Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Back on Earth, Jack’s clone had suddenly fallen to the banquet floor, convulsing and screaming in pain.

“Jack!” everyone shouted.

Vivi wore a dark expression. She knew about the war, but this was unexpected. What could be happening? She directed people to assist, but the healers weren’t even close to the level where they could help him. She sensed his aura growing weaker, infused with a hint of wicked green. She had no idea what was going on.

Jack… she thought, eyes watering in powerlessness.

“Dad!” Ebele screamed, falling over her father. “What’s wrong, Dad? Talk to me! Talk to me!”

Jack’s pain came from the soul, so his clone suffered the same as his main body. He couldn’t speak. He could, however, think through a blurred veil. If Enas took over his body, he would simultaneously take over his clone as well, and then wiping all life off Earth would be trivial. That included his wife, daughter, and friends, whom he’d foolishly gathered together.

“Dad!” Ebele screamed.

The clone looked up, seeing the teary eyes of his daughter. His grip on reality recovered because he simply couldn’t afford to lose it. I will not fail again, he swore. I will protect you, Ebele. No matter what.

***

Enas was flustered. This attack was not easy on him, so he needed Jack to capitulate before he grew exhausted. He’d thought it was certain—how could a mortal mind withstand such pressure?

“Why are you persisting?” he asked. “How?”

“My…body…” Jack said telepathically, staring at Enas through frozen, bloodshot eyes. “My…family…” He paused. “Are…not…for you…fucker.”

Enas’s eyes widened. “You cannot possibly withstand this!” he shouted. Jack fell silent. His entire body vibrated in pain and unheard screams, but his eyes remained wide open and glaring right into Enas’s, branding his resolve into the heart of God.

“I refuse to believe you can outlast me!” Enas shouted.

Another few minutes passed. The Church army stared at Jack and Enas helplessly, but with hope slowly growing in their hearts. Brock was still meditating. His golden aura grew stronger. To the side, the Arch Priestess had recovered consciousness, her expression hidden under her mask.

In the inner web, Jack persisted. He and Enas had locked gazes, fighting with their willpower. Jack’s burden was much greater, but so was his responsibility to endure. The immobilizing effect on him had long since worn off as Enas poured all his power into torturing his soul. Jack flashed Enas a bloodied, closed-toothed smile.

“What kind of father…” he muttered, insanity entering his gaze, “would let his daughter get harmed?”

Enas’s eyes widened. His own exhaustion was kicking in. He suddenly interrupted his attack to teleport away. Despite his exertion just now, he recovered to the peak of his power near-instantly.

The inner web disappeared alongside his teleportation. People rushed in to support Jack, who stumbled with a pained but triumphant expression. Contrary to expectations, Brock was still meditating. The golden aura around him and every other cultivator was growing steadily stronger, but it was nowhere near the level where it could threaten Enas.

Enas hovered in the distance, staring at the army. The outer web remained, trapping them in with him. His gaze was dark. “Don’t think you have escaped, Jack,” he said. “We will resume after I crush these bugs. When I kill your family and everyone you know, then we’ll see how well you can resist.”

Jack’s exhausted eyes regained a hint of life. He struggled to his feet, pushing away the other cultivators to stand by himself in the void. “Fuck you,” he said. He tried to detonate his inner world, only to realize he couldn’t. It was extremely stable to begin with, and Enas had enhanced that stability further—in his current exhausted state, he simply couldn’t detonate it.

The God smiled. “Let me feed you some despair,” he said, then waved his hands condescendingly. The outer web disappeared. “Run, little mice. ry to escape me as I crush you one by one.”

The gathered cultivators glanced between themselves. They saw the despair in each other’s eyes. Some people prepared to run when a new voice appeared.

“No,” it said.

Jack laboriously looked over to find that the speaker was…some guy? He’d never seen this person before. It wasn’t even a A-Grade, just a peak B-Grade. Yet, this random cultivator, with his unassuming face and short red hair, dared to stand up to God.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, crossing his arms. “I think I’m the only one who didn’t expect to die today, but fuck you, God. I won’t give you the satisfaction. If you want to kill me, come over here and I’ll do my damn best to give you the slap that you deserve.”

The cultivators about to run didn’t. They knew there was no point—they could never escape. One by one, they turned towards Enas, galvanizing their Daos.

“What’s your name?” Jack asked the guy who’d spoken.

“Rory, sir. Rory Pickleman. My title is Envoy Shattersun.”

“Shattersun… That’s a good title. You are a fine cultivator, Rory Pickleman. May I have the honor of fighting by your side?”

“Honestly, you should just detonate your inner world to spite him.”

“I would if I could, Rory, but I like your enthusiasm. My self-detonation ability is sealed. Best I can do is fight to exhaustion, then suffer a fate worse than death.”

Rory considered it. “I can accept that,” he said. “Alright, sir Jack Rust. We might die, but at least we’ll go down swinging.”

“Damn right!” another cultivator shouted.

“Fuck you, God!” another said. “We may be weak compared to you, but at least we aren’t assholes!”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Let’s die together, brothers and sisters! Show that God the honor he can never have!”

“That’s right!”

“Let’s go!”

“I’m all fired up!”

The cultivators all shouted, one after another, as both armies rose against an impossible opponent. Enas gazed at them ludicrously. “You’re idiots,” he said.

“We’re the best kind of idiots,” Jack said, moving to the fore of the army. “Let us show you the best thing about being mortal. Everyone, CHAR—”

“Wait,” a voice cut him off. Everyone turned to find that Brock, still meditating, had opened his eyes. His expression was strained, but a huge smile dominated his face.

Jack had seen him meditating before but had forgotten about it in everything that happened.

“Brock?” he asked.

“You guys are the best bros I could ask for,” the brorilla said, “and that matters.”

Jack looked around, finally noticing the golden aura which had at some point spread over everyone—a form of ultimate camaraderie based on the resolve to live and die together.

It was brohood.

Fueled by everyone’s selflessness and unity as the end approached, it had spread rapidly, its strength rising to new heights. Jack didn’t think there was any point to it anymore, but he watched as the aura glowed brighter, tinging the void golden.

People noticed, too. Everyone looked around in wonder, feeling their heartbeats combine into one. Enas also realized something was happening. He frowned.

“Everyone,” a voice said, ringing clearly in the ears of every cultivator. “Not all is lost yet. True brohood never dies. If you are willing to trust me with everything you have, we still have a shot at victory.”

Everyone stared at the golden brorilla hovering in the middle of the army, his body shining like a beacon of hope. The aura of golden light had turned into bright tethers connecting him to every other cultivator except Jack. The warm light spread into their hearts, and they suddenly believed.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

“We all share a heart,” Rory Pickleman declared, surprised by whatever was going on. “Go for it, Brock. We believe in you.”

“Good.”

The brorilla raised his arms slowly, panting as if the task was laborious. As he did so, everyone felt a power streaming into their souls, forcibly tearing open a portal. They suppressed pained grunts. The sensation was invasive, entering what was a cultivator’s innermost sanctum, but nobody tried to resist. This might well be their only chance at survival. Moreover, bonded by their common emotions, everyone trusted Brock. He stood amongst them like a beam of sincerity, channeling all positive emotions into one potent brew.

The cultivators embraced the tether sticking into their souls, pouring all their remaining power into it. Many stumbled, driven to exhaustion. The tethers glowed brightly, and Brock lit up like a Christmas tree, all sorts of colored lights swimming around his body. His arms finally extended fully upwards, and all the colors streamed above them, mixing and forming a sphere of pure gold.

While the process was ongoing, Enas snorted. “I’m still here,” he said with annoyance. He stepped through the void, appearing right in front of Brock, and slapped the air to release a burst of green energy. It rivaled the golden flood in intensity—most importantly, Brock was too busy controlling the energy to defend. Green tendrils spread out of Enas, immobilizing everyone nearby.

“Just die,” said the God.

Jack flashed between Enas and Brock. The God’s attack was massive—he had no hope in defending. There was a chance Enas would stop his attack to avoid killing Jack, but he didn’t count on that. Enas was the god of his own survival. If they had even the tiniest hope of turning things around, he would squash it at any cost.

This was a great place to die, anyway.

“Keep your filthy hands off my bro,” Jack said. The attack didn’t lessen at all as it hurtled towards him. He had no hope of surviving it. He looked back, giving a warm smile. “Give him hell, Brock.”

The green beam approached Jack, and he was confident his extremely tempered body would divert it before being destroyed. He could secure Brock enough time to finish whatever he was doing. His life was a small price to pay for that. At the last moment, however, he was forcefully shoved aside. His energy fell into disarray. His eyes widened.

“Arch Priestess!”

The white-clad space monster stood in his place, facing the approaching green beam. White light streamed out of cracks all over her body. She reached up and tore her mask away, revealing the tiger-like face she’d always hidden. She turned it to Jack and gave a pained smile. “Save them for me…” she whispered as her inner world detonated. The world was washed white. A tremendous explosion threw Jack away. The void was seared clean as white met green, bravely standing in the face of God’s attack, carrying all of the Arch Priestess’s shame, honor, and courage. A monkeyish scream echoed before the powers even finished clashing, and Jack spied Brock’s face twisted in rage—she’d diverted some of her power specifically to protect him.

Dozens of cultivators had been tossed away, some gravely injured. The world was in chaos for a moment. It was then that Venerable Saint Thousand Shell, who’d been quiet all this time inside Jack, chose to speak.

“She was young,” he said in a heavy voice, “but she carried the responsibility of a leader. Don’t blame yourself, Jack. Giving her life was the right choice.”

Jack didn’t reply, too shaken. The green light was finally swallowed up by white. Enas moved to attack again, his expression warped in annoyance, but it was too late. The golden sphere over Brock’s head finished forming. It shone brighter than any star. Even Enas had to look away at its might.

“BROS!” Brock shouted, his voice ravaged by pain. “LEND ME YOUR POWER!”

The sphere brightened again. It conquered the world, filling it with brohood, momentarily refuting even Enas’s Dao of Life. Jack couldn’t look that way, but he suddenly felt a tremendous surge of power entering his body. He couldn’t breathe. His inner world was filled with so much energy it almost cracked. His mind cleared. His soul lightened. His wounds and exhaustion disappeared. At that moment, he was absolutely certain that he possessed enough strength to turn over the world, a wave of his hand shattering galaxies. He felt reborn.

As his perception blitzed out, instantly capturing everything, he understood. Brock had borrowed everyone’s power and given it to him. It wasn’t just the cultivators present—Brock’s call had crossed time and space to reach all the bros he’d ever made, as well as the infinite low-level cultivators of the Church who believed in him and Jack from the celebrity campaign so long ago.

All that near-infinite power had been funneled into Jack. He had no idea how strong he was right now. He didn’t need to know.

Everyone around him faltered as if completely drained. They couldn’t even self-detonate. Brock was suspended mid-air, frozen by the infinite power coursing through him to reach Jack, frozen in place by the need to act like a medium for all this power. Only his mouth could move, and it cracked open in a grieving, desperate cry which echoed throughout the universe, through every small and large creature he’d borrowed energy from.

“SAVE US, BIG BRO!”

Enas teleported before Brock. Finally out of patience, his hand pulled back in a fist, ready to unleash the full power of an S-Grade God. The universe shuddered. Brock was defenseless. Jack appeared suddenly, moving even faster than Enas, his hand grabbing God by the face and arresting his momentum.

“Keep your filthy hands off my bro,” he growled, launching the God backward. Enas flew so fast he practically disappeared. The void shattered everywhere he passed, deep gouges carved in reality for endless light years. Drops of green blood trailed Enas’s path. He slowly came to a stop, staring at Jack in disbelief as he cradled his broken nose. Distance meant nothing to him, but his eyes contained wariness—everyone else’s were suddenly awash with hope.

“How?” said Enas.

Jack raised his fist at God. “These bros let me borrow their power. They put their lives in my hands,” he said. “You no longer get to touch them.”

“I’m a God, you lowly creature. You don’t dictate what I do.”

Jack smiled. He punched out, and space lost all meaning as his fist met the God’s stomach. S-Grade powers clashed. A massive explosion echoed, a supernova in the middle of empty space, shaking the entire galaxy and releasing a vast cone of purple energy. Enas bent over. He wiped a hint of blood from his lips, eyes shaking.

“This shouldn’t be possible,” he said. “How can you match my power? You’re just a bunch of ants. You’re far too weak!”

“But we are many,” Jack said. “It was you who created us with this potential, Enas. You could have been a father, but you chose to be a tyrant. This is the day you pay for it.”