The Boundless Expanse(An Epic System Apocalypse LitRPG)

Every member of the Grakoth Empire froze at the same moment as a System message appeared before them. Since Sam's departure, Manarox and Elvaron had guided their people to greater heights. To many, this seemed like their reward.

All limitations on the Pre-System strength of native races have been lifted!

Beings affected:

The Grakoth Ancestors

The Stellar Tyrants

The Lycanthi Godhead

…

7 more

In the skies above Edras, the capital city of the Grakoth Empire, three leviathan beings phased into existence. They were shaped like regular Grakoth, but were hundreds of times larger, with a few differences that accentuated their godhood. All across the planet, the natives bowed their heads in supplication as the auras of superior beings washed over them.

General Manarox sat cultivating in seclusion as the Ancestors arrived, but as he felt their implacable auras sweep over the planet, the last bit of inspiration that he needed to break through to E Rank struck him like a bomb. With the light of a star radiating off of him, Manarox rose from the ground, ascending to Enlightenment.

Elvaron had already departed his people, reaching E Rank two weeks ago. Unlike Manarox, the Emperor had decided to use cultivation supplements, straining his foundation to ascend before his time. It was a problem that would resolve itself as he got used to his new power, but Manarox couldn't help but think that his brother's initial journey through the Tower would be a difficult one.

The room suddenly filled with a power far beyond his own as the Ancestors appeared in front of him, in the smaller forms that they used as their avatars to interact with their people.

"Manarox Edemas," they said in unison, their combined voice something beyond mortality. Something celestial. "We are pleased with your work to sustain our people."

Arrayed from left to right were the three gods of the entire Grakoth race, beings that had, even before the arrival of the System, the power to erase civilizations with their might.

Anyra, Queen of the Heavens, was chief amongst them. She stood in the middle, her scales as bright as suns as they glittered with a blinding internal light. Her eyes were nebulas, fairly glistening with potency.

On her right was Karamodo, Lord of the Forge. His scales flickered with the light of a world's molten core, his eyes burning as bright as coals. One of his arms ended not in a hand, but in a hammer of bone.

On Anyra's left was Eglas the Conquerer, the representative of the Grakoth race's drive to expand. His scales were the muted grey of iron, exuding the very concept of stability and invulnerability. He had four arms, the top two like that of any other Grakoth, but the bottom two ended in silvery grey swords made from his scales.

As Manarox descended to the ground, he quickly knelt into a bow. "My gods. My heart trembles to see you with my people once more."

Anyra inclined her head towards Manarox. "Rise, son of the Empire. You have earned that much."

"We never thought that our children would have the opportunity to join us in our power," Eglas said, his voice thrumming with pride. "The stars themselves will bow before our might as we conquer this universe!"

"We only have one question," Karamodo continued, his voice like the sound of a hammer falling up an anvil. "Who is Sam Atlas? Who are the Arbiters of Justice?"

On Earth

Three more D Rankers came to Earth over the next two weeks. Strangely, none of them were from the Athari Sect, which had been the dominant invasion force ever since E Rankers began to enter the universe.

Jacob Atlas had recovered from his wounds within a few days, but he only ended up defeating one of the D Rankers. Sam had easily killed the other two, bringing him up a single level. The amount of essence required to level up was commensurate with the level of power that a given Rank delivered. In short, leveling in E Rank was five times harder than crossing the last level of F Rank, and leveling in D Rank was ten times more difficult than passing through the last level of E Rank.

It was infuriating, especially given that Sam didn't have the same class that a normal D Ranker would. However, what he did have was even better. A boost to his strength that nobody else at his level and Rank did. Except maybe his father. Jacob was reluctant to share what had happened in the Tower, the strength that he had gained allowing him to defeat D Rankers. Sam hadn't pushed after the first few times.

"Do you want to take this one?" Sam asked, watching as a meteor descended from the sky, shaped like a man.

"Yeah," Jacob said. "He looks weaker than the others."

The D Ranker was clad in a titanic suit of crystalline armor which glowed as it plummeted through the atmosphere. A gleaming spear of blue light formed in front of the invader's hand, before solidifying into a length of diamond run through with veins of raw power.

There was a sharp crack as the spear shot off from the warrior's fist, speeding up as it flew towards the ground. Jacob sighed, and leaped off the ground, wings of scarlet light appearing behind him. With a single flap he was off, the air breaking as he flashed through it.

His right fist lit up and a fist the size of a house formed around his own. As the crystal lance neared, Jacob clenched it, red light expanding across the heavens like a dying sun.

With a shout that echoed across the land, Jacob slammed his fist into the incoming projectile. Two hemispheres of light formed around the man and the spear, one a bright red and the other as blue as the sky.

Cracks spread across the crystal spear as Jacob blasted through, his momentum almost unchanged by the obstacle.

"You're going to have to do better than that!" he roared, the sound like thunder. The energy fist dissipated into thin air, replaced by a spear of his own.

With a sound like the world ending, reality split in front of Jacob as he loosed his attack. The bolt of power hissed as it approached the D Ranker faster than he could move out of the way.

The crystal golem that the D Ranker had encased himself in raised one palm to block. Loops of azure light funneled into the hand, thickening the crystal until a shield had formed in place of the cultivator's fist.

Jacob laughed and teleported behind his foe, his fist already crashing into the center of the armor. The crystal held up for a moment, pressing against his fist. Then the Order elemental energy faltered, unable to circumvent the Overlord's raw strength.

The armor broke under the strike, so quickly that Sam barely caught it. The cultivator beneath was revealed, an uncharacteristically weedy Teruvarian. He was smaller than Lao, let alone Jacob Atlas. Even with the power of a D Ranker, Sam couldn't help but look at the invader like he was inferior.

Jacob closed the distance in an instant, red footprints forming on the air as he raced towards his enemy. The Teruvarian spat out a curse and snapped his fingers. A dozen shards of pure elemental light formed around him, settling into an arch above his head. Each glistened with power. One by one they snapped through the air, heading for Jacob.

The Overlord's hands moved in a blur, snatching the energy constructs out of the air like they were made of mundane crystal. Each time he clenched his fists, one broke apart into motes of light that dissipated harmlessly.

"You shouldn't have come here," Jacob said, as if declaring a fundamental truth of nature. "As long as Sam and I defend the Earth, no invaders will ever claim it as their own."

"Damn those Athari bastards!" the Teruvarian roared. "They did this. They tricked us into thinking that you were paper tigers. How? How can an E Ranker stand against me?"

"Like this," Jacob spat. His fist descended with the inevitability of the apocalypse. The Teruvarian raised his hands to block, gauntlets of shimmering blue forming over them. It was too little, too late.

"You-" punch. "Will-" kick. "Never-" punch. "Defeat us!" A flurry of blows landed on the invader as Jacob spoke, blasting apart his flesh to reveal his Dao Core beneath. They were dim, befitting the freshly ascended D Ranker. He must have reached the Rank just before heading to Earth, thinking that his ascension would guarantee victory. It would not.

Jacob's eyes were like bonfires as he launched a palm strike straight into the center of his foe's body. An arrowhead of raging energy formed around it as he struck, piercing through the Teruvarian's body like it was made of paper.

The detonation of a Dao Sapling torn from the fabric of reality was blinding. It seemed like half the sky ripped itself apart in anger at its demise. The clouds burned away a hundred miles distant, while the heavens turned white. The last thing Sam saw of the invader was a silent scream as the D Ranker turned to dust.

The next moment, Jacob stood next to him once more, having teleported away from the blast. He clapped his hands together as if beating off the dust of the invader's demise. "That was too easy."

Sam thought back to his own fights, so effortless that they hardly seemed worth remembering. Zeredran had been far stronger than anyone the System would allow to enter this universe. Most of them had paths so incomplete that they provided less of a boost than Sam's E Rank ascension had. Just his Authority alone had been able to do half the job, locking down space before a single technique erased the D Rankers from existence.

