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

“I also got experience for it, so it appears to be a fairly powerful weapon, after all,” she said, grinning delightedly at me. “It’s been a long time since I have been able to use my magic and gain experience, so thank you for that, Jax.”

“Anytime.” I smiled back and looked out at the ships. The closest one was small, clearly built for speed, and it was on the final approach to us. The flash of spells and shouting of fighting had died away, making me relax as several forms jumped over the side, their wings flaring as they headed for the second, larger ship.

The battle was clearly ongoing on that ship, and judging from the screams and flashes of magic, it was still anyone’s fight.

“Get ready!” I called behind me as the ship dipped, gliding across the rooftops and turning to present its side to us. I clambered out onto the rain-slicked tiles, slipping slightly, before I caught myself, Hellenica floated out beside me and steadied me, before helping a few others out. The pair of Djinn that had remained floated out with her conjured shields and held them angled overhead, preventing people from falling off the small roof as the ship moved in closer. Meanwhile, the shouting from the floor below grew in volume, increasing our sense of urgency.

Oracle flitted out to hover nearby, and I noticed the way she was grinning as I watched the ship coming in, ten meters away, nine…

“What did you do?” I called distractedly to her, blinking the rain clear of my eyes and crouching, ready to jump.

“I set fire to the rubbish Grizz piled up for me!” She called back, grinning. “The Guard doesn’t seem happy!”

I shook my head at her antics; two meters… I started running, pushing off hard enough that I almost slipped again, continuing to run to the edge of the roof as the ship dipped down slowly below the level of the roof.

As I reached the edge, I saw the upturned faces of the crowds below, lanterns flaring in the rain, and the rain-washed cobbles. I saw a lot of cobbles, and I had a horrible thought of someone conjuring a shield against the side of the ship, causing me to hit and bounce off. As I leapt from the edge, a serious burst of fear powering my legs to do an insanely stupid thing, I caught sight of a small, weaselly man in the crowd below. He rushed from group to group, a tray held in his hands with a strap around his neck, trying to sell what his thin voice floating up proclaimed as ‘Sausages inna buuuun!’…

Then I landed, my feet slamming onto the wooden deck, my naginata banging down in my left hand as I reached out instinctively with my right to catch myself. I grunted in pain as my stump hit the deck.

I staggered, moving as quickly as I could out of the way as others followed. Some screamed, others leaping silently in their terror, while Arrin jumped alongside Grizz, both of them shouting in glee.

Mad bastards.

I started dragging people back, clearing the deck for others as fast as I could as we passed the towering building, I saw the last man, Augustus. He ran and leaped, hitting the side of the ship; the stern had moved too far out from the building, and he vanished.

Then Hellenica was there, rising alongside him. The massive Legionnaire, a man so heroic –looking, Hollywood would have refused to cast him as a soldier on general principle, was lifted onto the deck of the ship in a princess carry by a woman who, if she was solid, would probably have been on the scrawny, if very beautiful, side of things.

I saw the looks on their faces as she deposited him safely on the upper stern deck, and I wished for a camera right then like I’d wanted for little else.

I looked around then, for the first time seeing the actual ship, not just the deck I was heading for, and I noted the blood stains, the bodies, and the signs of the fight. I saw two bodies of Djinn, their tiny forms broken in death, and an Alkyon’s wing, bloody and alone, lying next to the signs of another fight. The blood trail led to the side of the ship, and I shook my head, forcibly banishing the mental image of a flier falling to their death.

I pushed through clusters of people on my way to the upper deck, passing Djinn glaring at surviving sailors who were being forced to work on the ship. I climbed the set of stairs to the raised deck, finding two Alkyon standing up there, one being healed by Hellenica, who seemed to have turned a rosy pink color, for some reason.

“Congratulations on your jump, Augustus!” I said, smiling as I walked up and getting a grin in response.

The second Alkyon was handling the helm of the ship. He looked stressed—as near as I could tell, different species, and all that—but he was doing it.

“Thank you,” Augustus chuckled. “I was getting a bit worried until Hellenica got to me, I don’t mind admitting,” he said as he looked across at her. She quickly finished healing the other flier, who thanked her and moved to check on the ship’s controls, a series of dials and crystals that looked utterly incomprehensible to me.

“So…?” I said, addressing the two Alkyon with a raised eyebrow. “I’m impressed with your ship handling!” I tried to stand like a Lord while sneakily hitting them both with an ‘Examine’ spell. “Eridine and Raat, how are we looking?” I asked, and Raat, the helmsman, spoke up.

“We’re good… Lord Jax. The ship is responding to our control, and we didn’t lose too many. We’ve sent most of our pride to help with the larger prey now, and this one is close enough to what we trained on to be easy to command.”

“Who did sort it