Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 275: End of an Era

Seven separate battles in a single night, zapping all over the globe, at first under his own power, later being transported by portal mages and the relocation [Skills] belonging to military officers. Never bloody again.

If he could avoid it. But Isaac knew that he would go if the opportunity presented itself.

The cult had been shattered, that was something they’d managed to confirm for certain. Any given member only knew a few fellow members, and by interrogating every captured cultist, they’d managed to get a far better estimate of their overall number and narrow down how many people were left, a number that hovered somewhere between one and one hundred.

Famine, Pestilence, War, and several dozen more of the so-called “heroes of the cult” had been taken out, including the Kitsune who’d gotten away in Lorient. Some kind of insane devourer had met his end at Arthur’s hand in Iceland, and Elena had thankfully survived her match with an actual, fully actualized, fifth Evolution Horseman. But they were missing Death, and that was what had Isaac worried. Seriously worried.

But they’d almost won, which would just leave him with the original problem, summoned monsters. Everything would be fine as long as no one did anything stupid, but people were people, and across a group of seven billion, someone was guaranteed to do something utterly idiotic.

The worst part, though, was that there was very little he could still do prophylactically, he’d be largely relegated to cleanup duty.

Not only that, but he seriously worried about the feeling of relief stemming from the fact the cult was gone would spur people to take more risks when it seemed like the world was a brighter place.

Yet that was quite literally a problem for future Isaac because he couldn’t deal with these issues until he learned about them.

However, as good at doom-saying as Isaac was, this had been an unmistakable victory. They’d won, and even with global casualties in the tens of thousands, including civilians, the number of lives saved in the future could not possibly be understated.

And he hadn’t come out of this without anything for himself. Along with a not-insignificant amount of XP, enough to hit the fifth Evolution, five of his [Skills] had hit various thresholds.

Fully Geared (legendary, Level XX)

The historical definition of a knight is a lesser nobleman who maintains his own set of heavy armor and a warhorse. Therefore, a knight without his armor is no knight at all. And as sturdy as armor is, it can break, get stolen, or simply fall apart if it gets too old.

If you want your armor to survive for more than a couple of fights, this Skill is essential. It allows the user to store six full outfits in an extradimensional storage and dress themselves with a mere thought. Armor and clothing is cleaned upon being stored and damage is repaired so long as the required materials needed to replace removed parts are provided.

Equipped armor can be reinforced using mana.

In addition, armor equipped with this Skill becomes slightly tougher than it usually would be.

After countless fights where the user has thrown this armor into the path of devastating attacks, last-second switches ruining both a foe’s plans and the armor itself, this Skill has evolved to allow the user to constantly swap out not just his armor, but individual armor pieces, continuously altering their equipped armor as is needed, restoring damaged equipment by cannibalizing other sets. All pieces can be returned to their original armor at will, albeit while retaining damage taken.

Cost: 10 mana to store/equip/switch outfits, 5 mana per second to repair clothing, 50 mana per minute to reinforce armor

Oh, nasty shot across the bow there. But also an accurate one. The only reason Isaac’s track record for ruining his gear so thoroughly that not even this [Skill] could put it back together hadn’t become a running joke was that Stagmer was no gossip.

And the boost was amazing. Not only had the number of storable armor sets grown from four to six, but he’d gained the ability to freely mix and match his gear whenever he wanted.

Legendary Blow (legendary, Level XX)

A single blow to shatter mountains, raze city walls, or split the sea, these are the things stories are written about and when someone uses this Skill, there is a good chance that too will end up being turned into a story.

When Legendary Blow is activated, the user may use any of their Strike/Blow/Shot Skills up to eight (nine due to Manifold Strike Evolution) times to enhance a single attack, massively increasing its power.

With every Level in this Skill, the cost of component Skills is reduced by 5 %, up to 25%, Levels past that merely boost the already ludicrous levels of power this Skill harbors into the stratosphere.

After countless fights where the user has crushed their enemies using devastating attacks at the cost of most of their mana, this Skill has evolved to allow them to remain combat-ready afterwards.

When Legendary Blow is used to deal the finishing blow and the user still considers themselves to be in combat, the sword is sheathed in another energy field that provides half the enhancement of the death blow that will remain until it is used or dismissed.

[Legendary Blow] had gained a similar increase in stackability, and the threshold bonus was solid. Kill bad guy, gain a weakened echo of the attack that had killed them, powered by their death. It made sense that the death-mana would never go directly into his mana pool, Isaac knew from his other-timeline [Classes] that that never ended well for anyone who tried it.

