Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 198: The Hunt for Aspects

Even the longest meetings ended eventually, thankfully. And now, it was time to finally do something he enjoyed.

During the meeting, his phone had gone off several more times, almost a dozen, in fact. Sure, everyone else there had been an employee of his and he was well within his rights to just pause the meeting whenever, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t annoying.

And when you were annoying people, it was a good thing to apologize, even if you technically didn’t have to because you were the boss. A boss who took advantage of their status to ignore social conventions was not a good boss.

He’d decided to get everyone snacks from the team’s favorite restaurant, prepared by a super-high Level [Cook].

But that was something he’d do tomorrow, and that was when he’d deal with it.

The ground in his home’s summoning area was utterly covered in Tier 3 circles, already charged.

His new race had given him the bonus to the power of undead Aspects and he was now going to take full advantage of that fact. The now triple-stacked Ethereal Aspects had already gained quite a bit of extra power. His phasing had grown harder to disrupt, his flight had grown greatly easier to control even at high speeds and [Haunting Pursuit’s] tracking ability had finally grown to the point where he could chase people beyond his [Aura’s] effective range.

In addition, the Stat bonus from suitable Aspects had been increased by five, netting him five points in Magic Regeneration and ten in Magic Power once he’d changed his race, which was pretty useful all on its own.

Now, Isaac hadn’t planned on getting Undead Aspects originally. There were several [Skills] he could get from them that were decidedly useful, but not to the point where he’d use up his Aspect slots to get them. That had changed when he’d gotten his new species.

Finally, he’d gotten the chance to get back to the stuff he truly loved. He hadn’t gotten the chance to go on a good old summoning spree in ages.

And to make things challenging, he’d limited himself to just using his new [Aura of the Eternal Warrior] to get familiar with it, [Phantom Step] and [Tools of Terror] because that damn [Skills] had been stuck at Level 19 for months.

He hadn’t used the teleportation [Skill] much since he’d gotten [Wave Charge] as the latter was a solid mobility power that added to his speed, instead of reducing it the way [Phantom Step’s] teleport did.

As for [Tools of Terror], the ability to copy individual body parts from his Aspect monsters was damn useful, but he wasn’t a master shapeshifter like Bailey. He had mastery over his own body, and a few alternate shapes in [Form of Horror], but his skills didn’t really lie in having his body constantly change. The only reason the [Skill] was so high was that he’d used it to take down some damn strong enemies using his “my blood is now super toxic” trick. Cutting an enemy only to find the deadly toxin that was Hydra’s blood spraying out was one hell of a nasty surprise.

Hopefully, he’d get both [Skills] over the Level 20 threshold and figure out some new tricks with his newest [Aura].

On the side of the summoning area stood a table piled high with mana potions. Was planning to guzzle them to keep up a constant supply of summoned monsters, then do some paperwork while the potion sickness wore off.

When he finally activated the summoning circles, it felt like coming home, weird as that was to think. No more complicated social issues to deal with, no more trying to do social bloody engineering, just doing what he was best at.

The Ghouls that manifested launched themselves at him with immense speed, claws extended.

But by the time they reached him, he was already gone, having teleported outside the circle of attackers. There, he spun around, his forearm cleaving straight through the monsters in range. Most of the [Aura] surrounded him in its sensory configuration, albeit at a very short range, but whenever he was close enough to strike out at something, the [Aura] was compressed around one of his limbs, effectively turning it into a blade.

The Ghouls turned as one, a snarling wave of putrid flesh charging … right up until a whip of barbed wire that used to be his middle finger cleaved through it, armored with his [Aura]. Not a trick useful against most enemies, that use of [Form of Horror] would end with his finger torn off, but not against Tier 3 monsters.

He waited to teleport away until he was completely surrounded, [Aura] fully compressed around him to shield his clothing from the filthy mass surrounding him. Last-second escapes should help push up the [Skill’s] Level.

At that point, it was pretty simple to deal with the horde. Teleport and razor-whip, rinse and repeat, then burn the bodies once everything was dead. Well, re-dead.

Given how scared people were of undead at the moment, there’d be trouble if someone “dropped by” and found the mess. It was an unnecessary fear, the only diseases undead carried were the usual ones found in dead and rotting bodies, and like all diseases, anyone with their Fortitude above twenty-thirty was immune to them.

That just left searching for Aspects. Isaac had a decently large stockpile belonging to many different monsters, but the specific ones he needed weren’t among what he had.

And that was a problem given that the Ghouls were between Levels 5 and 9, and he was at Level 110. In other words, the Level difference was actively reducing his chance of getting Aspects and reducing his XP gains to almost nothing.

Isaac drained his mana pool over and over again, summoning vast swarms and slaughtering them with all the ease of taking out anthills with hand grenades.

Hours later, a small, sickly-looking, marble became visible amidst all the ash.

Aspect of the Ghoul:

This is the distilled essence of what makes a Ghoul a Ghoul. The power to never tire, to always be on the hunt, to chase one’s prey well past the point where it drops from sheer exhaustion. Well, that, or casually amble after them while they expire from the infection set in from a mere scratch. Or you could just gain the power to survive in hostile environments.

Requirements for Activation:

1,000 XP

Open Aspect Slot

Grants:

+10 (5 base +5 bonus from Einherjar race) Strength

One of the following Skills:

Undead Tirelessness

Festering Wounds

Unnatural Resilience

Finally, there it was. None of the [Skills] it offered were particularly powerful, but the Aspect wouldn’t remain at the level it was for very long.

Besides, not being powerful wasn’t the same as being useless.

Unnatural Resilience (rare)

Needing air, being susceptible to diseases, dying from simple toxins, dropping dead just because of a traumatic injury causing shock … mortal bodies suck, don’t they?

Which is exactly why you need, wait for it, Unnatural Resilience!

What does it do? Everything!

You will now need less air, and suffer less if you lack it, toxins will bother you less, pathogens will piss their pants in fright at the mere thought of trying to infect you and you’ll have a resistance to shock as though your Fortitude were twice as high!

(Einherjar Bonus: all resistances are 50% more effective)

Ok, what. The. Fuck. There were a lot of [Skills] that sounded like ads, but this one took the bloody cake. Something to laugh about with others, he supposed.

Isaac facepalmed, sighed, and went right back to grinding. After all, he needed two of the damn things. “Undead” was a very broad category of summons and the Aspects and their [Skills] differed enough at the higher Tiers that he could upgrade the Aspect of the Ghoul into two different distinct [Skill]sets, “immunity” to concerns of the flesh and raw power.

He kept going, slaughtering the undead until one of the long-awaited prompts appeared.

Phantom Step (epic, Level XX)

A single step is the beginning of a journey of a thousand miles. And if this Skill’s Level is high enough, then a single step can be a journey of a thousand miles.

You are a phantom in the dark, an unseen shadow that streaks past in the night.

With this Skill, the user can make a single step take them far greater distances than it would normally ever be able to. As a stealth Skill, it is vastly more efficient when used unobserved.

This Skill may now also be used simultaneously with either [Ephemeral Form] or [Stealth].

After countless fights where this Skill has been used to sneak into an enemy’s blindspots and facilitate sneak attacks, it has gained the ability to fake a teleport. When teleporting, the user may choose a second location within his range and an illusionary copy of him will appear there as if via teleportation and act as the user would for a single second.

Cost: 15 mana to initiate, 2 mana per three meters of unobserved travel, 4 mana per meter of observed travel, with a maximum range of 20 m +5 m per Skill Level

Overall, he’d gotten several small bonuses, like the teleportation base range increasing from ten meters to twenty and the distance upgrade per Level increasing from two meters to five.

The [Skill’s] Evolution, meanwhile, was awesome. Having his copy teleport in front of an enemy while the real him appeared behind them was one hell of a sucker punch.

He’d probably still mostly be sticking with [Wave Charge], but it was a damn useful upgrade nonetheless.

