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

“You already got jumped once, Jax…” she pointed out, and I grunted, then started to laugh.

“Yeah, alright, that’s true…” I said, rolling my shoulders and looking ahead. “But you can’t keep up with me.” I took a deep breath and activated ‘Mana-Overdrive’.

I was getting a better handle on it, I knew that now; I could feel it. Instead of the frantic sensation that had met me when I first started to use it, my very atoms vibrating at an insane rate, I felt a difference flowing through me as I crouched, then exploded forward into the oncoming undead.

My muscles seemed smoother. Each movement was enhanced, but instead of the jerky, powerful motions I’d experienced before, it seemed somehow more refined, like going from an old diesel engine from the seventies to a slick modern car, the graceful momentum building as power was supplied from the engine to the wheels. I felt vitality humming through me, and I almost danced through the undead.

Effortlessly, I slipped between two of them, ducking beneath their outstretched arms while swinging my naginata around to behead them both easily, then darted forward. It was as though they were moving through treacle, while I danced and struck, beating their clumsy counters aside.

The Xon’dike pair were next, and I ran straight at them, planting the base of the naginata on the ground and using it like a pole, vaulting over to bypass three normal skeletons who staggered, twisting around to follow my flight, as Grizz and Lydia charged forward and struck them down.

I landed feet first, slamming into the rightmost Xon’dike’s face and sending it hurtling from its feet to land on its back, rocking from side to side in its bowl-shaped shell.

I kept my balance easily, my body seeming to vibrate with energy, and I spun around, smoothly ducking beneath a jerkily-swung spiked club to sweep the left one’s legs out from under it as well.

Once it was on its back, like the other, it appeared to be stuck, and while the living versions would presumably have some trick to getting back up, whatever was controlling them clearly didn’t know it.

I grinned viciously and raced ahead again, channeling a little more magic into my naginata and noting that my mana was at thirty percent.

I had maybe another ten seconds, I guessed, judging by the speed it was dropping, and I started to run, swinging my polearm out as fast as I could, bringing my trajectory around in a half circle and charging back to the rest of the group.

I moved my arms steadily, the motion more like I was trying to draw a mobius strip with an enormous two-handed pen than anything else. The figure of eight that I carved through the air, aided by my flame-imbued, magically razor-sharp weapon, left devastation in its wake, and by the time I cut off the ability, staggering as the vicious debuff took hold, I was nearly free of them.

I braced myself as the world seemed to speed back up; everything became harder as the minus ten to all stats debuff kicked in.

I stumbled, then forced myself forward, grunting and lashing out as something leapt onto my back. I felt sharp fingers digging down into the back of my neck, and I reached up with my left hand, punching blindly.

I hit something that rocked back but continued hanging on grimly, when  Bane appeared before me. I barely had time to register his presence before he was leaping over my head. I felt a tug; then whatever it was, was gone, and I staggered the last few feet to rejoin the rest of the group as Grizz, Lydia, and Bane fell back.

“Looks like there’s a limit on how many their necromancer can guide at once,” Yen said thoughtfully as she prepared to cast another flaming barrage of spears.

“W… What…?” I huffed, bending over and trying to catch my breath, nodding my thanks to Arrin as he pressed an open mana potion into my hands. He waited until I downed it and then pointed to the far left.

“Over there…” was all he said, then he fired a Firebolt in that direction as I straightened and tracked the glowing spell’s trajectory. A few seconds later, the firebolt slammed into the wall about three feet from an open doorway leading off into the darkness.

“Oh, fuck yes,” I whispered, taking another deep breath as I felt Oracle struggling with a healing spell, obviously aiming to get me back to top condition again as quickly as possible.

I checked my health, finding it at three hundred and forty-seven of four hundred and sixty.

“Not bad… I mumbled, then spoke up louder so that all my people could hear. “Right, everyone… we’ve… got a chance! Follow… me!” I ordered, and I charged for the distant doorway, hoping I wasn’t leading them all into a dead end.

“What… were… you saying…?” I huffed at Yen, discouraged that clearly my recent input into Endurance wasn’t enough, as I felt terrible.

“Whatever’s controlling them,” she clarified, easily jogging alongside me. “If it could control them all at once, it’d just bury us in them, so clearly it can’t. It seems as though it can only directly control a few, maybe a dozen at a time; the rest are given general orders and set away to follow them.”

“Is that a good thing?” I wheezed, stumbling, before I felt Oracle’s spell hit me, and suddenly the world seemed to grow brighter and easier. I drew in a deep breath and let it out, feeling my mind become clearer again.

“What the…” I muttered, looking over my shoulder and seeing the group following along. Turning back to face the doorway, I saw Bane appear and tear through first one, then two, then three of the undead, clearing the path.

“Poison,” Oracle said grimly. “That last one on your back injected some kind of poison into you.”

“Fuck,” I muttered. “I didn’t realize…”  I said lamely.

“Neither did I, until I’d already started casting, but that got