Battle for the North (Rogue Merchant Book #4): LitRPG Series by Roman Prokofiev (the dot read aloud .TXT) 📕

“It’s them!” Mara breathed out, greedily staring into the distance. “The ones I talked about! Soul stealers!”

It just kept getting better and better. With a sigh, I activated the Eyes and found the closest shadow aboard the strange juggernaut. I was instantly transported to the deck.

Let’s see... Most of the crew consisted of the Forged — metallic constructs from the Forgeworlds. Those NPCs did all the hard work; I also noticed a few dromonts levitating over the upper deck. Did the juggernaut belong to a Forgeworld faction? Could NPCs have their own super vessels? I had more questions than answers, but then, new creatures came into the shadow’s view, crowded by the board and completely throwing me off-balance.

They had artifact armor glowing with magic light, snow-white wings, and radiant halos. Archangels, faction guards of the Throne of Light! That race was only available to Sphere’s administration. The nicknames above the archangels’ heads cleared things up — or only muddled them further.

GM Faust…GM Astarta… GM Potter…

The admins! In the guise of winged heralds, they sometimes descended to ordinary players, shocking and startling them. I had seen several videos with those avatars. So the juggernaut was the Seraphim, the administration’s ceremonial flagship that occasionally appeared at mass events.

But why were they there? It made no sense. Was the spider-ships’ threat so serious that they had decided to interfere? The admins were still fighting, and things didn’t seem lined up in their favor.

Boom! The ship heeled over, and a group of archangels disappeared in a gaping fiery hole. A wave of flame swept over the deck together with the shadow whose eyes I was shamelessly borrowing.

Tossed back into my own body, I reluctantly unglued my eyes. What a clunker! The Seraphim was ablaze and rapidly fell, shrouded in fire and smoke and leaving a black trail in its wake. The three enemies needed less than ten minutes to take down an almost invincible dome! What power was that? How was it even possible? I whistled in envy as I estimated the damage required to achieve that.

The “spiders” kept circling the colossus, piercing its burning hull with their purple rapiers. They deftly ignored its counterfire, displaying miraculous maneuverability. I thought that the admins’ ship managed to graze them a couple of times, but it didn’t seem to affect them in any way. I noticed that the spider-ships’ attacks were carefully orchestrated and only seemed chaotic. In truth, they focused their fire on vulnerable spots, destroying the Seraphim’s rigging and engines. Without its equipment, any astral ship would become uncontrollable, and here, above a sea of molten lava, it was twice as dangerous.

That’s it; it was over. The juggernaut lost its speed and went into a tailspin, crashing into the viscous yellow-black substance. With a deafening crackle, it started sinking in a cloud of fire and sparks. Belatedly, I turned on recording, filming the black spider-ships fly just above the surface, mercilessly finishing the Seraphim off. At the siege of Condor, a Northerners’ raid a thousand strong had spent an hour destroying a juggernaut; these visitors got it done much faster.

I kept watching. The “spiders” circled the drowning juggernaut for a few more minutes and finally ascended. For a second, I bade them goodbye, but apparently, that was premature. All of a sudden, I realized that they were closing in on us, our beast that they had somehow picked out among all others wistfully roaming the ocean of lava. I really wanted that to be an accident, but in less than a minute, they were right next to us, their purple blades flashing brightly. The “spiders” had sensed something, and I wondered if it was me or the Succubate.

“They’re coming! They’re coming for us! You promised to help, One of the Seven!” Mara screamed. She clutched me with her clawed hands and sharply pushed me out to the balcony, outside the protective dome.

“You promised,” she repeated, staring at me through the glowing screen.

What a bitch! Technically, I didn’t belong to their faction and couldn’t enter their dome, especially when it was in invincibility mode. Mara was forcing me to either fight or leave, ignoring our agreement. There was no time to decide: a black spider-like silhouette was flying straight at me.

A purple blast went off. The railing, the balustrade, and half of the terrace disappeared, crashing down in a waterfall of burning debris, but I survived, squeezing myself into a Shield of Shadows. However, the enemy was coming back, which meant trouble. It would either throw me down or penetrate the shadow veil. The first attack dealt me more than two million damage.

Shadow Transformation! Shadow Run! I disappeared from the real world, and a winged figure inside a spectral sphere darted upward from the remains of the terrace in the shadow dimension. How about that, dear spiders? Can you see your opponent in the Shadow Plane, or will you be as blind as most inhabitants of Sphere?

They could definitely see me, but probably not as clear, or maybe with a delay. Their rays exploded pretty close to me, but the visitors moved much slower, not dazzling me with their phenomenal reaction anymore. Suddenly, it occurred to me that it was I who had changed, becoming faster thanks to my shadow wings. The effect would last for about five minutes; I had to do something quickly.

The trio was preparing a pincer attack. In the Shadow Plane, they looked like living blobs of darkness that left a fading inky trail in their wake. Living hearts beat inside their jellylike bodies, their sharp tentacles moving in an undulating pattern. It felt revolting. The Shadow Plane wasn’t lying: they weren’t ships at all but nasty creatures of flesh and blood. Strangely, that discovery calmed me down and gave me a clue on what to do next.

I started spinning, dodging the flashing beams, not letting them surround me. It wasn’t hard: in