Seventh Realm Part 1: A LitRPG Fantasy series (The Ten Realms Book 8)

by Michael Chatfield

Egbert held her and patted her back. I may have no heart, but it hurts all the same.

  Qin sniffed and pulled herself together.

  “Later, later.” Egbert didn’t know if he said it for him or to her.

  “We have work to do.”

  “That we do, Miss Silaz.”

  Erik had walked up and down through the teams. Now he sat on his perch eating a high stamina regeneration bar.

  Darkness had crept in as the enemy reorganized.

  Machine guns fired in the west as they pressed the walls and castle.

  Erik cast eagle eyes and scanned his section of wall.

  “They’re fond of that smoke spell,” he said around his food bar and lowered his rifle, holding it one-handed on his leg, quickly checking the linked map on the inside of his forearm.

  The door to his office area fell apart.

  “I think you need to call maintenance,” Rugrat said.

  Erik grunted and finished checking his map, resting his right hand on his rifle and grabbing the bar with his left, taking another bite.

  “What flavour?”

  “Blueberry, I think?” Erik looked at the bar and shrugged. “Ah shit, where are Fred and his people?”

  “I got them squared away. They’re roaming around the floor, supporting people. They’re as strong as us, if not stronger. Certainly got more spells. Gives Davin a break.”

  “He’s done well. Been running around laying down fire since he arrived.”

  “Yeah, he’s been running on fumes. Got him drinking mana potions on a mana regeneration formation. Should be good to go soon.” Rugrat pushed some papers and things off a desk and sat on it, resting his rail gun across his legs.

  “This is going to be the last one here.” Erik tore off another piece of the bar as he turned his chair so he could look sideways through the window and see Rugrat.

  “I think so too. Sunken City should give us the time we need to pull everyone out. Artillery platoons are evacuating now. Egbert is supporting the engineers with the teleportation formations.”

  “Good shit.” Erik finished off his bar and rubbed his fingers on his pants before grabbing his canteen. He drank from it and held it out to Rugrat.

  Rugrat opened his hands, and Erik closed the canteen and tossed it. Rugrat opened it and tilted it back.

  “Incoming up high!” someone yelled as the night sky lit up with machine guns and blue tracers.

  “I’m off!” Rugrat grabbed his rifle in one hand and stored Erik’s canteen.

  “Make sure I get my canteen back!” Erik yelled. He grabbed his metal mask and cast a fuse spell as he put it over his face, sealing it up. “Odd team leaders watch the ground. Even team leaders watch the skies!”

  The aerial forces had come in down low and dangerous, creeping right up to the edge of the broken buildings across from what remained of the castle walls. Barriers flashed and failed over the aerial forces as their mounted beasts covered the open ground, closing with the walls in seconds.

  Erik fired, leading his trace across the aerial beasts. They passed through the castle compound’s barrier and opened up.

  Prepared spells and spell scrolls activated.

  The elements seemed to rebel as spells crashed against the castle walls. Stone struck Erik’s faceplate as he kept firing on the aerial beasts.

  The soldier manning the grenade launcher perched in his old office was firing air shot spelled grenades, turning it into a massive shotgun, tearing up the aerial forces.

  A spell crashed into the wall.

  That’s my office. Shit. Clear as day, the thought slammed into his head.

  “Tully, status!”

  “I’m good. Fucking wall blew out. Fuck, the launcher team didn’t make it. The aerial forces are pushing through the breach!”

  Erik watched an aerial forces group head for the hole in the castle. They were determined to close with the Alvans.

  “Ground forces are pushing!” Gong Jin yelled.

  “Sunken City. I say again, Sunken City!” Glosil ordered.

  Erik barely heard the explosions behind him as he tore out his magazine and slammed in a new one.

  “Roska. Gong Jin. Control that entry point.”

  “Sir!”

  Other hits struck the wall. The bunkers opened up on the ground forces pushing forward; spell traps and formation traps went off. Undead mages and archers added in their attacks.

  The aerial forces weaved through lines of tracers, forcing the ground forces to fight for every inch.

  “Get ready to pull back!” Erik said, waiting for the signal.

  Rippling explosions that reminded Erik of building demolition charges shot dust into the air, spreading out from the castle compound.

  There she goes.

  Erik tossed his empty magazine and loaded a new one. He nailed a group of aerial riders who were staring at the explosions and kept running.

  Captain Stassov was sitting back in her command chair. She drank a mana elixir, causing her body to relax in the low mana environment.

  Someone gasped. Her eyes flickered over as the map changed suddenly. “What?”

  She stood up, forgetting her drink. Explosions ripped through the city as everything from around the castle walls and beyond dropped in sections.

  This must be their plan. Those explosions and sections are too uniform.

  “They must have been preparing this for years,” one aide hissed.

  Stassov gritted her teeth, her thoughts in line with the aide’s.

  “Have our aerial forces continue the assault. Gather our ground forces and push through the dungeon underneath. Have them ready to deal with any dungeon creatures.”

  The aerial forces regained control as they redoubled their attacks and pressed the breaches they’d created in the castle walls.

  That should be your last trick, right?

  “Slow our forward speed and bring the cannons to bear,” Stassov ordered.

  “Mother fucker!” Rugrat ducked as what was once a stone wall was blown into his side. He kept running as the stone struck him. He scanned behind the doorway ahead of him. There was a gaping hole in the floor where soldiers were jumping down.

  “Team Three, watch that side.” Rugrat threw his hand out to the hallway to his front. “Team Four, watch the way we came!”

  The teams raised barriers of stone from the ground, creating a skirmish line through the corridor.

  Soldiers streamed past and into the doorway Rugrat held. They leapt down the hole.

  A group of aerial riders without their mounts blasted spells down the hallway, chasing a group of soldiers who were leapfrogging backward, stopping, turning, and shooting to cover one another.

  “Contact!” Gong Jin’s people held their fire; they were excellent shots.

  But it raised the hairs on the back of Rugrat’s head, thinking of a blue on blue.

  Rugrat aimed at the ceiling, past his retreating soldiers. “Mana chains.”

  He cast the spell and fired blue-coated rounds. Chains of mana exploded out of the ceiling. An aerial rider screamed as the chains stabbed through his body and exploded.

  The chains tried to attack and grab the other riders.

  Explode.

  The spell twisted and the mana making up the chains detonated. The ceiling collapsed, raining down on the aerial force.

  “Move it, troops!” Rugrat barked.

  The retreating force got up and ran, threading through the walls, protecting Gong Jin.

  “Fire!” Gong Jin and his team opened fire. Their rounds cut through the aerial force, tearing them apart in a few moments.

  “Cease fire!”

  The officer patted Rugrat and yelled in his ear. “Last man.”

  Rugrat raised a thumb; the officer ran on.

  “Yao, how things looking on your side?”

  “Got one group lagging. They have wounded.”

  “Push out and cover them.” Rugrat changed channels. “Good on this side, just pulling in a w
ounded group.” Rugrat raised his voice as a spell went through a wall and an office blew out into the hallway, spreading dust.

  “Han Wu, Tyrone, cover that hole!” Gong Jin yelled.

  “We’re ready to pull back,” Rugrat said.

  “Got it. Fifth floor has collapsed.” Erik paused as a spell went off on the floor above.

  “Seems they’ve found our traps. Rugrat, we’ll meet at the armory stairs. Team One and Four will go first. Two and Three will be with us. We are the rear guard.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Yao Meng and his people pulled back behind their defenses as the squad carrying wounded passed and headed for the hole.

  “Just cleared our wounded.”

  Erik was silent. Rugat knew he was doing one last life detect scan.

  “Activating formation traps. Get moving.”

  Rugrat saw the flashes of mana as simple-looking tiles activated their secondary hidden purpose.

  I had hoped we were just being paranoid fucks.

  “Pull back. Team Four, drop down and cover us on the ground. Team Three, second!”

  Gong Jin’s team split into two, manning the defenses as Yao’s team ran for the hole and jumped, disappearing.

  “Contact!” Han Wu yelled as he fired.

  Rugrat threw his rifle to the side, securing it with a tie, and pulled out a ready grenade launcher.

  Spells hit their stone defenses, exploding and tossing Tyrone and Jackie backward.

  Rugrat could tell as soon as they were thrown that there was no saving them.

  Explosive Shot.

  He fired into where the spells came from, silencing them.

  “Gong Jin, grab them.” New spells tore down the corridor.

  Rugrat’s left arm blazed in pain as it was tossed backward.

  He aimed and fired his grenade launcher one-handed into the new spell’s location.

  He took a second, a piece of shrapnel embedded in his forearm.

  “Move it!” Rugrat yelled as his body lit up with power, tearing out the shrapnel. He breathed in the world, drawing in the surrounding mana. His domain stretched out as chains of mana tore out from the outer reaches of his domain, hunting down the aerial forces.

  Gong Jin grabbed Tyrone and Jackie, hitting them with revival needles and tossing them in his beast storage crate.

  He rushed past Rugrat as Rugrat waved his hand. Chains of mana tore through a section of offices, tearing apart anything in his path: walls, desks, beasts and people.

  “Rugrat!” Gong Jin yelled.

  Rugrat turned back, his eyes glowing orbs. He detonated the chains as the power was ripped from his body. Rugrat coughed as he struggled forward, his head hurting. It felt like his mana channels were shrinking.

  He stored his grenade launcher and reached Gong Jin. Gong Jin grabbed him and jumped. They fell four stories. Gong Jin took the impact with a crouch.

  Rugrat hit the ground with his feet and rolled. He pulled out a mana and stamina potion, pulling off the tab and sucked it back.

  “Armory stairs!” Rugrat grabbed his rifle’s pistol grip and made to move his left arm to undo the tie.

  Pain flared through his arm as he winced, letting out a hissing breath. He let his left arm lay limp and called mana into his hand.

  They ran out of the dust and rubble-filled room and through a series of rooms that had been smashed through to create a direct path to the armory.

  “Covering fire!” Yao Meng yelled.

  He stepped out of a broken wall and fired down the hallway.

  The group of soldiers carrying their wounded rushed across the hallway with half of Yao Meng’s team. They kept running as Rajkovic and Lidenowski took up position.

  “Covering!”

  “Go, Gong Jin! Rugrat!” Yao yelled.

  “Alpha move!” Gong Jin yelled.

  Rugrat and half of Gong Jin’s team spread out, running down the hallway.

  “Asaka, Otus, help them!” Gong Jin yelled.

  Rugrat grabbed his medical kit and pulled out a healing needle from his butt pouch. He stabbed the needle around the wound that went through his bicep and tricep, injecting the potion.

  He blinked and forced his eyes open, the stamina fatigue hit him at full force, and he bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted iron. He tossed away the empty needle and grabbed his rifle. His left arm and hand were still arguing with him as he undid the tie around his rifle and checked the window on his magazine.

  Gong Jin pulled out Tyrone and Jackie. He hit them with another revival needle. The two were blackened husks covered in red cuts of fresh meat.

  Rugrat gritted his teeth and changed his magazine out as Yao Meng and his people made it across.

  Asaka and Otus stood back and reloaded as Rajkovic and Lidenowski stepped into their position, giving covering fire.

  It seemed the attackers stopped caring about the covering fire as Han Wu and his Bravo team's spells landed around them. Rajkovic and Lidenowski altered their aim, silencing the spells as Han Wu and his people made it to the other side, somehow untouched.

  “Good to go!” Han Wu’s voice was shaky as Asaka and Otus threw grenades down the hallway.

  Gong Jin secured the wounded as Yao Meng put a hand on Rugrat’s shoulder. “You good?”

  “I can fight.” Rugrat stood up from his crouch.

  “Yao, on point. Gong Jin then Han Wu. Let’s move!” Rugrat said.

  The teams pushed forward. Han Wu and his people threw out trap formations and more grenades.

  Explosions and a rush of air told Rugrat that the ceiling had collapsed behind them.

