Path of Dragons - A LitRPG Apocalypse (BOOK TWO ON KINDLE SEPT. 2)

The landscape was otherworldly.

Floating mountains of rock hovered miles above the surface of the planet, while outcroppings of crystal jutted from the ground. Those crystal formations ranged widely, both in terms of size and color. Some were the size of skyscrapers, while others were only as large as Elijah’s fist.

But the rainbow of colors was what truly inspired awe. Reds and greens, yellows and purples – the entire color wheel was represented. The rest of the terrain was bland by comparison – naked rock and dirt that reminded Elijah of a the surface of a desolate planet like Mars.

It would have been beautiful if it wasn’t for one major issue.

There was almost no life.

Certainly, Elijah knew the region was populated. However, there was very little vitality in the wildlife, much less in the atmosphere. To Elijah, who’d come to rely so heavily on Soul of the Wild, it was like looking at the landscape through a foggy window. Sure, he could see shapes and general characteristics, but his spell-granted vision lacked detail.

Because of that, despite the wondrous sight of the terrain, Elijah felt incredibly uncomfortable. To counter that, he focused on his other senses. While they might have been mundane in origin, his efforts in body cultivation had pushed them to superhuman levels.

The result was a world that seemed even more alien than if he only relied on his eyes. The least exotic characteristic was the sound of the world. Sure, it lacked the chirp of birds or the buzzing of insects, but the subtle sound of rustling wind was at least mildly familiar. It reminded him of trekking through the deserts around Seattle.

On the other side of the spectrum was the odor of the world.

Some of the smells were vaguely recognizable. Like the dense aroma of ozone that reminded him of a coming storm. But others were quite a bit more out of place, like the thick scent of iron that hung over everything. To Elijah, it smelled like his father’s old tools – the ones that had been left in a bag and ignored for years at a time. Not an unpleasant smell, but also not an expected one, especially with as pervasive as it was.

The dogs were even more out of sorts than Elijah, and that had left Oscar irritable, as evidenced by the storm cloud on his face. At first, Elijah had tried to distract the man with conversation, but he could only hear so many monosyllabic answers before he got the hint that Oscar wasn’t interested in talking it out.

So, they traveled mostly in silence, with Elijah keeping his eyes and ears out for any potential threats. They’d only been past Stillstone’s gates for a day, and already, they’d been attacked multiple times. Some of the creatures had resembled the ones they’d fought back in the Ring of Elements, but others were so alien that Elijah had no real basis for comparison.

The only throughline was that they all seemed to represent one element or another. Fire, earth, water, and air. The giants had clearly revered the quaternity, practically worshiping their particular branch.

They also hated one another, and the only reason the city remained at peace was through a system-enforced pact represented by the Keepers of the Elements. Elijah had seen many of their white-robed members, though he had trouble determining their power. One thing that wasn’t in question was that the city suppressed the strength of anyone within its walls, much like a domain but even more oppressive.

And according to what he’d been told, if anyone broke the peace, they would be obliterated. Elijah had had no interest in testing that out, so he’d simply taken it at face value. However, the idea of a peaceful sanctuary was an intriguing one, so long as the enforcer of said peace was unbiased.

If they weren’t, it could be hell for any opposition.

Gradually, the days passed, one after the other. The landscape wasn’t nearly as populated as the Chimeric Forge, meaning that every step wasn’t contested. However, there was enough elemental wildlife to keep them on their toes. For Elijah, the highlight was when a glass scorpion detached itself from one of the crystal formations and attacked. In that respect, it was no different than a hundred other creatures they’d fought, but what he found interesting was that it did so by aiming beams of fire from its tail.

Unfortunately for it, the thing chose to attack Escobar, which, given its method, wasn’t very effective. Sure, the chihuahua took a little damage from it, but from what Elijah could tell, it was more like getting a bad sunburn than being bathed in dense flames. The response was immediate, with the rest of the pack descending upon the creature with all the ferocity of hunting wolves.

For his part, Elijah held back, healing where necessary.

To some extent, Oscar could heal the pack himself. It was slow and, by comparison to Elijah’s heals, inefficient, but it was effective enough. The problem was that if they relied on Oscar’s healing, they’d have been forced to rest for long stretches as he regained his ethera and stamina.

So, Elijah had taken the burden of healing onto himself. He wasn’t as good as Ron, but due to his high level and cultivation, he could do a fair imitation of a Healer. He also threw out occasional spells, like Nature’s Rebuke, Storm’s Fury, Lightning Domain, and even Eternal Plague, but he tried to keep his offensive spells to a minimum. He also mostly remained in his human form, which felt somewhat odd.

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For years, he’d relied on his bestial shapes for combat. Sure, he didn’t hesitate to pop out and cast a few spells here and there – especially Swarm and its variants – but he was far more comfortable fighting in his other forms.

Still, he took the opportunity to work on his weapons prowess. At first, he limited it to his scythe, but after a while, he swapped it out for his Feral Spire. The reasoning was fairly simple – he didn’t think he’d always use the scythe as a template for his future weapons. Likely, he’d go back to a staff at some point, and he wanted to be ready for that eventuality.

