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

Elijah dreamed of happiness, homecoming, and falling asleep in Sadie’s arms.

And then, it all shattered. A sound like rolling thunder, followed by cracking glass echoed through the abyss as a fissure exploded across the green crystal encasing Elijah’s draconic body. His eyes fluttered open as wave after wave of dense vitality misted into the atmosphere.

A building-sized tentacle slammed into the obelisk with enough force to cause an earthquake miles below. Elijah – still half encapsulated by solid vitality – skidded across the peak at more than a hundred miles an hour. He didn’t reach the edge before another tentacle descended, crushing him beneath its meaty form.

And then it started to feed.

A million comparatively tiny maws yawned, revealing jagged fangs and forked tongues that whipped out to score the surface of the crystal. The furthest simply inhaled, dragging air, vitality, and ethera into a whirlwind of energy that disappeared into their gaping gullets.

It took Elijah a few seconds to fully awaken, but when he did, panic suffused his mind. The tentacle belonged to one of the gargantuan horrors haunting the upper atmosphere. He had no idea if it was a deity or more. His perception of power didn’t extend that far.

What he did know was that it could swat him like a fly, regardless of how far he’d progressed in his cultivation. Even the mouths pulsed with the power of demi-gods, giving Elijah a brief insight into how the eldritch monsters were created. They didn’t feel like individuals. Instead, they were more like a colony of bacteria that had somehow fused into something that far exceeded the sum power of its parts.

The moment of introspection was interrupted when Elijah felt the rapid drain on his own vitality. He deployed his Mantle of Authority, and a million mouths screamed all at once. The deafening roar of their displeasure echoed in Elijah’s mind as they recoiled – only slightly, but enough to allow him to slither free. As they descended, Elijah raced across the peak, sliding down the slightly sloped surface until he reached the edge.

He fell.

The tentacle hit the pillar a second later, and the shockwave of its descent threw Elijah hundreds of yards away. He would’ve gone further if he didn’t throw his wings wide, arresting his momentum. Even then, it took him a few moments to wrest control away from gravity and inertia.

When he did, he righted his tumbling path, turning it into an urgent glide.

Above, the tentacle chased him. Inch by inch, it gained ground until, suddenly, it stopped. Elijah narrowly escaped its falling fury before turning his flight into a steady dive that ended with him touching down at the edge of the crater. When he hit the ground, it cracked beneath the force of his landing.

Only then did he realize something very, very important.

He hadn’t deployed his Mantle of Authority, and he was only in a little pain. He glanced down at his emerald scales to see that the pace of the spreading corruption had been cut down to almost nothing. He still wasn’t immune to its effects. Far from it. But he could endure it for days without much effect.

It still hurt, but rather than feeling like he’d been dunked in a vat of acid, it was more like spilling rubbing alcohol on a papercut. If said papercuts were all over his body.

Not a perfect analogy, but it was accurate enough that it satisfied Elijah’s need for comparison.

In any case, he deployed his Mantle of Authority, which offered relief from the pain, and threw himself back into the sky. In moments, he’d reached top speed, and he was unsurprised – but still pleased – that it far exceeded his previous limits.

If he had to estimate, his flight speed in his dragon form now rivaled that of the Shape of the Sky. Or what it had been before his recent advancement with body cultivation.

He flew, reveling in the strength of his newly reforged body until he’d covered more than a hundred miles. Only then did he land and truly take stock of the changes.

The most obvious was that he’d grown larger. Instead of being fifty feet long, he was now closer to a hundred. And the rest of his body had grown accordingly. In addition, his wings – which had always resembled the branches of a mighty tree – had grown even thicker, both in terms of the limbs as well as the density of the leaves covering them. His antlers were wider and sharper as well.

But the real change came from his scales.

They were still emerald, but within their gem-like structure danced an ethereal light that had never been present before. They shone, emitting a subtle cloud of vitality that clung to his form, distorting the air like a heat shimmer.

When he looked inward, he found that his efforts at perfecting the structure of his cells had not been in vain. The final metamorphosis had built upon that foundation, solidifying everything into something he barely recognized. It far exceeded his expectations, but somehow, in a way that still felt familiar.

And then he saw the notification.