Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Jack didn’t panic. His punches couldn’t reach the enemy, but that was fine—throughout his many years of fighting, he’d developed some versatility. He had more ways to harm opponents than ramming his knuckles up their nose.

Think, he told himself.

The opponent wasn’t omnipotent. If he could just spread out his aura of entropy to cover the entire room, Jack would age and die. The only reason he hadn’t done it yet was that he couldn’t—his power wasn’t infinite, so that powerful darkness could only cover a small area. If this man was the scheming kind, which he probably was, the area he could cover with his darkness was larger than what he’d shown so far, preparing a trap for Jack. He should be careful.

Jack had several ideas he could try. Each had a low chance of success, but when put together, he was confident at least one would work. He just hoped it wasn’t the suicidal one.

The other man didn’t just sit there. He charged, falling onto Jack like black death. Jack drew back. His four-armed battle form and Thunderbody worked in tandem to vastly increase his speed, making him way faster than his opponent. Dodging was easy for now, at the price of consuming a lot of energy. He couldn’t go on forever.

Jack ducked, dodging a claw-shaped palm of darkness, then jabbed out of his own. Darkness appeared over his opponent’s chest to cover the strike—yet, a green shadow carried on, penetrating the darkness to strike the heart. The opponent paused—his eyes stirring.

The Fist of Mortality was a soul attack Jack had created back at the Old Cathedral, after experiencing a thousand mortal lifetimes in the Mortality Chamber. It was a mental attack, meant to steep the target in rich emotions and stun them. He hadn’t used this move a lot in recent years, but it evolved in pace with his Dao of Life, maintaining a decent level. Most importantly, as it wasn’t physical, it couldn’t be stopped by entropy.

While the dark man was stunned, Jack didn’t lose time. He released a quick Meteor Punch right at his face—aiming to finish this in one strike. The opponent’s eyes flashed with mirth. Darkness materialized before his face to stop Jack’s fist, then he reached out with his other hand, attempting to grab Jack’s arm. He succeeded—a terrible sense of weakness filled Jack for a moment before he could retreat. By the time he yanked his arm free—he was the stronger party, after all—he could sense that several decades of his lifespan had evaporated. It didn’t really matter, his current lifespan measured tens of millennia, but it was a terrifying concept. If the other man could grab onto him for more than an instant… What would happen?

“Nice try,” the dark man said, “but, unfortunately for you, Entropy is mostly a concept of the soul. If your physical attacks can’t touch me, soul ones definitely won’t.”

“Not unless you wanted those decades.”

“I can spare a few.”

“Good, cause I’m about to take them.”

Jack found himself smiling. This was a difficult battle with the possibility of long-term damage—so why did he enjoy it so much? It was nice to face a decent opponent, for once, instead of fools with weak Daos who just happened to possess tremendous cultivation.

Spacetime warped around Jack—not teleporting, just accelerating him. He reached the opponent and locked space around them both so none could move. He pulled his fist back. Intense suction erupted. The dense Dao flew into his fist, compacting further and further like a brewing bomb. Purple light erupted. A sharp whistling sound filled their ears.

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“Fool!” the dark man exclaimed, gathering layers upon layers of darkness before him.

“If I can’t sneak past your Dao,” Jack said, charging this move to the limit, “I’ll just overpower it. Supernova!”

He shot it forward. The world exploded. Jack flew back, smashing into the far wall and forming a massive crater. The cracks spread all the way to the other side, letting glimpses of the colorful void slip in.

He forced his eyes open. Did I get him? he wondered.

A dark hand appeared before him. There was no time to dodge. It smashed into the center of his chest, dark lines spreading across his body, the rest of the dark man appearing after his hand. “Another nice try,” he said with a wicked grin, “and one that might have worked, were we at the same boundary. Unfortunately, I’m one higher. You cannot overpower me.”

Jack tried to move but couldn’t. He tried to breathe but couldn’t. The potent life force suffusing his soul was snuffed out like an army of candles under a cold breeze. He summoned his Dao, exploding a smaller Supernova before his chest. The dark man easily dodged it by jumping backward, while Jack spat blood by the impact. He immediately teleported away without even stabilizing his wounds—the dark man flew in, piercing his leg into the wall and creating a massive hole overlooking the void beyond.

Jack clutched his chest, wheezing for breath. Ten thousand years of his life were just gone. They were inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, especially since his lifespan would become millions of years in the future, but it was still a shock. Most of all, he worried it would influence his potential. The younger a cultivator was, the more vibrant their fires of life, and the easier it was for them to progress. He didn’t have a problem there yet, but another strike or two like that and he might begin to notice changes.

I have to finish this fast, he realized, regaining his composure. My durability is useless. This guy…is not playing around!

The dark man attacked again. Jack dodged, analyzing the situation with a calmness only the heat of battle would bring. He ducked and weaved between strikes, used bursts of his Dao to disrupt the opponent’s attacks. All the while, his eyes were sharp.

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He’s not fast or strong, and his attacks, while insidious, are not that powerful either, Jack calculated. All he has is extreme defense, which he relies on until his opponent is exhausted. His fighting style is oddly similar to his Dao—slow, but will eventually get you.

Can I endure longer than him? he wondered before quickly shelving the idea. The only reason Jack could defend so calmly was his dual use of the Life Drop battle form and Thunderbody, both of which consumed tremendous amounts of energy. He’d run out long before his opponent.

It was irritating. Jack had mastered four or five different Daos to a great level and possessed a dozen different skills, yet here he was, losing to a guy who used a single Dao masterfully. It emphasized the importance of mastery—and why everyone suggested focusing on just one or two Daos. It wasn’t a problem Jack had faced before, given his Dao superiority over all his opponents, but it quickly became apparent when facing an opponent of similar caliber.

Alas, that was the price he paid for striving for the peak.

What else can I do? Jack wondered, calmly dodging attack after attack. He was rapidly running out of ideas. Only a single one remained, one he was decently confident would succeed but was very risky. There was a chance it would backfire hard enough to kill him.

No choice, he concluded. Let’s do this.

“You want to fight in the Dao? I’ll show you some Dao!” he declared, clenching his fist. A bubble of space appeared around it, compressing in pulses. “You think your Dao of Entropy is so great, but I possess something on that level as well!”

The dark man frowned. “Arrogant!” he shouted. He intensified his attacks, using some arcane art to deteriorate part of himself for greater energy right now. His strikes sharpened. The dark aura of entropy flushed outward, flooding the space, leaving little room for Jack to dodge. He had to teleport all over the place, rapidly exhausting his energy reserves. Doing this while maintaining focus on the brewing black hole was difficult.

After a while, he couldn’t. The black hole had compressed enough that holding it in place required his full concentration. He dashed left and right, dodging as well as he could, but the dark winds touched him. His lifespan evaporated by the century. All he could do at this point was grit his teeth and hang on.

The dark man had realized what was going on, but there was nothing he could do besides attack with everything he had. Jack struggled to maintain concentration, struggled to endure the onslaught. Every pulse came morbidly slow. Space compressed around his fist. The Dao of Entropy sought to disrupt him, to break his technique and end it prematurely, but he used his body to shield it, enduring the consequences.

His fist crumbled in the sphere of compressed space. All the crushed flesh and bones gathered in the middle, a tiny core of mass, while black foam spontaneously manifested around it. The dark man’s eyes widened. “No!” he shouted.

Jack allowed for one last compression pulse, then turned around and jabbed the Black Hole at his opponent. The dark man had teleported to the other side of the room but it didn’t matter. Space was limited—and the black hole sucked it in. It reached him faster than should be possible, a fist of swirling darkness threatening the master of darkness himself.

The dark man gritted his teeth. With all of space sucked into the black hole, dodging it was impossible. He knew that. If he didn’t defend and let it hit him, he would be torn apart and then exploded—his defenses depended on his Dao, not the robustness of his body. His only choice was to use his Dao of Entropy on the black hole, and both men knew it.

As they knew what would happen once he did it.

A black hole was the combination of Space and Death. Entropy was Time and Death. The two Daos were similar in composition, and also in power. Of course, the dark man’s expertise was significantly higher, but it didn’t matter. As he pushed his entropy into the black hole, destabilizing it, there was only one possible outcome.

A black hole didn’t wane with time. It expanded.

Jack chuckled, blood dripping from his lips. “Checkmate,” he said.

The black hole in place of his fist grew rapidly. It quickly became much larger than he’d ever seen it before, even larger than the one which had destroyed Crownbeast’s sturdy body. At that size, he couldn't control it. He dislodged it and flew back, crossing his four arms before himself. The dark man retreated as well, summoning walls of darkness to defend. Both created new space in their attempts to escape.

Their speeds were great, but this close to a mature black hole, they seemed slow.

Space and Time fell into the black hole, finding certain death. Black foam spread outward. The artificial black hole, only stabilized by Jack’s Dao, quickly spun out of control. It sucked in everything except for the two cultivators and exploded.

The impact was cataclysmic. Far, far exceeding the Supernova from before. The walls of the room blew outwards as if made of straws. The colorful void shuddered, this entire part of the interdimensional sea warping around itself like stormy waters. Jack was struck by a tremendous shockwave and blown backward, into a region where time and space were meaningless, where his physical form was maintained through willpower alone. His bones snapped like matches. His lungs bled. He struggled to maintain consciousness—to lose himself here meant certain death.

The black foam had invaded Jack’s body. It crushed his bones into dust, wrecking his flesh, tearing through his organs. Even his brain was assaulted. The Life Drop released all its remaining energy in an attempt to save him, guided by the desperate efforts of Venerable Saint Thousand Shell, but it was a losing battle. The lack of reality didn’t help.

Jack snapped into focus. With a single feat of willpower, he forced the interdimensional sea into three-dimensional existence, then took a step to cross it all. Since spacetime held no sway here, one step was the same as many. He reappeared on a piece of brown stone floating through the colors, a leftover of the previous hall, its enchantments giving it a semblance of spacetime on which Jack could survive. He collapsed against it, barely large enough to accommodate his body, as his body battled to remain alive. The black foam exhausted itself and was purged, but many injuries remained. Slowly, regeneration took the upper hand—Jack would survive, though he’d come closer to death than he’d wanted. He was also exhausted.

A set of dark feet settled on the same stone. “I died,” said the other man with a smile. He looked pristine, even his white robes immaculate. “The enchantments of the Hall can reconstruct this body, but the previous one died. It fell to the chaotic spacetime flows of the dimensional sea. I didn’t think it was possible, but you won.”

Jack chuckled, turning around to lay on his back, arms extended on either side, almost grabbing the other man’s ankle—there wasn’t much space here. “Well fought,” he replied.

The man’s smile remained. “The Hall wouldn’t let you die, you know that. The battle would end if I depleted half your lifeforce. Yet, you still destroyed it, risking true death for a shot at victory. Was it worth it?”

“Obviously.”

“What if you hadn’t made it?”

“That would be fine. I exist to strive for the peak—dying in the process is an acceptable result.”

The dark man chuckled. “Have you figured out who I am?”

“From the very start. You’re Axelor, the Old God of Entropy—or, should I say, just God. You don’t look very old. I assume a fragment of your real self given a mortal mind and placed in the Hall of Trials to test challengers?”

The God chuckled. He took a seat beside Jack, legs crossed beneath him. “Let’s have a little chat,” he said. “There are some things you should know.”