Path of Dragons - A LitRPG Apocalypse (BOOK TWO STUBBING AUGUST 15)-11-52. Sprint
Arriving at the Circle of Lost Seas was a little disconcerting, and not just because of the sudden change in temperature or the mostly imagined stink of wasps. No – what Elijah found most jarring was the presence of a Conclave compound only a few hundred yards away from his dolmen.
“What the…”
He didn’t finish his rhetorical question. Instead, he strode forth from the center of his dolmen and toward the compound in question. The walls were made of the same whitewashed stone he’d seen in Rubibi, and there were dozens of men and women on guard for any danger. Elijah didn’t conceal himself on approach, so they couldn’t help but notice him.
An entire squad of Conclave fighters met him at the sturdy gate.
“I don’t remember a set of Conclave Spires being here,” Elijah remarked. “When did this happen?”
As he asked the question, Elijah got a peek inside the compound, only to see more than just Conclave personnel. The familiar uniforms of Seattle’s soldiers told him more of a story than the lead guard’s explanation ever could. Still, Elijah chose to wait for an answer.
“We just completed construction last week,” the man said, no small degree of pride in his voice. “I’m afraid we can’t let you use the Spires at this moment, though. It has already been contracted.”
“I see that. Got my own ride anyway,” Elijah responded, hiking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the dolmen. As he did, he sensed a surge of ethera as the spires at the center of the compound activated. “This just a checkpoint? Or a staging area?”
“I’m not at liberty to disclose that.”
Elijah shrugged. “Fair enough. Anything else you can tell me?” he asked.
As it turned out, the guard couldn’t. However, Elijah had already pieced together what was happening. The Seattle squad he’d encountered during his first trip had never really been tasked with finding or assaulting the Primal Realm. Instead, they were obviously there to scout the region for ley lines. Likely, they’d been equipped with equipment meant for just that purpose.
He did wonder what the nature of Seattle’s deal with the Conclave was. In the harsh and unforgiving desert, there wasn’t much of a call for teleportation spires. It was a money-losing prospect. So, had the Conclave agreed to help out of a sense of obligation? After all, they were in just as much danger from excisement as anyone else on Earth. Or was there more to the deal?
Elijah wasn’t sure if he’d ever find out the truth. What he did know was that Seattle had proven themselves to be a little more intelligent than he’d initially given them credit for. They had a plan, and from what he saw, they were executing it with speed and efficiency.
Still, if they expected such tactics to work in the Painted Wastes, they would soon experience quite a rude awakening. It was easy to imagine their progress grinding to a halt as they were forced to deal with hordes of wasps. However, there was also the chance that some of the dangers could be countered by highly specialized classes. So, he reserved judgement for when he saw whatever they had planned.
Elijah still warned the guard about what lay ahead, but he could tell from the man’s expression that his advice would not be heeded. Not because of disbelief, but rather, because the guard just wasn’t high enough on the ladder to get anyone to listen to him. And Elijah wasn’t going to go out of his way to help a force that had never endeared themselves to him.
Besides, in the back of his mind, he wanted them to fail. Not just because he disliked Seattle – or rather, their leader – but mostly because he wanted to attack the Broken Crown on his own. Perhaps it was the possessiveness of a dragon, or maybe he just knew that anyone Seattle sent in there would die. But the fact remained that he knew he was the only one who could make a proper go of it.
“Well, hopefully you’ll all make it,” Elijah said. “I’ll be on my way, then. Be safe.”
“You too,” the guard said. “And if you see any of our people…”
“I’ll help if I can,” Elijah pledged.
It wasn’t an idle promise, either. If he saw people in trouble, he would assist – if only because he knew the soldiers themselves were more than just faceless extensions of Seattle. It was easy to see them as unrepentant enemies, but in reality, they were just people trying to get by and flourish in a world they didn’t fully understand anymore. Elijah could empathize with that.
In any case, he took off at a light jog, leaving the Conclave compound behind. As soon as he’d crested a massive dune, he shifted into the Shape of the Scourge, used Guise of the Unseen, and increased the pace. Now that he knew where he was going, he didn’t tarry. He had a mission now, and it wasn’t just one of exploration. He just wanted to get from one point to another as quickly as possible. Partly, because he was eager to make progress, but also because he now had competition. But mostly, it was because he wanted to conserve as much of his supplies as possible.
And when Elijah wanted to, he could truly cover some ground.
He left a rooster tail of sand behind as he sprinted across the desert, and after only a couple of days, he reached the cliff looking down on the Painted Wastes. Along the way, he’d seen a few squads of Seattle’s soldiers as they struggled across the dunes. Elijah had ignored them, largely because they didn’t seem to be in trouble.
They were moving incredibly slowly, but they were safe enough.
Once he reached the cliff, he threw himself into the air and transformed into the Shape of the Sky. After flapping his wings a couple of times to gain altitude, he activated Lightning Surge. Even as he became a bolt of electricity streaking across the sky, he noticed a swarm of wasps swooping down on his previous location.
Stolen from NovelFire, this story should be ed if encountered on Amazon.
After a couple of seconds, during which he covered hundreds of miles, his body reformed into the winged shape. He didn’t waste any time before landing, which came with a dousing of wasp pheromones. In turn, it wasn’t long before he found himself targeted by another swarm.
He slaughtered them as ruthlessly and quickly as possible before sprinting away.
Elijah had never really tested his speed before. Not in any way that mattered. But now, on that incredibly flat surface, he could really let loose. And he soon found himself running at a speed usually reserved for racecars. And with his incredible endurance, he could keep it going for hours. Days, even.
And he did.