Sam nodded in silent thanks to the final foe of the Tower of Transcendence. Without having a seemingly impossible challenge to push him, Sam never would have discovered his true potential.

Suddenly he felt a reverberation in the Dao, coming from the faction city a few hundred miles away. It was invisible in the real world, but to Sam's Worldsense skill, amplified by his Dao Cores, he could see a pillar of blue light shooting up towards the stars. He smiled.

"Finally. It's about time."

"What is?" Jacob asked, his metaphysical senses not as sharp as Sam's.

Sam's smile widened. "Lao just reached E Rank."

Jacob smiled as well. "I'm glad to hear that. The more E Rankers we have, the better. What does that make it now, four? I'm not too sure on how strong Rax is compared to a non-monster."

Sam shrugged. "He's strong enough. Monsters don't have as many skills as regular people, but they do have bonuses to their physical might. He'll probably be one of the first to reach D Rank, if I'm being honest."

As Sam spoke he summoned a portal leading back to the city. Jacob stepped through, with Sam quickly following. I really need to come up with something better than 'the faction city'.

The two stepped out of the portal in front of a nondescript cultivation room somewhere beneath the city hall. The door swung open a moment later, Lao striding out. He looked far different from the man he had been upon the System's arrival.

While his appearance had steadily been growing younger as he ascended the Ranks, the difference was night and day now that he had reached E Rank. He looked about forty, and not a day older. His beard and hair had filled out completely, though his hair was still white. A fire burned in his eyes that hadn't been there before, like he had found a fresh meaning to his life. Lao had spent most of his life pursuing the Dao, even if he did not know at the time. Now, his labor was paying off.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

"How is E Rank treating you?" Sam asked cordially. "I can already see some of the differences."

Lao smiled uncontrollably. "I feel like a child again. Like there are no limits to what I can do."

"You're going to tear through the Tower," Jacob said. "I can guarantee it."

Lao peered at Jacob, his eyes glowing a faint blue. "Now that I am E Rank, I can sense the changes in you at a far deeper level. How did you turn from an egotistical maniac into… well, just an egotist?"

Jacob frowned. "What do you mean? I'm still the same person, for the most part." His eyes glazed over slightly as his mind was forcibly prevented from making the connections by Isabella Dantorian's ministrations.

Sam looked away, gritting his teeth. He hated seeing his father like this, now that he knew that Jacob could change. It was a reminder that no matter how far they went, until either Sam or his father had crossed the threshold of A Rank, there was nothing they could do.

Sensing Sam's discomfort, Lao let the topic go. "How long should I wait before leaving for the Tower?"

Sam turned back. "I think you should show off a bit for the faction. It's been a while since an E Ranker rose from among our numbers. But I'd recommend leaving as soon as possible. The faster you're through the Tower, the better."

"Alright," Lao concurred, nodding. "Any advice that you can give me about the Tower?"

Sam tilted his head. "I'm not entirely sure. It depends on how strong you are now. What level of Ascension did you reach?"

Lao raised an eyebrow. "Why, did you have low expectations for me?" Upon seeing Sam raise an eyebrow of his own, Lao sighed. "Fine. I reached the Perfect stage. It was the hardest thing I have ever done, but it was worth it."

Sam laughed happily. "Well, some of my advice might be useful after all."

They gave Lao a quick rundown, with Sam and his father pooling their experiences to create the largest possible advantage for Lao. With Lao's talent for the Dao, and his Perfect Ascension, Sam had no doubt that he would reach Challenge Mode. As for beyond that, it was up to Lao. There was at least a chance of reaching higher, though.

Five minutes later, all three floated over the city, watching people spill out of buildings to see what was going on. Lao's aura stretched out to its fullest extent, bathing a good portion of the city with the proof that he had reached E Rank.

"The faction grows stronger!" Lao declared. "Four E Rankers now live among us! If an old man like me could reach Enlightenment, all of you certainly can. Do the faction proud and follow in our footsteps!"

Never the man for long winded speeches, Lao used his Tower token a second later, letting the winds of fate carry him away to his destiny. Sam and Jacob floated there for a bit longer before Sam remembered something.

"Also, I'm tired of this city not having a name. From now on, it will be known as Sanctum!"

***

Another asteroid passed by Jacob, almost avoiding his punch. He caught it at the very last moment, extending his reach with his Authority. The gargantuan mass of rock turned to dust as a spectral fist passed through its center.

Sam threw the next asteroid with his Authority, trying to modulate his control to make it past his father's defence. The sun twinkled dimly in the distance, barely visible through the asteroid field as it orbited the star. Clouds of dust surrounded Jacob, left behind by the training.

For the last few days, Sam and his father had worked together to train their Authorities, at a safe distance from the Earth. With Sam's Wormhole Creation skill, getting to the asteroid belt was as simple as stepping through a door.

"I think that's enough for now," Sam said, feeling his Dao Cores bottom out, just as Jacob shattered the asteroid. Tossing around skyscraper sized chunks of rock was difficult, even for someone like him.

"I managed to eke out another dozen feet of range," Jacob complained. "I want to keep going."

Jacob's Authority was different to most. During his time in the Tower, he had been forced to adapt to survive what it threw at him. Although he refused to talk about how far he had reached, Sam was confident that he had surpassed the hundredth floor. The only reason for the difference in their strength was because Sam had entered Nightmare Mode, something that had never existed before.

While Jacob was not physically a D Ranker, his strength was close enough that he could force his Authority to develop faster than it should have. It could reach almost half a mile, incredibly impressive for someone who was still at the middle of E Rank.

"I need to recover my power," Sam explained. "I physically can't do anything else until then. It takes a lot more energy to throw those asteroids than just breaking them apart."

"Then just throw them the old fashioned way," Jacob suggested. "Your strength is more than high enough."

Sam raised an eyebrow. Teleporting next to the nearest asteroid, he punched it, letting his fist sink into the rock rather than retracting it. He managed to push the asteroid for a few hundred feet before it came apart in a spray of dust.

Trying again, Sam fashioned a scoop of elemental energy around his hand, about a hundred feet wide. He formed a small platform of the Dao to push off of, about as much as he could manage with his low reserves. This time the force was dissipated enough to toss the asteroid rather than breaking it.

Jacob flashed him a thumbs up and got back to work.

Sam let his mind wander as he worked, not having to actively use his Authority anymore. He contemplated his path forward, what came next on his journey towards the peak. Reaching D Rank prematurely had never been in the cards. Indeed, Sam hadn't even known that it was possible. He had planned, after the Tower, to work towards a Dao Sapling the normal way and to reach D Rank some time before the Universal Tournament. With him being months ahead of schedule, everything had changed.

The nature of his new Dao was inscrutable to him, far more complicated than he had expected. There was a reason that none of the Dao Incarnations had succeeded before him. When knowledge on the level of a Dao came from an outside source, it quickly outstripped one's ability to comprehend it.

What exactly is Karmic Retribution? Sam thought. I know what the words mean, but what does it actually mean?

His Dao Sapling was far deeper in its meaning than anything that had come before. Like a tree stretching its roots down through the dark infinity of the earth beneath, his Dao reached towards greater concepts than he could put into words. Each Dao Stage was exponentially stronger than the ones that had come before. It would only become more so as time went on.

In contrast, his Dao Seed of Travel was far easier to understand. He had created the concept himself, fully understanding it on a basic level.

"What are you doing?" Jacob called out, watching as an asteroid passed by him at such a distance that he couldn't reach it with his Domain. "Are you zoning out? I thought your mind was beyond that now."

Sam shook his head. "Sorry!" he shouted back. "I was thinking about my Daos. I probably have enough energy to keep using my own Authority now." He tilted his head, a new idea coming to him. "We've been doing the same thing for a few days now. I think we should up the game. There's a lot more we can do with our Authority than just tossing rocks around."

"Like what?"

Sam turned to look at a planetoid drifting their way. Ceres was the largest asteroid in the entire belt, so large that gravitational forces had rounded it, like a planet or moon. "I made clones of the captains with my Authority. Why don't we fight? Not with our actual strength, but through proxies."

"You made a person with your Authority?" Jacob asked, incredulous. "How?" He waved his hand and a half formed blob of flesh appeared next to him, shifting around slightly. "That's all I can do in that regard."

"I didn't make one from scratch," Sam said, shuddering at the sight. "I used my Authority to scan people within it, and copied them. I don't think I could actually make a person at my current level of mastery. Maybe not for many Ranks."

"Making a person," Jacob said, rolling the words around in his mouth as if analyzing them. "Isn't the province of God? We might be strong enough to blast apart mountains like they are made of paper, but we aren't gods."

Sam nodded. "We aren't. But eventually, if we reach A Rank, we will be. I refuse to believe that they cannot do things like that. They're supposed to be able to destroy universes. Universes. It stands to reason that they can create them as well."

Jacob nodded uneasily. While Sam had never been that religious, though his mind was changing slightly as he learned more about the Boundless Expanse, his father was. As more of Jacob's personality returned, some of that religiosity was coming back as well. Regardless of the truth, it was useful to hold some sort of reverence for higher powers in a world where they definitively existed. Only now did Sam understand the comfort that people found in their beliefs. When faced with the chaos that was the wider plane of existence, who could remain an unbeliever? God, Zeus, Allah, all of the deities worshipped throughout earth's history, all those terms were just names ascribed to perfect beings by imperfect mortals. The deeper meaning was universal.

"I don't know how to feel about that," Jacob eventually replied. "I know my entire path is about making myself into a god, but what happens if I actually achieve that. Do you trust yourself with that sort of power?"

"Not entirely, but I trust everyone else less. When the entire Boundless Expanse finds out what we are, what would you rather be? A mortal whose ideals remain pristine, or a god?"

As Sam spoke, he realized just how much Jacob had changed since returning from the Tower. The more he came into his own as a cultivator, the more powerful he became, the more he thought for himself. Soon the Overlord would be nothing more than a mask that he could don at will. A portion would always cover his face until he broke free of Isabella Dantorian's control, but that portion was growing smaller and smaller.

"A god, I suppose," Jacob said. He twisted his face into a smile, a slight haze of red light surrounding his body. "I will be one eventually. So will you. We might as well get ready."

Sam and Jacob floated down to the surface of Ceres, standing a mile apart. Their Authorities swept out, the gravity increasing until it matched that of Earth.

"How do you want to do this?" Jacob asked, cracking his knuckles. The sound was just an expression of personal vanity, as in truth, he had no knuckles to crack.

Sam raised his hand and clones of himself started to form. First one then ten and soon hundreds were spilling out of cracks in reality, standing in eerie silence. As they possessed little power of their own, Sam had to feed a constant stream of energy to prevent the harsh conditions from killing them. They bore it stoically, as no minds existed behind their staring eyes, no soul to drive their bodies forward. As extensions of Sam's will, they were quite disturbing to look at, now that he surveyed the silent force of about a thousand copies of himself.

Jacob started creating his own army, clone after clone popping out around him. These clones were fewer in number than Sam's, but individually stronger. While Sam's clones were about as powerful as a G Ranker individually, Jacob's were more like F Rankers.

While Sam's hammer was forever lost, obliterated by Zeredran during the final battle of the Tower, his memory of it was not. While he couldn't create a replica of the weapon with its old power, he could create Rank appropriate ones for his soldiers. It was a good way to scout out the amount of power he could actually use through his Authority.

As far as he could tell from his experiences, his Authority allowed him to do anything he could normally do without having to physically do it. It could not do anything that was normally impossible for him. Of course, there were some ways to reach beyond his limits, mainly when the power difference between him and what he wanted to create was especially high. He could create a clone of himself with the power of an F Ranker, but not one with his actual power.

His clones gripped their hammers tightly while Jacob's clones clenched their fists, red light blazing around them. With silent yells, both armies charged, flooding across the battlefield.

As they went, both commanders imbued their forces with the nature of their Daos, trying to find deeper insight into their concepts through the greatest catalyst for growth there was: war.

Sam's troops were no different at first, but as the front lines clashed, and Jacob's clones scored first blood, a faint cloak of ethereal light formed around the survivors on Sam's side. Their speed and strength increased slightly. Another one died, and the effect grew stronger.

Jacob's clones grew stronger, in contrast, every time they scored a hit on Sam's, and even more so when they killed one of the clones. Their energy cloaks were red instead of blue and white.

Sam started looking beyond physical reality, the power of his Worldsense skill allowing him to see through the veils of the Dao and into the core of the battle. Each of the clones were different to regular humans, entirely constructed from a singular Dao rather than hundreds like was the norm. Without minds, half of the possible Daos were not present, ephemeral concepts pertaining to emotions completely absent. The only power present was Sam's own Dao.

Each time one of the clones fought with their foes, an explosion of Dao energy went off just below the surface of reality. The expressions of conceptual might were tied to the relative strengths of the two commanders, with Sam's being inevitably overpowered by his father's. Despite this, every time one of Sam's clones died, those warring Dao energy bursts grew more and more even.

Jacob's eyes narrowed as he watched the battlefield shift in Sam's favor. With a snap of his fingers, his clones began to fuse, pooling their power into one single vessel.

The singular grew and grew until it was almost twenty feet high. Its eyes were completely red, shining like tiny flames. It raised one titanic fist and imbued it with energy, bringing it down like a sledgehammer on the nearest of Sam's clones.

A shockwave tore through fifty of Sam's soldiers in a single blow, erasing them from existence. The remaining ones lit up suddenly and dramatically, throwing themselves at the titan with massively increased strength and speed.

They piled onto Jacob's clone, battering it with their hammers. The damage was initially low, but as more and more died to sweeping punches and kicks, the remainder ascended through the Ranks until the last ten survivors were as strong as newly ascended E Rankers.

The battle continued for a long while, Sam and Jacob watching impassively as their clones warred without victory. They had purposefully put the same amount of power into their fighters, despite Sam having a greater Authority overall. This was meant to be a training exercise, not a one sided beatdown.

Unfortunately, it seemed that their paths were equal enough to render victory nearly impossible. While Sam's path was grander overall, and had a greater end result, Jacob's was potent throughout his entire journey. He had no need for other Daos, unlike Sam. Relative to his level, he would always be stronger than almost everyone else.

In the end, the battle was cut off prematurely as a voice spoke into Sam and Jacob's minds. It was Jeffrey, using the newly acquired Communications Array. The technology had slowly worked its way into the faction's structure, allowing for instantaneous communication through the System up to a billion miles away. It could be supercharged to reach far further, but that sapped the entirety of the energy powering the array, cutting off communication for every other user for a while.

"There's something happening near the Moon," Jeffrey said in a worried tone. "Three monsters just appeared. They're huge, easily a mile tall."

"What do they look like?" Sam sent back.

"Like crocodiles, if they were shaped like humans. We can't make out too much from here."

Sam sucked in a breath, realizing who the newcomers were.

"What is it?" Jacob asked. "You know what those things are?"

Sam nodded. "When I trained under Gordanus, I fought alongside the Grakoth for a few weeks. They said their gods existed in this universe, even before the System came. The Ancestors, Manarox called them. I think they've finally been released by the System."

"Why was the System holding them captive?"

Sam looked Jacob dead in the eyes. "Because they were too strong to be allowed to use the System until the rest of the universe caught up. They would have conquered everything if they had been allowed to roam free. Earth would be a province of the Grakoth Empire."