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

do it, you got twice as many people up in the same time. As he looked over at Belladonna, he knew she’d seen it and approved.

He’d been in her squad two days, having been ‘traded’ by her from Sergeant Nix after Coran put in a good word for him, and damn he wanted to earn her respect. Not just because she was beautiful, which she was. All elves were, in that weirdly ‘alien’ way. It was because, not only was she hard as nails, but she had a plan. She wouldn’t tolerate fools, and she did whatever she had to, in order to lift her squad.

She was known as the best Sergeant in the Second Maniple, and her squad were handpicked. Coran’s ability to convince her to take a newb had raised a few eyebrows, and he had not let her down.

He grunted as more weight was added, shifting so that he was standing now on the wall. His feet flat and knees were slightly bent, held at a ninety-degree angle off the floor as more and more soldiers grabbed onto the ropes and started climbing.

“This was a stupid fucking idea…” He grunted, as it felt like his back was going to be broken by the weight, but then Dorn was there, clambering over the side, followed quickly by Renan. They moved to take up the rope as well, bracing themselves and grunting as they relieved him, and he crashed to the ground.

A bellow from below let him know that other squads had tried to use their rope, and Turk was explaining to them in no uncertain terms who had right of way.

A few seconds later, and Coran had cleared the wall, followed by Turk, who ordered the rope to be tied off, and the squad was up and moving again.

Belladonna hadn’t needed their help, he saw straight away, as she pulled her long katana-like swordstaff from her second opponent’s corpse, before pointing at the fleeing Legionnaires below us. Ten were left, and they were sprinting for all they were worth, as others fleeing on the ships already in the air fired arrows down into Thomas’s fellow Church soldiers.

She must have decided she wouldn’t be able to catch the fleeing Legionnaires. Instead, she raised her bloody weapon and bellowed a challenge at them, before cutting the nearest Legionnaire’s head off. She chucked it up in the air, then punted it as hard as she could, sending it flying through the air to hit the ground near the retreating forces with a sound like a melon being dropped from a window.

“We’re coming for you!” she screamed, pointing at them. “We’re coming, and we’re gonna fuck you all to death!” she shouted. Turk, standing beside her, howled his agreement, and Thomas shared a speculative grin with Coran, as they both considered whether they could join the other side, if that was on offer.

“Dibs Belladonna…” Thomas said quickly, and Coran groaned.

“You can’t do that… you can’t leave me with Turk…” he said, shaking his head. “That’s it, I’m staying loyal.”

“Hah!” Thomas said, grinning. “You see how useful that phrase is?”

“Yeah… still weird  sounding, though…” Coran muttered as they watched the last ship taking off. “I mean really, what’s a ‘Dibs?”

“No idea, but it’s a good saying.” Thomas said, grinning. “Next one I’m going to teach you about is ‘That’s what she said…’”

“Whatever…” Coran said, sitting back on the crenelated wall and staring as the ship lifted into the air, the last arrows falling short as the ship flew upwards.

“Thomas, Coran,” Belladonna called out, walking over to them.

“Sergeant!” they both said in unison, straightening up.

“Don’t bother with that crap out here; just do as you’re told,” Belladonna advised, before treating them to a rare smile. “You both did well keeping up, and good job with both the rope and the magic, Thomas… didn’t have enough mana for an extra shot, though?” she asked him, and he shook his head.

“I was injured during an escape attempt a few months back Ser… Belladonna… my mana channels were burned. It's left me with a lot less than I had before…”

“Well, you earned a reward with that hit, and with proving yourself, we’ll have a healer look those channels over tomorrow. For now, welcome to the squad.” She said, nodding to him in respect, before walking away.

Coran slapped him on the back and grinned, and several others of their small ten-man team gathered around. Turk’s backslap of approval nearly made Thomas cough a lung up, but he grinned sheepishly when he got control of himself again. It’d been a long time since he’d had people he could trust watching his back.

It felt good to be part of something again.

***

I blinked my eyes slowly, the room coming back into focus, along with a weird shaking feeling, and I slowly turned my head, trying to make things out.

At first, it was hard, but as I blinked more, things began to resolve into a small room. A small window on one wall was letting in a steady cool breeze, the bed I was laid on was narrow, and it occasionally shifted as a tremor ran through the room.

“What the…?” I muttered, sitting up, and I was immediately hit by Oracle flying across the room to hammer into my chest from somewhere out of sight. I fell back onto the bed, breath knocked out of me with the force of her hug, and I couldn’t help but laugh gently as I wrapped her in my arms.

I felt the relief, the happiness, and the sheer love pouring through the bond from her, and as she shifted to her full size, she snuggled in closer.

The bed was small, but as I lay there, holding her, I felt a vast sense of relief wash over me. I lifted my right hand, gazing admiringly at it as I rolled my wrist and flicked my fingers, glad to be intact again. and Oracle wrapped herself around me, lying across my chest and looking down into my eyes.

“You’re