Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Chapter 414: Storming the Gates

The bromobile shuttled through space, teleporting over and over as they neared their destination.

Jack had discarded his robes and reverted to wearing only pants, as he used to do in the Milky Way galaxy. Right now, he was lounging on the deck, his perfect muscles revealed by his lack of shirt. “Tell me more about this faction,” he said.

“They’re called Falling Star,” Salin explained. “They mostly use physical power or illusions to fight, and they’re also pieces of shit.”

“Aren’t they all?”

His gaze cut into the distance. Soon, the flickering stars gave way to a massive celestial body hanging in the void.

The Falling Star faction headquarters were built on a large meteor shooting through space. There was no tail behind it, making it seem still, while several smaller meteors circled it like satellites. Despite the lack of nearby stars, the meteor exuded faint luminescence through means unknown to Jack.

“Pretty,” Brock said. “Shame it’s occupied by enemies.”

“Won’t be for long.” Jack’s eyes were hard. “Salin, take us to land.”

“In the open?”

“In the open.”

It was impossible to arrive sneakily, anyway. The bromobile slowed down, approaching the meteor and flying in parallel to it. People walked all over it like ants—this place was at least the size of Earth’s moon.

One area had many starships resting on the ground, so Salin led them there. Conveniently, the teleporter was nearby—the Falling Star faction had arranged all newcomers close to each other. Before they even landed, a procession of a dozen E-Grade servants led by a hard-faced, peak D-Grade man walked over.

The starship’s door slid open and Jack walked out first.

“Welcome to Falling Star,” the hard-faced man said. “I believe your arrival was unannounced?”

“Correct,” Jack replied.

“That is not how we usually do things. Your names, please.”

Jack opened his mouth, then paused as Salin whispered something in his ear. Finally, he smiled. “My first name is Your,” he said.

“Your. Okay. And your last name?”

“Mother.”

The official frowned, then his aura began to leak out. “On the Falling Star, troublemakers are—”

Jack sent him flying before he could even finish his words. The people in the surrounding starships were dumbfounded. The E-Grade servants froze—they were so fragile that just the aftermath of any attack could easily kill them. Thankfully, Jack had been careful.

Waving a hand, he shrank the bromobile and stashed it into his space ring. “To the teleporter!” he said, taking to the air and followed by Brock, Gan Salin, and Nauja.

“Can you really do this?” Nauja asked, worriedly looking around.

Meanwhile, Salin was cackling madly. “Oh, I missed you so much!”

Alarms went off in every direction. Dozens of people took to the air, mostly D-Grades led by a few C-Grades. “Halt!” a middle C-Grade enforcer flew in their way. “Who are you? What do you want from my faction?”

“None of your business,” Brock replied.

“Hmph! Then die!”

The man pushed out a palm, galvanizing the surrounding Dao for miles. Starlight appeared in the void. The motes gathered together, forming a large palm that pressed down on the four of them, trying to restrict them. The surrounding people gasped—many fled at full speed. The power of a middle C-Grade was unfathomable!

Facing the man’s attack, Brock stepped forth. He did not panic, nor did he summon any great phenomena. Instead, he opened his mouth to say three words: “Not cool, bro.”

It was like the decree of god. The moment Brock’s words rang out, the man’s palm collapsed. All starlight was extinguished, and the world itself lost color as these words echoed over and over, dominating existence, rewriting reality. The enforcer shook, then vomited blood and flew backward as if struck by a giant hammer.

The surrounding crowd gaped. A middle C-Grade cultivator, an unrivaled existence in their minds, had been defeated by just a few words. The disparity wasn’t small at all!

Just who were these guys?

After the hidden realm adventure, Brock’s strength had also risen tremendously. Not only had his cultivation reached maturity of the fourth fruit—the middle C-Grade—but his Dao comprehension had advanced by leaps and bounds. Compared to before, he was simply a different beast.

Though he couldn’t reach Jack’s power, defeating an eight-fruit cultivator of the Cathedral wouldn’t be a problem, let alone this four-fruit who wasn’t even an elite.

