Shadow Seer (Rogue Merchant Book #3): LitRPG Series by Roman Prokofiev (read ebook pdf .TXT) 📕

Mantle and the incredible speed of his famed Black Sword that flashed in the midst of battle. The Pandas desperately resisted the assault, but we had three times their numbers, and it showed. Upon clearing the deck, the warriors of HELL hurried into the inner sanctum, finishing off the fleeing enemies.

Our skiff nudged even closer to the juggernaut, hovering right above it. Keith Borland, his pawns, and Weldy stepped onto the deck strewn with bodies. Nosquire and Ellaria deftly moored the boat, fixing it in place. Keith shook his fist at me.

“Are you in your right mind, even? Stealing a juggernaut from the Pandas! Do you really think I can drive this bucket?”

“You’ve told me yourself that driving an astral nave is a skill away from a juggernaut,” I reminded him. “Remember?”

“Eh, leave it to a drunk to let it slip!” Keith cursed. “Yes, I can steer it, I can even turn on the spelljumper, but that’s it! I mean, this is a twenty-slot crew you got here!”

“That’s all I need you to do, anyway.”

* * *

“Nosquire, get to the reactor room and try to reanimate everything there. Ellaria, go to the spelljumper and activate it on my command.”

Borland ran up to the command bridge and reverently touched the polished handles of a giant human-sized steering wheel masterfully carved from black rosewood. In his mind’s eye, he could see the translucent windows of the ship’s interface. The juggernaut recognized its new captain, and for a second, Keith’s pupils dilated as he saw the ship’s rigging. All of its modules without exception were epic or legendary: a Snake Ring Reactor; vertical engines inlaid with Fireheart gems; a powerful armor forged from adamantine plates that protected the vital areas; elemental crystals enhancing the dome’s resistance scores (the best available in Sphere); an enchanted astral visor; the Eye of Colossus, a giant raygun based on the Ancients’ archetype.

Control Astral Ships increased by 10! Current value: 743/1000

Control Astral Juggernaut increased by 5! Current value: 5/1000

Borland launched a test, checking the status of the ship’s systems. Most of the icons were flashing yellow or red, meaning insufficient skill points or crew slots. Almost all of the gear was inactive—the magical shield, the rigging, the weapon modules, the slots for Pikes and Hurricanes...

Nosquire: The main reactor is charged 58%. The crystals are undamaged. Ready for operation.

 

Ellaria: The spelljumper is fine. I’m detecting a signal from Astr. Should I turn it on?

 

Keith knew that the ship was all but dead and inoperable without a dozen skilled assistants. The engines were silent, the spar was out of commission, and there was no sailsmaster around. Neither the dome nor the armaments functioned. He could do only two things: start up the reactor and activate the spelljumper to leap into an Astral Portal, maybe crawl there for a few minutes, thanks to the momentum gained during the jump.

The Pandas would easily find and catch a defenseless sluggish vessel, boarding it and taking it back. What was HotCat thinking, really?

* * *

While Keith tinkered around with the controls, reanimating the juggernaut, I glanced one last time at the battlefield. I shouldn’t have. Pandorum had recovered surprisingly quickly, and the situation was changing fast.

Ananizarte, tormented by the monstrous snake and bombarded by the juggernauts’ superweapons, finally gave up. She had clearly lost enough power while battling the Pandas in their stronghold’s dungeons and fighting her way out. The black fire dragon vanished, transforming into an incandescent dot that emanated waves of distorted space. Metallic flares flashed around her as if someone spun a blade at lightning speed. Pandorum’s snake, writhing in the void, burst into several pieces that fell onto Atrocity. The already damaged citadel disappeared in a cloud of smoke and ash. The dot–the goddess in another form—decided against continuing the battle and shot up, leaving a trail of cometary gas and vanishing in the pink mist of the Astral Plane.

The Spectral Archers kept raining down volleys of glowing arrows from the walls of Atrocity, and most of the NAVY ships were already ablaze. The remaining ones seemed to be retreating. Right before my eyes, one of the juggernauts that suspiciously resembled the Stormbringer discharged a blinding crimson ray into a cluster of enemy ships, incinerating a frigate. Another one descended, quickly gaining on the American fleet. The two remaining ones were rapidly approaching us, dragon riders swarming around them.

Keith Borland: We’re ready. Where to jump?

 

HotCat: Where? To Astr’s signal. Home.

 

“You’re crazy,” Tao said coldly as he came up to me. “Your stunt’s panned out, but what now?”

“And now, it will be fun,” I said with a grin.

“Jerkhan’s writing that we’re all dead,” the PROJECT leader informed me, a slight smile on his face. “I think he’s a little bit unhappy.”

Jerkhan? Well, maybe it was time to talk. I decided to contact the leader of the Steel Guard.

HotCat: GF!

 

Jerkhan: Good fight? We’re going to chase you down right now, and the Old Gods will gorge on your blood!

 

HotCat: I have a small proposal for you.

 

Jerkhan: You? For us?

 

HotCat: Are you speaking for the entire alliance? The Ragnarok belongs to Oblivion, not the Steel Guard, doesn’t it?

 

Jerkhan: You want to talk to the elders. Do the elders want to talk to you?

 

In any case, he sent me an invitation to a Courier channel, which I didn’t hesitate to use. It was a chat room for the leaders of Pandorum, and the nicknames there had become legendary long before my arrival to Sphere: Phantom, Kronk, Gor... All of them spoke English, so I turned on the autotranslator and wrote, “Hi.”

“FUCK YOU”

“DAMN YOU TO HELL!”

You were kicked out of the Pandorum Council channel.

Nice talking. Apparently, Jerkhan was a real sweetheart. All right, then. The customer wasn’t ripe yet. Time to continue the operation that I tentatively nicknamed