Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Jack gritted his teeth. The tumors he had to constantly purge were one thing, but this situation was even harder to resolve. A simple purging wouldn’t work. Every evolution was spurred on by his own body, responding to the expertly designed fake stimuli provided by Enas—he was, after all, the original creator of human bodies. Moreover, the foreign life energy which had invaded his body was sneaky—it assimilated with his, polluting it. He had no way to purge it before it exhausted itself, but if this continued, he’d die long before that. His own regeneration now worked against him. His body was self-destructing through misguided evolution.

“You’re trying to use evolution against me?” Jack asked, calm despite the deadly threat. “Did you forget who I am, Enas?”

“I know exactly who you are. An arrogant pugilist, a fake god soon to be dead!”

“I’m something much better,” Jack declared. “A biologist!”

Jack’s life energy turned into tiny streams, drilling into every part of his body, coming face-to-face with the evolutionary transformations. “Two can play this game, Enas!” He created fake stimuli of his own. His body’s evolutions were held back, slowly reversed as Jack rapidly analyzed the situation and provided the perfect stimuli to counter Enas’s.

The God frowned. “You dare compete in understanding life against the God of Life?”

“So what if I do?”

“You’ll suffer!”

The foreign energy went wild inside Jack. It produced all sorts of evolutions, various odd and intricate interactions to challenge Jack’s understanding. Yet, even the most esoteric of those were countered by Jack. After years of meditations, he understood his body perfectly, and analyzed all changes to figure out how to reverse them. As the foreign energy inside him slowly exhausted itself, Jack’s body returned to normal, stronger than ever. Since Enas’s energy had wanted to assimilate into his, he obliged, using it to recover some of his spent energy.

Enas’s eyes looked about to pop out. “How did you do that?” he shouted. “I created the human body. No matter what Daos you have, I understand it better than you. How can you match me?”

“You’re forgetting something, Enas,” Jack said with a bright smile. “I’m a biologist with almost a PhD, and I’ve studied a ton of books which I can now recall with photographic memory. I also possess the Dao of Life to round out any errors. I may not be able to compete with you in general understanding of the human body, but when it comes to my body, nobody can surpass me!”

Enas hesitated for a moment before his anger fanned hotter. “You’re ridiculous. Go die,” he said, falling back into the melee. Jack met him fearlessly. Over time, the differences in their fighting styles became clear.

Jack was a fist fighter. That was where his strongest attacks lay. Enas, on the other hand, used all of his body and every insidious attack he could manage. Fist met knee. Jack pushed away an elbow, then met Enas’s headbutt with his own. They both staggered back and reengaged.

Jack was growing used to his powers by now. He felt much more efficient than earlier in the battle, but of course, this improvement wouldn’t last forever. It had slowed down. Enas, on the other hand, just kept rising. He’d started off completely unused to the extreme powers he possessed, and even now, his combat efficiency was lower than Jack’s. He compensated with raw power. As time passed, he became better and better, continuing even after Jack approached a plateau.

“A fake god cannot stand against me!” Enas shouted, diving head-first into their erratic melee. “I created mortals billions of years ago! I gave you life and Dao! I have always existed above you! Your powers are only borrowed, and you will lose!”

Jack gritted his teeth. The more they fought, the worse his situation became. He wasn’t really an S-Grade, just fighting with the powers of one, so he couldn’t quite match Enas. The more time that passed, the stronger the God would become, while Jack had already reached his peak.

I need to do something, he thought frantically. But what? He is the twelve gods. He possesses the origin of every single Dao in the universe. I cannot overpower him in sheer force, and I cannot defeat him in the Dao.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

How ignoble would that be. After everything that happened, all the sacrifices and hope thrust onto his person, Jack might fail to defeat Enas. Everyone would die. His friends, his bros, his family… He shouldered the hopes of an entire universe and was falling short. What’s worse, he couldn’t even see a way out. His entire cultivation was based around his body, which Enas could match and soon overpower. As for his energy attacks, those relied on his Dao, and Enas had reached the peak in all of them. As for soul attacks, they were never really his thing.

Defeat was inevitable.

Is there nothing I can do!? Jack screamed inwardly.