Idly, he found himself wondering if he needed to take a cue from Miguel and Colt. They spent every waking hour training with their chosen weapons. With his nephew especially, it was practically an obsession.

But it didn’t take Elijah long to discard that notion.

Certainly, he valued training, and he had no intention of ignoring it altogether. However, he had little interest in delving that deeply into technique. For him, fighting was more about feeling and instinct. Not learning moves and drilling them until they were second-nature.

Besides, he was far too busy to devote that sort of time to what amounted to a side-project. He mostly fought in his bestial forms, after all.

He let out a little chuckle.

“What is it?” asked Oscar, sitting nearby. They’d stopped for the day, and Elijah had passed the man one of his pre-made meals. Whale steak and some sort of tuber that resembled potatoes.

“Nothing,” Elijah said, taking a bite of his own meal. He’d opted for a pita stuffed with peppers, onions, and wild boar. “I was just thinking about how silly it would be for a lion to practice fighting. They don’t need to drill techniques. They just rely on their instincts.”

For a moment, Oscar stared pensively at his meal. Then, he spoke, “But that makes them predictable. A wild animal will always attack the same way. There may be variance based on circumstance or prey. But they do not feint. They do not use different techniques in an effort to surprise their opponent. They can only act according to their instincts.”

“I could see that.”

“It is why we were able to hunt so many species to extinction. A human cannot best a lion in physical combat. But they can outsmart their prey. That is what separates them from every other animal,” Oscar explained.

Elijah frowned.

That certainly wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and his first instinct was to argue in favor of his own tendencies. However, after only a second, he realized that Oscar was right. Had he simply embraced his instincts because it was easier to do so than to actually train himself to be better? Was his philosophy nothing more than justification of a bad idea?

Perhaps.

Whatever the case, it was something to consider, and Elijah vowed to think it through. In the meantime, though, he and the pack finished their meals, then settled in to rest. Not for the first time, Elijah found himself incredibly grateful that he had someone to watch his back, and they took turns keeping an eye out for danger.

Jackson and Sophie took the longest shifts – not because it was necessary, but because of their instinctive drive to protect. So, when Elijah took his own turn, he had a little company.

The simple act of petting a dog was more comforting than he’d ever thought possible. Certainly, he’d had dogs in the past. Back in Hawaii, Fremont had been the latest, but he’d grown up with animals. Dogs, cats – even chickens for a while – but he’d always had a general preference for canines.

So, when Jackson laid his head in Elijah’s lap, he felt many of his long-held tension drift away. It wasn’t gone. A little company couldn’t accomplish that feat. But it definitely helped.

That was how it went for the next two weeks. For the first few days, Elijah was on pins and needles, keeping a close eye on the grove. He felt Kurik there, steadily working on the island’s defenses. He didn’t do much on the shore, but he’d enlisted a few fishermen to ferry him a couple of miles out to sea where he was presumably setting traps.

Elijah imagined him deploying a bunch of mines, which left him more than a little concerned. Not for any attackers, but rather, for the impact on the local sealife.

But sometimes, sacrifices needed to be made in the name of safety.

In the meantime, Nerthus flitted about the island, planting new plants and deploying his own brand of defenses. The spryggent worked obsessively, barely resting – and then, only to help the children in their efforts at cultivation.

And finally, he felt Miguel.

The sense of his nephew was both comforting and troubling. The first, because it was confirmation that he was alive. The second, because it came with a vague idea of his condition. He had been fighting constantly of late, which was probably expected but no less concerning for that expectation.

But he was alive. That meant he was getting stronger, which in turn meant that he would be safer going forward. In their current world, where might so often made right, that was the only true security anyone had. Sure, there were people in Ironshore who’d managed to build a life based on collective safety, but all it would take was someone as strong as Elijah to come in and take over, and all that could change.

Maybe someone else would step in to save them. But living at someone else’s mercy was not real security.

Not now.

Not with how much the world had changed.

Regardless, as the weeks passed, Elijah took comfort that his grove’s defenses were being developed, his nephew was working toward establishing his own place in the world, and that the children of the grove were still working hard. It made his absence much easier to bear.

Then, almost a month after they’d left Stillstone behind, they finally caught sight of the Elemental Maelstrom. It looked a lot like the storm around Chimera Island, though instead of rain, wind, and waves, it was composed of swirling ethera, fire, mountainous hunks of rock, and cutting blades of water.

It was also enormous.

Hundreds of miles across, at the very least, and towering high into the sky. Even from a distance, it took up the entire horizon.

More importantly, Elijah could feel the dense ethera in the area, and he knew precisely what that meant – their journey to the Elemental Maelstrom would very likely be contested, and by much more powerful enemies.

But as was the case with every other Primal Realm – or tower, come to that – there wasn’t much choice in the matter. So, it was with increased caution and an air of intractability that they continued forward.

The path would not be an easy one, but Elijah was determined to walk it.