City of Fallen Souls: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 3) by Jez Cajiao (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

quickly found Oracle, as stunning as ever, sitting with a glass of wine to watching me as some lecherous old fuck tried to look down the front of her dress.

I guessed he was the Emporium owner, and I suppressed my flare of anger as best I could. That fucker was going to pay for his view tonight, in more ways than one.

The gate on the far side of the Arena clanged loudly as the locking bolt was pulled back, and a figure stepped through, crouching to fit.

Once it was free of the doorway, it stood up, and up… the thing rose about the same height as the Promethean, around nine feet tall, but this bastard was at least twice as wide! He—and his clothing made it very, even overly, clear it was a ‘he’— was covered in thick grey skin, outfitted with what could only be described as ‘accents’ of leather and fur armor, and carrying a massive war axe that must have weighed nearly as much as I did.

“Mal’s furious, says he wasn’t supposed to be in there with you… you’re supposed to be fighting a human!”Oracle sent to me, and I nodded absently, dismissing her words. It wasn’t like I could shout that I didn’t want to play now, or that they’d broken the rules. There weren’t supposed to be any.

“Tell him to use this to get a lock on whatever I’m facing tomorrow, then,” I sent to her, cutting the connection as I watched it move. I surreptitiously triggered ‘Examine’, sub-vocalizing the spell, as my fingers moved, hidden behind my shield.

Gromesh, Orc Warrior of the Khaatoon Clan

Gromesh was a leading warrior of the Khaatoon clan, until he made the mistake of catching the eye of the chieftain’s daughter. When he refused her advances, he was declared ‘Untai’ and banished from the clan’s ancestral lands. Since making his way to the city of Himnel, he has risen high in the ‘Copper Ghost Gang’ and made a name for himself as a vicious and amoral fighter.

Gromesh delights in creating a brutal spectacle of those who cross him.

Weaknesses: Unknown

Resistances: -25% to Piercing damage, -10% to bludgeoning damage

Level: 21

HP: 1125/1125

Mana: 100/100

I dismissed the screen quickly after skimming the details. I’d ignored the majority, retaining only the important ones: he had a fuckton of Health, took reduced damage from piercing and bludgeoning attacks, and was clearly going to be a bastard to beat.

“Arrrrroooooga!” Gromesh bellowed into the air, lifting his axe high and turning in a circle to view the crowd. His lower jaw jutted forward, his massive underbite made even more obvious by the twin yellowed tusks that curved up, while fangs protruded out as much as down from his upper jaw.

He turned around and glared down at me, his eyes a weird coloration of grey irises with white pupils that just looked wrong.

“Legion...” he growled at me. “I hate the Legion…”

“I bet there are a lot of things you hate,” I taunted him, “starting with fucking mirrors. Man, you’re fugly…”

He huffed for a second, then drew in a deep breath and roared, arcing his back and throwing his arms out. His entire body shook as the noise erupted from him.

I felt…anger; no, fury... come over me, driving me forward. I screamed with rage, ignoring the notification that began to frantically flash in the corner of my vision.

I covered the dozen feet to my target at a sprint, seeing him for what he was. Gromesh was the reason for all of this, for all of the things in my life that had ever gone wrong… everything! He’d been working with the Baron to kidnap me and Tommy, I just knew it! He’d been there, whispering in Louise’s ear, convincing her to fuck Martin; he’d been the reason that…

My mind was full of every possible reason to hate the Orc, and I flew at him, my feet scrabbling across the sand. The weight of my shield drove me further into a fury… it was keeping me from him, slowing me down!!!

I tried to throw it aside, catching my hand on the dagger underneath in my desperation to free myself, when it dipped into the sand.

The drag of the spiked twin blades on the bottom of the shield, as they dug into the soft ground, was enough to pull me off balance. My frenzied rush was suddenly twisted off to one side. I fell, sliding, losing my grip on my shield, and the world suddenly came into focus as Gromesh finished his scream, his axe flashing through the air just above the plume of my helmet.

What the hell was I doing? I could feel the unholy rage as it receded, like the tide at the beach. As he pulled his axe back, I saw my own insane charge, and the screams around me slammed back into focus. They were petering out, dying in confusion as the orc’s ‘Rage’ or ‘Berserker’ talent wore off.

He’d managed to send the entire crowd into a fury, desperate to reach him, but the bars had held them all back, I saw the axe coming back around, aimed squarely at my chest…

I felt it then, the fury rising.

The fury of the Imperial Line. The fury of the Emperor. The fury of Jax, Lord of the Great Tower of Dravith, and the thing that Gromesh had instilled in me was shamed in comparison.

I clenched my jaw, almost shaking with rage as I lifted my legs up quickly, then slammed them down, feet flat against the floor. Kicking upwards and twisting my body as hard as I could, I flipped myself over to land on one hand, pushing up. With my momentum, and massive Agility level, I defied the weight of my armor to land on my feet, facing Gromesh, as his axe slammed into the sand where I’d been a split second before.

He looked up, stunned, his own fighting anger clear in his eyes as he growled. He started to yank the blade upward, to free it of the suck