The Forgotten Faithful: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 2) by Cajiao, Jez (little red riding hood ebook TXT) 📕

I had a split second to check my HP, stamina, and mana, finding that my health had climbed to eighty percent, stamina was nearly full, but my mana… my mana was at thirty-six…and as I watched it, it dropped to eleven.

Fuck. Oracle had clearly needed it, but…I shook my head, resolving to do this without mana if need be, then dismissed the thought and ran on. Seeing Bane leap to the left, I angled myself to do the same. As I ran through the large double doors, I realized the room was larger than all but the first we’d fought in. It was easily fifty meters on a side, square, and had a vaulted ceiling. A large fire crackled in the far left back corner, casting flickering shadows across the walls. There were piles of debris still, but they seemed ordered, and at the right, embedded into the wall, was a row of dust-covered figures. I dismissed them as soon as I saw they weren’t a threat, in favor of the twenty goblins that stood between Bane and the matriarch.

I took in the cages on the rear wall; dozens of poorly constructed stone and metal sections that had been twisted together to hold a rag-tag bunch of beings, and nowhere amongst them was a purple robe, the one I’d seen Decin wearing.

“Oren’s gonna be pissed…” I groaned, coming to a sliding halt next to Bane, who was already fighting two goblins. Lashing out with my naginata, I deflected a third goblin’s attack from taking Bane in the side.

I twisted my grip, lifting my back hand and pulling my forward one down, dipping my weapon down and punching the impossibly sharp tip of the naginata through the upper thigh of the goblin facing me. I twisted it viciously and yanked it back, ignoring the screaming, falling foe. I knew it wasn’t going to live; the artery in its leg looked like it was around the same place as in a human, and it was spraying hot, black blood across the floor.

I moved further to the right, gaining some space to use my weapon more effectively, and frantically ducked, weaved, and stabbed as I faced three more goblins. I used the base of the naginata as a club, deflecting blow after blow, and I soon took dozens of small cuts. I could hear the battle all around me, and I knew that Flux and Cheena were as sorely pressed as I was.

The goblins we faced weren’t the barely conscious animals we’d fought before. These creatures were bigger, around five to five and a half foot, well-muscled and covered in armor. They used a variety of weapons and gear, obviously scavenged, but of far better quality than those we’d fought so far. The worst thing was that they fought as a group.

They used shields and advanced when we looked in the other direction, they attacked in pairs and trios, and they were fast.

I sliced my naginata across at throat height, making two in front of me jump back, but a thrown dagger almost took my eye, and I screamed, backing up and switching to one handed slashes while I grabbed at my face. The distraction of me backing up let another goblin jump forward, slashing at Bane’s leg. He frantically blocked the attack but missed the chance to strike against his own opponent, who stabbed at him, giving him a glancing wound across his hip.

I let go of my face, feeling a flap of skin shake with the movement, and I raised the naginata overhead. Bringing it down as hard and fast as I could, I smashed it into the goblin’s helm, driving it to its knees.

We fought back and forth, frantically trying to take the other side down, blood flying from dozens of light cuts. Flux shouted to me suddenly.

“We have to kill her! It’s our only chance!” I shifted my focus to the enormous creature that reclined on a handful of benches pushed together. I’d done my best to ignore her so far, trying not to get bogged down in details.

The matriarch was huge. While she was probably only eight to ten feet tall, if she could stand upright, she was at least that wide as well, almost round, and she held in her hand… a mirror image of the leg that Bane had been clutching earlier. She stared at me, her piggy little eyes locked on mine as she bit down, tearing flesh free and chewing it with sharp, pointed teeth.

The leg was clearly small, smaller even than the first Mer I’d fought, and while I’d always known that Bane’s group were young, and even had a few children amongst them, fighting with Bane had made me assume they were all like him, strong, deadly, and fast.

The first one I’d fought wasn’t deadly at all, once it couldn’t get away, and the thought that something had slaughtered an even younger one? That this fucking thing was eating it and enjoying it?

That we were a fucking cabaret act for it to watch while it ate our people?!?!

“NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!” I screamed, my rage finally bursting past all the boundaries I’d tried to impose. I heard an answering shriek of rage in the distance and just knew that Oracle was losing her shit as well.

I lunged forward, going from a balanced fighting style, mixing defense and offense equally, into an insane, all-out attack.

I felt Him awaken, watching as he always did, silent, but his mind seemed to link with mine easily, as it had since we had shared memories back in the Tower when fighting the SporeMother.

We didn’t speak; there was nothing to say to each other, there was just an extension of awareness. He took over watching out of my peripheral vision, enemies seeming to pulse when they moved in my direction, their weapons glaringly obvious, allowing me to dodge, to weave, and in one case, to