Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Chapter 424: The Abyss Stares Back

The two meteors streaked through space. Jack knew he was bound to be caught eventually. All he could do was delay—and spend that time despising his own weakness.

This was not a new experience. He’d been through the same thing many times in the past. It was just that, during the three years he’d spent training and the easy battles that came afterward, he’d forgotten just how imperative his quest for strength was.

Without sufficient power, he could not control his fate. He was just a leaf doomed to blow with the wind. His life or death were not in his hands, and his ability to affect the world was miniscule at best. If he wanted to protect himself and his loved ones, the only option was to have power, more power than anyone else. To have a large fist. Only then could one be safe and free.

Another attack fell on his back. Jack screamed as the skin was boiled away, devolving to nothing, but he used his powerful body to survive the attack. The momentum shot him forward, deeper into the endless darkness.

“You are prolonging the inevitable,” Eva Solvig shouted behind him, her voice cold. “Do you think someone will arrive to save you? That will not happen! Boatman is occupied elsewhere. So is Heavenly Spoon. Every powerful individual you’ve met is closely monitored and in other galaxies. Nobody will come for you, Jack Rust—just give up and save yourself some pain.”

“Fuck you!” Jack shouted back, not slowing down in the slightest. The despair rising in him was suppressed—he had to find the one sliver of hope, any chance to survive. Even if the odds were stacked against him, there had to be something he could try, some desperate gamble with tiny chances of success. There always was.

But nothing came to mind. He was lost in endless space—there was literally nothing around him.

No—there is! he realized. The Animal Abyss!

The Animal Abyss was an odd black hole situated near Hell. Jack had already visited it once, realizing it was surrounded by a complex gravitational field where one’s perception was useless. Perhaps, if he dove in there, he might have a chance.

It was almost suicidal. There was another B-Grade guarding the Animal Abyss, as well as several magic formations around it. Even if he managed to make it inside, the gravitational field around the Animal Abyss was a land where even B-Grades regularly perished. Any spatial anomaly he ran into could suck him into the dark hole—if that happened, he would die instantly. Eva Solvig wouldn’t even need to act.

Even if he wasn’t sucked into a spatial anomaly and somehow managed to hide in there, so what? They’d just surround the Abyss. It wasn’t too large. Eva’s perception could easily cover all the surrounding space and wait for him to exit again.

Maybe I can hide until reinforcements arrive?

Jack disliked this path, but what choice did he have? When every other option meant certain death, the almost-certain death sounded ideal.

As for returning to Hell to try and escape through a teleporter, that was impossible for several reasons, the greatest of which being that Eva was between him and that planet.

He angled his flight, shooting sideways into the void. That allowed Eva to momentarily catch up. “Where do you think you’re going?” she shouted, pushing out a palm. They were still separated by ten miles, but that distance was nothing to a B-Grade. Her palm crashed down, locking space around Jack and forcing him to face it. He turned, shouted, and smashed out a Supernova. The void shattered. His barely-regenerated hand was broken again, and he was sent spinning away while losing massive quantities of blood.

Ignoring the pain, he regained control of his flight and used the momentum to soar deeper into space, directly towards the Animal Abyss. Eva Solvig was close behind him. “Useless!” she shouted, easily deducing his destination but not caring.

Jack cradled his hand as he shot through the void. His eyes were narrowed and his teeth gnashed. The Animal Abyss was close to Hell, but that was only at an astronomical scale. In truth, the two were millions of miles apart. Even for Jack, flying such a distance without a starship would take a long time, let alone with someone chasing him at top speed.

He braced himself for an extended chase. He slowed down a little, adopting a more manageable pace. This would allow Eva to attack him more frequently, but he could use the Life Drop’s energy to regenerate his wounds. He couldn’t use it to keep flying.

Eva frowned. “You cannot escape, Jack Rust,” she felt the need to remind him.

The chase continued. Endless miles passed under their feet, vanishing in the tracts of time. They flew for hours. Clashed hundreds of times. Crossed millions of miles. Yet, in the endless darkness of the universe, it felt like they were staying still—looking around, the surroundings remained exactly the same.

Jack was beyond exhausted. He was already running on fumes, gasping for breath. His Dao Tree felt caught in draught, its roots desperately trying to absorb energy from his barren soul. He didn’t even know how far the Animal Abyss was—it wasn’t like he could see it. In the depths of his soul, he was afraid he’d miss it. Even the outermost formation around it was only a million miles wide, just a grain of sand in all this empty space. Jack’s only compass was his sense of direction—if he miscalculated, he would be lost in endless void.

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A new attack crashed into his back. His defenses had waned over time. He was sent tumbling forward, no longer able to smoothly utilize the momentum as his back was ripped open. White bones showed, and scarlet blood spilled out.

As he tumbled forward, however, he finally noticed something: a faint layer of trembling space up ahead, stretching for as far as his perception could go. Instantly, hope surged into his limbs. This was the magic formation a million miles away from the Animal Abyss, the one he’d slowly unraveled before to avoid being detected.

