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

The night air was pleasant, playing against Elijah’s skin with the cool breath of impending autumn. Yet, he didn’t really allow himself to feel it. Instead, he focused on the city laid out before him. Even in the depths of night, there were plenty of people out and about. The city itself was lit by a thousand torches and ethereal lamps. But there were a few other fires, too. Great blazes that swept across the city, devouring everything Roman had built.

“You know it’s all doomed, don’t you?” Elijah whispered. “This whole city is going to burn, and everyone who ever pledged loyalty to you will fall.”

“I…am…humanity’s only…hope…”

It took Elijah a moment to comprehend what the man had said, but when he finally wrapped his mind around it, he barked a harsh laugh. “You?” he spat with no small degree of incredulity. “You’re barely in the top ten, and it doesn’t feel like you spent any time working on your cultivation. You’re too weak to be anyone’s hope.”

Roman tried to argue, but Elijah had no interest in hearing it. So, he squeezed Roman’s throat with a little more force, then, at last, slammed him against the ground. The force shook the balcony, and Elijah knelt atop the self-styled king. He leaned close, whispering, “You are a small, pathetic, little man who murdered his only friend for nothing. If there is a hell, that’s where you’re going. No one will ever remember you, and if they do, it will only be to curse your name. I promise you that much.”

Then, Elijah picked the man up by his neck before once again slamming him against the floor. He did it again after that. And another four times. By that point, the back of Roman’s head was a mass of blood and shattered skull, but that didn’t stop Elijah from keeping going. Again and again, he bashed Roman’s head against the ground, not even stopping when he felt the experience from the man’s death entering his body.

Over and over, he continued to batter the skull of his sister’s murderer against the ground until, at last, he was holding nothing but a handful of skin. He hadn’t just decapitated the man. He’d removed his head by way of blunt force trauma.

For a long moment, Elijah just stared ahead, and for once, his mind was blank.

He was empty.

Exhausted.

He’d achieved his goal, but rather than feeling a sense of accomplishment, he just felt nothing. Then, suddenly, there came an onslaught of grief and anger. Frustration. Guilt. A thousand other, subtler emotions contributed to his state of mind, and before he could get ahold of himself, he had begun to weep.

He knew he was behind enemy lines, and that he should leave the area. However, in his current mindset, he couldn’t force himself to move. He’d expected to feel better about it all once he killed Roman. But he didn’t. The pain he’d felt upon hearing the news of Alyssa’s death was even stronger now.

And Elijah couldn’t take it.

He wanted to lash out, to go on a rampage that wouldn’t be sated until he’d killed everyone and everything. Or retreat to a cave in the middle of nowhere. Or return to the grove and take comfort in his family’s presence. A hundred other plans flitted through his mind, but he knew that none would help.

Only time would do that.

After a few minutes, he mechanically pushed himself to his feet and took notice of his latest notification. He’d gained another level. Not surprising, given that Roman had been in the top ten. That, plus all the others he’d killed since coming into Valoria, had been quite a boon to his levels, pushing him to seventy-nine.

One more, and he’d get a new spell.

But at the moment, he didn’t really care about that. Indeed, he found it difficult to care about anything, with all the emotions flowing through him. Still, he went about the process of collecting loot with all the efficiency he could muster. He gave Roman’s dignity no consideration, stripping him down to his underwear and shoving anything that seemed worthwhile into his Ghoul-Hide Satchel.

That included his armor as well as his sword and dagger. But there were also a couple of rings and a curious pendant that seemed to emit a decent amount of ethera. When Elijah touched it, he received a notificatiton: