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

Elijah let Shape of Thorn slide away, returning to his human form. Like that, he knelt atop the slain Lightning Emperor. He barely remembered the details of the last leg of the fight. It was all lost amid so much ripping and tearing. And squeezing. Milky white blood covered most of his upper toros, and even more formed a pool all around the site of the battle.

He just stared off at nothing, covered in sweat and blood – some of it his own, but a good deal of it belonging to the slain Yloa – as he tried to come to terms with everything that had happened. With what he had done.

Elijah was no stranger to brutal fights. No powerful enemy went down quietly, so those battles usually ended in savagery. Even so, the death of the Lightning Emperor hit him harder than any that had come before. And it wasn’t difficult to understand why that was the case, either.

Yloa had been a transcendent. The absolute peak of power within the multi-verse. And yet, he’d fallen to a relative infant. It should have been sad. Or maybe just unfair. In the end, though, most of what Elijah felt was relief.

It was finally over.

Until that moment, Elijah hadn’t really acknowledged just how much the Trial of Primacy had weighed upon him. It was like carrying around a mountain of responsibility on his shoulders. He was not unused to that feeling, but never before had he been forced to endure it for such a long stretch. Usually, he saw a problem, then took care of it. But the Trial had been different.

It had been exhausting.

In the back of his mind, though, Elijah had to admit that it was exciting, too. Even amidst the death and chaos, there was a certain level of exhilaration that came with victory. In persistence. Guilt was there, too – after all, many hadn’t made it – but survival was intoxicating in a way he didn’t usually acknowledge.

That was reinforced by the thrill of conquest, which was reward enough for Elijah. However, he couldn’t deny that he was looking forward to how the system would compensate him and his companions. Already, he’d passed the threshold to level one-twenty, which came with another spell or upgrade. He hadn’t looked at it yet, but he could feel it begging for his attention.

And that meant that, once he officially finished the Trial, he would gain another. And the ability to evolve his class, which, from what he understood, was a leap in power that far exceeded anything that had come before. So, even though he wanted to check on the rest of the party, it was difficult not to check his notifications first.

But Elijah wasn’t without significant willpower, so he shoved that desire aside and focused on what was really important. His companions had been forced to endure significant injuries, and he needed to ensure that they were all alive. So, he pushed himself upright, focusing on One with Nature.

What he found was not encouraging.

After climbing to his feet, Elijah tripped over the Lightning Emperor’s remains, righted himself, then climbed the slope of the crater to check on his companions. Everyone in his group was alive, but Ron and Kurik were both unconscious. Sadie and Dat were both wobbly, but they managed to remain standing.

Lamar’s group was decidedly worse off. The former linebacker was unconscious as well, but he was still breathing. Elijah threw a couple of heals his way, then added Healing Rain. However, Helen was the only other survivor. She knelt, weeping, beside Derek’s dead body. Their healer – Elijah regretted that he still hadn’t learned her name – had been killed as well. Both looked badly burned, with their bodies twisted out of shape – probably from the wind throwing them around.

In most cases, Elijah would have considered a couple of casualties to be a great tragedy. And it was. But he also knew they were lucky it wasn’t much, much worse. He didn’t know how so many had survived.

After a few seconds, he knelt beside Ron and started healing. As he did so, he asked Sadie the question most prominent in his mind. “How?” was his simple question.

“Kurik. He spent most of the fight deploying some sort of device that threw up a temporary shield,” Sadie said, pointing to what looked like scattered debris. When Elijah looked closer, he saw a dozen spent power crystals. “It protected us from the worst of it, but…Derek and Moira were out of range.”

“Dammit,” he muttered, shaking his head in regret. If only those two had been a little closer, then everyone would have made it. Such was the nature of battle, though. Too often, survival came down to simple chance. A few scant feet was the difference between life and death.

Those thoughts accompanied him as he continued to heal Ron. The Healer’s issue wasn’t one of vitality, though. His sacrifice had emptied his entire reserve of ethera, and it would take more than a few healing spells to get him back to normal. He did regain consciousness after a few minutes, though.

In the meantime, Elijah worked on the others as well. Of the survivors, Lamar had taken the worst of it – which was fortunate, considering he likely possessed a Constitution that exceeded even Elijah’s in Shape of Thorn. His other attributes lagged behind, but for his chosen role, he was well-equipped for success. Otherwise, he’d have never survived as long as he had, much less against Yloa’s potent attacks.

Predictably, he didn’t take the deaths of his teammates very well. He and Helen knelt beside their bodies, just staring at them for quite some time. They spoke to one another, but Elijah forced himself to ignore their conversation. They deserved privacy in their grief.

Everyone who’d participated in the Trial knew they were in for a rough time. That was especially true for those who’d chosen to stay after their initial arrival, and no one could claim that the people who had decided to participate in the raid on the Seat of Thunder were ignorant of the danger. They’d known what they were getting into. Yet, that didn’t make it any easier to accept the deaths of friends.

For his part, Elijah knew just how lucky he was that none of his companions had perished. But perhaps it wasn’t all luck. They’d spent the entire Trial pushing the envelope and developing their teamwork. And it had paid off when it mattered the most.

That just highlighted the brutality of trying to be one of the best. So many people had come into the Trial expecting it to be a reward. And in some ways, it was. Its true nature was right there in the name, though. It wasn’t meant to be easy. It was a test. A challenge. A deadly trial in every possible way.

He shook his head, thinking of how many people had made the ultimate sacrifice. Most hadn’t come in pursuit of personal power. Not for themselves, at least. Rather, they’d chosen to participate because their situations back on Earth were dire. They were the only hope of those they’d left behind.

And now they were gone.

The casualties of the Trial of Primacy wouldn’t be limited to those who’d died while trying to conquer various challenges. Instead, they would extend all the way back to Earth and the people who no longer had their champions to protect them.

“Are you okay?” asked Sadie.

Elijah shrugged as he continued healing. “I don’t know. Just thinking about what this all cost.”

“I know,” she said, sitting beside him. She leaned close. “I was thinking about Ron. If he’d died…”

“We’ll take care of one another,” Elijah stated. It was one of the things to which they’d all agreed. Everyone had people they wanted to protect, and at some point during the Trial, they’d all agreed to step in if one of them was slain. For Ron, that meant finding his daughter and dealing with her illness. For Dat and Sadie, it meant ensuring that Hong Kong survived its proximity to the Primal Realm. And for Elijah, it meant taking care of his family, including Nerthus and the grove. Kurik was the only one who didn’t have anyone back home.

Elijah hadn’t even realized it at the time, but the bonds he’d formed with his companions felt so much more real than any friendships he’d cultivated before Earth had felt the touch of the World Tree. Part of that was a product of the time they’d spent together. Being with a group of people for an entire year didn’t sound like much, but it definitely felt like a long time. However, more impactful was the shared dangers they’d faced. As it turned out, collectively defying death was a great bonding exercise.

“What now?” she asked.

“Once everyone’s recovered, I guess we check our notifications and go home,” Elijah said. “Finishing the Trial is supposed to open up the Teleportation Network, so I’ll be in Hong Kong in a couple of weeks. When we take care of that…”

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Elijah trailed off. He’d made a lot of promises during his time in the Trial. Not only would he need to help in Hong Kong, but he also needed to find Ron’s location and help him heal his daughter. If he had his way, he would also bring them back to Ironshore, but that was up to Ron.

Then there was Philadelphia, where a warlord had taken up residence. Elijah had promised to help Lamar deal with that.

And finally, Elijah hadn’t forgotten about the refugees from the plane crash. He needed to figure out a way to rescue them as well.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, he had plans for his grove, his own cultivation, and a few side projects he had in mind. In short, he expected that the frantic pace of the Trial wasn’t going to end when he returned to Earth.

Hopefully, his recent gains – as well as the ones pending the completion of the Trial – would help him meet those challenges head-on. To that end, he finally glanced at his status: