Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 153: How to die a Horrible Death in a Few Easy Steps

Of all the people who’d come here with him, “only” one had died, but several more were injured badly enough that they’d require either a healer’s attention or an Aspect of the Hydra.

Yet that was only a small part of the destruction the Wendigo had wreaked.

There were the seven people who’d come to help halfway through the fight, who’d been slaughtered before Isaac had even caught a glimpse of them.

In addition, Isaac sincerely doubted the initial summoner had escaped. With a monster that fast, getting out of its tracking range would have been incredibly difficult, and the same went for surviving long enough to open a portal away. As for fighting it off and running the other way while it regenerated its legs … also unlikely. In theory, someone could have been strong enough to manage one of those three scenarios, but the sheer amount of power required would have made them one of the strongest people in the world, if not the strongest.

Also, the Wendigo had eaten something before they’d arrived, there was a good chance that had been the summoner.

“I’m going to search the woods, see if I can locate the original summoning site and maybe some of the other people that thing’s killed. If you need me, just holler.” Isaac announced as he left the Party, which Arthur promptly reestablished without him.

“I’m coming too.” Marshall announced, rising to his feet. He’d lost a leg in the fight earlier, and the Wendigo had torn out a piece of his spine, but he’d slotted both an Aspect of the Troll, which specialized in detailed flesh reconstruction and an Aspect of the Hydra, which was fantastic at rapid biomass generation, then picked an endurance-focused [Class] at both his second and third Evolutions. The leg had simply been held up to the hole and the flesh had reconnected, and the missing vertebrae had been replaced in less than a minute.

In other words, if the Wendigo hadn’t injured him so damn badly, he could have just tanked the hits and gotten right back up.

It was an odd focus for a [Skirmisher], but then again, it was a lot better than deciding to fully forego picking up a regeneration Aspect.

Isaac shrugged “Sure, come one.”

The pair of them hurried through the woods, Isaac’s [Aura] condensed into over a dozen micrometer-thick needles that reached for kilometers, set to detect any human flesh they touched.

It took less than ten seconds for Isaac to get his first hit, which he immediately followed up by focusing more of his [Aura] on that area so he could get a higher-resolution and larger area scan of what he’d found.

As he’d expected, seven bodies lay where he’d seen the Wendigo run off to. Two were police officers, based on their badges, another was, if Isaac was reading the business cards in her wallet correctly, a park ranger and the last four seemed to be civilian volunteers. It was possible they were hunters, given their rifles, but that wasn’t something Isaac could determine at a glance.

Reaching into his storage space, he withdrew a series of cloths sheets.

“Those look a lot like what they use on TV at crime scenes.” Marshall observed as they arrived, choosing to focus on Isaac instead of the dead bodies. Isaac couldn’t blame him for wanting to avoid paying attention to the corpses, especially as his comrade still looked like he should be among the dead. His injuries might have healed, but his clothes were still torn and stained with more blood than most people could lose without dying.

“Because that’s what they are.” Isaac responded somberly “I end up at way too many of these scenes, so I asked for some and got them.”

He snapped a single picture of the scene in case the police needed it, then covered each body with one of the sheets.

Once that was done, he sent their current GPS coordinates to Elena, as well as the names he’d read from the IDs of the deceased. He knew she’d pass those along to Arthur, who was currently on the phone with the authorities.

There was an immediate response, apparently, said authorities were currently very wary of sending anyone else into “the forest of death”.

Apparently, something that had somehow failed to be communicated back in Germany was that the monster had been summoned during a live stream, the monster had then ended up slaughtering its summoner and run off, then that information had been passed along to the researchers in Grafenwöhr without mentioning that very pertinent information.

As for what had happened on the stream, well, there wasn’t much there to tell. A flash of claws, a splatter of blood, and the camera had gone spinning away.

With that kind of information out there, as well as an awareness that the monster in question had already killed someone damn strong, they weren’t willing to send in their people piecemeal. Probably, the people they’d just seen had been volunteers.

Poor bastards. Poor, brave, stupid bastards. But their hearts were in the right place. Had been. Damnit.

This couldn’t happen again. But they really needed to make sure such a failure in communication didn’t happen again, either.

They located another two bodies a few minutes later, and elderly man and his dog, lying at the end of a line of churned snow besides a hiking trail.

Wrong place, wrong time, horrible consequences. Damn.

Isaac draped two more sheets over the bodies, passed along the information, and then they continued.

The pair of them continued to explore the forest in ever-shrinking circles, thankfully not finding another body.

“Fuck that summoner.” Marshall growled into the silence a while later.

“Pretty sure the Wendigo took care of that for you.” Isaac muttered, gesturing ahead “I finally found the circle. And the guy who’s at fault for all this.”

They walked over, though, of course, their “walking” was well beyond a lower-Level person’s flat out run and if they hadn’t had [Skills] for less than obvious movement, their every step would have flung up huge plumes of snow.

The site of the Wendigo’s entry into this worlds was, in a word, a titanic mess. The summoning circle was surprisingly intact, fully visible and probably still useable, only marred by a huge spatter of blood that died a third of it crimson.

As for the summoner, well, it was barely possible to tell which wound had been the fatal one. Isaac suspected it was the torn-out throat, based on the position of the body and the look of the largest blood spatter.

But based on the condition of the body, it could just as easily have been the massive chunks torn out of the legs, wounds that clearly included a severed femoral artery. Or the utterly shredded sword arm. Or the fact that both the stomach and chest cavity were empty of organs and had been, quite literally, licked clean.

To top it all off, Isaac actually recognized this guy. Teddy Byrne, one of the highest Level humans on the planet, someone who’d clearly assumed that his high Level had meant the rules about careful summoning didn’t apply to him.

In fact, the exact opposite was the case. This was a man who’d rushed through the Levels, gaining XP by killing the easy monsters, not, in his words, “wasted” XP on Aspects and just gone for the easy gains of Stat points and [Skills], rather than high rarity [Classes] and [Skill] Levels.

“This was bound to happen sometime.” Isaac muttered as he surveyed the scene “But it still sucks.”

“How so?” Marshall asked.

“You know this guy, right? ‘I’ll be the first to a Level one-hundred’, right?” Isaac asked.

“In passing.” Marshall shrugged “He always seemed like a clown. I … you know, this is an incredibly fucked up conversation to have while standing over his dead body. Can’t we head off, leave this for the cops?”

Isaac waved his phone in front of him.

“Elena sent me a text, passing along a message from the NCA. We’re to stay here and watch over the scene, make sure nothing is changed.”

“Is that why you didn’t put a sheet over the body? It would be interfering with the crime scene?”

“Yep. With the others, we know what happened. They died as collateral damage from that guy’s actions. Here, there’s a mystery involved. Potentially, there is stuff that couldn’t be seen from the live stream.” Isaac said.

Marshall nodded “But what did you mean when you said that this was predictable?”

“Basically, rushing ahead like that, focusing only on Levels is not feasible and will cripple your power, long term, until even monsters with the same level as you pose an insurmountable threat. Low rarity [Class], no Aspects, low-level [Skills], all of that leads to a low rarity and therefore weak [Class] in the next Evolution. And so on.”

“Don’t you still get Stats, though? Shouldn’t that have made this guy pretty strong? He always showed his full Stat screen and he was Level 97 last time I saw.” Marshall suddenly seemed very confused.

“And that’s the only thing he got out of levelling. But high-level [Skills] are vital, especially the Level 20 and 30 capstones. Those can do things like granting you a lesser variant of an active enhancement that is permanently active, overcome inherent drawbacks that have weakened them at lower Levels or turn said [Skill] into an enchantment-like effect that one can apply to weapons for others to use.

“All Stats will do is improve you on the most basic of levels, as well as strengthening [Skills] that scale off it, but there aren’t many like that.

“Finally, the big problem is the lack of strong cooldown [Skills].”

Isaac’s Kabar appeared in his hand and lit up in a deep crimson as he fully stacked a [Power Strike] into it.

“Increasing the power of my basic attack [Skills] fivefold, that is a legendary [Skill]. Granting a [Skill] that’s almost as strong to others, five every week to start with and with that number only going up, that’s a central [Skill] worthy of a legendary [Class]. A common or uncommon [Class’] central [Skill] will be strong, but only barely. Rushing ahead like he did … it will catch up with you, sooner or later. Especially as you run out of weak enemies you can gain XP from and have to kill strong enemies to advance, which you will have the devil’s time fighting because you’re nowhere near as strong as a person on your Level should be.”

Sure, Isaac had just revealed what some of his [Skills] were, but only in an extremely circumspect way, and people could have easily learned the same thing just from watching videos of his fights. The only thing that was precise was that [Legendary Blow] let him stack five [Strikes], but that information was outdated as it had hit Level 10 after the fight with the Wendigo and gained an additional stack.

“So what you’re saying is that unless you can get a legendary [Class], you shouldn’t advance?” Marshall asked.

“Not necessarily.” Isaac said “You shouldn’t settle for the most basic of [Classes], but you don’t need the absolute highest rarity either. The requirements for a legendary [Class] are, quite frankly, nuts. Spending half your live stuck at Level 10 because you can’t get a legendary first Evolution … that wouldn’t really be worth it, in my opinion. It’s a balancing act between rushing ahead and getting stuck, one each and every one of … excuse me, I gotta take this.”

Isaac stopped talking as his phone rang.

“Adam, we’re fine here. Is something wrong?” he asked.

“I know you’re fine, I can hear you. The stream was always still active, but it was stationary and showing only a closeup of the ground so people assumed the camera had been dropped when the cameraman died.”

Damn, he should have realized there was no camera here, also, there was neither a tripod or conveniently placed tree stump that said camera could have been placed on, there was no remote or phone that could have been used to control a drone either, which meant there should have been a cameraman. And seeing as there wasn’t a corresponding dead body here, Isaac knew exactly what had happened.

The cameraman was still here, invisible, one of the few people who could hide from even him. Because [Cameraman] was a damn curious [Class].

For what was a cameraman? Someone who got close to interesting things, filmed them, and then shared them with the world. Sometimes, said things were cute cats, celebrities, historical monuments. At other times, they were riots, wars, wildfires and more besides, showing violence and calamity to those sitting on the other side of the television screen. Yet the cameraman didn’t possess the same level of isolation from the dangers he was witnessing.

But a [Cameraman] did. If they spent their lives pursuing dangerous stories, they’d grow able to survive said stories. Sneakier than an [Assassin], tankier than a [Meatshield], more able to endure harsh conditions than a [Wilderness Survival Expert]. Sure, there were a few [Skills] for image quality and stable transmission of said images, but there was no [Class] that could so thoroughly focus on stealth and defensive [Skills] as completely as a [Cameraman] could. [Assassins] also needed to be able to inflict damage, [Meatshields] also needed crowd control and aggro drawing [Skills], and so on, and so forth.

And this was someone who’d been following around a person crazy enough to summon a Wendigo for ages. Who knew what kinds of shenanigans hadn’t been as noticeable as the Wendigo?

Where Byrne had taken the extremely easy path with regards to his own levelling, he’d been inadvertently power-levelling his [Cameraman] in the process. If anyone was going to be able to hide from Isaac, it was going to be someone who’d been hiding from the countless monsters his boss had been summoning since the very beginning.

However, none of that really mattered right now. What did matter was that someone who’d been involved in the summoning of the Wendigo was still alive, and almost certainly still here. A [Cameraman’s] protections were conditional on them staying out of the fight, and staying put in the case of their stealth. And with how good the Wendigo’s senses had been, there was only a very small chance that this fucker had been able to run off.

“You have until the count of ten to show yourself, [Cameraman].” Isaac ordered, infusing it with every ounce of authority that Hildebrand had shown him to project.

“Ten, nine, eight, …”

Nothing moved, no one suddenly popped out of thin air, and Isaac’s searching [Aura] didn’t find anything either. It would, eventually, given that he knew someone was there and could just keep scanning the area he found the bastard, but that was taking too long for him.

“ … zero. Time’s up. [Sweeping Strike].”

The beams of energy fanned out from the point of Isaac’s blade, tearing gouges out of the dirt and reducing dozens of trees to kindling.

A man promptly yelped in shock and began to paw at his own body as if to convince himself that he hadn’t just been sliced to ribbons, but he was perfectly fine. After all, using [Absolute Blade Control], he’d set it so the only things that were cut were the things that he could see. Which meant that the once-invisible [Cameraman] hadn’t been in the least bit of danger. But unless Isaac had been very wrong in his assessment of this guy, he would have panicked at the site of the cutting beams of energy sweeping towards him.

“You’re fine.” Isaac said as he teleported right in front of the man, snatched up the camera and turned it around on its owner “Everyone who’s still watching this stream, I didn’t hurt anyone, just scared him out of his invisibility. With that settled, I’m going to end this stream, this is still a crime scene and he’s about to be arrested.”

He immediately switched off the camera and glared down at the still panicking individual, [Aura] bearing down on him like the weight of the ocean.

“Talk.”

The [Cameraman] immediately went from hysterical to “deer in headlights”, staring up at Isaac.

“I … I didn’t do anything.”

“You were there when a monster was summoned in clear and flagrant violation of international law, and then just plain watched as the monster in whose summoning you were involved in proceeded to slaughter nine more people. You didn’t even think to post your exact location on the stream, so hunting it down would have been easier. We only knew the forest where it appeared, the exact location would have been really bloody helpful!”

Isaac glared down at the once again sniveling person at his feet.

“So, tell me, what on the gods’ green Earth possessed you to do something so utterly moronic? Did someone pay you? Because really, that is the only thing that could shift some of the blame away from you. Otherwise, you’re the last person to blame everything on.”

[Death’s Embrace] slowly leaked into Isaac’s [Aura], the pressure growing ever greater, the [Cameraman’s] own [Aura] never even had the chance to unfurl. He was pushing this guy a lot harder than he normally would an idiotic summoner, let alone someone who was merely employed by the summoner, but this whole situation stank to high heaven.

Byrne was someone who Isaac would have believed capable of doing something this stupid, but there was a good chance that someone had influenced him. A little money offered in exchange for summoning an Event’s named monster, or maybe …

“… Maxim dared him to.” The [Camerman] whispered.

“Speak. Up.” Isaac ordered, wanting to make sure that, at the very least, Marshall heard this as well. An extra person to corroborate anything Isaac learned, which would be useful if he decided to leave pursuing this lead to the police. After all, if this wasn’t something he needed to deal with personally, he wouldn’t. Gods only knew he had enough on his plate.

“Maxim dared him to summon the Wendigo, and he did.”

“This would be Maxim Hawkins, then?” Isaac sighed. Another streamer and rapid-fire summoner, and one who was a hell of a lot worse than Teddy Byrne had ever been as evidenced by the fact that he’d clearly realized summoning the Wendigo had been a bad idea but then caused someone else to do so.

“You might want to make sure the world knows that this is partially his fault.”

The oppressive [Aura] vanished as Isaac turned on his heels and walked over to the nearest rock, kicking in with a [Power Strike], turning it into powder.

“Gods-fucking-dammit.”

A conspiracy or paid assassination would have been bad enough. But just a couple of “influencers”, one of whom had been unwilling to ignore a bloody dare? And yes, Isaac did believe the [Cameraman] on what he'd said. It would be easy enough to check, and he hadn't gotten the sense that guy was lying. If he had been, though, then that was a bridge to nuke when he came to it.

“Fuck Hawkins, fuck you, and fuck not talking ill of the dead, so fuck Byrne as well!”

“Er, Dr. Thoma?” Marshall carefully ventured and Isaac stopped cursing up a storm.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Isaac waved him off as he stalked over to an available tree stump and sat down with enough force to crack the wood. He really had lost it there. The fact that this was yet another mess that hadn’t been caused by a big conspiracy, no evil intentions, just sheer stupidity just, absolutely fucking sucked.

This whole damn situation … nope, he wasn’t even going to think about it, he was just going to sit down, review his Status and stay busy until someone else arrived to take over the scene, then return to Grafenwöhr and once the Event was over, see if he could start his vacation early.

Name: Isaac Thoma

Class: Hildebrand’s Heir

Species: High Human

Level: 80

XP: 11,190/41,500

Health Status: Healthy

Mana: 1,500/1,500

Stats

Fortitude

160

Perception

265

Strength

160

Agility

300

Magic Power

160

Magic Regeneration

290

Free Points: 0 Stat, 2 Skill

Aura

Aura of the Crimson Dawn (short range, combat, blood, regeneration)

Aura of the Desperate Seeker (long range, sensory, mental, projection)

Central Skills

Form of Horror XXIII

The Chosen Weapon XXVIII

I Am The Sword IX

Grave of Swords XVII

Armory of Ancient Times XVII

Legacy of a True Warrior XII

Skills

Hundred Faces XXV

Stealth XXIX

Power Strike XXX

Piercing Strike XXX

Sundering Strike XXX

Blades XXVIII

Sneak XXVII

Sweeping Strike XVI

Far Strike XXVII

Manifold Strike XIX

Hunter’s Gaze XXX

Phantom Step XIX

Unknown Fear XXII

Bestial Regeneration XXVII

Undying Focus XXII

Tools of Terror XIX

Fleeting Presence XVII

Crippling Blow XIV

Absolute Blade Mastery XIV

Compounded Impact XV

True Cut VIII

Legendary Blow X

Fully Geared IX

Knightly Leader X

General Skills

Gralloch XII

Alchemy XII

Death’s Embrace VII

Bloodline of the Survivor (Empower Relatives)

Aspects

Aspect Skills

Arcane Poltergeist (3 stack)

Flight of the Poltergeist

Ephemeral Form

Haunting Pursuit

Greater Hydra (3 stack)

Hydra’s Regeneration

Redundant Organs

Ignore Injury

Megalodon (2 stack)

Shark’s Body

Wave Charge

Fata Morgana (2 stack)

Improved Basic Illusion

Perception Block

Blade Tempest (2 stack)

Blade Control

Eternal Blades

Acid Drake

Drake’s Heart

Least Demon Lord (2 Stack)

Moment of Immortality

Grand Hellflame

He’d gained a few more Levels, massively increased his Stats and was within three Levels of gaining his next [Skill]. Byrne might have had over ten Levels on him, but Isaac would have utterly obliterated him in a fight.

Also, he’d managed to put three [Skills] over a threshold during the fight against the Wendigo.

Knightly Leader (legendary, Level X)

Many a tale has been told of a heroic knight, of the dragonslayer, the rightful king who returns from exile to bring peace and prosperity to his home. All of these tales focus on a single individual, the knight, yet that knight is never alone. He has pages, squires, comrades in arm and occasionally, a mentor that’s along for the ride.

This Skill is an essential component of leading a group of your fellows into combat.

Firstly, it allows for the creation of an official, System acknowledged party with all the advantages that entails (knowledge of each other’s health states, locating allies, XP sharing).

