Protector of the Grove: An Apocalypse LitRPG

Path of Dragons, Book 1

By: Nicholas Searcy

Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin

When Earth is transformed into a realm of myths and monsters, one man finds both purpose and power in the fight for survival, in this fantasy adventure.

Elijah Hart is dying. Wracked by cancer and weakened by chemotherapy, all he wants is to spend what little time he has left with his sister and her family in Washington. But fate has other plans. When the mysterious World Tree extends its branches to Earth, Elijah's Seattle-bound flight crashes into the Pacific Ocean and a game-like system takes hold—reshaping humanity's future as well as his own destiny.

Waking up on an island in the Pacific Northwest, Elijah finds himself suddenly gifted with magical powers and an innate connection to the natural world. As a Druid, he has the particular ability to wield Ethera, a mystical energy he hopes can cure his cancer . . . if he survives long enough to master it. It seems the influx of magic has rendered most technology useless, throwing humankind back into a preindustrial age. But the world hasn't just changed; it has expanded, in both scope and danger.

Now Elijah must level up quickly. Because Earth is under siege: Reptilian Voxx emerge from dimensional rifts, wreaking chaos and destruction. Desperate humans battle for resources, seeking to harness Ethera for their own survival. Even worse, dragons and other ancient beings with the strength to destroy the planet on a whim are beginning to stir.

With each trial he faces, Elijah becomes healthier, stronger, and more powerful. But will it be enough to save himself—let alone the world?

The first volume of the hit LitRPG apocalypse series—with more than fifteen million views on Royal Road—now available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

©2025 Nicholas Searcy (P)2025 Podium Audio

I feel kind of lied to?

The summary is very clear that this story is about a guy with terminal cancer becoming a druid and trying to survive. HOWEVER I am halfway through the story and 50% of it is about their sister. At no point does the summary mention the book was about her at all. I will tell you now that I couldn't care less about that part. I do NOT care about the sister or her family\ and started skipping ahead.

I just want to see the brother develop and try to survive and become a druid. I prefer stories that have a single MC for this reason. Had I known it was going to jump around like this then I wouldn't have picked it up. Everything else is great.

this is a great story.

so I've read the first 9 books on Royal road, and I won't spoil it for you but this is a great story line. a lot of these litRPGs are all the same, this one is quite a bit different and always enjoyable. the narration is awesome as well.

Amazing Series. Highly recommend to anyone

First [I will attempt to not include anything in the form of spoilers].

I've read a large number of long lasting multi hundred/thousand chapter litrpgs and progression novels. I will say that compared to MOST novels this author has shown a level of foresight, long term planning, nuance, and understanding of quirks within the genre that speaks volumes of his experience with writing this still growing and relatively new genre.

It says a lot when an author is able to come up with a world system, rules, and situation that outright explains BY ITSELF why the main character is both constantly challenged and needs to fight for his life but (at the same time) able to have moments of showing how far ahead he is from others. Many MANY fail to do this in advance, instead opting to contrive new ever escalating enemies that break the previously set rules or expectations of the world and big bad dudes with no pre-set plans or explanations (within world) for this. They just suddenly... appear.

Nrsearcy understands this common flaw within the genre and gradually introduces us to the rules of his world (rather than narrative dump painfully for 10 chapters) expertly melding a fantasy world system with a modern world apocalypse narrative. His world explains the presence of powerful people and factions within the first book and those rules are still relevant in book 9.

His characters feel realistic. They aren't caricatures of certain archetypes. He also avoids some of the worst aspects of the genre (no harems and no giant 2 page long status pages). Again, speaking to his experience with dealing with this genre, he created a system that streamlines our experience in understanding how power works in his world. Instead of giving us 100 new skills and never using many of them many skills will instead evolve. Most New Skills and evolutions FEEL impactful instead of cluttering us with pages of things we eventually stop reading because the novelty wears off. Within the system there are different metrics of power and they blend together to provide multiple means for which we can see the characters improvement without just chain spamming us with more and more skills and more and more levels (again common issue for a lot of beginning Litrpg writers) or page long skill chains of equipment.

This book has some IMPRESSIVE highlight moments. Also there are some chapters where people go to war in the comments but that is because they are invested in the characters. Give this book a chance whether its stubbed or not. You won't regret it. Highly recommend to anyone that enjoys LitRPGS.

The narration is top notch as well.