Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) by Jez Cajiao (free ebooks for android .TXT) 📕

them flying, and the rounded, thick steel ‘prow’ of the device made sudden great sense as well.

The minutes flew by as we hurtled upwards, the front of the vehicle slamming into a ramp that led higher and sent out a huge shower of sparks as we careened off the side of the wall, then smashed into a creature that had terminally bad luck. All I saw was a blur of red and green, flying chitin and insectile legs that tumbled past, and we were away.

We looped around, following the rising ramp, then came to an area where the sunlight filtering down from above showed that a barricade had been built on one end of a bridge that rose to join two slumping buildings.

I looked up and all around, desperately hoping to figure out where Frederikk was going to go instead, and I felt my heart seize as he hunched down closer and started singing even louder.

“Oh, fuck no, you crazy bastard!” I ground out, before squeezing myself down even closer to the frame.

The barricade grew larger and more solid-looking as we closed the distance, and I could hear Yen screaming at the Gnome, but with the rising singing and chanting, I knew he’d never hear us. Instead, I resigned myself to the upcoming crash, having realized that even if he wanted to stop, at this point, it would be too late.

The seconds suddenly seemed to drag out into minutes, even as they hurried by at an insane pace… then we hit it, and the world exploded around us.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The barrier shattered into a thousand pieces; the section where we’d hit it was thin and clearly designed for a fast breakthrough, while the majority was solid, but I’d had the wonderful luck to be too close to a spar that stuck out, and it’d slammed into the side of the device just ahead of me, wiping me and the gnomes behind me off like the world’s most violent sweeping brush.

I tumbled from the gnomish contraption, both arms flailing wildly, and had a split second to be glad I’d stashed my naginata in the bag before I slammed into the dangling roots of a tree and felt bones breaking.

I bounced off, smashing into a wall, and then skidded across the floor to come to rest against the side of something huge that vanished above me.

I blinked, coughed out some blood, and took stock of my injuries as I tried to make sense of what had just happened.

I heard an excited sound in the distance, and a screech of metal grinding on metal as the device slammed into something and disintegrated. Cursing and shouts arose, and … laughter and cheering from the gnomes, along with a lot of growls and curses that seemed to be their normal way of acting now.

I forced myself to sit up, wincing at the pain, and blinked in an attempt to get the room to stop spinning.

“Hey, boss!” I heard a voice call, and a few seconds later, Grizz was there, reaching down and straightening me as I started to slump to one side. “You okay? You look like shit…” Grizz said, his usual cheerful manner fading once again as he examined me quickly.

“m ok’ay…” I mumbled, almost incomprehensibly, wincing as I felt bones grating against each other as I spoke. I reached up and gently touched my face, finding that my jaw and right cheekbones were grinding in places they never had before, and my fingertips came away bloody.

I closed my eyes, trying to control myself and get a handle on the pain, when a healing spell slammed into me. I gasped with relief, feeling the bones in my face pop back into place and start binding together again.

My eyes flew open as I hissed in pain, but I abruptly slumped back, being caught by Grizz again as I focused on Arrin, who’d just found us, and had clearly been the source of the healing spell.

It took a couple of seconds to run its course, but I took Grizz’s hand once it had, and he hauled me to my feet, looking me over with a critical eye as he took in my bedraggled, handicapped appearance.

“Boss, we have got to talk about the way you live your life. Seriously,” he quipped. “I mean, I’m gonna get booted out of the Legion when I get you back to them; just look at the state of you!”

I glanced down and snorted; not only was my armor dented, cut, and scratched all to hell, but I was missing my left arm below the elbow. My helmet was crushed to the point of uselessness, and I was covered in dried blood, much of it my own.

My Legion bodyguard, on the other hand, looked like he’d had a bad day, and that was it. A few dozen scrapes and scratches and a handful of small dents marred his armor, but in comparison, well.

I looked like I’d lost a fight with a blender the size of a house and had been trapped in it for an hour. He looked like he’d fallen down a few times and then got back up.

Bastard.

“Well, let’s face it…” I mumbled, rubbing at my grubby face. “If you did your job properly…” I left it hanging and winked at him.

“Are you kidding me? You’re like watching over a drunken toddler, off playing with exactly the wrong thing as soon as I turn my back!” he retorted, grinning.

“Ah, bugger off,” I snorted as I looked over at Arrin, who’d stepped closer and was watching me with a tentative grin. “Arrin, thank you, mate. That heal was exactly what I needed,” I said truthfully. “How’s everyone else?” Yen stepped into sight and visibly relaxed at seeing me upright.

“They’re fine, I think?” Grizz said, looking back over his shoulder, lifting a questioning eyebrow at Yen.

“We’re all fine!” she called, her elven hearing allowing her to pick up the conversation at a distance none of the rest of us could match. “Aside