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

Elijah stood in the forest surrounding Ironshore, hesitating for a moment before fully committing to the path he’d chosen. It would have been so easy to simply turn away, to head back to the island and continue to relax. Most people would have done just that, and they would have been grateful for the lack of conflict.

But Elijah wasn’t built that way.

Not only did he feel the weight of necessity bearing down on him, but the pressure of idle days had continued to build over the past couple of weeks. And it was suffocating. After spending years – no, decades – in nearly constant motion, the idea of simply doing nothing was too much for him to bear.

Still, he hesitated.

There was a reason no one had attacked Olaf Bruener and his warband. Politics stayed everyone’s hands. After all, he was not just a two-bit warlord. He was the leader of a powerful faction. While justified, going after him would tax anyone’s resources. And that wasn’t even considering the fact that he had allies. Other like-minded people who would doubtless step in to assist in any war.

It wasn’t so different from how the world treated dictators in the old world. There were plenty of leaders out there who were guilty of blatant violations of human rights. Plenty who’d slaughtered their own people and committed so many atrocities that even the history books lost count. And yet, they were allowed to remain in power because of politics and the threat of total war.

In the end, Elijah didn’t care about any of that, though.

He was a dragon, and dragons knew only one response to a challenge. If someone wronged him or threatened his people, he would counter with overwhelming force. He’d done it before, and he intended to do it again.

His fear of idleness was only a small part of that choice.

That moment of hesitation lasted for less than a minute before he initiated the transformation into the Shape of the World Serpent. After his time in the void, the form was just as comfortable as any other, and he soon found himself slithering into the sky. Once he’d oriented himself in the proper direction, he used Dimensional Leap.

Slipping back into the void felt like putting on an old, well-worn pair of boots, and he barely noticed the omnidirectional pressure that came with it. It only lasted a few seconds, but when he popped back into Earth’s atmosphere, he found himself sailing over a familiar swamp.

Part of him considered landing and visiting Konstantino and the children. As far as Elijah knew, they still lived there. But then he remembered how much time had passed. For all he knew, the Alchemist and his wife were already dead from old age. After all, neither had been young when the world had changed. And as powerful as cultivation and leveling could be when it came to a person’s longevity, it couldn’t reverse the effects of age. Not after they’d already set in.

Elijah chose not to find out for certain, even convincing himself that he was avoiding them in order to focus on his chosen mission.

It was a lie.

But it was just plausible enough that he let himself believe it.

Although, that moment of hesitation did remind him that he had a couple of things he needed to take care of before he fought any more battles. Well, one thing, but with two parts. And that would lead to something else that he’d avoided since returning home.

Marshalling his willpower, Elijah landed just on the other side of the swamp. The region was still damp and bog-ridden, but there was still plenty of dry land. Upon touching down, he shifted back into his human form and strode toward a porous, black boulder. Once there, he turned his attention to a notification that had been begging for his attention ever since he’d fully reconnected with the system.