Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 277: The Choice

First of all, [Judgement of the Inferno]. Hell no. It might claim to not be all about witch hunts, but the description made it pretty damn clear on what side of due process this [Class] fell and it was decidedly the wrong one. Sure, it might have helped with rooting out cultists, but everything else about it just plain rubbed Isaac the wrong way.

Then, there was [Einherjar Champion]. On one hand, there was nothing bad to say about this [Class]. On the other, there was nothing outstandingly good about it either. It would turn him into a peerless warrior, but not all situations could be solved with violence alone, especially not ones involving systemic problems.

[Fearless Challenger of Leviathans], same problem. Powerful combat [Class], but to hyperspecialized.

Admittedly, Isaac was looking to make the switch to something more fighting-focused, but those two were still wrong.

And then there was the [Class] that had the opposite issue. [Teacher of the World] was the ultimate force multiplier, but it would also leave him very much vulnerable. If he were able to grant other people his [Classes’] central [Skills], perhaps it would have been a different choice, but it didn’t. Cool option, but it wasn’t for him.

[Ever-burning Flame of Scientific Ambition] was another [Class] that was less powerful in its own right but could serve as one hell of a force multiplier. It was also wrong for him.

At the end of the day, no matter what Isaac did, he wasn’t a scientist, he was … something else. A strange fusion of teacher, fraud, and fighter who occasionally did tiny bits of original research but overall, despite how things might look on the outside, he wasn’t a scientist. Not in the same way Bailey, Amy, Patrick, Raul or Karl were.

While Isaac might have dismissed all of these [Classes] out of hand, that didn’t mean they weren’t good, though. They just weren’t utterly top-tier, like the two he had remaining.

[Assassin of the Logos Blade] was probably the most easily misunderstood [Class] name Isaac had ever encountered. It was also one of the most awesome [Classes] he’d had the pleasure of observing.

Ever since he’d come to this timeline, knowledge had been his weapon, metaphorically speaking. With this [Class], on the other hand, it would become a literal implement of destruction, one able of slaying anything … possibly including gods? He doubted it was that powerful, and if it was, that he could gather enough knowledge to put use this power to full effect, but not being able to kill literal gods hardly made a [Class] bad.

It was a [Class] that let him use his greatest advantage to its fullest, most balance-breaking effect. It was perfect.

And then there was the [Challenger of the Apocalypse]. Hyperspecialized, only truly useful in situations where the situation had already gone to hell in a handbasket, and truly, absolutely, inviolably perfect, even more so than [Assassin of the Logos Blade].

It would be utterly useless unless the situation was truly dire, but if he picked that [Class] and ended up becoming obsolete, he’d be the first to celebrate. If he, as a person whose sole focus in life was preventing the end of the world, was no longer needed, that meant that the world was safe.

Both [Teacher of the World] and [Ever-burning Flame of Scientific Curiosity] held a far greater potential for long-term gains as long as the world didn’t end, but were going to be far less useful in a pinch.

[Germanic Legend] was an incredibly flattering [Class] to be offered, but it had one simple problem: it was a German [Class] that would do zilch to combat a global problem.

[Assassin of the Logos Blade] was the combat [Class] for him, but when things truly went from bad to worse, [Challenger of the Apocalypses] would be far stronger.

Which left Isaac with a simple choice: did he think he’d done enough to save the world? That he could get by just by fighting the normal way, with no singular battle or series of battles deciding the fate of the human race?

Optimism, or pessimism?

Was it actually a choice between those two, or were the two options naivety and realism?

The hell of it was that he could see himself choosing any of these, even [Judgement of the Inferno]. All of them were parts of his path, but not all of them were ones he’d like to walk for the rest of eternity.

[Teacher of the World] would be almost like a retirement, doing whatever he wanted while teaching the rivals of whoever had gotten on his nerves the most that week on the side. Well, at least if those rivals weren’t terrible people.

[Everburning Flame of Scientific Ambition] was the same sort of deal. Poking whatever caught his interest, teaching whoever caught his eye, and then watching their antics unfold throughout history.

[Judgement of the Inferno] represented the darkest parts of his past, the path he might have chosen to step upon if things had unfolded slightly differently when he’d first arrived in this timeline. Annihilating his enemies, and everyone else who looked like they’d be a problem. As a path, it was awful, destructive, and something that would turn him into the villain of this story regardless of how things unfolded in the end. But it might have worked.

Yet there were only two real options here for the person he was.

[Challenger of the Apocalypse], the cautious path that would be at its strongest when things were at its worst.

And [Assassin of the Logos Blade], the path that fit him like a glove, but would be vastly less powerful if he needed strength the most.

Isaac sighed. He’d have loved to go the path of optimism, but at the end of the day, he was the kind of person who could see the darkest outcomes of all issues.

And of the two mistakes he might make, one would affect the whole world, the second would only affect himself. Better a wasted [Class] than one which lacked the power to beat back the end of the world.

Hoping he wasn’t about to make a huge mistake, he picked [Challenger of the Apocalypse] as his [Class].

Challenger of the Apocalypse

Central Skills

Aspects of the End

Power of the Behemoth

Wisdom of the Simurgh

Venom of Apothis

Wrath of the Dragon

Sails of the Naglfar

Speed of Hati

The Leviathan’s Sea

Sekhmet’s Fire

Jaws of Cipactli

Presence of an Outer God

Final Defiance

Skills

Book with Seven Seals

Defy Un-Nature

Call of Gjallarhorn

Twelve Gemstone Walls of the new Haven

Calamity’s Crimson Seal

Dawn of the Sixth Sun

…

General Skills

Aura of Oblivion’s Touch

Ok, wow. Just … wow.

The [Class] had a pair of powerful central [Skills], one of which was highly unusual. [Aspects of the End] gave a small amount of immediate power but unlocked a multitude of supporting [Skills] that could be unlocked separately to add functionality.

Where it would initially just grant the user a stat boost, the upgrades were, well, stupidly strong. The mother of all [Aura] boosts, several different kinds of specialized boosts that allowed for ludicrous stunts to be done, such as the ability to hunt down the moon or shatter mountains.

The other central [Skill] would slowly accumulate mana once it had been bought, only releasing it when its user was facing the end of the world. It would be utterly useless under all other circumstances, but when worst came to worst, it would be the utter MVP. As in, spit into a god’s eye and stand more than a snowball’s chance in hell at living through it.

And that just left the regular [Skills]. There were two basic kinds there. The left column held ones that would serve to prevent the end of the world, while the right was meant to help humanity recover for when the Apocalypse was only halted halfway through and a ton of damage had already occurred.

Sure, the right column might come in useful, but Isaac wasn’t quite that pessimistic. He might have picked a [Class] only useful under the most awful of situations, but he believed in himself enough to focus on the set of [Skills] that would prevent catastrophes, rather than clean up after them. At least that was the plan. First, Isaac had to gain a metric fuckton of Levels, which would get expensive, XP-wise.

After all, during the fifth Evolution, every Level cost 20,000 XP multiplied by the Level that you were trying to get to. In other words, even Level 151 would cost three million and twenty thousand points of experience.

But Isaac had time, people to train, cultists to hunt, and legions of monsters to slaughter. He’d get there in due time.

So, it was time to pick up his sword, walk out of that door, and get to work.