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

The blade of the Verdant Fang sliced through the air, then sunk into the flesh spider’s torso with a squishy thunk. Elijah yanked the weapon back with enough force that he split the thing in two. Only then did he let it fall to the ground as he struggled to catch his breath. All around him lay the corpses of his enemies, many of which were spiders just like the last one he’d killed. However, there were many more varieties of monster, each one as horrifyingly malformed as the last.

Elijah had lost track of the passage of time, but he suspected he’d been in the Veinroot Hollows for at least a couple of weeks. It might’ve even been as long as a month. He’d long since begun rationing, though the prevalence of so much flesh told him that if it really came down to it, he wouldn’t lack for sustenance. As disgusting as the prospect of eating those monsters was, he would do what he needed to do in order to survive.

After he caught his breath, he looked around. Beyond the carpet of monsters – there must’ve been at least a hundred of them – lay three offshoots of the ravine. Four, if he counted the way he’d come, which he didn’t.

One direction featured denser vines than anywhere else he’d seen, while the other two were far more open and, if not inviting, then at least traversable. He wasn’t so naïve that he didn’t recognize a trap when he saw one. He knew which way he was supposed to go. He just didn’t look forward to taking that route.

Fighting against the vines was an exercise in tedious frustration. Not impossible – far from it, in fact – but still a pain. But he knew that if he took the clearer routes, he’d find himself in a dead end.

Or worse, facing off against another abomination.

He’d done that twice already. The first was a nine-headed monster with the body of a bear and feathers like a bird. If it wasn’t so malformed, he never could have beaten it. Even with as clumsy as it was, the thing was incredibly strong and capable of manipulating gravity to such an extent that Elijah had almost fallen prey to its first attack. He’d managed to defeat it, though only just.

The second instance featured a more reptilian threat, but it defied any other description. The only defining characteristic was that its body bore dense scales and its head played host to multitude of compound eyes. Everything else was incongruous and failed to resemble any other creature. It had attacked by curling into a ball and rolling at him, which was easy enough to dodge right up until it reached speeds exceeding a hundred miles an hour. At that point, things got a little hairy.

As the fight went on, it continued to pick up speed until Elijah could scarcely stay out of its way. The fight was characterized by the creature ping-ponging off the vine-strewn walls and threatening to flatten him beneath its multi-ton frame.

In the end, Elijah had been forced to use Shape of the Master to repeatedly dodge the rolling fury of the scaled monster until he built enough charges of Heart of Fire and released Incinerate. That still wasn’t quite enough to take care of the monster, though afterwards, it was only barely clinging to life. Elijah ended it by hacking it to pieces with the Verdant Fang.

To put it mildly, the Veinroot Hollow was just as dangerous as the Abyssal Glassworks, though in an entirely different way.

After catching his breath and taking a few minutes to rest, he marshalled his willpower and forced himself down the vine-strewn path. Immediately, the tendrils of flesh went wild as they tried to kill him. Fortunately, while the Verdant Fang might have been a bit awkward to use as a normal weapon, it was perfect for slicing through errant vegetation.

So he went, steadily reaping the vines that stood in his way until, after another mile or so, he finally reached another intersection. Blessedly, it was free of creeping vines, so he took that as an opportunity to get a little more rest. He ate and drank, noting that his supply of grove fruits had begun to dwindle, then lay down to get as much sleep as he could manage.

Once again, sleep came in fitful spurts. Even if his mind wasn’t going wild, his experiences only a few days before kept him from truly committing to sleep. Back then, he’d dozed off only to awaken with a millipede trying to crawl into his ear. Thankfully, the pinch of its mandibles was enough to wake him up.

Even now, he shuddered at what might have been. The idea of having his brains eaten by a crawling bug was enough to keep sleep at bay.

But he still needed rest. No matter how high his Constitution was, his recent exertion coupled with the stress of the situation meant that he was exhausted. And because he hadn’t really slept in weeks – except in short bursts – he never had the chance to fully recover.

Slowly but surely, he was being worn down.

His healing spells helped. So did his high attributes. But he hadn’t graduated to a level that would allow him to completely forego rest. Perhaps he never would.

In any case, Elijah stayed in place for most of the next day, using the blessed peace to recuperate as much as possible. He didn’t sleep much, but he did rest. And he ate enough that by the time he decided to continue on, he felt much better about his prospects. Before he got going, though, he did take a look at his status: