be, if it had affected her barely corporeal form that strongly.

I watched her, as she gazed around with unfocused eyes, her skin white, her form fading as the sonic attack continued to blast through her, and I felt her contact through our bond.

“Aegis…!” That was all she said, but I felt her pain, and I knew what she wanted, what she needed.

I reached down deep, ignoring little things like the fact I was bleeding from at least half my orifices, and I gritted my teeth, forcing the gift from Tuthic’Amon into place. Thankfully, it activated immediately, granting me a second of clarity that it wasn’t affected by the ‘Silenced’ debuff.

I could feel Oracles life withering away as I stood, and I sprinted forward, covering the distance to the still-motionless creature in seconds. My naginata blazed to life as I flooded mana into it, unable to form coherently into a spell pattern, but my rage refused to allow less.

The Teradon shook as it channeled its sonic attack, but it clearly saw me coming and broke off the attack a second too late.

I drove the glowing blade deep into one side of its face, the blade punching through the smaller bone plates that surrounded the cavity that had been channeling the sonic blast. The haft reverberated with the crunch as I punched through thin bones and cartilage, stabbing out of the far side, before my headlong rush brought me close enough.

I jumped, planting both feet on the Teradon’s cheek, and using my embedded naginata for leverage, I straightened my back and legs. The blade tore free, ripping half its face off in the process.

The Teradon screamed and shook its head as blood fountained out, and the world seemed to come back into focus for everyone as I dropped to the floor. The status debuffs fell away from thirty seconds left, to five, then four, counting down.

I rolled away, barely dodging a huge paw-hand-thing that slammed into the sand where I’d just been. The Teradon continued screaming, spinning, and stomping, its thick, stubby tail slamming down into the sand as  a desperate attempt to drive us all back.

Forcing myself to my feet and staggering, I scanned the arena for my team, barely hearing the announcer above me as I fixated on Oracle. I rushed toward her, correcting my direction as I wove from side to side…

“Wow! Talk about a rush, people! Just imagine; what you felt there was the ten percent that made it through the shield… now you know why they’re having problems… imagine what that felt like unshielded!”

I ignored him, dropping clumsily to the sand next to Oracle’s tiny form as she blinked up at me, so pale and weak looking. I growled, scooping her up and holding her close to my chest. “Bane!”

He immediately appeared on the far side of the creature, driving both sets of daggers into its side and ripping them in different directions. The long, bloody gashes drew another scream from the Teradon as the stealthy Mer vanished. The enraged creature spun around and stomped the ground where he’d been, before rising to its full height and bellowing in rage, lashing out with both sets of arms as it stood .

Lydia ran in, smashing her mace into its left knee before backing up again, as Grizz ran forward to slash his sword across the back of its right leg. The Teradon screamed and turned for him when a trio of ‘Magic Missiles’ slammed into the Teradon’s ruined face and caused it to stagger back.

I took a deep breath, trying to cast ‘Battlefield Triage’ on Oracle, but it failed to latch on, and she shook her head weakly.

“I’m part of you, Jax. I’ll be okay, but I can’t heal like that, I need time, and for you to heal; that’ll help me…” she breathed, reaching up to my face as Bane appeared next to me.

“Protect her, no matter what, keep her safe!” I commanded Bane, carefully passing Oracle to him. He nodded solemnly, sheathing two of his blades and protectively gathering her to his chest as she protested feebly.

I forced myself to ignore her, lifting my naginata and glaring at the Teradon as the others attacked it. Stephanos continuously hammered so many arrows into it that it was starting to resemble a pincushion.

“Arrin!” I shouted. “Lightning! Lydia, Grizz, keep him facing that way!”

I sucked in a deep breath, then forced lightning into the naginata, flaring it to life as I started running. Speeding across the distance between me and that fucker in a handful of seconds, I jumped over the stumpy tail, planting my feet on the back of its hips and driving the bladed tip down as hard as I could into its upper back. I could feel the spell discharging into it as I let go with my left hand and grabbed onto a ridged plate. Using it for leverage, I began wrenching the blade from side to side, opening the wound up.

It screamed, twisting around and trying to hit me, but I still managed to drive the tip into what I’d been looking for. The smell of cooking meat and sizzling blood as it pumped over the white-hot, glowing blade of my naginata made my teeth curl back in a snarl. The thought of Oracle being hurt only drove me harder.

The Teradon screamed and convulsed as the tip of my naginata slipped between two shifting bones and cut into