Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

The arena was as busy as ever.

Merchants wandered the stands and hollered for people to buy snacks; spectators gathered in groups and discussed excitedly with each other; and the crowd was still trickling in through the two entrances.

“I can’t believe it’s the semi-finals already,” Edgar said, taking in the excitement around them. “It feels like yesterday when everything began.”

“I can’t believe this will all be over tomorrow,” Vivi added, crossing her arms. “And then, the real fight will start…”

Jack arrived next to them with a large smile. “Come on, guys, cheer up. Want some salami?”

“How can you not be nervous?”

“I am. But I also have salami. Want some?”

He laughed. Just this morning, he had discovered a forgotten pack in a cupboard. It was a bit too salty for his taste, but it would do. He’d also brought a water bottle.

“Dorman,” he turned to the man, waving his pack in the air, “this can make you stronger.”

Dorman reached out and grabbed a slice. “It is tasty,” the Chinese teen admitted, chomping down on it. “You should have brought some cheese, too.”

“I’m out. Why didn’t you bring your cheese?”

“I’m not the food master.”

“You’re fast. Can’t you just…go get some?”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

These were two of the four strongest people on Earth. As was proper, they could resist the tension. After all, they had already trained as hard as they could. Now, they just had to fight.

“Look, it’s starting!” Edgar pointed at the sky, where the winged djinn now hovered. Everyone grew quiet.

“Welcome, everyone, to the semi-finals,” she announced. Her voice boomed into the spectator stands. “There will only be two battles today, but they will be the grandest yet. Four fighters remain: Rufus Emberheart, Alexander Petrovic, Dorman Whistles, and Jack Rust. The brightest geniuses of Earth-387.”

The crowd cheered. She let them calm down before continuing. “Now, without further ado, let the semi-finals commence!”

More cheers.

“First fight: Dorman Whistles and the Dao of Speed—” Dorman held his breath, as did Jack “—versus Rufus Emberheart and the Dao of Supremacy!”

Some people cheered. Dorman’s face got stern, and Jack threw him a conflicted glance.

Of the four of them, Rufus was probably the strongest. Realistically, any of the other three had a chance to get to the finals as long as they didn’t run into him.

In fact, Jack had been half-certain that he’d be called to fight the leonine today. In the end, that didn’t come to pass.

“Good luck,” he told Dorman. “I look forward to meeting you in the finals.”

Dorman nodded in reply. Clenching his jaw, he leaped to the stage, landing amidst claps and cheers. Rufus Emberheart dropped opposite him in a cloud of sand. When it cleared, his eyes were full of confidence.

“You are one of the few worthy humans,” he declared in a booming voice, like a man speaking to a child. “You are unlucky to face me, but try your best. With a good enough performance, the Foreign Guard might be interested in you.”

“The Foreign Guard and the entire Animal Kingdom can take a hike,” Dorman replied, holding his twin daggers in a fighting stance. “I have no interest in allying with you. I will beat you today, then win the final.”

Many people gaped at these words. Not only were they bold, but they were reckless, too. There was no need to antagonize Rufus so hard at this point.

The leonine himself raised an annoyed brow. “Are all humans this idiotically disrespectful?”

“Only the best of us,” Dorman responded, then lunged. His daggers left afterimages as he reached Rufus near-instantly and fell into an attacking pattern. He moved jaggedly to the left and right, striking out in a flurry of blows that resembled a storm.

Dorman’s attacks were difficult to predict because they aimed at random places, not the opponent’s vitals. He wanted to inflict death by a thousand cuts.

Facing him, Rufus growled. A transparent, spherical blue shield materialized around him. When the daggers plunged into it, they slowed tremendously, making them easy to deflect.

It was the first time he used that skill.

Dorman’s brows rose. Rufus smacked out a punch, and the blue phantom of a lion’s paw flew unimpeded through the shield. The teenager jumped and twisted around it, using his daggers to block another strike head-on, but his momentum had been frozen. He rode the impact of blocking Rufus’s attack to make some distance.

The leonine smiled.

“Inferiority is weakness. As long as your Dao is inferior to mine, you cannot touch me.”

Dorman frowned deeply in thought. The blue shield still surrounded Rufus, stretching about a foot away from him. He hadn’t used this skill in his fight against Li Xiang. Was it because he wanted to meet the old man’s martial arts head-on, or had he just developed it in the last day?

Or, maybe, was Li Xiang’s Dao so strong that it wouldn’t be stopped by the shield?

Dorman had absolute confidence in his skills, but his cultivation was split in two directions. He was cultivating speed and lightning. Each of these Dao Roots was far from advancing to a Dao Seed, but he was sacrificing time now for stability later on.

Could Rufus’s Skill block those with inferior Daos? That was ridiculous.

“Why are you surprised?” the leonine asked. “Since I am obviously superior to you, is it not natural that my Dao of Supremacy will be at its strongest?”

Dorman’s frown deepened further. If Rufus could just stand there leisurely and talk, it meant that his shield did not have a short time limit. Dorman would have to find a way through it.

But that was fine. If the shield made him slower, he would just have to become even faster.

“I didn’t expect to use this so early in our fight,” Dorman said. His short hair stood on end. Sparks flew between them, like each hair was a lightning rod, and electricity raced from his toes to his face. His every movement seemed full of static, and his daggers were wreathed in lightning.

The crowd made noises of surprise.

“A third Dao Skill,” Rufus acknowledged, nodding in approval. “You do have potential. If you can just curb that arrogance of yours, you will have a future, too.”

“Fuck you.”

Dorman charged again, but this time, he was way faster than before. He left lightning in his wake, reaching Rufus in an instant. His right dagger plunged into the shield. The moment it did, Dorman felt his strength waning. His muscles went limp, his control of the Dao fluctuated. He experienced the effects of awe and terror without actually feeling those emotions. His Dao Roots tried to resist, but a heavy blanket of inferiority fell on them and muffled them.

It was like his Dao and body were subdued facing a greater power. He simply couldn’t muster his strength. Inside the shield, his dagger slowed down tremendously. Rufus slapped it away with a paw.

“It is impressive that you beat Fesh Wui while holding back,” he commented. “Or did you just develop this Dao Skill yesterday?”

Dorman wasn’t in the mood for idle chit-chatting. He withdrew from the shield’s range and circled around him. He ran circles around the leonine so fast that he left afterimages. A ring of lightning appeared to surround Rufus, shooting streaks of electricity in random directions.

“Your naivete warms my heart,” Rufus said, laughing. He didn’t try to defend. When the lightning bolts entered the shield’s radius, they lost all power. They couldn’t even burn Rufus’s clothes.

Dorman kept running circles, but he was slowly descending into panic. The Lightning Form Dao Skill drew his mana like a hungry eel. He couldn’t keep it up for long…but it was useless! That shield countered everything he did.

How was he supposed to fight against that!?

Dorman set his jaw and refused to give up. He had trained hard for this. He had developed new skills. He was confident that, besides Rufus, only Jack Rust could match him in combat.

How could he be so helpless!? Ridiculed like a child? He refused!

He was supposed to be the main character!

As he ran, Dorman pointed a dagger in Rufus’s direction from afar. Most of the lightning running through his body was absorbed into the dagger, then exploded forth in a rumbling spike that struck Rufus. The moment it entered the shield, its power decreased by more than half. It blackened a few rings in Rufus’s chainmail armor, but all it could elicit of the leonine was a frown.

“It is a pity,” he said relaxedly. “If my power didn’t counter yours, you could have forced me to go all-out…but there is no medicine for regret, nor can the weak seek justice. If you want to complain about anything, complain about your own luck.”

Dorman gritted his teeth so hard they were about to break. Rufus hadn’t even attacked yet, and he had been rendered hopeless.

Not like this! he screamed inwardly.

He had come on-stage prepared to lose, but he expected a fierce struggle. He wanted to demonstrate his powers to the whole world, and if he wasn’t enough, then yes, he could lose.

But what kind of joke was this? He couldn’t even use his movement technique or show off his speed. After everything he had achieved, he was treated like a pathetic weakling. And why? Just because his powers didn’t match well against Rufus? He didn’t deserve this!