At first, he worried that the wasps would follow him continuously, but it soon became clear that they just couldn’t keep up. Elijah used that to his advantage. That wasn’t to say he wasn’t forced to kill quite a few. He was. But he never slowed his pace for longer than a few moments.
Like that, he covered an incredible amount of ground, and in a very short time. It wasn’t until he started to see drachnids and vespirans that he retreated into the Hollow Depths to rest.
Of course, the pheromones clung to him even when he went underground, and every wasp in the region followed. He slaughtered them with a generous application of Lightning Domain, followed by a thirty-charge version of Incinerate. None of them survived that onslaught.
Elijah spent the rest of the day recovering from his long sprint. His muscles were perfectly healthy. Physically, he could have kept going for days more. The problem was that the level of focus necessary to maintain that kind of speed was mentally taxing. He could somewhat mitigate the strain by filtering it through his garnet mind, but it still took its toll.
So, when he settled down in his tent and finally let himself relax, he did so with no small degree of relief.
However, once night fell, he repeated his actions. This time, he added watching for trap ravines to the weight of his mental burden, further exhausting him. When he once again retreated into the Hollow Depths and let himself relax, he spent a couple of hours discarding the leaf he’d used to deal with the mental toll, and he didn’t let himself sleep until a replacement had begun to grow.
That day, he slept soundly.
For the next few days, he repeated the cycle. Now that he knew what to expect from the terrain and how to avoid its dangers, he could make much better time than he had during his first trip. That wasn’t to say that he managed to dodge every threat – he didn’t – but he was only forced to fight a couple of times. In both instances, he was brutal, efficient, and ruthless with his response, leaving wasp and spider corpses behind.
In any case, it was only six days before he caught sight of the floating fortress that was the Broken Crown. Five or six hours later, he arrived at his destination.
The skeleton was no less a hive of activity than the last time he’d visited. Indeed, the swarms of wasps seemed even thicker than before, which made his climb into the fortress even more tedious. Every instinct told him to simply scour the area of the hated wasps, but he pushed those to the side.
Killing them didn’t matter. Sure, doing so would probably give him a not-insignificant amount of experience. It might even push him to two-twenty-five and his next specialization. However, it would also slow him down – not to mention that it was an unnecessary risk. Even if he managed to scour the entire Painted Wastes, eradicating all vespid influence along the way, they’d just return.
That would always be the case until he conquered the Primal Realm.
So, he put all of his focus on climbing the draconic skeleton, all while trying to avoid alerting the insects and arachnids who’d taken it as their home. Thankfully, he was successful in that endeavor, and he used the same Cloud Step strategy as last time to reach the entrance to the fortress.
That was when he saw the first major change.
The interior was absolutely covered in spider webs. There were no arachnids in evidence, but Elijah could see that he couldn’t take a single step without treading upon them. Even if he’d still had the blight dragon form at his disposal, he couldn’t have avoided them. They covered the floor, the walls, and the ceiling.
Following from that – and the fact that his previous incursion had not gone unnoticed – Elijah concluded that the vespiran who’d responded to his presence had prepared for his return.
There was only one valid conclusion.
Elijah wasn’t getting into the Broken Crown without a fight.
And he also knew that starting the fight in the corridors of the fortress was not in his best interests. If he did, he’d need to guard from both above and below. Instead, he chose to start the fight on his own terms, which meant descending the skeleton and taking shelter in a nearby hollow.
It wasn’t nearly as concealed as he might’ve liked, but if there was one thing he’d learned, it was that the wasps were extremely reliant on their pheromones to locate prey. It was one of the reasons they had adopted a diurnal cycle. At night, they retreated into their nests.
Elijah decided to take advantage of that reality.
Shifting into his human form, he immediately embraced False Grove, then opened Grove Conduit. Dragon’s Echo came next, followed by Eternal Plague. He held nothing back, funneling as much ethera into the spell as possible. The results were obvious, and soon, the air was filled with a different kind of swarm.
The small, gnat-like flies descended upon the skeleton-turned-wasp-nest with a ruthlessness born of Elijah’s disdain. In seconds, experience started flowing into him. But he wasn’t satisfied with a few kills. He wanted to eradicate the entire nest so that he wouldn’t have to worry about guarding his back as he made his way through the infested fortress.
And maybe his instinctual hatred of the wasps played into that just a little. His frustrations, too. After all, he’d seen a lot of death of late. He’d been confronted by his own inadequacies. And as excusable as those shortcomings might have been, he still wore his guilt and frustration like a cloak. He needed a way to vent. A tangible enemy to fight.
The wasps were that.
Every drop of experience was like a salve on his wounded psyche, and he reveled in each death. Hundreds died in the first couple of minutes. Then thousands. Tens of thousands. Most in those first few waves were low level and completely inconsequential. But soon enough, the larger and higher-level wasps began to fall. Then, the first vespirans. Drachnids as well.
His spell made no distinction because it didn’t need to. Everything in the area – save for Elijah himself – was an enemy. Holding back was a path of failure.
Eventually, the swarm of biting flies became so dense that it blotted out the multi-colored aurora that had become his constant nighttime companion. Then, they flowed into the keep. More experience hit him, and he quickly passed level two-twenty-five. Then, two-twenty-six. Finally, he settled in at two-twenty-seven.
More experience flowed in, but he’d hit the point of diminishing returns. There was no shortage of enemies left, so he continued to make progress. Though the pace slowed considerably.
And then, Elijah felt it via Eternal Plague. Or rather, he felt vast swaths of his conjured gnats being destroyed. There was only one explanation.
The high-level vespiran that had responded to his first incursion was coming. Elijah readied himself for the fight to come.
.
!
11-52. Sprint
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