Sneak (common, Level max)

This Skil grants its user basic knowledge of how to move stealthily, from avoiding making noise to reducing visibility. Higher levels of this Skill will allow the user to have an overall lessened impact on the world at large, to the point of near-complete invisibility.

This Skill also has an active mode in which the User actively spends mana to reduce their impact on the world.

After countless situations where it was used to hide in plain sight to avoid public attention, this [Skill] has evolved to create a permanent (toggleable) effect that makes supernatural or attention-grabbing displays by the user less obvious. (This effect is powered by ambient mana, a lack of such will require the user to power it themselves)

And now, it has reached the pinnacle of its power, allowing the user to grow progressively harder to see the longer they go without rapid movements, to the point where it will take several seconds to spot them even when using obvious and highly visible long-range attacks.

[Sneak]’s bonus would basically be perfect for repeating last night’s performance, ‘nuff said. A good, solid, increase without a particularly outstanding boost that required him to come up with new strategies for its implementation.

[True Cut], on the other hand, had gained a vastly less useful power.

True Cut (legendary, Level X)

What can be cut? Paper? Flesh? Bone? Rock? Metal? Air? At what point is something too hard to cut, and can you even cut liquids or gasses? What about things with no physical form to cut?

Well, with this Skill, the answer is that everything can be cut, no matter how hard, no matter how immaterial, no matter how conceptual it may be.

Defenses sundered with a swipe as a magical shield is destroyed in a single swipe or the very concept of armor ceases to function for the brief instant it takes for the target to lose its head.

However, not all uses of this Skill are as grand as that. At its most basic, True Cut can be used directly on the effects of another Skill and cut it, disabling it for a period dependent on the amount of mana invested.

In addition, the Skill “Implements of True Death” can be applied to reinforce True Cut, doubling its mana cost. This will increase the duration of the damage caused by True Cut and make it harder to re-establish destroyed effects.

IMPORTANT: Concepts cannot be destroyed, only damaged, and will return rapidly, possibly instantaneously, and can only be affected in a small area.

WARNING: The cost of this Skill depends on the target and may exceed the user’s mana pool by a significant degree, attempting to overdraw the mana pool will lead to the user’s death.

Cost: variable, depending on type

The biggest problem with that ability was its cost, and using the new power on anything worth cutting would likely either empty or even exceed his mana pool. Cool, but even more situational than the original [Skill].

And finally, one of his earliest [Skills] had finally maxed out.

Bestial Regeneration (epic, Level max)

No matter how good a fighter is, injuries are inevitable, given enough time. Therefore, this Skill is as invaluable as it is indisputable that it will find a use.

It allows the user to store excess mana generated by Magic Regeneration for the sole purpose of fueling the user’s regeneration Skills. This pool will be used to automatically heal any injuries sustained unless this Skill is explicitly suppressed and will be used up before any regeneration Skills draw on the user’s mana pool.

This pool’s size is Skill Level*50.

In addition, it may be set to prioritize specific organs and body parts over others.

After countless fights where this Skill has been used to keep its wielder alive through horrific injuries, it has evolved to provide a speed to boost to all of the user’s self-healing powers, with the mana cost increasing proportionally to the boost, with a maximum increase of one hundred percent.

And now, it has reached the pinnacle of its power, empowering the user’s recovery to insane heights. Whenever a certain body part of the user hasn’t been injured for a significant amount of time, regeneration of that body part can be increased by up to 1,000% (after a week), with this boost halving every time it is used. The mana cost for empowered regeneration is increased by half as much as the regeneration itself.

The fact that he could use his healing without having to draw on his main mana pool unless he was badly injured had been beyond useful before, but now, it had grown vastly better. The pool’s size had doubled, from the [Skill’s] Level multiplied by 25 to the [Skill’s] Level multiplied by 50, for a grand total of 1,500 points of mana. A massive gain even without considering the threshold bonus.

The longer he could go without damage, the faster he would heal if shit did hit the fan. There might be certain body parts that tended to take repeated punishment, but his legs, for example, he focussed on keeping safe to maintain his mobility. And his heart hadn’t taken a lick of damage in years. Well, unless you counted Amy giving him the fright of his life last Halloween with her “Magical Girl Nightmare Fuel” costume.

Using this ability to its fullest would require him to pay attention to where he’d been hurt and vary which body parts he “sacrificed” to let get hit to allow him to land strikes of his own, but that was perfectly doable.

Isaac glanced longingly at the “Level Up” button, but decided to defer that until tomorrow, when he’d hopefully be less exhausted.