Faces passed through his mind in flashes. Brock, Vivi, Ebele, his mother… His son, Eric… Even further back, he saw all the people who’d been important to him in his journey. Harambe, Edgar, Shol, Gan Salin, Dordok, Nauja, Huali, Heavenly Spoon, Min Ling, Boatman, Starhair, the Arch Priestess, Great Silver, Fiend Prince… These people and many others passed through Jack’s mind. All of them were enjoying their lives or had sacrificed themselves somewhere down the road. He shouldered the responsibility of protecting them or carrying their legacy.

He even thought about the brave cultivators of the Black Hole Church who hadn’t hesitated to detonate their inner worlds for a shot at victory. His shot at victory. All the people who’d stood by his side and declared they’d rather die fighting than running, and who later placed all their hopes on him.

And now, he’d fail? Just like that? He’d let everyone he’d ever met, everyone he’d shared life and death with, get squashed by an unfeeling, selfish god?

At the final deciding moment, would he let everybody down?

Am I so fucking useless!?

Jack shouted in outrage. This is so unfair! I did everything right. I took on every opportunity, every risk, every bit of pain. My road was perfect. How can I be so close to victory yet fail at the final moment? �

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Jack roared in fury, punching out. Enas blocked easily, now content to defend more than he attacked. He knew that time was on his side.

“Tick tock, little mortal,” he mocked. “Your time is coming.”

The shockwave of Jack’s strike spread into their mini universe, shattering part of its foundation, which their combined auras forced to reconstruct. Jack looked around him.

Constructing a universe… he thought, his eyes growing wide. Wait! I didn’t utilize every opportunity! There is still one… The universe-creating woman!!

There was one Dao Vision Jack still hadn’t figured out. The highest-level one he’d seen. A woman sat in space, orchestrating a high-speed collision of particles which ended up creating a new universe. Too many interactions happened in a short time, and Jack hadn’t possessed the mental energy to decipher them at the time.

Now, he did.

His mind looked back into the vision, rewatching it as he fought. The particles collided, shattering to unleash an entirely new world as if they’d always contained it. Time spread into a new axis, pulsing at its own frequency, and all other Daos spun around it to fall in line. They merged into one complete whole. One explosion, one world. Infinite interactions happening simultaneously, so many that even Jack’s currently enhanced mind was strained almost to the point of breaking.

And then, his perception shifted, and everything made sense. It clicked. The infinite interactions outlined the underlying structure of the Dao itself. He glanced at it, the image turning crystal-clear by his current S-Grade level, and suddenly all the mysteries of the universe were unlocked. He saw the Dao for the first time, the true Dao, how everything worked together brilliantly. It all fell together. The destruction and creation of worlds were his to command because he understood them.

Jack lost his breath, overtaken by sheer wonder.

“Birth of time…” he whispered, eyes growing distant. “All becomes one… I finally understand.”

Mid-battle wasn’t the best place to ponder on the Dao. As Jack’s concentration lapsed, he’d received several good hits by Enas. A few bones had snapped and even his organs were wounded. Blood trailed out of him like stardust, painting his death in ethereal colors.

Enas smashed a backhand into Jack’s mouth, sending him reeling, while even the tumors constantly growing inside his body threatened to escape control.

“What’s wrong?” the God laughed. “Overcome by despair? Realized you’re losing no matter what?”

Jack looked up, his eyes suddenly focused. “The exact opposite,” he said. “I’m about to punch you into a new world.”

“Still with the bravado! Very well, mortal. Come and show me the—”

Enas’s words were cut short. His eyes lingered on Jack’s fist, then grew wide. There was a Dao there he didn’t recognize. Something which spoke to him in a deep, primal level, a memory from before he could remember.

“What’s that?” he asked in horror. “I understand all Daos. How can I not recognize it?”

“You don’t understand all Daos,” Jack said. “You understand all Daos in the universe, but the universe didn’t create itself. This is something which has never appeared before. A concept just beyond your reach, which you could have easily grasped if you tried, but you never did.”

Jack stepped forward. His fist glowed with a white light. In the space around it, all particles had disappeared, leaving only two, rushing around at speeds vastly eclipsing that of light. The woman in the vision had only been an extreme Archon—Jack was currently far stronger than that, so where she’d been forced to wait for the particles to collide naturally, he could control their trajectories. The imminent explosion was under his control. So were its consequences.

“This is impossible!” Enas raved. “You’re my creation. You cannot rise higher than me!”

“You think we mortals are nothing but toys,” Jack said, letting the particles build up even more speed. “That our progress is a joke, that we can never challenge you, that we will always be inferior. Well, I have news for you, God. We are neither toys nor objects. We are alive, as much as you are, if not more. You may have created us, but you do not control us. We can and will surpass you. We are the future—and the future is now. Your age is past.”

Enas stepped back in fright, eyes glued on Jack’s fist. Jack suddenly teleported before him, fist pulled back. He shot it out. Enas conjured every Dao shield he could, hoping at least one of them would counter this unknown Dao. None did. Jack’s fist pierced through.

The particles collided, exploding to birth a new Dao of Time pulsing at its own frequency, a blooming new world held in Jack’s grasp. He directed all its energy forward, guiding it alongside his fist. All of Enas’s shields shattered like glass.

Jack punched God in the face. “THIS IS OUR ERA!” he shouted. “BIG BANG!”

An entire world smashed into Enas’s nose. His defenses were useless. He was blown away, shattering their mini universe. A bloody tooth flew out, falling into the dimensional sea, containing enough divine energy to spontaneously form its own world before collapsing.

God held his face, only a bleeding eye revealed. He shook in shock. “Impossible,” he muttered. The power he felt from Jack’s newest attack was enough to make him shiver. It rendered every Dao he knew useless. It stood at a higher level than anything he’d ever met, save for the universe itself. But how could he fight a universe? How could he rise beyond his origin?

Enas turned tail and ran. “I am the God of Survival!” he shouted. “You cannot kill me! I will survive, and when I return, I—”

Jack appeared ahead of him. Their previous mini-universe had shattered, but the one created by Jack’s Big Bang was still there, letting him move faster through it than Enas could through the dimensional sea.

Seeing Jack’s sudden appearance, Enas’s eyes went wide with panic. “I will survive!” he screamed.

Jack didn’t reply. His eyes were cold. Two objects orbited his fist: one was a pair of accelerating particles, the seed of a new world. The other was a black hole, which had just consumed the entire universe he’d previously created, reaching new heights of power. The apexes of creation and destruction fused. Jack’s single fist held the secret of the universe, the underlying principles of the Dao. He punched. God screamed, releasing all of his remaining power in one universe-annihilating green burst. “I WILL SURVIVE!” he shouted.

Jack ignored defense to keep attacking with everything he had.

The green energy seared his body in and out, demolishing his organs and all life on them, breaking his body, mangling his limbs. From one moment to the next, he was on the verge of death. But his fist kept going. It easily penetrated everything, enforcing order on the dimensional sea, to strike at Enas’s face. Their eyes met, one holding confidence and the other unwillingness. Time slowed to a crawl.

“This is the end of my road to mastery…” Jack said. “Fist of the Universe.”

There was a sound like a ringing gong. Creation and destruction intermingled. Two universe-level concepts fused, then unleashed the mightiest attack ever witnessed since the creation of the universe.

Jack flew away. New Daos and concepts erupted everywhere, flooding the dimensional sea, warring to instill order amidst its chaos. A world took shape and collapsed. A black hole turned white. The colors of the dimensional sea parted, momentarily revealing a white expanse behind them before merging back together. All of existence moaned in pain and fury as it was forced to endure Jack’s mightiest strike, and Enas’s body was right in the middle of it, shattering in infinite tiny particles which melted into the chaos. Not a single piece of him remained. The twelve Gods were destroyed.

Jack floated through the swirling colors, grievously injured, but alive. His ravaged inner universe had turned unstable, no longer able to support his S-Grade power. He opened a portal to the universe and let himself fly through it, arriving back where the gathered cultivators eagerly awaited news. It felt like home.

‘He finally let the borrowed power slip away, returning to his normal level, and chuckled through bloodied teeth. He’d done it. He’d saved everyone. He’d shouldered their hopes and succeeded. His gathered fear and pressure culminated into one, massive roar.

“FUCK YEAH!”

God was dead. Jack was victorious. The war was over.