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

the room at the front of the tower was partially demolished, the roof above sagging. and bodies were everywhere. The Legionnaires had broken out onto the floor and slaughtered the guards before they could recover, attacking more as they appeared from the stairs and other rooms. A few hardy Legionnaires had taken the fight to the next floor, even as the rest finished off the resistance on this one.

“Make a hole!” I shouted, rushing forward, and the Legionnaires between me and the stairwell parted, letting us charge through.

I sprinted up the stairs, abruptly coming to halt behind two Legionnaires at the top of the stairwell. They were hunched behind their shields, taking heavy crossbow fire as they tried to move forward.

A flash of light filled the little I could see of the room. One Legionnaire screamed, shaking as he was hit by a lightning spell, but he gritted his teeth and stayed where he was, muscles twitching and shaking as it grounded through his armor, before groaning and sagging as the spell died.

“Two can play at that game,” I muttered, peeking through their legs and spotting a moving boot off to the side in one of the rooms. “Oracle, I’ll fountain…” I said, casting the spell quickly as she grinned evilly.

“... and I’ll shock!” she finished, building the spell.

“When I say… let Oracle up!” I told the Legionnaires, who grunted acknowledgement, busy as they were blocking bolts and spells.

“Now would be a good time!” The zapped Legionnaire grunted as his shield was hit by a firebolt, glowing cherry red for a second as a second hit right after the first. He groaned in pain but still held on grimly. I saw Oracle’s face and shouted to them,

“Now!”

They stepped aside slightly, making a small gap, and she appeared between them, finally able to see the hallway above us. My fountain burst into life in the doorway of the room I’d targeted, evoking a shocked gasp when the cold, crisp water splashed someone. Oracle hit it with her enhanced ‘Stunning Lightning Bolt,’ sending the hidden Mage screaming as it blasted into him. He fell backwards out of sight as I bellowed to the men above me.

“Advance!”

True to Augustus’ causal words when we’d trained together, the men reacted to the ingrained command, brushing fear and pain aside and rushing up and out, giving the rest of us room to move.

I followed them, stabbing out over the shield held by the man before me, to take his snarling opponent in the throat.

“Move, move, move!” I heard Rinko bellowing, as he and the rest of his team followed me, and the battle was joined. Each of the rooms had been in use at some point, but here, there were only a handful of people, and once the Legionnaires were out of the stairwell, it was less than a minute to mop up the resistance. A single surrendering human survived, with more than a dozen combatants dying over both floors.

“The stairwell’s blocked!” Rinko called from around the corner and I joined him quickly, looking up at the mass of wood that closed the stairwell off. It had originally been a door, I guessed, but they’d added more and more wood, nailing it shut and linking chains to the walls to keep it that way.

“What the hell is this?!” I asked the surrendered human, my voice full of anger.

“We… we were hired to keep the floors secure, and told that we don’t go higher,” he babbled, pointing to the wooden barricade. “It was like that when we came here.”

“How do we get past it?” I asked, and he shook his head.

“You can’t. We’d hear things when we first moved in, banging and shit. They added more on the other side, I think…”

“Bullshit!” I snapped. “How do you get your orders? Who goes up there?”

“Nobody!” he said, wincing as I yanked him in close, staring into his eyes. “We was just hired to guard the bottom of the tower; told we’d get extra silver if we killed anyone who tried to get in, and gold if we caught them alive. The Promos come for them, fly them up at night. That’s all I know!”

“Fuck!” I snapped, shoving him back to land on the floor as I scowled at the barricade. “How long to get past that?” I asked Rinko, and he shrugged.

“Half an hour at least; depending on what they did on the other side, it could be hours, though. Sorry, sir.”

“Fuck!” I cried again, slamming the butt of my naginata into the floor and hearing a crash as a nearby body shifted, falling through the hole my spell had made in the ceiling of the floor below.

I’d spun at the movement, before stopping, realizing it was just the abused floor shifting and gravity claiming the corpse. It gave me an idea, though, and I moved quickly to examine the barricade.

“It’s too close…” I muttered, judging the distance before turning to look at the roof instead. “Rinko!” I snapped. “Check the ceilings, find me any damage you can.” I turned at the sound of my own name being called.

“Jax,” Augustus said, coming into view. “The mobs arrived; they’ve been led by a Promethean. No chance of them passing us by, I’m afraid.”

“Well that’s just fucking peachy,” I said, shaking my head and gesturing to the barricade. “We can’t get through that to the next floor anytime soon,” I warned him.

“We’ve pulled some doors apart down there, got them in place to hold them for now, but we need another way out,” he replied. “Thoughts?”

“I’m thinking I fucked up the ceiling and floor with a spell there by accident…” I gestured to the hole that led to the floor below. “Thinking that’s probably the best way to reach the next floor. Any better ideas? How are our people?”

“Possibly.” He regarded the hole grimly. “We’ve seen the fliers falling back. Amaat and his pride have taken control of the area, but I don’t know for how long. The Harpies can