Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse - C.431: There is Always Hope

Nightmares.

The phantom of a large leonine laughing before red skies. Dark rain and booming thunder. Blinding flashes of lightning. Jack running at full speed yet remaining in the same place, forced to watch as a young boy was shred to pieces by the razor-sharp falling rain.

“Dad!” the boy screamed.

“NOOO!”

His eyes snapped open. With a pained grunt, he grabbed his head. Tears had formed at some point—not of grief, but of frustration. The pain of being helpless.

Jack smashed a fist into a cabinet, tearing it to pieces. “No!” he roared again, his voice cracking the walls.

This was not the first time in Jack’s life that he experienced grief. His father had died a few years before the Integration. They had been very close—and that man, Eric Rust, was the person Jack’s son had been named after.

Yet, the difference between then and now was astounding. It was simply a different world, and not only because of the circumstances. Losing one’s father was painful, but it felt natural; the way things were supposed to be. It was a pain through which a person could grow and mature, a sort of rite of passage to true manhood.

But losing one’s son went against the natural order. It was not supposed to be experienced. While Jack’s heart had supported him last time, this time, it could not. It was unprepared. Bursts of agony shot through his brain. Grief and fury warred with guilt and fear, the slithering feeling of weakness numbing his limbs.

It was all a jumbled mess of feelings Jack had to unravel. He would be fine, eventually—he genuinely believed and hoped so. But, until then...

Why does it have to be so hard? he asked the sky he could no longer see.

His mind sought peace. It fell into the familiar routine of meditation, though it achieved little. The grief was insurmountable, at least for now—it was not something that could be overcome in a short period of time. Jack could only turn to bright thoughts. His son was gone, but he still had a daughter. A wife. A mother, a brother, friends, and a planet to protect.

And Eric had lived a good life, minus its last act.

How are they doing? Jack wondered, thinking back to the rest of his family. Eva Solvig had told him they were safe, and he didn’t dare doubt those words, but the circumstances of Eric’s kidnapping were still unknown to Jack.

Do they know? Do they think I am dead as well? Are they mourning, or are they struggling to become stronger?

Ebele is definitely cultivating. That girl is talented and hardworking—I only hope she doesn’t push herself too much. And Vivi… She’s a fighter as well. If she knows about my situation, I’m sure she’ll take the safety of Earth into her own hands. She’ll keep everyone safe until I can return.

Thinking about his family dispelled the darkness in Jack’s mind somewhat, giving him the power to consider other matters.

My Dao is cracked… he realized with sadness. He looked inside himself—the Dao Tree lay barren, its roots misshapen and unable to absorb the surrounding Dao efficiently. A massive crack ran down its trunk, even splitting apart the door of the Life Drop, and the five fruits on its branches were pale and lifeless, not glowing as they once had been. Even the Life Drop was unresponsive.

Now, his previously glorious days seemed like a dream of old, a memory of ages long past.

As Jack investigated his situation further, he discovered that his combat prowess had dropped from the early B-Grade to the peak C-Grade. It seemed small, but it was actually a tremendous drop—his current power was just a fraction of what it used to be.

Half of his losses were due to his Dao cracking. The rest was the price he paid when he overdrew himself to escape Eva Solvig’s grasp and rush into the black hole—a temporary, if severe weakening.

Jack sighed and shook his head. He had to admit this was the lowest point of his life. He’d suffered a devastating loss, and even recovering his former power would be difficult. On the bright side, if he did manage to recover, the benefits he would reap from this adventure would be incalculable…but that would be as difficult as climbing the heavens. Cracks in one’s Dao tended to be permanent.

And, in any case, no matter how great his potential benefits, he never would have traded his son’s life for them.

Jack took a deep breath, then another. The pain of his grief receded to the back of his mind, a dark numbing he endured while focusing on other things. It felt like he’d lost everything, but he actually hadn’t. Brock and his other friends, Vivi, Ebele, the professor, all of them were still alive. He had to fight for them.

Most importantly, he had a very clear sense of purpose driving him through these hard times.

Revenge.

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Jack’s eyes flashed darkly. Artus Emberheart…and everyone else who participated in the death of my son, I will destroy you. When I’m done, the name Emberheart will no longer exist in this galaxy!

This was a solemn oath he’d made in the name of his dead son, and one he was determined to see through. However, killing innocent people would only make him the same as Artus. It would rob him of his humanity, turn him into a cultivating monster.

Was that the path he wanted to follow? He wasn’t sure. All he knew was that, right now, that dark vengeance was the driving force he needed to ignore his grief and keep pushing forward.

I need to restore my powers, he determined. As soon as possible.

After all, time hadn’t stopped. Who knew what was happening in the outside world while he was trapped here? He had to hurry—but repairing a cracked Dao was easier said than done.

