Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

A battle of tremendous scale was splitting the stars in the Spiral Stair galaxy. Energy blasts shot left and right—summoned beasts roared, smashing through dozens of cultivators, as powerful fighters went amok behind enemy lines. Magic was everywhere. The Dao was asunder.

Elder Boatman oversaw the battle from its midst. Besides the leading Archon of each army, who were fighting their own cataclysmic battle far to the side, he was the leader here.

This was one of the largest scale clashes between them and the Immortals yet—a rare chance where their troops had outmaneuvered their enemy, temporarily earning the right to victory. A triumph here would mean a lot for the Church, both in morale and troop balance.

They couldn’t fail.

A squad of veterans charged out of the Church’s lines, impacting heavily on their opponents’. Each possessed a Dao suitable for breaking through a mass of enemies—different Daos were more or less balanced in individual combat, but in large scale battles like this, the Dao configuration of a squad was vital. Most of the battle’s tactics revolved around positioning the right cultivators at the right spots to counter the enemy.

Long lines of wizard cultivators unleashed energy blasts at the enemy from afar, protected by defense-oriented cultivators. The assault specialists of each army tried to flank the other, while a mass of mostly Physical cultivators duked it out in the middle. Everyone found their place to die.

Boatman couldn’t help reminiscing. This reminded him of his mortal years—it was infantry, cavalry, and artillery all over again.

Besides the arrangement of specialized cultivators, however, there were more stratagems at play.

The previous squad of veterans, which Boatman had been watching, had now broken deep into enemy lines. Hundreds of enemies swarmed them, pelting them with attacks as the veterans’ momentum ran out. They were too deep—they could not return, and they could not be rescued. The enemy commander must have seen the end goal of this—he’d already ordered his soldiers to retreat, no doubt, but it was difficult for the people in the melee to react in time.

Boatman closed his eyes in respect.

The veterans detonated their inner worlds. A massive explosion split the universe, cracking open a huge hole to the void beneath existence. A shockwave of pure energy erupted, obliterating dozens of enemy cultivators and injuring hundreds. The entire battlefield paused momentarily. Boatman reopened his eyes, gazing upon the distant cloud of raw, destructive energy.

“Farewell,” he whispered, spreading his perception to bless those warriors’ death. It didn’t really do anything, but it comforted him, and he liked to think it comforted their ruined souls as well.

The Church faced many disadvantages in this war. However, they had a single advantage—they fought for survival. For their lives, for their childrens’ lives, and for the future. The resolve they could muster far outweighed the enemy’s, who fought only to fuel the Immortals’ thirst for conquest.

The Hand of God could not utilize suicide bombers. The Church could. A harsh, if noble sacrifice.

As the energy ripples dissipated and space repaired itself, the battle resumed. Hundreds fell from either side. These were the brightest talents of the universe, each having risen above the endless masses only to eliminate each other like this. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t pretty. It was war.

Boatman composed himself. He had work to do.

From the wall of warships behind the enemy army, a stream of monsters ran out. They were rabid, snapping at each other as well as every cultivator near them. A stream of Space Dao led them towards the Church army, where they would serve as the Hand’s lesser version of suicide forces.

Boatman flashed to appear in their midst, between the armies. His black cloak billowed. He drew his scythe. “Guillotine,” he muttered, then slashed at the void. A thin black slice shot out, spreading in three directions, turning into a sharp cone which flew at the enemy space monsters.

Hundreds fell in an instant. No matter how the Immortals searched the galaxies under their control, A-Grade space monsters were almost impossible to find. They would all fall before Boatman’s scythe.

Suddenly, golden light erupted. The darkness receded, broken by the light, and the remaining half of space monsters sailed over Boatman, impacting their army. He hoped they’d be handled before causing too much trouble—because he certainly couldn’t bother with them any longer.

A man faced Boatman through the void. He wore shiny plate armor without a helmet, letting golden hair glint in the wounded starlight. A face chiseled from marble smiled at him. “Elder Boatman,” said the other man. “Despite your disciple’s insistence, we find each other.”

Boatman frowned. “Elder Hero…” he replied. “Your power has grown yet again.”

Hero laughed. “I had a lucky breakthrough. The middle A-Grade looks good on me, don’t you think?”

A shudder ran through Boatman’s body. This man, Hero, was trouble. His cultivation speed was unheard of, yet his foundation was only growing more solid. He’d gone from the early to the middle A-Grade in less than a decade—Boatman himself had taken millennia. As for his battle power, it was nothing short of terrifying. Different Daos formed halos around him. His sheer aura upset the world, forcing everyone else in the entire battlefield to avoid him.

Boatman grew serious.

Having just broken into the middle A-Grade, Elder Hero had the power to contest with Boatman, a particularly powerful late A-Grade. This was unnatural. Ungodly.

If not for Jack and Brock, this might have been the greatest genius to ever exist, Boatman realized, his red eyes growing darker. I can’t let him grow anymore. Thirty years is just too short—how could Jack hope to match him in time? Since he stands before me, I have to kill him now…no matter what. I must protect my disciple.

His decision made, Boatman raised his scythe. Hero gave a confident smile. “Are you sure about that, old man?” he asked.

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Boatman charged. His black cape billowed to the astral winds, raising high behind him to reveal a pale body containing infinite power. The scythe blade went from white to black, and the Dao of Death formed the shape of a skull behind him. With his glowing red eyes, he imagined he made a frightening image—he always did.

Yet, Hero only smiled, his teeth pearly white. “What a blatant villain,” he shouted, readying his sword. “A perfect target for the blade of a hero!”

Hero cleaved upward, golden white light rising like the tide. It met Boatman’s black scythe and devoured it, the black and golden white strangling each other for endless miles.

Boatman sensed an almost divine power clash against his. The Death he took such pride in parted, ineffective like the river flowing around a rock—Hero’s sword energy persisted, shooting for Boatman, who had to take a step back and swing his scythe again to neutralize it.

“You are too dangerous,” he said in a dark voice. “You cannot be allowed to grow. Even if it costs me my life, I will kill you today.”

“Hah! It will cost you your life alright. Do your worst. In the name of justice, I’ll bring you down!”

“Spare me your rhetoric.”

Boatman gathered energy around him, going all-out for the first time since Jack’s breakthrough. This time, however, he had more space to work with. Dark energy converged, the battle’s dead cultivators enhancing his powers. His form slowly changed. From a pale and old vampire, he became nothing but bones, his face a smileless skull. The shadows of his cloak deepened, shrouding him in mystery, while his scythe elongated.

“I am the Ferryman of the Dead,” he declared, his voice changed to a deeper, more insidious tone. “Nobody can escape death. Not even you. And today, in the name of Death itself, I shall claim you.” He readied his scythe. “Bare your soul for me.”

Hero laughed. “And you accuse me of rhetorics! Fine, fine. Let’s see what a million years of cultivation did for you, little villain.”

Golden light erupted from Elder Hero. At that moment, he became more than a man. This light contained the faith of the people, the very concept of heroism draped over his shoulders like a cape. The entire battlefield paused, consciously or unconsciously in awe of his transformation. His jaw suddenly seemed sharper, his eyes kinder, his chest broader—his sword large enough to encompass the world.

“I am not a man, Boatman, but a hero, an ideal, a concept,” Hero said with booming laughter. “And concepts never die!”

Boatman remained silent. He reached the other man in an instant. The two cultivators clashed, their battle capturing the entire battlefield. Black sparks flew everywhere. The finality of each strike spread outside their battle, threatening to claim the lives of everyone around them. Weaker cultivators fled in droves.

Hero’s moves were majestic. Every slash carried the determination to save the world—an idea he’d convinced himself he carried. The world folded and crashed against Boatman, refuting Death with every strike. Booming laughter echoed.

The battle soon became unbalanced. The golden light consumed more and more of the void around them. The power of death shrunk, while Boatman had to retreat, forced into a defensive position.

Terrifying! he realized. Only a middle A-Grade, yet his power is touching the peak! This man…cannot be allowed to live!

