Berserker: A LitRPG Urban Fantasy Adventure (Apocosmos Book 1) by Dimitrios Gkirgkiris (phonics readers .txt) 📕

“Last fight of the day and they pit you against nameless?” asked Neleth, the elf shadow strider who was missing half of his fingertips. “The fuckers can’t get their fill of gore as easily anymore.”

“Is that what he meant,” asked Alexander, “when he talked about your brothers serving the dominus?”

“It is,” replied the female vampire and bared her fangs in frustration. “I’d rather impale my brother than see him become a fetching dog.”

“And I’d rather be impaled than lose my will and thirst for blood,” her brother agreed.

“So take no pity on the people you’ll end today, human,” the elf added. “You are doing them and their families a great service.”

“Just make sure you kill as many as you can before they bring you down,” said a new voice that belonged to a towering elephantaur who had replaced the naga in the circle around the fire.

“I will honor them,” Alexander replied, “and end them. All of them.”

“Don’t get cocky now, newcomer,” said the elephant-man but Gardun, who was sitting to his right, nudged him with her elbow to make him stop.

Alexander didn’t reply immediately but rested his eyes on the flames once again. “Your friends will know peace.”

A soft trumpet escaped the elephantaur’s trunk along with a nod of acknowledgment at what Alexander had said. They all continued staring at the bonfire, the sky above them now clear, the moon having visibly changed from its previous crescent shape into an almost-full blood moon.

“How long till his match?” the male vampire asked, breaking the silence around the crackling fire.

“A couple of hours, I reckon,” the orc replied.

“Go on then,” the vampire said, now looking at Alexander. “Finish your story before you get killed.”

“My story doesn’t end anytime soon. Neither will my life.”

“Yes, yes,” the vampire replied mockingly, “you’re absolutely the first person ever to say that.”

“You said it was the first time you almost got murdered?” the orc prompted him to continue.

“It’s pure luck I’m still alive.”

12

Child in time

The wooden door of my apartment exploded into a dozen pieces. The biggest one hit me straight in the chest, which was quite lucky since it probably would have knocked me out cold if it had hit my head instead. That wasn’t to say that it didn’t hurt. However, the pain registered with a slight delay as my whole and undivided attention was brought to the fact I couldn’t breathe. The strength with which I was hit forced the air out of my lungs and I wasn’t able to replenish it for a few moments.

Louie’s barks were suddenly replaced by incantations and before I managed to pick myself up from the floor, I felt the familiar warmth of his healing spell wash over me. I launched myself up and glanced at our aggressors to get their stats before running away from them, further into the apartment.

Name : ???

Race : Human

Class : Mage

Level : 11

Name : ???

Race : Human/???

Class : Rogue

Level : 12

Name : ???

Race : Human

Class : Thief

Level : 9

It was the same fuckers that had stepped on Louie and attacked me three months ago. The ones who were responsible for the twenty-thousand-dollar bill at the hospital and for dragging me into the Apocosmos.

“In the bedroom, Louie!” I shouted and somersaulted over the coffee table, trying to avoid another Gale Blast.

Holding a tablet in my hand and wearing the bare minimum of clothing didn’t help with my attack and defense stats at all, and of course that was all that mattered in the Apocosmos. Being part of the Apocosmos might have the advantage of making me practically bulletproof when attacked by weapons made in the Cosmos but the Dark Energy wouldn’t protect me at all from people who lurked in the other world. I hadn’t thought much of it when I stored all of our equipment in the bedroom we never used, but at this moment I regretted not considering how inconvenient that would be in the case of an attack like this. Always a bit too fucking late.

“Well, if it isn’t the tough boy from the pizza place,” I heard a voice say, and with it Louie’s porcelain water bowl was smashed on the wall. “And his little bitch.”

Above all, I had to control my temper. He was goading me, but replying to him now would only earn me a blade in my guts. Louie scurried toward the bedroom’s closed door. To my surprise, he muttered an incantation and the handle turned, opening the door enough for him to push through. So that was what he had been practicing: a way around his small height and lack of opposable thumbs.

I hurried into the bedroom myself and Louie shut the door loudly, locking it with the same cantrip while I threw my leather vest on. There were a couple of metallic thumps on the other side of the door. If the apartment door couldn’t handle the force of their spell, there was no reason why this one would.

“Get behind me,” I said to Louie as I slid into my leather pants.

There was no time to put on any of the helms or boots Leo had lent me, but Louie had just enough time to nudge his wizard’s hat onto his head. When he bought the thing, I’d made fun of how cliché it looked, all blue with yellow stars, but the joke never really landed as he couldn’t grasp the meaning of the word cliché. Now though, I was thankful he had the protection of at least one piece of equipment that would work against Apocosmos attacks.

“We know you’re in there!” someone shouted outside of the room and I pulled both of my swords out of the scabbards resting on the bed.

“Louie, the streaming lights,” I said, and he stepped further back.

When Leo had gifted me the ultimate streaming setup, he had bought me a bright set of three-point lighting so that I could deliver the best content on Twitch. Of course, I’d