What failed in my Fist? he asked himself. The fist is power. The fist is strength. The fist is to straightforwardly break through all obstacles, laughing in the process. Either I succeed or I die—that is the essence of the fist. Even in death, I would laugh.

But I never thought my son would die. What meaning is there in charging forth when I cannot protect those behind me? How can I face all problems head-on when that endangers my loved ones? Should I bend my back sometimes to keep them safe? But that is not the Fist.

This problem wouldn’t exist if my power was high enough, but it isn’t. How could it be? There are always stronger people in the world. My Fist was fine with that because it was fine with dying, but failing to save someone while living myself is not an acceptable result.

Was my Fist doomed to fail?

Jack could see this now. From the very first moment he’d embraced the Fist, this was bound to happen. It was just a flaw he’d never perceived. In the past, he’d coated over it by advocating that his path was set, and that anyone who followed him had resigned themselves to the consequences of that path. If one of his followers died as a result of Jack’s Fist-guided actions, then that was fine, because by choosing to follow him they had become extensions of that Fist. It wouldn’t be much different than Jack himself dying.

In a few words, he owed nothing to anyone. Even if all of Earth was destroyed, that was their fault for not being strong enough—Jack had already saved them, so he could not be faulted for being unable to save them the next time.

But that stopped being true when it came to people he truly cared about—people who, perhaps, had never had a choice. Eric had never chosen to follow Jack. Moreover, by being Eric’s father, Jack had tacitly accepted the responsibility of protecting him. It was his job—and failing was a tragedy that his Dao of the Fist had never taken into account. That was why it had cracked—it had no way to reconcile its understanding of the world with the reality before Jack’s eyes. His Dao was proven incomplete, which was exactly what the crack signified. fre𝚎w𝐞bn𝗼v𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝗼𝚖

Repairing that crack now would be a difficult road. First of all, Jack had to come up with a worldview which fit both reality and the Fist—resolving the proven flaw in his Dao. The problem, however, was that his Dao had been set in stone when he broke into the D-Grade. At that time, he had declared his Dao to the world and gotten it approved by all the other Daos.

Following a Dao was not just a path to power. It was a commitment. Back then, Jack had committed to a very specific Dao, and that was the foundation upon which he’d built his current strength. He couldn’t just go back and alter it. The only way to repair the Dao crack was to find a solution still inside the narrow confines he’d once committed to. In other words, he had to prove that his Dao was correct, and that it was his own understanding at the time which was insufficient.

That was why repairing a Dao crack was such a tremendously unlikely task.

Thinking this far had left Jack exhausted. He opened his eyes and released a long sigh—though he saw the road ahead of him, that didn’t mean he could walk it. There was a great chance his Dao could never be repaired. If that was the case, he would be forced to live the rest of his life unable to make another breakthrough, and he would also be trapped inside this dark and stuffy Black Hole World.

Ten thousands years. That was the lifespan of a C-Grade, and that was the time he would remain alive for. Meanwhile, his friends and family would be unprotected in the outside world, forced to fend for themselves against the very powerful enemies that Jack had made them.

“I need some air,” he muttered, slowly rising to his feet. He walked to the door and opened it, greeted by the daedalus terrain of the Black Hole World. He was also greeted by Mia.

“Hey!” she said, rising from a chair she’d brought over and pocketing the small book she’d been reading.

Jack raised a brow. “What are you doing outside my door?”

“I’ve been asked to take care of you, silly. I couldn’t just leave you alone.”

“But why didn’t you wait inside? I have a living room.”

“You seemed like you didn’t want company.”

Jack was forced to nod. His mind had been a mess when he’d just left her and teleported inside. She’d judged correctly.

But how low he’d fallen, that he couldn’t even observe basic manners.

“How long was I inside?” he asked.

“Hmm? How long? We don’t measure time here. You were in, and now you’re out.”

“How can you not measure time?”

“It’s dangerous. Some of our ancestors were doing that but ended up killing themselves. In this world which never changes, keeping time only brings despair. It’s better to just live without a care, becoming one with the world around you, focusing on the present.”

Jack blinked. It was hard to associate such profound words with the innocent girl before him, but then again, this was her reality. A world that never changed, where every generation was as insignificant as the previous, leaving no imprint on the world as if they never existed.

“Then, how do you know it’s been a billion years?” he asked.

“Oh, there’s always an Elder entrusted with the important task of keeping time and recording history. In our generation, that’s Elder Vermont—the one you’ve already met.”

“I see…”

“Well, what are we up to now?” Mia asked. “You’re leaving the house. Do you want to go for a walk? Food? Tea? Maybe explore a bit, or see the Vortex, or the endless nothingness outside our world?”

Jack hadn’t planned on doing any of that. He just wanted some fresh air. However, since his mood was a bit better, he thought he might as well. “Let’s check out that nothingness,” he said. “It can’t be that bad.”