Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse
Chapter 289: Making a Decision

Back in the underwater cave, Jack and the others popped out of space and onto the bare rock.

“That was something,” Jack said, laughing. “I think we made him angry.”

“You didn’t need to use that second projection stone,” Shol said.

“Why not? We’re already enemies. The more we can hurt them, the better.”

“The point is to survive.”

“The point is to cultivate the fist, and I can’t do that by being a coward.”

Shol laughed. “Fair enough. I just wish we could see his face when he realized it.”

“Oh, we can,” the Sage said, removing another projection stone from his pocket. “I got this one from the second deacon while you were fighting the others. Wanna see?”

“Sure!” everyone replied, gathering around him. Though they were injured, all possessed a degree of regeneration—they would be fine.

The Sage activated the stone, somehow making it re-project the previous battle. “It has a recording function as well,” he explained. In the projection, they saw themselves charge at the enemies—Shol was beating up two deacons while Dordok held off a third and Jack went to town on the weaker opponents.

“Is that how people see me?” Jack asked. “Wow. No wonder my skill is called Brutalizing Aura.”

Shol puffed out his chest. “Speak for yourself, butcher. I look pretty heroic.”

“You look like a bullt to me,” said Dordok.

“Oh yeah? Look at you getting all beat up by a single deacon. I handled two of them. Two!”

“Hmph. I was just toying with him.”

“Sure you were.”

“Check it out!” Jack exclaimed. “The Warden is arriving.”

They saw themselves gather around the Sage, who had just appeared, and teleport away just in time to dodge the Warden’s attack. The landscape below them was decimated. The Warden arrived, investigated the place where they teleported away for a few seconds, cursed Jack, then turned to the projection stone and destroyed it with a single swipe.

The projection was over, but the Sage quickly switched to the projection of the second stone. In it, they saw the Warden break his pretend composure and scream at the sky in outrage. It was a very un-Elder-like scene.

Almost immediately, he spotted the second projection stone, and his eyes went wide in anger and humiliation. He swiped again, and this time, the entire sky seemed to crash down on the stone. The projection cut off.

Dordok laughed. “Serves him right for trying to control me. That guy is a massive dick.”

“What do you think they’ll do now?” Jack asked. “Increase the size of patrols further?”

“I wonder,” the Sage replied thoughtfully. “By now, they must have realized our power. Searching in even larger teams would be safer, but their efficiency would drop by a lot. They would never find us. At the same time, they cannot resume normal activities, as we’ll just keep killing them, and they cannot hole up in cities to protect themselves because the entire galaxy will be watching. They are a proud B-grade faction; they cannot hide from a few D-Grades.”

“So what do you think they will do?”

“I have no idea.” The Sage laughed. “But I have my ways. When they make a decision, we’ll know it.”

“Alright,” Jack replied simply.

At the same time, Shol was shaking his head in disbelief. “Incredible,” he said. “Just a handful of D-Grades bringing an entire B-Grade faction to its heels. I… I didn’t even know this could happen.”

“It’s all thanks to the Sage,” Dordok said, shooting the man an odd look. “Without him finding this hiding place, divining the entire planet’s patrols, and using that sphere to help us escape, we would have been discovered long ago. Not to mention the battle with Maximus Lonihor.”

The Sage grinned innocently. He was the playmaker, so to say. After choosing a target, he would guide them over through a route that avoided all D- and C-Grade parties. Then, when they won, he could use his high-grade spatial artifact to return here, to their hiding place.

Dordok wasn’t the only one to realize that. All three of them looked at the Sage with gratitude and wonder—just how could he achieve all those things? They would rather eat their shoes than believe he was the average D-Grade diviner.

“Can I speak to you, Sage?” Jack asked with a resolute, thoughtful look, like he’d just made a decision. “In private.”

The Sage beamed. “Sure!”

***

“Unbelievable!” Maximus Lonihor smashed his fist down, breaking yet another heavy desk—at this rate, they would run out. His eyes hid deep rage. “They escaped a leonine… We should head over and slaughter the Exploding Sun in retaliation.”

“Relax, nephew. There is no need to go that far,” Hell’s Warden, Artus Emberheart, replied. Unlike the rage he’d exhibited before, he now seemed as calm as a still lake—but Maximus knew that his heart was burning.

“What should we do?” he asked. “With that artifact of theirs, they can just escape whenever they want. How do we pin them down?”

The Warden thought for a moment. “This time, they could only escape because they were lucky enough to be very far away from the nearest C-Grade—which happened to be me. If we had more C-Grades, we could weave a tighter net around the planet. That way, they won’t have time to escape before we arrive.”

“Are you sure, uncle?” Maximus asked. Thanks to his position as Head Disciple and his relation with the Warden, he could speak freely when they were in private. “Aren’t all the C-Grades already occupied?”

“They are, but what can we do? This has dragged on for far too long. With the projection stones we handed out, we ended up making things worse—now the entire galaxy can see the scenes of our humiliation.” His voice was calm but hid undertones of violence. “Even the Grand Elder contacted me about this, demanding that I solve the problem as quickly as possible. There is no choice. We cannot stop searching or we would be admitting defeat to a few lowly D-Grades. I will request seven Enforcers, and the faction will find a way to spare them; this is too urgent.”