Dorman screamed at the top of his lungs. The lightning running around his body intensified, new sparks and bolts conjured out of nothing. His body spasmed as he cranked up the electricity to its limit.

The daggers glowed like molten iron. The world slowed to a crawl. Rufus’s mocking smile still hung on his face. Dorman’s arms felt like coiled springs, which then erupted with force. He unleashed everything he had in an instant.

Fast Mode! Lightning Fangs!

His daggers flew forward at a speed his muscles could not support, pulled by the power of the Dao. The electricity running over his body accelerated everything further. The rest of the world had slowed down by at least half, including Rufus.

This was the fastest, strongest attack Dorman had unleashed. All three of his Dao Skills were used in tandem. A boom came from the tips of his daggers as they broke the sound barrier.

They plunged into the blue shield. Dorman watched in panic as they slowed down. The wisps of electricity died out, his muscles cramped, and the daggers wobbled. They remained fast, but it was nowhere near the speed they should have.

Even in slow motion, Rufus’s paws shot up. He grabbed both daggers by the blade, freezing them mid-slash. Thick, regal blood flowed from his palms, but the mocking, triumphant smile on his face widened.

This was all Dorman’s ultimate attack could amount to: two scratches on Rufus’s palms.

“You drew blood,” the leonine said, his voice equal measures impressed and disappointed. “I did not expect that. Very well. Carry this achievement as your badge of honor, little human. You, an ant, drew the blood of a king.”

He let go of the blades, and Dorman collapsed to his knees. He was panting heavily, and it took everything he had not to puke on the spot. He was completely out of power.

Rufus watched him from above. “I would advise you to reconsider. The Animal Kingdom can offer you much more than a tiny planet in the fringes of the constellation…but if you want to waste away here, that is your choice to make.”

The crowd had gone silent. Even Jack and the rest couldn’t form words. They had expected Rufus to win, but this… This was a travesty! From start to end, he hadn’t even attacked once, and Dorman was already on his knees. Where was the heroic struggle, the valiant battle? Where was the fierce clash that befitted a semi-final?

Dorman, who revered power above all, had been humiliated!

“Dorman Whistles is unable to stand and at the mercy of his opponent,” the head judge declared from the sky. “Therefore, Rufus Emberheart is the winner. Congratulations!”

Only scattered claps came from the audience, as most were still too shocked to react.

Jack, too, had his eyes glued on Rufus in utter shock. The leonine was his enemy, but suddenly, he seemed as tall as a mountain. Jack hated his guts, but he had to admit that Rufus did embody the supremacy he preached.

In the first phase of the tournament, he had annihilated every opponent in one strike. In the second phase, one battle had ended by his opponent resigning immediately. He had challenged Li Xiang in the latter’s area of expertise and won, and he had even returned the shame that the old man tried to inflict on him tenfold in an overbearing manner. He had treated Dorman, one of the strongest people around, like a toy.

With the exception of the auction and the chanting of “Fuck you, Rufus Emberheart,” the leonine had absolutely dominated the tournament.

And Jack was mortal enemies with that guy.

He gulped. In the next moment, the spirit of the indomitable fist inside him flared. Dorman had only lost so decisively because he was countered. Jack wouldn’t be; he focused on one Dao, and it couldn’t be that much weaker than Rufus’s. He was strong, too; he had a chance.

For now, he just had to make it to the finals, then spend the remaining day creating a new Dao Skill.

His gaze crossed the arena to land on Alexander Petrovic, who regarded him coldly.

Jack didn’t even wait for the head judge to speak. The moment Dorman leaped off the sands and landed beside them, Jack jumped away, falling to the sands and standing straight. Rufus was already gone, too.

Alexander arrived a moment later. He seemed ready to trash talk, but Jack wasn’t in the mood. If he wanted to face Rufus as an equal, then he had to treat Alexander as a small fry.

“Bring out your strongest form, Alexander Petrovic,” he declared, cracking his knuckles. His fighting spirit surged out and blanketed the stage. “This will be over quickly.”