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

In a lot of ways, holding Isaiah responsible was irrational. However, in every way that Elijah wanted to consider, he certainly was. Without what had happened in Seattle, no one would have doubted his power. There was no way to be certain, but Elijah believed that, had that not happened, Breeze never would have dared to attack the grove. Moreover, the pirates wouldn’t have agreed to the plan if they truly believed they might encounter the strongest man in the world.

So, it seemed perfectly reasonable to hold Isaiah accountable.

What was not reasonable was how he intended to do that.

Elijah wasn’t so far gone to his anger that he completely forgot the other problems facing Earth. The Primal Realms were still out there, and for better or worse, Isaiah was the lynchpin that bound the coordinated efforts of the world’s elite together. Without him, it was likely that everything would fall apart.

So, he couldn’t kill the man. No matter how much he wanted to. Not without dooming Earth, at least, and as angry as Elijah was, he would not let his simmering rage push him that far.

But he still intended to make a point.

That’s how he found himself throwing the elf’s body over his shoulder and exiting the palace. He didn’t need to search the town to know that the residents had fallen victim to Breeze’s attack. They were all dead. At least a thousand people, gone.

Thankfully, the smoke would assuredly linger for days, it had already dissipated a little, and Elijah’s ongoing efforts had already banished the poisonous gas’s effects. So, there was nothing left but to do what needed to be done. To that end, he shoved the body into his ring – it barely fit – then shifted into the Shape of the Sky and began his flight back to the ruins of Bloodrock Bay.

The return took longer than the trip to Kel’ilathen, largely because he didn’t have Lightning Rush available. Still, he could cover quite a lot of ground while in Shape of the Sky, and by the time he reached his destination, the sun was only beginning to set.

Thankfully, the lone survivor had already accomplished his task. The corpses had been piled into a tall mound of dead flesh.

“Survivor!” he shouted up landing. “Return, or I will kill you.”

There was a clatter from one of the top levels, and a moment later, the man appeared. He had multiple gold chains around his neck, a huge sack of loot thrown over his shoulder, and a bunch of jeweled bracelets around his wrists. He’d even found a crown.

He wasted no time before descending the system of ladders and ramps. Only a few had been destroyed during Elijah’s rampage, so he only had to go the long way on a couple of occasions. However, after only a few minutes, the man trotted up to where Elijah stood next to the bodies.

“I have one more task for you.”

“What do you need me to do?” he asked, his eyes flicking this way and that.

Elijah told him what he required, then dove into the bay. A moment later, he had shifted into the Shape of the Sea. Once the transformation was complete, the survivor got to work, tossing the bodies on top of Elijah’s broad shell. At first, it went quickly enough, but as the task progressed, the pile became more precarious.

There were just so many bodies.

Maybe a thousand people, and that was only a fraction of the number that had been present. Many had been ripped to pieces during his assault on the dock and the ships that had made their berth there. Still, it would be enough.

The job took a couple of hours, and by that time, night had fallen. When it was done, Elijah reminded the man to spread the word of what had happened to Bloodrock Bay. Then, he paddled out to sea.

He didn’t push himself to maximum speed. Instead, he established a leisurely pace, not because he wanted to take his time, but rather, he didn’t want to lose any of the bodies. Because of that, it took the entire night and half of the next day for him to reach his island.

After dumping the bodies on the mainland, he returned to the island and gathered all of the pirates’ corpses and threw the now-rotting bodies onto the pile.

It became a massive monument to death.

But Elijah was not finished.

Gathering as many of the corpses as he could carry, he trekked toward the Teleportation Spires. When he arrived, he received precisely the welcome he’d expected.

“What happened?!” Eryka asked, concerned.

“I’m going to keep them coming,” Elijah stated, throwing the bodies down. “It’s going to take a while. When I’m done, I expect you to send me to Seattle.”

“Elijah, what –”

“Do I make myself clear?”

Eryka went silent when she saw his face. Then, she just nodded.

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Over the next couple of hours, Elijah continuously ferried bodies into position. Each time he returned to the vicinity of the spires, there were more people watching him. At first, Eryka’s eyes widened with each return trip, but after a while, her surprise turned to horror. And by the time he finished, she looked as numb as Elijah had forced himself to become.

Rage still simmered below the surface, quarantined in its own facets of his mind. However, it would do him little good at the moment, so he had shut it away.

He knew it would bubble up again.

It wasn’t a question of if, but rather when.

Once all the bodies were in place, Elijah ordered, “Help me put the bodies in the circle.”

The gathered people hesitated, but only for a moment. The implication represented by the presence of so many bodies was clear. Elijah had killed them. And no one wanted to join that pile.

It didn’t take long to move the bodies, and when it was done, Elijah took his place beside them and ordered Eryka to teleport him.

She placed her hand on the apparatus, then activated the spires. With a surge of ethera, Elijah traveled more than a thousand miles in an instant. The second he appeared, shouts of alarm erupted from the men and women manning Seattle’s teleportation spires.

Not surprising, given that Elijah had just appeared with almost a thousand corpses.

He ignored their shouts. He disregarded their orders for him to stand down. Instead, he activated Shape of Thorn, then used Domain of Vines.