“How did we get played this badly, uncle?” Maximus asked with indignation in his heart. “It’s all the Black Hole Church’s fault. Without them and their overpowered artifacts, how could we fail to apprehend a lowly middle D-Grade?”

The Warden shook his head in annoyance. “What happened happened. At the end of the day, Jack Rust and his accomplishes are nothing but ants gnawing at our ankles. They will be squashed, as ants ought to be. We will reign supreme. We always have, and we always will.”

Maximus brought a fist to his heart. “Yes, uncle.”

***

For most people, B-Grade factions were the stuff of legends. The vast majority of cultivators could only interact with the lowliest of their members, and that was on important occasions. The Animal Kingdom, for example, was a vast space empire spanning fifty thousand solar systems, three thousand inhabited planets, and trillions of cultivators. To most people, they might as well be gods.

And the humiliation of gods was burning news.

Before Jack’s three-month hiding, he had already made the headlines across the constellation, but only as an oddity. There were no witnesses to his actions, and the Kingdom was suppressing the news. He was just an odd man causing a bit of trouble on Hell. He would be apprehended very easily.

After he went into hiding, however, things changed. Hell went into war mode. Immortals flocked there and were forced to waste their time flying around the planet. That was already big news. And when Jack Rust resurfaced, soundly beating a team of higher-level immortals by himself and escaping, the recordings of his battle spread like wildfire.

Blocking the news was impossible. There were too many people on Hell with projection stones, and news agencies were paying massive sums to acquire the recordings. The wider public was catching on. All the way from the Belarian Outpost to the Fair Way Continent, people spoke of this astonishing news: a single man creating so much trouble for the Animal Kingdom at the core of their territory. It was unheard of.

And, as time passed, he was not captured. If anything, the Kingdom intensified their efforts, and the news and speculations only grew wilder. Some people claimed that Jack Rust was an agent of the Exploding Sun; others said he was a prodigy from another galaxy, while some even went as far as to declare he was a B-Grade in disguise.

When no Animal Kingdom officials were nearby, people talked about this in hushed tones, discussing just how a D-Grade could have achieved such a commotion. There were even entire betting rings around the date of Jack Rust’s capture or the eventual number of his victims.

D-Grades were strong enough to rule entire planets, and this guy was dropping them like flies!

The other B-Grade factions had caught on, watching with interest. Was this the start of the Animal Kingdom’s downfall? Could they pounce on them while they were weakened and steal away territory? Had the Kingdom made some terrifying enemy, of whom Jack Rust was only an agent?

More Animal Kingdom Elders heard about the news and were enraged. The Warden came under heavy pressure. Even Galicia Lonihor, the Planetary Overseer of Earth-387, was questioned, as Jack Rust originated from her planet so he could be seen as her fault. She could retort nothing to that—even back on Earth, he’d still humiliated the Animal Kingdom. All she did was harden her resolve to slain all the planet’s troublemakers the moment the grace period was over.

The news was still spreading. After all these months, Jack Rust was turning into a household name in the Animal Kingdom constellation. His name was even heard outside of it.

And the proud Animal Kingdom could do nothing; only endure the humiliation and try their hardest to capture the galaxy’s most annoying D-Grade.

***

The professor finished listening to Ar’Tazul’s story and burst out laughing. “Suits them right!” she said before her mood soured. “I’m just worried about his safety. He’s so strong now…but why did he have to poke the hornet’s nest?”

“Once a mother, always a mother,” Edgar said from beside her. There was a new air to him—his hair was slick and drawn back, his missing leg was replaced by a stunning magical copy, and he carried himself with a confidence he’d lacked a few months ago.

“Of course,” Sparman replied. “Very insightful of you, sir Edgar.”

Edgar raised a brow.

“Sparman!” Vivi exclaimed. “That was rude. Apologize.”

“I apologize,” he said immediately without the slightest hint of meaning it.

“I just wonder…” the professor said slowly, furrowing her brows, “why hasn’t he contacted us yet? He’s killing deacons. Surely, he has the funds to buy the telepathy function for the Bare Fist Brotherhood.”

“Maybe he’s holding out to avoid becoming sentimental?” Vivi suggested.

“I guess…” The professor’s face scrunched up further. “But he’s been missing for so many months, risking his life out there, and he hasn’t even called his mother once? Doesn’t he know I stay up all night worrying about him? Plus, there are so many news we have to give him…”

Vivi only rolled her eyes. “No, professor. Save the surprise.”

“Well, not like we have a choice,” replied the professor, but the proud smile didn’t leave her face.

***

Jack and the Sage stood alone in the second underwater cave, the smaller one, where they’d watched the Ancient vision. Jack turned to face his companion.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” he began. “And I believe that, in this hopeless situation, there is only one choice I can make. One choice that benefits us all, but me and my planet the most. Does your promise to protect Earth still stand?”

The Sage smiled. “We will not protect Earth, but we will help you protect it.”

“Good enough.” Jack took a deep breath, then looked the Sage in the eye. “I accept your invitation. I want to join the Black Hole Church.”