There was no time to do that now. He shot right through, the ripples of his Dao spreading across the formation and announcing his presence like a trumpet in a sealed room. The B-Grade guarding this place would soon move against him.

Eva followed right behind, similarly disregarding the formation. She drew close again. Even after all this time, she didn’t seem to have lost much energy, and her attacks came stronger and more frequently than before.

Jack was bruised and battered, bones showing in several parts as the pace of his regeneration was already falling off, but he still had some life left in him. The Animal Abyss was only a few thousand miles away. He hoped he could reach it.

“What is going on!?” an aggressive voice rang through the void as a leonine appeared in the distance. He wore a pale yellow robe, and his eyes shone like lightning as his hands were clasped behind his back. Most importantly, he was positioned right between Jack and the Animal Abyss.

And he was a middle B-Grade.

Shit!

“In the name of the Hand of God, capture this man!” Eva shouted, but the Ancestor didn’t need a reminder. He had watched a recording of Jack’s Grand Duel on Hell five years ago and clearly recognized him.

“You’re Jack Rust!” he exclaimed, already assuming a battle stance. “We lost a good man because of you. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but since you came, you can forget about leaving!”

Jack didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He really didn’t have the energy to deal with this old man now. He simply barreled forward, directly towards the Ancestor, investing half his remaining energy into a powerful Supernova.

The Ancestor sneered. “Hmph!”

“Don’t underestimate him!” Eva shouted from behind, exploding in a burst of speed to reach Jack and attack him. The Ancestor shot out a punch that could cover the void—faint traces of electricity swam around it, and its colossal power was visible for all to see.

Tracts of space shattered. Jack was trapped between two massive attacks, each stronger than what he could achieve in his peak state. In that razor-sharp moment, he couldn’t afford to hesitate. Supernova shot forth, colliding directly with the Ancestor’s punch. At the same time, he released a burst of Fist Dao behind him, weakening the impact of Eva’s attack.

His strike collided with the Ancestor’s. For a moment, it was like a new sun was born. Both attacks wrapped around each other in a vast eruption of power, eventually dispersing. “What!?” the Ancestor exclaimed. He hadn’t gone all-out just now, but someone an entire Grade lower had matched his attack?

Even with Eva’s warning, he’d thought that attacking earnestly was already being far too careful and even a little humiliating. Yet, this man could resist it!?

As the two attacks met and were mutually neutralized, so was the majority of Jack’s momentum, as he’d relied on it to make his attack somewhat stronger. His hand had evaporated from the elbow down, sending streams of burning pain into his brain. It was right then, before he could regather himself, that Eva’s attack arrived. It was like a waterfall of white acid, raining onto his back and attempting to purify him to death. He screamed again. He used almost all of his power to resist, but white waves still spread over him, burning him deeply and sending him flying. His entire body was smoking, while white patches of lifelessness had appeared all over his skin, slowly drilling in.

In that moment, he focused completely. He ignored the pain and used some of his energy to block the invasive Dao of Purity. At the same time, he turned and smashed another Supernova into the void behind him, utilizing the momentum of Eva’s attack to shoot forward at tremendous speed. He even warped space around him to go even faster.

He was like a missile. The Ancestor was in his way, already activating his electricity-based battle form, but there was no time. Jack was just too fast. All the Ancestor could do was stick out his claws and rake them down on Jack, carving three deep red lines into his already mangled chest.

Jack felt his life almost whisked away. Those claws had shattered his ribcage and passed a finger away from his heart.

But he’d made it past.

He was shooting into the distance at extreme speed. The Ancestor, however, did not seem perturbed. He laughed. “Fool!” he said. “There’s a formation there! You’re trapped!”

There was a second formation surrounding the Animal Abyss, this one at only ten thousand miles away. It also had an isolating effect. If one wanted to pass, they needed to vibrate their bodies at a specific frequency, and finding that frequency couldn’t be done in a short amount of time. In the Ancestor’s eyes, and even in Eva’s, Jack was trapped.

It was to their surprise, then, that he passed through the barrier like it was nothing.

“What?!” the Ancestor exclaimed. “How!?”

How could they know that Jack had already been to this place? He hadn’t gone past the formation because he couldn’t bypass its detection mechanisms, but he’d already discovered the frequency needed to pass through.

“After him!” Eva shouted. She reached the barrier and used pure force to tear it open, passing through and letting it regenerate behind her. At her level, she could just barely achieve it. As for the Animal Kingdom Ancestor, he naturally knew the frequency as well.

However, the barrier was only ten thousand miles away from the Animal Abyss. Such a distance was short at their level. Jack was already halfway there. At some point, his perception ran into a strange field in front of him, dispersing in all directions and becoming useless. This was the abyss’s treacherous spatial field, filled with endless dangers and surrounding one of the deadliest objects in the universe.

“Stop!” Eva shouted, unleashing another attack. So did the Ancestor. Before their attacks could reach Jack, however, he gritted his teeth and shot right into the abyss!