His aura resurged. “In the name of Death, I will claim—” He paused mid-word, realizing he’d blundered. The golden light which Hero’s attacks spread everywhere had not dissipated. It had simply laid there, burying itself in the vestiges of space, biding its time. As Boatman focused inward, prepared to unleash a powerful attack, all that golden light converged on Hero’s sword instantaneously, filling it with much more power than ever before. Space itself shuddered at its wake.

Hero smiled brilliantly. “Now is your time of reckoning, evil-doer. Sword of the People!”

He slashed out, filling the universe with his sword’s brilliance. Every ray of light was a mortal calling out for salvation—every patch of darkness between them a lost soul Hero was trying to avenge.

Boatman watched that golden light flood and destroy his defenses. Death gave way, then collapsed completely, leaving Boatman defenseless. Half the flood remained. An endless golden wall was approaching. This was not an attack he could survive.

I’m sorry, disciple, Boatman thought to himself with bitterness. In the end… I was not enough.

As the light approached him, however, it shuddered—and, in a single instant, collapsed. The rays of light became naught but harmless twinkles. Boatman gazed around him in surprise, finding that it wasn’t just him. The entire battlefield had come to an abrupt pause. A terrible dark energy covered every inch, hindering Boatman’s perception, not letting it spread past a few thousand miles.

It didn’t need to. He could sense them. Almighty, colossal existences, the cornerstones of this universe’s reality. The darkness had been released by just the first amongst them—but there were ten more trailing behind, all powerful beyond belief.

A black ball the size of the sun appeared to the side of the battlefield. Tendrils of darkness swept from its surface, whipping space around it. It radiated entropy in its purest form—a level of energy Boatman had never experienced before, not even from the Arch Priestess. Even the two fighting Archons stopped, one’s face filled with joy and the other’s with fear.

The moment it appeared, the black sphere unleashed its tendrils, each wide like a planet. They swept through the B-Grades of the Hand of God, killing them as one would ants. They didn’t even have time to cry out.

Elder Hero’s face changed seven different colors. Boatman laughed. “How’s that for a villain?” he asked, stabbing his thumb towards the black sphere. “Go test your blade against it, like a true hero.”

He knew what that was. Everyone knew. Their entire army rose with cheers, both from the massacre of the enemy forces as well as the arrival of their saviors.

The sun-sized black sphere was Axelor, the current leader of the Old Gods, the God of Entropy. A creature at the very limit of Archons. Possibly the strongest entity in the universe.

Two more colossal shapes appeared behind Axelor, sailing smoothly through space. They were humanoid and made of ripples—one’s spread everywhere chaotically, the other’s moved smoothly in one direction, like a calm river. They were the Old Gods of Space and Time. In the flesh.

Hero ignored Boatman’s jeers. The moment the Old Gods made their appearance, having finally arrived from the far end of the universe, he abandoned his already destroyed attack against Boatman and rushed full-speed towards his army’s Archon. The Archon did the same. The two met in the middle. Instantly, the Archon crushed something in his hand, and a tremendous surge of Space Dao enveloped them both, teleporting them away just before one of Axelor’s dark tendrils smashed through their location.

“No!” Boatman cried out, hating himself for failing to react in time.

The Space God turned into a ray of blue light, instantly arriving at the previous location of Hero and the Archon and diving into the folds of space after them. Presumably, it followed them to the endpoint of their teleportation—Boatman wished the Space God could at least kill Hero, giving Jack time to grow. Otherwise, his odds of winning that duel would be extremely slim. Boatman didn’t want to underestimate his disciple, but even he realized that, for Jack to win, he would need nothing short of miraculous growth.

If you do fight… No matter how impossible it seems… I believe in you, my disciple!

Boatman had lost and almost died, but it was hard to maintain a bad mood. Intense relief swarmed his heart as he watched the remaining troops of the Immortals surrender, a part of their entire army just gone. They’d spent years waiting for the Old Gods, sacrificing their numbers to hold on against overwhelming forces. They’d been pushed to the brink.

Now, the Gods had arrived. There was hope. They could finally go on the offensive.

Boatman laughed, unable to hold it in. “Welcome back, Gods! Let the true war begin!”