Seeing the enforcer fly away, the crowd realized that these four weren’t playing around—they were powerful entities here to cause trouble. The brorilla who just attacked didn’t even seem like the leader! Several starships instantly shot into the air and flew away, trying to escape the aftermath of any battle, while the cultivators of Falling Star streamed in from all directions. Dozens of C-Grades covered the air around Jack’s group, followed by hundreds of D-Grades.

“Stop right there!” a peak C-Grade shouted. “Why are you acting against us!?”

No matter how this person wracked her brain, she couldn’t remember making enemies with a group like this. She had never seen them before!

Facing this encirclement, Jack frowned. They couldn’t waste too much time here. He stepped forward, a deep and foreboding aura spreading out of his body and into the surrounding space. “All of you…” he said, his voice menacing. “Fuck off!”

Brutalizing Aura erupted. The void was colored black. Every D-Grade cried out and fell from the sky, while the C-Grades went deathly pale. A few even died on the spot.

Stolen story; please report.

Level up! You have reached Level 302.

Seeing the notification, Jack’s eyes shone. Just now, he had shown mercy to the D-Grades but not to the C-Grades, striking them with the full might of his aura. However, he had forgotten that since this was System space, he could earn levels by killing people!

The moment he realized this, his expression changed. He’d planned to just break through this encirclement, but now, he might as well stay. These people were enemies. The only reason they’d been polite so far was because they feared him—if they knew who he was and were given the chance, they would absolutely slay him to please their Hand of God masters.

Since that was the case, Jack could kill them first.

“I changed my mind,” he said. “All C-Grades… You aren’t going anywhere!”

His aura erupted. His disguise was ripped apart, revealing his full level, faction, and appearance to anyone watching. The System’s blood-red warning was also clear.

The enemies began to panic. “Contact the Elders!” someone said.

Elders? Plural?

Jack acted swiftly. He focused Brutalizing Aura on the nearby teleporter building, knocking everyone inside it unconscious. He then warped space around Gan Salin and Nauja, teleporting them over.

“Prepare the teleporter!” he told them telepathically. “Let us know when it’s ready!”

“You got it, chief!” Salin replied.

Jack and Brock were left alone in the air, surrounded by a group of terrified C-Grades. They exchanged a glance. Brock summoned the Bro Code, enveloping himself in golden light. Jack cracked his knuckles.

The leader of the enforcers, a peak C-Grade woman wearing blue, gritted her teeth. “Attack together, everyone!” she shouted. “They’re only C-Grades. They can’t stop us!”

Everyone roared and charged. Jack grinned, withdrawing his Brutalizing Aura. He hadn’t had a proper fight in three years—he desperately needed to vent.

His fists swam through space. For a time, three different Daos manifested around Jack. His position blurred, using spacetime to appear simultaneously around four different enemies and smash their chests open. These attacks really did occur at the same moment—through bending time, he could make it appear as if he was in four locations at once.

But spacetime could do much more than that. Three enemies were dragged into a singularity in space, their bodies twisted until they shattered like twigs. Another froze, aging rapidly. Wrinkles formed on his face, his hair turned white, and eventually he released his final breath, turning into dust alongside his clothes.

An eighth person suddenly stopped moving. A finger had tapped his chest, using the Dao of Death to directly sever his life. The C-Grade fell from the sky, dead without any injury.

On the other side, Brock was also going berserk. A massive golden brorilla had appeared in the space around him, swinging a golden staff. Brock himself sat in a cross-legged position inside the brorilla, chanting from his book—though he still didn’t know how to read. His Staff of Stone had been broken by Baron Longform in the hidden realm, but he didn’t need it for such weaklings. After all, these people were much weaker than the elites of the Cathedral. The golden brorilla eliminated enemies by the swathe, felling them as one would knife-wielding toddlers.

In the blink of an eye, over a dozen C-Grades had died!

“Stop!” a loud cry echoed in the distance. A white-robed old man was rapidly flying over, his expression dripping blood. C-Grades were almost the highest echelon of a B-Grade faction, and raising each of them took a tremendous amount of resources. Losing a dozen in the blink of an eye was an extremely deep loss.

Seeing this man approach, Jack revealed an excited smirk. “So an Elder finally shows up… Great!”

“How long?” he asked Nauja.

“Almost ready!”

“Good.”

“Handle these guys, Brock,” Jack said. “I’ll get the Elder.”

“You got it, big bro.”

Jack escaped the encirclement, flying directly into the sky. As for Brock, he faced the remaining C-Grades by himself. He instantly fell into a disadvantageous position—they possessed multiple peak C-Grades, and while they couldn’t be compared to the elites of the Cathedral, they were still powerful. The battle devolved from an one-sided massacre into a brutal melee, but that was precisely Brock’s intention. He’d accumulated too many insights—he needed long battles to fully digest them!

As for Jack, he was shooting directly towards the B-Grade Elder. Seeing a mere C-Grade charge at him, the Elder grew enraged. “Insolence!” he shouted. The might of an inner world erupted. Infinite energy filled the sky, dying the entire void white as a falling star cut descended right onto Jack’s head.

Seeing that, he grinned. “A falling star is just a meteor!” he exclaimed, laughing. “Let’s see who can do it better!”

He pulled back his hand, diving straight into the torrent of white energy. He cut through it like an arrow. The power he could muster was far less than his opponent’s, but his body was incomparably sturdy, and the Dao he used was much deeper. After studying the inheritance of an Archon, how could a B-Grade who’d barely reached that rank compare with Jack?

The Elder’s only advantage was the large amount of energy he could wield. An inner world was huge—compared to the small amount of ambient Dao Jack could use, it was like comparing a firefly to a raging wildfire.

Jack still shot forth. Mid-flight, his body grew taller and sprouted two extra arms. His power peaked. A purple vortex appeared around his fist, drawing in the surrounding light and sound, space and time. Even some of the white energy released by the Elder was sucked into Jack’s punch, enhancing its power.

Feeling the weight in his fist, Jack couldn’t stop grinning. “Meteor Punch!” he shouted, releasing it all in a straight line. A second falling star appeared in the sky, shooting upward. Jack’s was far smaller.

“You want to meet my attack!?” the Elder shouted, his voice filled with angry disbelief. “You are courting death!”

The two meteors clashed. The sky was washed away. Spacetime ripped, and the shockwave was so intense that it razed the ground beneath their feet, carving a mile-deep crater into the Falling Star’s headquarters. The starship dock was entirely destroyed, and rocks of all sizes flew into the distance, covering the entire celestial object in a cloud of dust.

And this was just a little bit of the aftermath. Most of the attacks’ energies were used against each other.

In the frightening collision just then, Jack had been the one to lose, though barely. He flew several miles backward before he could steady himself. He was uninjured and grinning.

In truth, this Elder was the weakest of B-Grades. Jack could beat him. The only reason he’d lost just now was that he used Meteor Punch instead of Supernova, wanting to pit his own meteor against the old man’s to see if he could gain any insights.

However, after the attack, the Elder did not attack again. He was busy being shell-shocked. He had won the exchange, but only barely—and his opponent was a five-fruit C-Grade! The difference between them couldn’t even be described as a river against the ocean—it should have been absolutely impossible for their strengths to be anywhere near each other.

This was…unbelievable!

The Elder’s mind raged. Such a talent would not appear from nowhere. He couldn’t be unknown. His thoughts churned, going through every possible candidate, but he had to admit that even the most glorious young cultivators of his galaxy were far inferior to Jack.

Suddenly, a person from years ago came into his mind. He contrasted it with the face he saw and the fact that his opponent used the Dao of the Fist. A name appeared.

“You are…” he muttered shakily, raising a finger to point at Jack. “You’re Jack Rust!”

Jack grinned.

“Ready!” a voice rang in his mind before he could reply. “Come quick!”

Jack took another glance at the Elder. He wanted to stay here and fight, but that would be unwise. Already, he could feel multiple powerful auras rushing in from the distance, and he wouldn’t be able to take them all.

He tore through space without a word, appearing beside Brock. Grabbing the brorilla’s shoulder, he teleported again, arriving right next to Gan Salin and Nauja inside the teleporter. Purple light already swam around them, barely held back from activating.

“Go!” he shouted, and Nauja pressed a button. They were violently torn through reality, breaking into the space between space and rushing forth at mind-boggling speed. The Falling Star headquarters disappeared behind them, and they barely caught a glimpse of the B-Grade Elder demolishing the entire teleporter building in an attempt to stop them. But he was too late.

They were headed for the Milky Way.