Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Chapter 449: Spoon Squad!

The bars of Animal Planet were not in good shape. First of all, the planet was overpopulated by everyone retreating here in panic, therefore the bars were full as well. Second, an aura of fear hung over everyone’s head, pressing them down with seemingly unceasing persistence.

“Can you believe it?” a man whispered to his company. “We, the overlords of the constellation, have been reduced to this!” He banged a fist on the table, not hard enough to break it, but enough to make a sound.

“I just pray for our survival,” another replied with a heartless laugh.

“Don’t say that. The Animal Planet is protected by the Ancestors! Even Ja—”

“Shhh!” Everyone shushed him at the same time. These days, anyone who spoke the name of Jack Rust in any bar was immediately escorted outside.

“Sorry,” the cultivator continued. “Even that man wouldn’t dare to come here. We are safe.”

“And what do you know?” another argued. “He hunted down immortals on Hell. He defeated our strongest inner disciple, then escaped. He killed an Elder on his first year of cultivating. It’s been seven since then—who’s to say he can’t contend with our Ancestors?”

“You’re spouting bullshit.”

“Oh yeah? You saw the projection. He killed an Elder of the Hand of God—those people are at the B-Grade, just like our Ancestors! Who knows how many levels he got from that? We are just waiting here to die!”

“Open your eyes, idiot. How much more can we be demoralized?”

Nobody got angry at his words. Instead, their eyes were filled with sadness. The Animal Kingdom, the overlords of a constellation, had been reduced to a gathering of scared people at bars gossipping about a man whose name they didn’t even dare to mention—a man who might soon come to destroy their planet. They might die at any point without knowing what was happening.

And there was nothing they could do about it.

The Elders of the Animal Kingdom were also powerless. They were currently gathered in a grand hall, usually filled with servants and wine. Today, however, both of those were missing. The Elders sat on hard chairs with equally hard expressions.

“Give us the daily report,” the Grand Elder commanded in a tired voice.

Another Elder stood up. “Reporting to the Grand Elder. Today, we lost two planets at the outer side of the constellation—Earth-207 and Djinn Heaven. Our armies stationed there had no survivors. There were also skirmishes in the general space territories of those planets, where neither side won, as well as a major battle near the Orion nebula. We suffered light casualties.”

The Elder was ready to provide more details as asked, but nobody replied. It was understandable. This situation was depressing.

Two planets lost in a single day. It wasn’t much compared to the entire Animal Kingdom constellation, which contained tens of thousands of them, but it painted a clear picture of the rebel army advancing while they retreated.

They were in dire straits.

“What about Jack Rust?” the Grand Elder finally asked.

“He has not made a move yet.”

The Grand Elder nodded, waving for the Elder to sit back down. It was hard to imagine that this situation, the collapse of an interstellar empire, had come about by a single man.

Jack Rust had repeatedly challenged and humiliated them, shattering their image of dominance and encouraging others to do the same. He’d killed an Elder. They thought that was bad enough, but now, he’d returned after several years for more.

He’d somehow destroyed the Animal Abyss and slain Ancestor Mure, the strongest Ancestor of the Kingdom. It didn’t matter if he had help or not. Soon afterward, he’d slain several Enforcers and an Elder, then stormed a Hand of God outpost and publicly proclaimed his return and intention to completely destroy the Animal Kingdom. The Hand of God had completely recalled its forces from their constellation in response. Moreover, they had long forced the Kingdom to also recall everyone, giving the rebel armies ground to expand and solidify. The entire constellation had turned into Jack Rust’s playground.

As much as the Grand Elder had wanted to oppose that decision, he couldn’t. It was the best they could do. Any Elder outside their capital was just a bag of levels waiting to be picked up by Jack Rust. Even the rebel armies were a small threat compared to him.

Everything converged to that man.

The Grand Elder had no hopes of reconciliation. The grudge between them and Jack Rust was unbridgeable—this battle would be to the death. If he survived long enough, he would eventually come here and challenge their entire planet.

If they managed to kill him before that, then they could send out Elders to route the revolution. It would be hard for a while, but after a few millennia, they would probably be able to recover. All the losses they were suffering now, all the skin that was torn off their Kingdom’s body, those could all be recouped as long as they killed Jack Rust—the greatest catastrophe their Kingdom had ever experienced.

The Grand Elder felt tired, like he’d grown several millennia older in the span of a few years.

“Honored Grand Elder,” said the Elder giving the daily report, “would you not like me to expand on any piece of information?”

“What’s the point? If there is no news about Jack Rust, anything else is meaningless,” the Grand Elder replied with a heavy sigh. Everyone waited for him to continue, to lead this meeting, but he didn’t speak immediately. He took some time to gather his resolve. His gaze grew heavier. Finally, he spoke.

“I have already convened with the Ancestors,” he said. “The reason I called for this council was not to discuss the present circumstances, but to announce something to you all. We…are awakening the Supreme Ancestors.”

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The Elders gasped. Their eyes widened—though, in their hearts, they’d expected this.

“Are you sure, Grand Elder?” one of the Elders couldn’t help but ask.

The Grand Elder gave him a hard stare. “Do I look unsure?”

Supreme Ancestors were the Animal Kingdom’s final reserve. In truth, this was a common practice in high-Grade factions. Once a particularly powerful Ancestor approached the end of their life, they would be put into cryogenic stasis to greatly extend their lifespan. If the faction ever experienced a great catastrophe, the Supreme Ancestors would be awoken and asked to help—but, of course, they could only do this once or twice before their bodies naturally expired.

Due to the high cost of maintaining a cultivator’s body, the Animal Kingdom only possessed two Supreme Ancestors; one from the Emberheart and one from the Lonihor family. The only time in history they’d been awoken was the final stage of the war between the Animal Kingdom and the Exploding Sun. This would be the second.

The Grand Elder was not excited about this. Having to awaken the Supreme Ancestors meant that he had failed in his duties. It was a tremendous expense which would likely end with one of them, or maybe both, dying for real. Just the resources required to put them back to sleep afterward could bankrupt a C-Grade faction. Thinking about it made his heart bleed.

However, what else could he do? Even the Supreme Ancestors weren’t omnipotent. He feared that, if he waited until Jack Rust arrived to attack them, it would be too late for them to make a difference. He had to awaken them now and ask them to help the Hand of God find Jack Rust. He had to send his own dying ancestors on a wild goose hunt.

What a shameful act. But, for the Animal Kingdom, he would endure. It was his duty.

***

Far away from the Animal Kingdom constellation and its struggles, a much grander war was playing out.

The Hand of God and Black Hole Church were clashing. Their conflict spanned several galaxies both inside and outside System space. Only C-Grades and above qualified to participate in this struggle—B-Grades were elites, and A-Grades were generals. The Second Crusade was a war of unprecedented scale, even surpassing the First Crusade, and this was only the beginning. The Old Gods hadn’t made their move yet. Nor had the Heaven Immortal.

Of course, a war of such scale unfolded over a long period of time. The present state of things was that the Black Hole Church had been chased out of many System galaxies, and they had voluntarily retreated from some others. After all, any battle inside System space put them at a disadvantage.

However, the Church hadn’t completely retreated. Small, elite teams still roamed System space, striking critical locations for the Hand and retreating swiftly.

Sovereign Heavenly Spoon was the leader of one such team. As the Head Envoy, he was one of the most important people in the Church army, just below the Elders, and he also possessed extreme battle power. Over the last few years, he’d reached the late B-Grade. He was said to be invincible within the B-Grade—some even speculated that his strength touched the A-Grade.

In this stage of the war, Sovereign Heavenly Spoon led the most effective and elite team of Envoys. They roamed behind the enemy lines like ghosts, striking swiftly and powerfully. They were the nightmare of every Envoy in the Hand of God.

On this day, the Spoon Squad struck again. A lone starship appeared next to an isolated planet full of magma. The spatial barriers set up around it didn’t even ripple—whoever guided this ship possessed an understanding into spacetime which far dwarfed Jack’s.

Five people flashed outside the starship. At the head was Sovereign Heavenly Spoon, wearing his aloof smile and carrying a small silver spoon. To his right stood a form clad entirely in a dark hood which seemed to ripple as if made of spacetime, and to his left was a man with yellow teeth and ragged robes—the Sage.

Two more people followed. One was a bronze-skinned man with long hair like rivers of stars, and the other a woman wielding a long spear. This was Min Ling. She had suppressed her cultivation for many years to consolidate her foundation as much as possible, but as the war began, she’d finally broken into the B-Grade. She was now an Envoy of the Church, and a powerful one, too.

All of them were. Below the A-Grade, this was the strongest squad the Church had to offer.

“Let’s begin,” Sovereign Heavenly Spoon said. “Sage?”

“All safe. We have five minutes.”

“Bottomless?”

The form wearing the rippling hood raised its hands. The fabric of spacetime around the planet rippled. Suddenly, they saw the entire planet warp, twisting and turning, ready to shatter. Just before it broke apart, a silver shield appeared over it, forcefully twisting the planet back into shape. As the magma clouds drifted into space by the intensity of the shaking, the atmosphere cleared up, and a city-sized facility was revealed. The shield seemed to originate from there.

Sovereign Heavenly Spoon smiled. “Found you.”

Swarms of cultivators flew into space to face them. There were hundreds of C-Grades led by eleven B-Grades—this was an important location for the Hand, so its guards were nothing to scoff at.

But they were still not a match for the Spoon Squad.

Without a word, without wasting any time, Min Ling and the star-haired man flew into the crowd of guards. They were like wolves among sheep. Blood washed the void, and the ripples of their battle slammed into the planet below, forming craters dozens of miles deep. Only the facility remained intact, protected by a more condensed version of the previous silver shield.

“Hahahaha!” A man laughed—the head of the guards, a peak B-Grade. “Run away while you can, Heavenly Spoon! That shield was personally created by Elder Purity—it is impregnable! Even you can’t break it before the Elders arrive!”

He seemed so sure of himself. The Sovereign only smiled. “Oh no, whatever will I do now?”

He raised his spoon. A massive green shadow of a spoon appeared in space, dwarfing the entire planet. It was positioned right above the facility. It mirrored the movements of the Sovereign’s little spoon as it reached down, gently cupping the entire continent the facility was based on. Its radius was much greater than the shield’s.

“No!” the head guard screamed. He attacked, trying to interrupt the sovereign, but the rippling form of Bottomless easily stopped him.

Meanwhile, Sovereign Heavenly Spoon raised his spoon, and the giant green phantom effortlessly scooped up the continent. “Thanks for the meal,” he said, slipping the little spoon into his mouth. The large green spoon mirrored the movement—and the continent completely disappeared.

He burped, then winked. “Why break it when I can digest it?”

“No!” the head guard shouted again, but it was too late. The form with the rippling cloak—Bottomless—killed him quickly, and by that time, Min Ling and the star-haired man were done slaughtering the others. The Spoon Squad was intact. They all flew back into the starship, then Bottomless teleported them away.

“How long did we take?” the sovereign asked.

“Two minutes,” the Sage replied. “Not bad at all.”

“Yeah. Maybe I should have taken another bite.”

“What’s the next destination, Head Envoy?” Bottomless asked, their cloak fluttering in an unfelt wind.

The sovereign replied, “I received a message from Elder Boatman some time ago. We’re headed to the Milky Way galaxy, Animal Kingdom constellation.”

“The Milky Way galaxy?” the star-haired man asked with disgust in his voice. “That empty, weak place? Why would we go there?”

“To pick up an old friend.”

“They’re sending us to escort someone!?”

“Yeah, well, those are the orders. If you disagree, bring it up with the Elders.”

The star-haired man fell silent, though his disapproval remained evident on his face. As for Min Ling and the Sage, both seemed excited.

“What’s our travel time, Bottomless?” the sovereign asked.

“Two weeks,” they replied. “The Milky Way is at the edge of System space. I just hope this isn’t a waste of time.”

“Hmm?” The sovereign raised a brow. “Even you disagree, Bottomless? I guess it’s understandable. You haven’t met that man. Hey, Sage—do you also think this is a waste of time?”

The Sage gave everyone a toothy grin. “You have no idea.”

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