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

Bane guided us up through floor after floor, passing through disused corridors, until we came across a set of iron ladders attached to the wall.

“This is the only way I can feel to get up there,” Bane said and I gestured for him to lead the way.

The rungs were rust-covered, flaking and shaking ominously as we climbed, but still Barrett, Bane, Yen, Lydia, Tang, Amaat, and I went up, exiting into the open air of the city of Himnel.

A city filled with fire and noise, smoke and clanking metal contraptions, shouts and screams and raucous laughter, all filling the air. I ran to the edge of the nearest wall, looking out, enthralled with the view.

Behind me towered the city wall, easily twenty meters higher than the building I stood on, which in turn had to be at least another thirty meters from the ground to the roof where I stood gaping. Buildings all around me belched smoke and unidentified chemical fog into the sky. The sounds of hammers hitting metal and waves of heat lifted from what looked like a foundry next door, and the air tasted of metal.

The wind sent the rising smoke from hundreds of chimneys spiraling around to disappear into the night sky, and sparkling, flaring motes of ash rose along with them.

Before me sprawled a city in the full grip of an industrial revolution, the smoke and fire of heavy industry mixed with flaring multicolored light from mana engines. I turned slowly, working from left to right, inspecting the Industrial Zone first, then the shipyards, then the Cloudring district. I could see mansions in the distance climbing up the side of a hill, and the enormous keep that dominated the skyline, lit by fires. The thing that got my attention and held it, though, was the ship.

The hulk of a large ship was just visible in the distance where it remained docked in the airship shipyards, scaffolding surrounding it as it grew. I noted its long, wide frame, disappearing from view behind another building, and I turned to look at Barrett, shaking my head in amazement as he nodded to me in confirmation.

That was the battleship that Himnel was building, and the fucker was huge.

The warship we had, Oren’s baby, Agamemnon’s Wrath, would be tiny compared to that thing. It was like looking at a pleasure yacht next to a super carrier. I’d seen the ‘Intrepid’ at dock in New York on the discovery channel, and the ‘Growler’ submarine alongside it; that was easily equivalent to the kind of disparity in size we were looking at here.

It was insane that people thought they could get something that big to fly!

I was still staring at it when Yen grabbed my arm and pointed to a mass of torches progressing down a street in the distance. People were shouting something; one man was screaming it, and they shouted it back to him. I felt my stomach drop.

Whatever was going on, it wasn’t good. That was the sight of a mob being whipped into a frenzy, and not only were they between us and the Cloudring, but they were all headed in that direction.

“Amaat, think you can give us some information?” I asked, and he nodded once, stretching his huge wings out and jumping from the edge of the roof. He flapped hard, lifting quickly and disappearing into the dusk, while I watched the mob.

Amaat was gone for more than an hour before he returned. We’d spent the time discussing different paths we could take, but as more and more people marched in that direction, we became increasingly concerned.

When he finally returned, swooping in for a running landing, his wings beating hard to arrest his momentum, he looked haggard and worried. Something dark that stank was slowly dripping from one wing, and his eye was blackened. When he landed, he limped and almost collapsed as his left leg went out from under him.

“What happened?” I asked him, aghast, and he clapped a fist to his chest in salute before responding.

“My lord; Scout leader…” he said, nodding respectfully first to me, then Yen, before going on. “The mobs are filling the outer Cloudring and the surrounding area. The guards on the border of the noble district have closed the gates, cutting it off, and the merchant district guards won’t let them cross the bridges. It’s like…”

“Like they’re being funneled into the slums and the Legion Enclave,” Yen finished, getting an exhausted nod from Amaat. “Now, what the hell happened to you, Legionnaire?” she asked with a growl. “Who dared to attack you? And I better be hearing that they look worse than you do!”

“Sorry, Scout leader…” he said, shaking his head. “I flew in to see what was happening, and a bunch of Harpies got the drop on me. When I turned to teach them a lesson, there were people ready in the buildings on either side, and they started throwing things…”

“Hell, are the Legion really that hated?” I asked in shock.

“No… but…” Yen shook her head in confusion.

“They were shouting at me,” Amaat interrupted. “They said, ‘This is for the children,’ and they looked…furious.”

“The children?” Tang asked, coming closer and grabbing Amaat’s shoulder. “They said it was for the children; are you sure?” When Amaat nodded, Tang and Yen exchanged long, dark looks.

“What the hell am I missing here?” I asked, crossing my arms and starting to get annoyed.

“There’s been a series of… grisly… murders in the slums lately…” Yen replied slowly. “I don’t know most of the details, beyond that the children were being drained and left in public places, often in bits.” She straightened and looked out across the city, gazing at the smoke and flames belching into the air from industrial processes, and more to the point, far fewer of them than she was used to. “The city guard was investigating when the Legion General was murdered, and his body taken for ‘examination’ by the Guard, just like the children’s bodies…”

“Right…” I paused, taking a deep