Secondly, it allows the user to draw upon all the experience about leading men that Master Hildebrand gathered over the course of his life, and apply it to the situation at hand. (this information has been updated to include the System, Classes and Skills)

Thirdly, any commands given by the user will be able to override irrational panic if necessary.

In addition, the user can remotely talk to party members up to five hundred meters away, with the distance increasing another one hundred meters per Level in this Skill.

And finally, the user can set up contingencies ahead of time, so orders are issued without the user needing to fully articulate potentially complex statements in the middle of a fight for their lives. These orders can be cancelled at any time, should it be necessary, and new ones can always be added though it would be inadvisable if a distraction would endanger them.

Cost: 100 mana to establish, 300 mana per day to sustain

The [Skill] had only changed in a single point, the last paragraph had been added and everything else was still the same. It was an incredibly valuable addition, though, especially for someone like him. Isaac liked to create countless contingencies and prepare for situations, and now he had an ability that perfectly synergized with that.

But [Knightly Leader] wasn’t the only one that had been greatly improved.

Legendary Blow (legendary, Level X)

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 six 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.

Once again, the [Skill] had barely changed, this time, only a single word was different. He could now use six [Strikes] at the same time instead of five. A simple and straightforward upgrade, but a damn good one.

And lastly, there was [Sundering Strike].

Sundering Strike (common, Level max)

User’s next strike will weaken the targets armor around the point of impact. This damage is permanent until it is fixed/healed. This effect can be stacked until the armor is destroyed.

This Skill can also be toggled to be almost undetectable, destroying any nerves or creature specific equivalent upon impact, or cause maximum pain by directly irritating whatever pain receptors a being might have.

After countless battles where this Skill was used to tear apart the user’s foes, shredding them on a fundamental level until their own movements tore them apart, it has evolved to destroy them, rather than merely weakening them. For an additional 18 mana, this Skill will now inject a weakening, magic based poison that rots an enemy’s flesh and corrodes their defenses until nothing but soup remains.

And now, it has reached the pinnacle of its power. What once merely weakened armor to make follow-up attacks more effective was supercharged to melt flesh wholesale, eventually being used to simply destroy the entirety of a monster’s internal organs.

Now, Sundering Strike is able to disintegrate matter through touch or weapon, though its cost climbs exponentially as the target becomes tougher, has the properties of armor or is intended to be used for defensive purposes.

Cost: 12 mana per strike, 30 mana per poisoning Strike, 100 mana minimum for disintegration (unarmored flesh belonging to a being at your Level)

Level 30, that was the big one. In this case, it had given him the power to disintegrate stuff, at least if it wasn’t magical armor.

That whole caveat was actually touching on several more complicated parts of magic. In essence, when an object was infused with magic through crafting or [Skills], that object’s identity and purpose influenced said magic. This was what allowed magical equipment to do things regular materials could not replicate, having material properties nothing mundane could match.

Magical swords were more than just bits of metal with a thin edge that could cut through stuff, they also had magic within that allowed it to cut through stuff, damaging force fields more than an object that wasn’t a weapon would, even if it was swung with the same amount of force.

Outside of specialized fields like Alchemy, though, it was mostly an academic curiosity, not something you needed to worry about unless you specifically had a [Skill] or even a [Class] that dealt with mystical concepts.

Isaac continued to read through his Status, then re-read the Event description and the attached summoning list, followed by him randomly flipping through the [System] user manual just to have something to do.

Eventually though, the authorities finally arrived, Isaac gave his statement almost robotically and finally stumbled through the portal back to Grafenwöhr.

Once there, he basically spent the rest of his time talking with his friends, only getting involved with the combat side of things when it was absolutely unavoidable.

And then, finally, 1 am rolled around, the Event was over, and they could all head home.

Today had been one hell of a day, but it was finally over. Two more day, during which he’d hopefully be able to take it easy, and then he’d take his first proper holiday in a long time.