  They slowed upon reaching open areas. They passed two more without issue. The third they saw and heard spells and tracers being traded back and forth.

  “Do not bring out any dead or those without vital signs!” Glosil ordered.

  “What the hell is he doing?” Rugrat asked no one as Yao reached the end of their path. They came out of an arch. To their left were two arched entrances into the area. Halfway down the length, there were stairs leading up to the second floor.

  On the right, there was a set of stairs that disappeared below to the armories and past them into the under city.

  CPD teams manned walls that had been pulled from the ground, firing down the hall that was littered with stone walls, which had been torn apart in the crossfire.

  The enemy flitted between the walls and cast spells. Some ran in with barriers, not understanding the power of the railguns. They were cut down. Tombstones showed the bloody cost of the aerial forces to reach this far.

  “This is where we hold!” Rugrat yelled through the reduced noise of his helmet.

  Erik reached the other archway and nodded across the hall. “You move first. We’ll cover, then you cover us.”

  “Got it!” Rugrat switched back to his teams.

  “We’re moving first; get ready. The other teams will cover us, and we’ll take up position. Go to general teams channel.”

  Rugrat boosted his volume. “CPD, we’re moving in. Give us cover!”

  “You got it!” one yelled back from the defenses.

  Rugrat and the others readied themselves for the run, moving back from the doorway. It was only a few meters, but it was out in the open.

  “Covering!” Erik yelled as he and the rest of his team fired. The CPD added in their own fire.

  Their rounds tore up sections of the enemy walls and took out the central space between the two pillars, dropping a section of the ceiling and wall, creating a rubble pile between the two broken arches.

  Rugrat and the others slid into cover. He pushed back on his ass with his feet. His left arm was still mostly useless. He turned, got his legs under him, aimed, and rose in a crouch.

  “Covering!” He added in his fire with the rest of his teams.

  Erik and his teams ran out, dropping down into cover.

  Rugrat was jittery, scanning for threats as the fire dropped down. The CPD started to reload.


  An aerial fighter scrambled over the rubble toward them. Several rounds created a tombstone as the man’s body slid to the bottom of the pile.

  “Okay, CPD leaders, prepare to pull your people back,” Erik said in the lull of shooting.

  Rugrat kept scanning as he flexed his hand. It was hurting less, but there was still a dull throb when he raised it.

  “Rugrat and your group, watch twelve to ten. My group will cover twelve to three.”

  “Got it!” Rugrat yelled out with the rest of the teams.

  Rugrat used the wall to aim down the arches to his left, still working his hand, hoping to get it functioning faster.

  A CPD member grabbed his medical kit and opened it.

  “What are you doing?” Rugrat growled.

  “Shut up and aim,” the first sergeant shot back as he used a clean formation on Rugrat, cleared his wound and started work on his arm.

  Rugrat relaxed. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” The man didn’t look at Rugrat as he kept working. “You good for mags?”

  “Got any extra railguns?”

  “Sure thing. Rothman, you got some extras?”

  “Yeah.” Rothman kept aiming, grabbing, and dropping magazines from his storage ring.

  A spell blew through a wall down near the arches on the right side, raining down dust and stone.

  Roska returned with the dull thump of a grenade launcher.

  Rugrat spotted someone looking over the left arch’s’ rubble and fired. They disappeared from view, scared or dead.

  The first sergeant tied off the bandage on Rugrat’s arm, making him grunt.

  “You’ll be fine.” He hit Rugrat with a stamina needle then tapped Rugrats mags, changing out the half empties with full ones before he pulled out a spare medical kit and hooked it to the back of his carrier.

  “Well, it was good bandaging you up—” He wiped Rugrat’s back where his name was markered. “—Rugrat!” The man’s voice rose.

  Spells shot out from the arches and another section of wall opened as the enemy pushed forward.

  Their spells struck the mana barrier covering the fighters above the armory stairs.

  Rugrat aimed and fired. He was on semi-auto, leaving bodies in his wake.

  The attack calmed down again.

  “It’s just a name. What’s yours?”