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

He didn’t do it fast enough.

I leapt forward. The first slash of my borrowed sword sliced across the inside of his right wrist, I rolled my wrist in turn, slashing across the upper left arm on the backswing. My gladius sliced deeply into the furs and leather pieces he wore. The blade dragged a spray of blood free as I reached out, grabbing the front of his armor with my left hand.

I moved in fast, yanking down with my left as I planted my right foot on his left knee, and kicked off.

I climbed up his torso faster than he could dodge my feet, and, using my grip on him, I flipped my sword over and drove it down into his chest, deep between the trapezius muscle and the clavicle. The white fur that surrounded his neck was stained red with blood.

Then I hauled back as hard as I could, and using my feet on his knees, my grip on his armor, and my sword stabbed into him for leverage, I headbutted him as hard as I could.

I felt the pain, the stunning force of headbutting something that hard, but I ignored it. This was no longer a fight, nor was it a battle; it was a brawl, a no-holds-barred street fight, and that, at least, I was good at.

This cocksucker of an Orc had woken the rage in me, he’d messed with my mind, and I rode him backward as he staggered. His arms, weakened by my cuts, reached for me, and I headbutted him again.

I saw a bright flash of light as I stunned myself by hitting him that hard, and a second later, I was flying through the air. He’d managed to smash me from my perch with a heavy punch.

I hit the sand and rolled, shaking my head in an effort to clear my vision. He’d managed to duck his head enough that my second ‘Glaswegian kiss’ had landed badly, and my helm was restricting my vision.

I yanked it off, feeling it scrape my skin as I hurled it aside, and I glared up at him, just in time to see his foot swinging at me.

I crossed my arms in front of me, taking the blow, and flew backwards. I tucked inward, landing and rolling into an upright position and spitting blood from my busted lip onto the sandy floor.

The crowd was going nuts, screaming for more blood, chanting for my death or Gromesh’s. I didn’t care.

All I cared about was the need that filled me, and the rising tide of anger and hunger. I grinned, saw his momentary surprise, and then I was moving again, sprinting across the sand to jump and slide under a punch, grabbing my shield and yanking it back onto my arm.

I sprang to my feet as he yanked my sword out of his chest, a gout of blood spurting upward as he roared in fury. Fully enraged, he ran at me, clearly intent on killing me with my own sword.

I’d done a number on his left arm. I noted the way that it was hanging limply, and he was bleeding profusely from the cut on the inside of his right wrist… I guessed that was why he wasn’t using his axe, but I didn’t care. Not really.

I grinned up at him, pulling the cinches tight on the back of my shield, tying it to my arm and bracing it.

“Come on, then, pretty boy…” I called to him. “Come play with me…” I made a ‘come here’ gesture with my fingers.

He bellowed and sprinted forward, lashing down with my sword, and I took it on my shield, allowing the strike to push me back. He whipped the sword up and brought it down again and again. He hammered my shield with terrific force, and I crouched under it, taking the beating.

Three more times, he struck, all the while screaming at me, when I fought back.

As his last hit landed, I twisted the shield aside and rose from under it, swinging the shield around to point the twin spikes at the base forward. I slammed it down, punching the metal protrusions through his right foot. and pinning him to the ground. He roared in pained fury as I yanked the ‘Dagger of Ripping’ free of the sheath on the back of the shield.

I’d poured a tiny amount of mana into my ‘Mana-Overdrive’ skill when he’d been hammering down into my shield, boosting my strength just enough to hold him off. Now, I moved so fast that I almost blurred, diving through his legs and rolling to my feet.

I slashed left and right, hamstringing him, then grabbed his belt from behind, using the leverage to haul myself up his back. I scrambled higher, reaching over his shoulder and slamming the blade deep into his chest, stabbing it into the weak point under his right armpit, then ripping it free.

He grunted, a wet, tearing sound, and sagged sideways as his legs gave out.

I held onto my skill, trying to minimize its visible effects as I grabbed his chin with my left hand from behind, pulling his head back.

I plunged my dagger into his neck and sawed it back out.

I felt muscles and tendons, gristle and various tubing’s that composed the orc’s neck snapping and twanging as I hacked through them, before I yanked his head hard to the side. With a final burst of Mana-Overdrive, my furious wrenching motion ruptured the last sections of skin as I jerked his head free, his corpse falling to the side.

I lifted the massive cranium by the hair with my right hand, turning in a slow circle to ensure that everyone saw it, stopping to meet the eyes of an arena spectator who’d been particularly vehement about calling for my death.

I pointed at him, then dropped the head and punted it as hard as I could, sending it hurtling across the intervening distance. It hit him in the face, making it through the narrow space by