Path of Dragons - A LitRPG Apocalypse (BOOK TWO STUBBING AUGUST 15)

Even as Elijah drifted in and out of semi-consciousness, his mind seemed determined to settle on his past and how it might affect his future. At times, he’d find himself daydreaming about growing up with Alyssa, and only minutes later, his thoughts would turn to what he intended to do to Roman. Back and forth, over and over, seeming to go on for an eternity.

It was not a pleasant way to spend the couple of days it took him to recover from the harpies’ attacks and their insidious venom that stubbornly resisted his efforts at curing himself. In the end, Elijah wasn’t sure if he’d simply outlasted it or if he’d finally overwhelmed it. Either way, though, he returned to complete lucidity after a long two days, during which he used every ounce of ethera in his core, and multiple times.

By the time he regained his wits, Elijah knew well enough to recognize how lucky he’d gotten. Individually, the harpies weren’t terribly strong. He could kill them easily enough. However, when their flock numbered in the many tens of thousands, and with the potent venom they could inject, their lethality was nearly absolute. Few people would have managed to survive such an onslaught.

Even two days later, Elijah could sense that they were still in the area. Every now and again, he would feel one of them swoop into range of One with Nature. Fortunately, though, they seemed unwilling to land for more than a second or two, so his hiding place remained as viable as it had been when he’d found the abandoned convenience store.

That meant that he didn’t dare take to the skies for now.

Still, he decided to take shelter in the old gas station for another day, at least. As he did, he alternated his time between healing – his wounds had proven extremely stubborn, so long as the venom remained in his system – and cycling his Core. He still hadn’t made much progress, but Elijah expected that his failure was due to the low ethera density. After all, Nerthus had told him multiple times that even reaching the first stage of Core cultivation was incredibly difficult – to the point that it would require outside assistance – on Earth. And it would remain that way until the density of the planet’s ethera reached a certain point.

It had definitely risen over the past couple of years, but Elijah expected that it still had a long way yet to go. However, he also had a bit of a secret weapon in the form of his grove and, more importantly, his cultivation cave. With the advantage that those spots’ high ethera density represented, he hoped to make some strides in Core cultivation once he returned home.

His stomach twisted at the thought.

For some reason, it felt almost like a betrayal to think of anything other than avenging Alyssa’s death. And it was even worse to make plans for the future, as if his current quest was just an item to be checked off a list. It was so much more than that, and rationally, he knew that fact, but his grief and guilt had no need for logic.

So, it was with renewed focus that, three days after first taking shelter in the convenience store, Elijah shifted into his draconid form, then adopted Guise of the Unseen before leaving it behind. Sure enough, his suspicions about the harpies proved correct, and the entire area was lousy with them. Most nested high in the tops of trees, but Elijah caught sight of a few as they swooped down to kill some unsuspecting beast. When they did, every harpy in the area would descend upon the slain animal, where the entire group would rip and tear the poor creature to shreds. Sometimes, the more volatile harpies would take things too far and attack one another, resulting in a bloodbath.

Elijah kept a close eye on every monster he could sense, either with his mundane senses or via One with Nature. He didn’t think they could see through his ability’s camouflage – especially in the forest – but he also didn’t want to take any chances, either. After all, he’d seen what those creatures could do to their chosen prey, and he wanted nothing to do with them.

Or the nasty venom they could inflict upon him.

With that in mind, Elijah padded through the forest, careful and hidden beneath the Guise of the Unseen. It was slow, but it was safe. Like that, he gradually covered ground. Miles melted before him until night began to fall, and he found shelter in an old, abandoned mobile home. There were a dozen more in the area, suggesting that the area had once been a trailer park, but most of the other structures had fallen before the rigors of time. After all, those sorts of homes had never been built to last.

Still, the one where Elijah sheltered was mostly intact, though he did get a bit of a surprise when he found the previous owner’s remains. The bones had been picked clean of any flesh, so only a skeleton was left. A woman, from what Elijah could tell from the pelvis. In the next room, he found a few much smaller skeletons.

Children.

Humanity had been hit hard by what many referred to as the apocalypse. Billions had died. But the hardest hit had been the children who didn’t even have the benefit of the system to ease the transition. All around them, creatures – and monsters in human skin, like Roman – developed unnatural abilities, and they had no way to defend themselves. It was a miracle any had survived.

Though there was some hope. Miguel had made it. So had plenty of children in Norcastle and Argos – more in the latter than the former, but there was no shortage of young people in either. Elijah felt some optimism at that thought. Even as he stared at the remains of the children who’d once called the trailer home, he could find some room for hope.

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Though it was tempered by reality. Humanity had suffered many losses, and Elijah suspected that more were to come. It was while he was clearing another of the rooms of any debris that a notification flashed before Elijah’s mind’s eye: