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

As the golem fell apart all around him, Elijah found himself in a maelstrom of bubbles, swirling water, and corroded metal. He cut through the current, tucking his head as far back as he could in an effort to shield it from falling debris. Above, tens of thousands of tons of former golem plunged into the water, threatening to flatten him against the lake floor.

He pushed himself as hard as he could, using his immense Strength to propel his massive body forward, dodging shattered pieces of the golem until, at last, he broke free. Twirling around, Elijah saw a mass of metal that defied all sense of scale. It was like looking at a submerged mountain whose peak had broken through the surface to become an island of detritus.

It was the remains of the creature he’d just killed.

Or destroyed, depending on the definition of life. Elijah suspected that such designations were wildly variable when it came to mechaniques. Or former chimera. He didn’t know how to think of them, but he knew one thing above all – he definitely didn’t like the way they seemed to enjoy acting as gods.

However, he didn’t come away from it without some degree of understanding. He’d spent months among those monsters, and because of that, he felt even more prepared to use spells like Nature’s Design to elicit the results he desired.

He couldn’t let himself dwell on that, though, because despite the recent catastrophe, the local and mutated wildlife would not remain subdued for long. And as he’d already discovered, truly dangerous creatures lived in the depths. That was apparent when he felt a school of mutated fish coming his way.

Elijah tried to outrun them, but the things were smaller and much faster than him. Like piranha who’d inexplicably grown barbed fins and even more oversized jaws, the fish were the size of tiger sharks and hunted like a pack of wolves. They darted in, nipping at his fins while others circled around to impede his path. Elijah attempted to change directions, diving deeper or flinging himself out of the water, but there were far too many of the monsters to truly evade.

No – a fight was necessary.

Elijah embraced Savage Strength, then went to work.

He often thought of the Shape of the Sea as part snapping turtle, and he truly emulated those earth-bound reptiles as his beaked maw darted out, absolutely obliterating monstrous fish with every bite. As he did so, he swished his meaty tail, slamming it into the ones trying to approach from behind. Each blow broke delicate bones and disabled his enemies, but there were so many that he knew his task would not be quickly completed.

Still, buoyed by his recent victory, Elijah poured himself into the slaughter. As he did, he let himself sink deeper and deeper into the instincts that had come with the chelonoid form. A dangerous precedent to set, but given the circumstances, he knew it was the only way he could hope to survive the onslaught.

Soon enough, the water was filled with so much blood that it had begun to attract even larger predators as well as scavengers. And after only a few more minutes, the lake had become a warzone, with monstrous fish and tentacled creatures battling it out. Some targeted Elijah, but they were just as likely to fight one another.

It was a bloodbath of epic proportions, as chaotic as any battle and twice as gory.

It also went on for far longer than Elijah would have thought possible. The lake was extremely large as well as incredibly deep, and it clearly played host to far more monsters than he ever could have expected. And they all seemed to have a nose for blood and battle.

In the end, Elijah killed thousands, and he wasn’t even the deadliest participant. That title belonged to a creature that looked like a cross between a shark, hippopotamus, and a mosasaur. It was also almost a hundred feet long and a vicious killer that seemed to revel in ripping the other monsters apart. Elijah had resigned himself to taking it on himself when a swarm of those piranha sharks tore into it. They didn’t kill the huge and powerful creature – far from it – but they did manage to weaken it to the point where it became just a little more vulnerable. That, in turn, made it a target for escalating damage that eventually ended with its inevitable death.

But it took thousands of monsters with it.

Without its ultimately doomed efforts, the fight might have gone on quite a lot longer. But in the wake of its death, the waters had cleared to a significant degree. Certainly, they were stained red with blood for miles and miles, but many of the monsters had been killed.

Elijah spent the next couple of hours cleaning things up before the remaining creatures abandoned their bloodlust and fled the scene. That left Elijah alone with innumerable corpses and raging with his instincts screaming at him to pursue. He chose not to, remembering his humanity just in time to keep himself from haring off through the lake on a quest to kill everything that dared to stand up to him.

Was that the dragon in him?

Or whatever creature that the Shape of the Sea had been based upon? Elijah didn’t know, and he didn’t think he’d soon discover the truth. For now, though, he swam towards shore, trailing a good deal of his own blood along the way. Some of that was staunched by consistent use of Wild Resurgence, but certainly not all. Finally, he climbed free of the lake and let himself resume his human form. There, he lay on the rocky beach, the blood-tinged water lapping at his bare feet as he finally let himself breathe.

Thankfully, there were no landbound monsters around, so he had a little space to just let himself mentally recover from the battle. He felt like he’d been fighting for days – months, if he counted his time since first arriving in the Primal Realm – and he felt that he would need quite a while to fully regroup and recuperate.

For a long time, he just lay there, staring at the sky. There were a couple of harpies up there, but they seemed entirely uninterested in him. So, he was afforded plenty of time to gather his thoughts.

As he did, he finally decided to address his notifications: