A World in the Palm of my Hands: A LitRPG Apocalypse

“Alex!” Noah yelled as they arrived to the sight of the massive orc crushing the chief’s skull.

He immediately conjured an explosive spear, which Mark promptly grabbed and threw at the orc’s head. The spear flew through the air and hit dead center on the target’s head. It penetrated two centimeters into the orc’s aura shield and instantly exploded, propelling the tip a tiny bit further into the shield and causing cracks to appear. This caused the orc war chief to let go of Alex’s skull and turn its head toward the newcomers.

Mark stomped his foot on the ground, shooting forward at unimaginable speeds with his new sword stretched out in front of him.

Sword met aura a moment later and cracks spread at the point of impact, making the orc’s eyes go wide.

RAAHHH

It roared and reflexively tried to grab the sword stuck in its shield, but Mark immediately pulled his hand back and jumped backwards, distancing himself from the orc.

He whistled and looked at Noah beside him. “That was a full power stab with all the bells and whistles and all it did was crack its shield. Got any ideas?”

Noah had a thoughtful look on his face. “How do we get past that thing’s shields? The normal 1, 2 combo of Mark throwing the spear is o…”

CLANG

Noah stopped his musings as he looked up and saw the orc had charged at them, only stopped by Mark’s new sword.

“Think of a way to defeat this thing while I keep it busy!” Mark shouted as he parried the orc’s axes.

Noah just nodded absentmindedly, not at all worried about his cousin’s safety. With his new sword at play, and stats deserving of an EPIC class, he doubted that the orc could harm Mark in any significant way. Not to mention his ridiculous healing capabilities. “Though the buffs timing out is a worry… hmmm…”

He shook his head and went back to thinking. They’d encountered orcs a bunch of times now and the warriors with their aura shields had always been a nuisance. “That aura can pretty much negate all magic… to a certain point. So I somehow need to overwhelm it? Hmmm.”

Noah thought and thought, but no matter what he came up with in his head, it just wasn’t enough. “It’s a tier two, for christ’s sake. How the fuck do we do this???”

He was getting frustrated, and he knew it. So he shook his head and calmed himself down. “Come on! Think! More people will die the longer this goes on!” He slapped himself in a bid to force himself to think harder. Then it hit him, literally, as a fireball hit him in the face. Thankfully, he had his mana shield activated at all times, so it didn’t harm him.

Looking over at the direction where the spell came from, he saw five orc shamans all running in their direction.

“Shit! That doesn’t bode well for the people at the south gate.” He cursed as he conjured multiple explosive bullets, two for each shaman, and shot them at the approaching enemies.

Surprisingly, when the bullets exploded, he saw that none of the shamans were hurt. They were all glowing a blue hue indicative of their own mana shields.

“Well, shit.” He activated his [Analyze] skill on them and found that they were all level ninety-nine, along with a notification of an emergency quest.

“Well… shit.”

Noah immediately activated [Parallel Thinking] and started pumping mana into his spell [Stone Tomb], aiming it at the orc war chief still fighting Mark. This all happened at the same time as the other half of his mind launched several lava bullets at the shamans.

He kept a close watch on his mana as his skill was swiftly burning through his reserves. “Need to end this fast.” He thought, as a twenty-foot-thick stone tomb surrounded the war chief. But, because its aura shield negated magic, it was slowly digging itself out of the tomb.

Noah immediately pumped hundreds of mana points into his [Lava Ball] spell and conjured it inside of the tomb. “Surely that aura shield can’t protect against heat… right?” He smirked at the thought and brought his attention back to the shamans, all too satisfied to let the war chief slowly cook.

Without any prompt, though, Mark had already killed all the shamans.

“Hey! Those were mine!” Noah said in mock anger.

Mark smiled at that and said. “You get the war chief, I get the small fries. It’s only fair with how the spiders went.”

“Fair enough, I guess.”

Noah brought his attention back to the massive stone tomb. Carefully sensing inside with [Mana Sense], he saw that the war chief was slowing down and roaring, its aura was also dimming as a result of the constant damage from the lava.

“How’s it looking?” Mark asked.

“Should only be a matter of time. You can go ahead to the south wall. I’m worried about the defenders since those shamans got through.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, go.”

“What about him?” Mark looked at Alex’s body, that was obviously devoid of any life.

Noah sighed and said. “We’ll give him a proper burial once things have calmed down… along with the others.”

Mark sighed at that and ran south. There were sure to be a lot of dead people after this whole thing ended. He could only hope that he could save as many people as possible.

Noah sighed again before focusing his senses on the stone tomb. The war chief was now on its last legs as the aura around it dimmed to dangerous levels. Then it flickered. It was faster than a blink of an eye, but it was enough to let the lava through its defenses.

It roared in pain and thrashed about in panic. Its aura did activate again, but all that did was trap the lava in the space between its aura and its skin.

For a moment, Noah started to feel bad for it. But then he remembered how they found Lily. Strung up on an altar with blood flowing down her body. Anger filled his head as he conjured more lava inside the tomb, hastening the painful death of the orc.

RAAAHHH

And with one last roar, the war chief finally died a few minutes later. Noah sighed in relief as he got the kill notification, surprised to see that it was actually a bit higher level than the spider queen at one hundred and twenty-four.

He drained the heat from the lava, rapidly cooling it until it turned to stone, and then manipulated the stone to open a passage to the orc’s body. There, he picked up its twin axes and activated [Analyze] on them.

“That’s pretty good!” Noah exclaimed as he put the weapons away into his artifact, along with their prizes from the spider queen. He then debated with himself if he should wait for Lily and the others but decided against it as Mark might need his help with cleanup.

With that, he cast his movement spells on himself and shot off towards the south.

---

Mark arrived at the south wall to see bodies of both orcs and humans strewn about everywhere. It looked like the humans had scattered and retreated when the orcs broke through the defensive line on top of the battlements.

“Shit.”

He looked around and didn’t manage to find anyone within sight, so he focused on his other senses. Closing his eyes, he focused on his sense of hearing. That’s when he heard screaming coming from the northwest. He shot off in that direction and arrived to the sight of a father and mother trying to fight off three orcs while their two children hid behind a wall with table legs in their hands. It was obvious, though, that the orcs were just playing with them.

Mark stomped the ground as he launched himself towards the orcs. He made quick work of them as he stabbed one orc in the heart and swung his sword at the other two, decapitating them.

“Hide until we kill the remaining orcs.”

The parents were about to thank him with tears in their eyes when he heard fighting in another direction and immediately ran there.

This went on for half an hour before a notification popped up in front of him while running towards the next location, telling him that they’d succeeded in their mission.

---

“EVERYONE! MY NAME IS NOAH BLAKE! THE ORCS ARE DEAD! HEAD TOWARDS MY VOICE AND THE FIREBALLS IN THE AIR!

Noah shouted as he amplified his voice with some air manipulation and conjured a few massive fireballs in the air. He looked around him at the people he’d saved and counted with his mana sense active.

“Fuck, not even four hundred people. Hopefully, Mark saved a lot more than me.” He thought, before a couple of people decided to approach him. He saw that Rosa was one of the people that was walking towards him, making him grimace.

“Noah! I… I’m sorry for everything I said before…”

Instead of the expected shouting and possible attack from Rosa, he got an apology. He looked at her and saw the blank look in her eyes, the slouched shoulders and the countless wounds on her body. Looking around at the others, he saw that everyone had the same look in their eyes. Lifeless.

“Can’t blame them. They probably thought that they’d finally regained a sense of normalcy before all this happened and in just a few hours, everything was gone.” He sighed, as he thought of what he should say.

“Don’t worry about it, Rosa. I forgive you. And uhh… I’m glad you’re alive.”

“I… I just… Everyone’s dead…” She collapsed onto her knees and cried her heart out. One of her companions, an elderly woman in her sixties, held her hands and helped her up off the ground.

“Shhh… It’s okay… It’s all okay now.” She said as she brought Rosa in for a hug. She then looked at Noah with an apologetic look on her face. “I’m sorry about this, but a few of us were wondering what we’re going to do now?” She sighed and continued. “Ah. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Eleanor Carson. I’m a… was a part of chief Alex’s staff and was picked to come and talk to you.”

“What indeed…” Noah replied as he looked at the hundreds of people around him. More were trickling in, no doubt because of his announcement. “For now, let’s wait for everyone to get here. After that, we can discuss our next course of action together.”