Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 173: Debrief

“Are you alright, Isaac?” Wirt called out from the doorway, having just returned to the door of the room and looking in, now that he’d heard Isaac return. Of course, there was also a gun in his hand, not quite pointed at him, but in a position to be used at the drop of a hat.

“I’m fine. What happened out here?” Isaac called back. As useful as the Party was, directly talking to someone was still the superior method of information sharing.

“The guy who showed up and started monologuing cast a [Skill] that made gravity toss everything away from him, then started launching attacks at everything he could see. The military ended up taking him down after one of our, well, GSG-9’s snipers shot out one of his eyes and he grew more focused on killing him than defending himself from artillery. He still blocked most of it, but eventually, he took a direct hit backed up by an offensive cooldown [Skill]. We’re searching for survivors now, securing the full area of the battlefield, and ensuring no one else shows up.” Wirt said as the pair of them were already running down the stairs.

“There are no orders for me in the Party and Habicht is too busy to give any beyond ‘don’t do anything else.” Isaac said “Do you know where I’m supposed to go?”

“The Polizeirat isn’t in charge anymore, a Brigadengeneral took over when the terrorist showed up. Habicht is just an advisor now. As for you, they both said you should come to the command area for a quick debrief and then, they’d be deciding what happens next. Oh, and what happened to the guy?”

“Dead.” Isaac said bluntly.

“On purpose?” Wirt asked “Look, not saying it wasn’t justified, but you might want to phrase that a little differently when someone in charge asks.”

Isaac nodded “When someone dies in the [Grave of Swords], their body is sealed within. That guy was a living bioweapon in the only place on the planet where his body wouldn’t start a pandemic. He wasn’t making any attempts to not kill me beyond trying to convince me to help him destroy the world and he’d already used an attack that would have been lethal if it hadn’t been for a [Skill] he didn’t know I had. I had to make a choice.”

“And that’s how you should put it when someone asks because someone will. Also, someone will throw a hissy fit over the burned out building and there’ll be an inquiry about both. ‘Living Bioweapon’ is one hell of an excuse, it should work, but you’ll still have to deal with it.” Wirt said.

Isaac just sighed and checked his notifications. If he was going to do a debrief, he first needed to have all the information himself.

Name: Isaac Thoma

Class: Hildebrand’s Heir

Species: High Human

Level: 97

XP: 39,998/49,000

Health Status: Healthy

Mana: 2,000/2,000

Stats

Fortitude

200

Perception

345

Strength

200

Agility

400

Magic Power

200

Magic Regeneration

360

Free Points: 0 Stat, 4 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 XXIV

The Chosen Weapon XXVIII

I Am The Sword X

Grave of Swords XX

Armory of Ancient Times XVII

Legacy of a True Warrior XII

Skills

Hundred Faces XXVI

Stealth XXIX

Power Strike XXX

Piercing Strike XXX

Sundering Strike XXX

Blades XXIX

Sneak XXVII

Sweeping Strike XVII

Far Strike XXVII

Manifold Strike XX

Hunter’s Gaze XXX

Phantom Step XIX

Unknown Fear XXV

Bestial Regeneration XXVII

Undying Focus XXIII

Tools of Terror XIX

Fleeting Presence XVII

Crippling Blow XVII

Absolute Blade Mastery XVII

Compounded Impact XVI

True Cut VIII

Legendary Blow XV

Fully Geared X

Knightly Leader XIV

Analyze Person IX

Continent Strider III

Burden of Power III

General Skills

Gralloch XII

Alchemy XII

Death’s Embrace VIII

Bloodline of the Survivor (Empower Relatives)

Advanced Bureaucracy VI

Police Procedure V

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

Twilight Weaver (3 stack)

Lesser Illusion

Perception Interdiction

Warp Wave

Razor Apparition (3 stack)

Remote Wielding

Immortal Blades

Razor Trails

Acid Drake

Drake’s Heart

Least Demon Lord (2 Stack)

Moment of Immortality

Grand Hellflame

During the fight, three [Skills] had reached a threshold. The first was, unsurprisingly, [Fully Geared].

Fully Geared (legendary)

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 four 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.

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

It could now store up to four outfits, one more than before, and its repair functionality had increased, though greater repairs required the needed materials. A nice boost, nothing world shaking, but still very useful.

Meanwhile, [Manifold Strike] and [Grave of Swords] had hit Level twenty and evolved.

Manifold Strike (legendary, Level XX)

The user may combine any number of [-Strike] type Skills into a single attack, so long as there is one Skill with a minimum Level of X available for each Skill used below that Level.

In addition, the overall potency of the Skills used increases by 10 %.

After countless situations where this Skill has been used to deal devastating damage using the right combination of lesser Strikes, especially when combined with a second Skill that allows for multiple uses of the same strike, it has evolved to be even more powerful than the sum of its parts. Now, when staking multiple instances of this Skill using Legendary Blow, one may choose which Strike to use how often, modifying proportions as needed to create a truly optimal attack with no mana going to waste.

In addition, the complimentary Skill of Legendary Blow has been enhanced to allow for an additional instance to be applied, for a total maximum of seven possible stacks.

Cost: Combined cost of individual Skills * 1.20^used Skills

And the first of his [Skills] hadn’t just gained an evolutionary power but shot up through the ranks all the way up to legendary. That was more than a little deceptive, though. It was directly boosting and sharing power with a [Skill] of that rank, but lacked the full power a legendary power should have.

The combination of [Legendary Blow] and [Manifold Strike] would allow Isaac to stack as many [Strikes] as he wanted into a single attack, up to seven of each, but not necessarily that many. Before, he’d had to combine all the [Strikes] he wanted into a single [Manifold Strike], then multiply that using [Legendary Blow], and that could get real expensive, real fast. Not anymore, though.

A couple of [Piercing Strikes] to bypass armor, a full seven stacks of [Power Strike] to strengthen the impact, and a single stack of [Sundering Strike] to ensure the armor was weaker against future attacks would do the trick almost as well as having seven stacks of each would have, but didn’t cost two hundred mana a pop.

It was something Isaac would have to play around with a little to figure out the best way to use it, but he could already tell it was invaluable.

Also, the fact that he could now use seven [Strikes] in one was just insane.

And then, there was the [Grave of Swords].

Grave of Swords (legendary, Level XX)

A vast field, countless blades thrust into the dirt, each one representing a warrior who fell in battle within this space

This is the Grave of Swords, each one containing the power and knowledge of a specific foe, so the user may fight them over and over again, or be used as fuel to enhance this space.

Upon activation of this ability, both the user and one target will be transported to another plane (current size: circle with a 50 meter diameter) for a one minute per Level in this Skill. The target must be either in contact with user or the user’s soulbound weapon when this Skill is activated for it to take effect, though.

The Skill ends if one combatant dies, it hits its time limit, or is deactivated by the user, any leftover mana will be refunded and placed in the Skill’s pool.

When an enemy dies within this Skill, a new blade is thrust into these hallowed grounds, containing a record of the fight, the fallen, and a measure of its power. With it, the user may choose to fight against the old foe once more for training purposes, experimenting with new tactics and moves without danger.

However, the weapons store the remnant life force of the monster, which can be used as additional fuel for this Skill as its cost increases with the strength of the other participant (+5 mana per opponent Level over the user’s, +50 for each Tier barrier between the user’s Level and the monster’s, overall cost doubled for Bosses, tripled for Raid Bosses and quintupled for World Bosses)

This Skill can only be activated every 5 hours, cost requires 1,500 mana to use, which it either siphons off from the user’s mana regeneration so long as the user’s mana pool is full or draws from the swords themselves. Cooldown can be bypassed by paying double the normal activation cost from the stored blades.

After countless fights where the user has sealed powerful foes within to protect his allies, this Skill has evolved to further enhance the isolating power of Grave of Swords. It can now be used to seal of a part of the battlefield, creating an incredibly durable spherical barrier around the user, with a radius of 50 meters (it increases automatically for larger, singular foes, according to the same rules as the regular use of this Skill). The user may choose to banish any person in their Party from this zone to protect them, but enemies cannot be forcibly removed.

(Note: inanimate objects overlapping the barrier will not be damaged, living beings will either be pushed into or out of the Grave of Swords if they overlap the barrier during its creation, depending on where the majority of their body is)

Furthermore, this Skill has gained an additional effect due to a high degree of synergy with the Class Hildebrand’s Heir. When using the Grave of Swords to train against enemies trapped within, the user may choose to take along up to five other people.

Cost: 1,500 banked mana base cost for combat purposed, cost increases with target’s power, increase must be paid from stored blades or the user’s mana pool

Wow, that description had gotten long. But the [Skill] had also gotten strong. The first advanced effect, the one gained by Evolution, allowed Isaac to seal away parts of the battlefield, allowing for the creation of chokepoints by blocking a path by the massive forcefield of sealed-away space.

As a side effect of this, he could now fight a trapped foe with multiple people by his side, with the small issue being that he couldn’t select who’d be drawn along with him, everyone in range would end up locked in together. Making that work for instead of against him would take a little effort, a little consideration, and tactics, but it shouldn’t be too hard.

And lastly, there was the upgrade he hadn’t directly earned, merely unlocked by his current [Class]. The ability to use the [Grave of Swords] for training, to simulate any enemy who had died inside this space for others to fight, with the [Skill] guaranteeing that it was “without danger”. Of course, it didn’t specify what that meant, whether people would be invincible, the damage would be fixed once the grave vanished, or something else entirely. But that was something they could check.

It would also allow him to show people just how strong this guy had been and maybe, they could get a picture of his face. Isaac had had a bodycam on him, as well two more in his spare armor sets, but those were all nothing but ash and molten metal now. Sure, he could make a sketch, or get the help of a sketch artist, but it should be far easier to go into that space, summon a copy of his foe for training and break the mask, then take a photo.

Isaac and Wirt could have reached the command area in a matter of seconds, but running around the place at speeds that exceeded that of a pre-[System] fighter jet would have caused one hell of a mess by alarming people. So they were merely moving at a good clip, not outright sprinting.

While they ran, Isaac sent his [Aura] out into his surroundings, searching for survivors, but there were none, at least none that hadn’t been retrieved. The police, paramedics, and fire department had already swept the area and [Skills] that precisely zeroed in on casualties were leagues ahead of someone manually sweeping an area in terms of speed and efficiency.

But there were still countless bodies buried in the rubble, left where they’d fallen to be retrieved when the living had been dealt with. Isaac still tagged them all in the Party menu. There were limits as to how much information could be fed through [Knightly Leader], but Isaac was currently plugged into a network that had grown well beyond that by the addition of numerous high-Level military [Skills].

So. Many. Dead. Fuck! Many people who’d been outside when the gravity pillar had been triggered had often survived, falling parallel to the street until they left the area of influence and getting flung along the ground, skimming over the asphalt, and ending up with the mother of all road-rashes but often surviving. Most humans liked to put enough points into Fortitude to prevent concussions, broken bones, and the like from being the result of standard accidents, which had saved a lot of them.

However, almost everyone who was inside a building and failed to get clear when it toppled had died. Being in a collapsing structure that was almost the size of a skyscraper would have been bad enough, but the gravity would then push along the mass of broken concrete and rebar out of the area, creating what basically amounted to a giant blender that few people survived.

Damnit. Damn. It. All. A single used [Skill] had killed hundreds, possibly thousands, without a care in the world. At least the bastard hadn’t survived.

And that was ignoring the larger issues caused by this act of, well, let’s call it what it is, terrorism.

The [System] had granted countless opportunities, and people had taken those, growing well beyond what had been possible before. And now those same people, those that had taken full advantage, they would be looked at in askance, for fear of them pulling the same exact crap.

Either this would turn into a fight of society against those who bettered themselves, governments against their people, or a free for all. This needed to be handled delicately.

Finally, they reached the command area, a sectioned-off portion of a disaster relief tent, protected by a couple of privacy [Skills].

“You, hold it right there.” A police officer guarding the door said, gesturing towards Isaac.

“This is Dr. Thoma, they expect him in there. “ Wirt said with a sigh “Check the Party to verify his identity.”

“Then why is he dressed like that?”

“This is my last outfit, everything else burned up in the fight.” Isaac said “It’s also designed to be put on with magic, so unless you want me to cut myself out run around in my birthday suit …”

The guard blanched “No need for that, but if you could maybe make it so I’m not looking at a blank faceplate?”

Isaac cursed himself as he reached up, worked his fingers into the biggest crack in the helmet, and tore at it with the help of [Power Strike], removing a large chunk, then proceeding to pull off the rest of his head covering. He should have figured out that running around looking like a sci-fi stormtrooper who’d just run through a wildfire was a bad, nay, terrible idea.

“Better?”

“Yep,” Wirt said.

When Isaac stepped into the command area, he had to take a moment to take in everything.

There was a laptop set up on a rickety picnic table in one corner, showing Lauterbach, with the background making it clear he was currently on a plane, but not where he was traveling to, with three more laptops showing various politicians and officials Isaac might have seen on TV once or twice but didn’t really recognize.

Habicht and a few officials he didn’t recognize either were standing around another table, discussing options while gesturing towards the [Skill] generated map of Hamburg on the table.

However, the three people who were standing apart from them were what drew the eye.

Unlike the people physically present or listening in via video conference, these folks were here as literal holograms. They were noticeably not real, slightly transparent, and occasionally flickered in a way that was oddly reminiscent of how some sci-fi movies portrayed holographic communication.

These three were clearly military officers, one of them the Bundeswehr Brigadengeneral who currently had operative control over the situation, the second a Luftwaffe Oberst who was likely in charge of the jets flying past overhead, and the last one was another Oberst, but a part of the Bundeswehr instead.

Isaac gave a short report as to what had happened in the [Grave of Swords], then, he was sent out to go hunting for other potential cult members. The real debrief would happen later.

***

“And why exactly did you decide that your only choice was to kill your opponent?” a new official, one who hadn’t been involved in the initial cleanup, nor the follow-up efforts, asked.

“Once again. Living. Bio. Weapon.” Lauterbach sighed “How many times do we have to go over this? We’ve done everything short of locking Dr. Thoma in an interrogation room and throwing every lie-detecting [Skill] in the country at him to verify his statements about the danger of the disease increasing during the fight. In fact, I’m declaring this entire topic off-limits for the entirety of this discussion. This will be talked over to death later, but now is not the time.”

“On a slightly different topic, what was that armor you were wearing earlier?” one of the military officers asked, addressing Isaac “Considering how well it held up in the fight, if it’s for sale, I believe the Bundeswehr would love to purchase it.”

“The Raid Suits will be for sale once it gets out of the prototype stage, but I don’t know how much use you’d get out of them.” Isaac said, “They’re designed to be put on via an equipping [Skill], anyone without one would have to be literally welded into one and they’re functionally impossible to remove without breaking them, especially when damaged.”

“That seems … excessive?”

“This armor isn’t meant to be worn into every fight but rather be an emergency trump card. Internal potion dispensers apply healing and mana potions when and wherever needed, granting an artificial second wind. We’re already planning to add short-lived Stat-boosting enchantments, supercharged to provide the kind of boost you need if you have to resort to using the suit.” Isaac explained.

“We can geek out over fancy toys later.” The Brigadengeneral, whose name Isaac had learned was Horn, said “We’re here to discuss the future, see if anyone has any ideas for turning this around because as things stand, this is a disaster. People are scared, they don’t trust any of us to protect them, and they feel like we’re useless.”

“We need to restore trust in the establishment. Dr. Thoma serves perfectly fine as an example of what can be reached, but even if we paint him as an absolute perfect paragon, it won’t fix the lack of trust.” Lauterbach added.

“I can’t be everywhere, and I can’t fix everything, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that.” Isaac said “Leave me out of the official statements, if someone asks, just say I was there, and don’t elaborate. Highlight the cooperation that led to you winning, that you didn’t need a civilian’s help against a person who reshaped a city with a single [Skill].”

“We could do that.” Lauterbach said thoughtfully “Or we could focus on creating heroes. The sniper who shot out the war god’s eye, the pilot who is essentially a living thunderstorm and landed the first damaging blow.

“I realize this might offend some sensibilities, but we can put an unusual level of support behind them. In this new world, there are people who are vastly more capable than others, with [Skill] Evolutions and [Class] options that cannot easily be gained by others, and to get the most out of our resources, we’ll need to focus them onto the people who can get the greatest use out of it. Our guns break when we use them and ones that don’t would have to be handmade by world-class experts, so we won’t be able to get more than a few. But we can get a few, and gift them to our champions.”

“That’s going to be expensive.” Wachtel said, “I looked into getting a couple of those rifles, and the cost runs into the millions.”

“It depends on who’s buying.” Isaac said “For me, all it’ll cost is a conversation and some raw materials. Also, I believe Oberleutnant Meier deserves a plane suitable for her [Class], doesn’t she? I know of an entire university full of engineers who’d jump at the chance to custom-build a fighter jet.”

“Good idea.” Wachtel said, then looked at Horn “Assuming that’ll work for the Luftwaffe, at least.”

“That’s settled, then.” Lauterbach said, shuffling through the papers on the table in front of him “We create heroes to show that the police and military are capable of protecting people. Now we just need to figure out how to prevent a repeat of this disaster.”

“Some of us might unlock [Skills] for crime prevention as we grow in Levels,” Habicht suggested.

“More Levels, that’s your solution?” One of the civilian aides asked “We’ve seen how dangerous high-Level individuals are, do we really want to encourage people to reach higher? And do we even know there are many Levels to go? Both of our perpetrators were at Level 100, which seems odd, maybe it’s the maximum?”

“Unlikely.” Isaac said “There are three Tiers no one has even touched yet, it wouldn’t make sense for those to collectively cover only a handful of Levels. It’s more likely that it’s the fourth Evolution, and that they’re stuck at that point, either because they haven’t unlocked the [Class] they want yet or because there is a huge spike in levelling difficulty at that point.”

“Damn.” Horn muttered, then hurried to explain as everyone turned to stare at him “I was just thinking that, if we’d just seen the apex of what was possible, we could deal with this situation.”

“More Levels, and hope we get the right [Skills], and then, everything will be alright?” another man, who’d stayed silent thus far, suggested “Here’s the thing, the police are a fundamentally reactionary force. If we get to proactive, we’ll turn into the jackbooted thugs that guy was yelling about. The world just doesn’t work like that.”

“So maybe we powerlevel the people who don’t directly get involved in policing, focus on the policy makers instead?”

“Maybe.” Isaac said “Now, I know this sounds a bit crazy, but hear me out: we powerlevel politicians. They’re the ones who shape the way our country does things, so if anyone gets the [Skills] to reduce overall crime rates, it’ll be them. But we’ll need someone who is willing to take those [Skills] and a [Class] that grants them over something that benefits them personally.”

“A selfless politician, that’s quite the oxymoron,” Horn said.

“Emphasis on the moron, I know.” Isaac said, waiting until everyone was staring at him to continue “Look, we were all thinking it. A selfless politician, we’d be more likely to create world peace by legalizing weed than find one of those, but there should be at least one of them in existence, right? My suggestion is, we’ll all make lists, then cross off everyone whom someone has had a problem with. I’ve not dealt with politicians beyond voting, I’m out of my depth here. But you’ve been dealing directly with them for years or decades, learned how they are behind closed doors, and who is too opportunistic to be trusted.”

That list was really something Isaac need help with. He knew a few people who he wouldn’t work with due to his knowledge from the other timeline, but that wasn’t all that useful when it came to figuring out who he shouldwork with.

“Do they need to be selfless, though?” Lauterbach asked, “All we’d need is someone whose self-interest aligns with ours, a politician who wants those [Skills] to get elected, because who wouldn’t vote for someone with the power to create the perfect economic plan that increases everyone’s wealth across the board?”

“Assuming we can’t find someone who hasn’t yet been corrupted by spending too much time wheeling and dealing.” Horn said “But once we have our candidate, what then? Powerleveling through summoning will take a long time.”

“Do you think we might be able to use Dungeons?” Habicht asked “I know our Dungeons are in their infancy, but if we feed them enough …”

“I think I might be able to swing a little something in Seoul, borrow a couple of high Level ones for a week.” Isaac said “Assuming we can find the right candidate.”

“That just leaves one more problem: we’d be shifting the balance of power in our society in a major way. Before, we had powerful fighters, and the rest of society with a few standouts being shielded from the powerful by the police and military. If we have superpowered politicians, we might end up with those people attempting to take all the power for themselves, to suppress all others from leveling.” Lauterbach said, “This could get a hell of a lot messier than it already is.”

“Power levelling politicians without offensive powers just with the XP they gain by being in the same Party as the person who defeats the monster will always end with them being weaker than the true fighters.” Habicht pointed out “The real issue is how to prevent dangerous summons and people growing way too powerful, to the point where they can completely ignore law and order.”

“We can adjust the rules of summoning.” Wachtel suggested “Forbid all summoning above, say, Tier 2 outside of designated summoning areas, then allow for people to apply for permits for private summoning but require them to explain what they want to summon and why it’ll be safe in the presence of someone who can determine the veracity. Someone who gets noticed summoning without a permit will make it a million times easier to spot those who are getting dangerous.”

“I can help narrow down some almost universally applicable parameters for that.” Isaac offered.

“Thanks.”

“Alright, so at least we have an idea of what to do on that front.” Lauterbach sighed “And now, we have the elephant in the room: what do we know about our foe? How can we track them?”

“We know they’re dangerous and that they somehow got [Classes] that might evolve into [Horseman of the Apocalypse].” Habicht said “So we know we need to stop them. They’re also spread out across many businesses, and work in many nations. Unfortunately, all we have is a cellar full of half-destroyed record and the brief glimpse Dr. Thoma got of the insides of the lockbox.”

“Wait, that’s it?” Horn asked, sounding aghast.

“It’s worse than that.” Lauterbach sighed “The only reason we were even able to organize this raid was that we got an anonymous tip.”

“In other words, there are multiple groups we don’t know anything about, with goals that might include ending the world and at least one of them is willing to do that to a major city.” Horn sighed, shook his head, and looked around the room, meeting everyone’s eyes in turn “I realize this looks bleak, but we won this round. And I know we’re capable of winning the next. We’re all here because we believe in this cause, in keeping this nation safe. We’ve shown what we’re capable of when working together, and that will carry us all the way to victory!”

It was one of the most generic speeches Isaac had ever heard, but everyone was so tired, so fried, that it somehow still worked. He wasn’t sure if it was the words themselves or the tiny spark of faith they carried with them, but it had worked. All that was left to do now was get out of this tent, and get to work … after sleeping for a week straight. And food. And hugging his sisters until they resorted to threats to make him let go.