Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Chapter 441: Slaying

Mure flew into a rage. How could this happen!? How could someone of such low level match him?

Yet, he was in battle. This was no time to think.

Mure had acted hastily before, but this time he listened to his instinct and went completely all-out. Lightning erupted from inside his body—crimson sparks covered him, filling him with power. His strength and speed skyrocketed. His crimson robes disintegrated, revealing the upper chest of a muscular leonine with white hair. This was an old master at his best—a man who should be able to bulldoze over dozens of youngsters at once.

Jack’s gaze only revealed a hint of excitement. His two extra arms unfolded and clenched into fists. “I’ve never killed a B-Grade before,” he said. “You can be the first.”

“Insolence!”

Mure charged. He was powerful. Every punch and kick could break planets, every movement carved lines into the void.

This was a middle B-Grade cultivator, and also the strongest opponent Jack had ever faced. Yet, he remained calm. His mind was on full alert, even as his heart burned with excitement.

He had no idea how strong he was. He didn’t even know whether he could defeat this man, but even if he couldn’t, he certainly had the capacity to run away. Therefore, he might as well go all-out.

Jack felt stifled. He hadn’t fought for a year. Even before that, his last true battle had been four years ago while inheriting the legacy of Archon Green Dragon. His fighting spirit was boiling inside him, overflowing into his limbs, filling him with power.

Jack roared. The universe roared in return. Purple flames lit in his eyes, and his body was covered in the green aura of life. All five of his fruits flared together, lending him their power—with his Dao Tree repaired, this was the strongest he’d ever been.

Yet, his energy was a drop in the bucket compared to his opponent’s. At the end of the day, Jack was an entire Grade lower. He couldn’t depend on raw power to win—he had to use skill.

Fist met fist. Jack and Mure Emberheart devolved into a melee in the center of emptiness, every strike echoing out for hundreds of miles. They were like two angry gods. Purple and green mixed with crimson sparks, and roars filled the void.

Jack smashed a fist into Mure’s abdomen. A crimson palm slammed into his own temple, knocking him away, while Mure appeared beside him to smash a knee into Jack’s ribs. Jack turned and matched the strike. In an instant, he used the Dao of Time to slow down Mure’s knee, the Dao of Space to let his own fist arrive in time, then used the Daos of Life and Death to strengthen his own strike and weaken his opponent’s respectively. The mastery of Dao he exhibited far surpassed Mure’s.

However, they were separated by a gulf of actual power. Even after all that, Jack could only achieve an equal clash between his fist and the other’s knee.

Fist against knee. The winner should be obvious. Yet, the moment they clashed, Jack’s knuckles remained solid. He was a man of steel, while Mure was made of soft clay. The part of body used did not matter. Jack was just harder.

Mure Emberheart cried out as his knee splintered, bones sticking out of the skin. He spun wildly as he flew away. Jack remained calm.

“How!?” Mure shouted. “How can this happen?”

Jack smiled. He’d suffered tremendously to enhance his body. By now, the degree of his physicality was not something Mure could contend with. They were equally apart in Dao understanding—the only reason Mure could still stand was that the volume of power he possessed was far above Jack’s, like an adult wrestling a master in the body of a child.

Jack raised his middle finger and beckoned his opponent forward. “Come here, kitty,” he said.

Mure threw himself forward. Endless clashes rang in the void. Jack raised his shoulder to block an elbow strike, then threw a fist forward. He teleported around his opponent, pelting him with strikes. Mure used a full-body combat art—he utilized his elbows, knees, palms, feet, fists. Everything he could throw at Jack, he did, yet the battle remained even.

Their fight turned fiercer. Both were fully invested, but there was a key difference. Jack was feeling so incredibly alive—and Mure was so incredibly terrified.

It should not be like this. A middle C-Grade should not able to fight a middle B-Grade. What sort of monster was this? Just what enemy had the Animal Kingdom created?

We made a mistake, he realized. If I don’t kill this man now, then sooner or later, our entire faction will be destroyed!

He roared again, overdrawing his own Dao to strike harder. The battle reached its boiling-hot stage. Strikes flew left and right, yet every time Jack was injured, he regenerated. As for Mure, his wounds were shallow, but they slowly built up. Moreover, it didn’t seem like Jack was about to run out of energy.

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There was no path to victory for Mure.

I must run, he realized. Nt all is lost. The Kingdom may be destroyed,o but I will survive! He can’t find me if I hide in a distant planet for ten thousand years!

He turned tail and tried to escape. Before he could take three steps, however, space warped before him, and Jack appeared. He was infinitely faster. Mure’s face smashed into a fist, several of his teeth escaping as he was sent flying backward. Jack pointed at him.

“We’re not done until I say so,” he declared.

Mure’s heart sank. Suddenly, he had a vision—the empty space around them turned into a sandy arena, thousands of spectators waiting to watch him die. The crowd was roaring—the excitement was palpable, their cheering thunderous. And not one of them was shouting his name.

“JACK RUST! JACK RUST! JACK RUST!”

There was no exit from this arena. No way out besides winning.

Meanwhile, Jack himself watched him coldly, a gladiator titan, an enemy so overwhelming he shouldn’t exist.

“Wanna see something cool?” Jack asked with a fiendish grin.

Mure thought he’d seen it all. How worse could things get? Yet, as he watched Jack’s body spark with lightning, as he watched the enemy use what could only be the Emberheart family’s secret technique, his eyes widened. His heart dropped. The crowd erupted into cheers.

“How!?” Mure exclaimed with bitterness. “How can you possess that technique?”

“You don’t deserve to know,” Jack replied coldly. “I am only showing this to you to test it out. I haven’t mastered it yet, but I thought that dying under your own technique—the Thunder Body—would be a fitting end for you. Pathetic all the way to the end.”

Mure felt so bitter that he laughed. There was nothing else he could do. “That name, how do you know that name?” he asked, still laughing. “It’s the Emberheart Style—always has been, always will be.”

Jack’s eyes glistened like glaciers. “Then die being stubborn.”

Deep exhaustion flooded Mure’s heart. He could not escape. Today, no matter what he did, he would die. His life would end here.

So he might as well fight.

With a roar, he jumped back into the fray. The crowd thundered. Sand was dyed red. Jack expertly deflected his attacks, meeting him blow for blow. Their fists smashed together. Mure’s bones fractured. With Jack having just enhanced himself further, the leonine could barely keep up.

“FIST OF SUPREMACY!” he roared.

“METEOR PUNCH!”

A colossal shockwave engulfed the arena. Crimson and purple warred. The sands flew high. Mure was catapulted backward, his hand entirely broken. Jack teleported behind him, smashing another Meteor Punch into his back, stealing the air from his lungs. Mure heard a terrible crack. His life flashed before his eyes. He gritted his teeth and turned around, swiping in a wild backhand, but how could such a messy strike connect?

Jack ducked under it, then brought his fist in a devastating uppercut. Mure’s chin flew up. Before he could recover, a Meteor Punch exploded on his abdomen, ravaging his internal organs and catapulting him backward yet again.

Even now, he was not allowed to escape. A net of Dao formed behind him, and he was once again floating before Jack, a lamb to the slaughter.

Mure opened his bloodied lips. “No mercy?” he asked, chuckling darkly.

“I have no mercy for your kind,” Jack replied. There was no hint of warmth in his eyes, no compassion. He was a cold-blooded killer—a vigilante prowling in deep space.

Mure chuckled yet again. He knew there was no escaping. “Then kill me already. I have lived long enough—I don’t fear death, let alone you.”

However, Jack only shook his head. “It is not your death that you should fear. You murdered my son. I will kill every member of your family, paint the galaxy red with your blood and that of your children. I will make sure Artus Emberheart regrets the day he was born, and the entire Animal Kingdom will regret it alongside him. So, no, Mure Emberheart. I will not show mercy, and you should fear me, because I will kill every single Emberheart in this galaxy. You are just the first.”

Anger, hatred, and bitterness formed a dark cocktail in Mure’s heart. He regretted. At this moment, he regretted everything. The despair that filled him was total. All he could do was open his mouth and roar into the empty space, roar so hard that his throat was torn and he could no longer speak.

“Choose,” Jack said darkly. “Will you die on your knees? Or standing?”

Mure roared and threw himself forward. He didn’t have much to give. The Surpemacy he’d cultivated for his entire life had cracked, ground down so completely it had turned into mere specks of what it used to be. A crimson fist flew towards the cold gaze of Jack Rust.

Jack raised his own fist. The world’s energy was sucked inside then compacted, again and again, reaching a terrifying density. Just as Mure reached him, that energy erupted.

“Supernova.”

The explosion tore apart this area of space. Purple flames clawed at every direction. The void itself was torn asunder, and entire tracts of the world disappeared under Jack’s might. The shockwave spread out like a bubble, stretching deep into space.

Mure’s body, having lost the protection of his Dao, had disintegrated.

Jack slowly pulled back his fist. His eyes remained cold. Though he’d started on his path of revenge, it brought him no relief—maybe it would, later.

“One down, many to go,” he whispered. He raised a hand and summoned a slick new starship—the Black Hole People had gifted it to him when he mentioned he needed one. It was dark, just like his purpose.

Then, Jack walked into his starship and teleported away. He was gone.

The ripples of both the Animal Abyss disappearing and the battle afterward had washed over the nearby planet of Hell, sending the entire Kingdom on high alert. They had no idea what was going on, but they knew it was important.

It was only fifteen minutes later that another Ancestor of the Animal Kingdom arrived. This was the same one who’d fought Jack before—the early B-Grade Ancestor of the Lonihor family.

When he arrived, he was stunned.

“Hmm?” he whispered. “What the…”

He checked his spatial coordinates repeatedly. By the fifth time he confirmed his location, his jaw dropped, and he began shivering like a leaf.

“The Animal Abyss… Where the hell is it!?” he shouted. “Mure! Mure Emberheart! Show yourself, Mure!”

Yet, it was useless. Both the Animal Abyss and Mure Emberheart, two pillars of the Animal Kingdom, had mysteriously vanished. Today would be the darkest day of their recent history—and they had no idea it was only the beginning.