Now that that was done, he kept going using just his [Tools of Terror]-generated whips. It took forever

By the time he unlocked the upgrade for the [Skill], the ash from incinerated Ghouls was so thick that his every step threw up huge clouds and his entire summoning area looked like some kind of Pompei reenactment.

“Ye- …” Isaac’s shout of jubilation was cut short by a coughing fit. He phased to avoid inhaling even more of the mess, jumped out of the ash cloud, and took a moment to swear up a storm before he got to cleaning.

Using an inscribed Lesser Space Elemental ore, he vacuumed the mess into his personal storage space and then dumped it into one of the shipping containers he kept around for just such a purpose.

Then, he could finally take the time to look at the upgrade.

Tools of Terror (epic, Level XX)

An Undying Wraith is never unarmed, eternally equipped with the tools of his slain foes. This Skill allows the user to draw upon the natural weapons once possessed by any creature whose Aspect he holds.

After countless fights where this Skill has been used to create devastating counters, the user may set one body part to be created upon certain conditions being met, without requiring the user’s active input. The cost must still be paid.

Cost: 10 mana per weapon minimum, up to 100 mana for extremely large weapons, 1 mana every second to sustain it

It was a simple upgrade, but one he would use to its fullest extent.

The “certain conditions” he set basically amounted to taking a wound that bleed badly and there were no allies in the splash zone, and the action the [Skill] would take was to convert the blood that sprayed out into that of a Hydra. And old trick, but a good one. It was also counterable by someone wearing proper armor that kept out hazardous materials, but that would A. require said armor to be intact by the time it was needed and B. countering all of Isaac’s abilities was simply not possible. Not all at once. Everything he could do had some kind of counter, but many of those were hard to do simultaneously, or even mutually exclusive.

Now he just needed another Aspect of the Ghoul.

By the time he got it, he’d killed well over a thousand of the damn things, he was almost late to work and suffering from the grandmother of all potion-sicknesses. His natural mana regeneration was functionally non-existent, any future potions he took would have less than five percent of their regular effect. Not only that, but this effect would last for most of the day, which effectively doomed him to ten straight hours of paperwork. At least his second new [Skill] was nice.

Undead’s Endurance (rare)

Being tired sure does suck, doesn’t it? You know who doesn’t get tired?

Machines!

… and Golems, and Constructs, Elementals, Undead … yeah, there are a lot of possible answers to that question. And if you pick this Skill, you can count yourself amongst that number.

This Skill grants its user the ability to last longer during strenuous physical exercise, and need vastly less sleep.

(Einherjar Bonus: amount of needed sleep is halved, overall stamina increase is boosted by 35%)

… and once again, it sounded like a bloody ad. And it was almost useless in its current form, given that the amount of sleep Isaac needed each day was measured in seconds and he could work at full-throttle for most of the day without issue. Still, it was the most basic form of this [Skill], meant for people that hadn’t even reached the first Evolution. Further down the line, it would grow to the point where it was actually impactful.

Actually, today might be a good time to get back to do some teaching. There were no courses officially assigned to him, but he sometimes helped with things the others did and he enjoyed doing it.

Of course, it didn’t provide anywhere close to the level of near-certain pay off most of his actions did, but helping random people grow, both in power and awareness, just felt damn good.

But it was what would happen after his work was done which he was really looking forward to.

Well, after another company meeting and an intercontinental flight to the US because that place was still outside of portal range and he didn’t have the charges in [Continent Strider] to use that [Skill’s] fast travel feature, at least.

There, he’d be inspecting one of the new sites purchased by his company and helping set it up.

But then, he’d get to hit another “target” for his plan to improve the world.

All predictable problems had either been dealt with directly or almost certainly been butterflied away by his actions and he’d helped most of the future powerhouses he could.

However, there was a category of future powerhouses he hadn’t been able to help so far. Those who hadn’t even unlocked the [System]. Until now.

And after that, there was a certain talk show he’d be appearing on. He’d handpicked it, specifically, and it should be fun.

Maybe he could even sneak in some more Aspect hunting amidst everything else, though that could also wait until he was back.