Awakening a 10,000x Skill Proficiency Multiplier in the Apocalypse

The silence stretching across the Valley of Cinders was entirely unnatural. Five thousand players clad in gleaming plate armor and vibrant magical robes stood perfectly still. They stared at the towering and impenetrable walls of the Sanctuary, and then their gazes slowly lowered to the single unarmored Drifter standing alone in the open ash field.

Sebastian had his hands buried deep in the pockets of his ragged trousers. He looked supremely bored.

At the front of the massive formation, Baron K and Viper pushed their way through the shield wall of Guardians. The two guild leaders were practically vibrating with a mix of fury and overwhelming greed.

”Look at this fucking idiot!” Baron K’s magically amplified voice boomed, echoing off the rocks. ”He actually came outside! He locked himself out of his own damn base!”

”You are dead, Drifter!” Viper shrieked, pointing his sword at Sebastian. ”You think a cheap stealth trick and a bugged dagger are going to save you from an entire server alliance? We’re going to camp your corpse until you delete your fucking account!”

YEAAAHHH! CLASH! CLANG!

The massive army behind them erupted into a chorus of cheers, jeers, and clashing steel. The sheer noise of five thousand players banging their weapons against their shields sounded like a roaring mechanical beast. They were absolutely confident. It was five thousand against one. The math was undeniably in their favor.

Sebastian did not shout back. He did not waste his breath on a villainous monologue. He simply pulled his right hand out of his pocket.

Between his index and middle finger, he held a flimsy and dirt stained pamphlet. It was a Tier 0 spell book he had looted off a dead goblin back in the Ironhold slums.

[Basic Weight Increase]

It was a utility spell designed to make a target inventory slightly heavier, slowing their movement speed by a fraction of a percent. It was considered the most useless spell in the entire Ethereal Plane.

Sebastian crushed the pamphlet in his fist. The grey motes of light sank into his skin.

BING!

The system interface in his vision immediately threw a violent and beautiful fit.

[Action Registered: Cast Basic Weight Increase.]

[Nexus Glitch Activated: Proficiency x10,000.]

[Basic Weight Increase leveled up to 10/10! Max Level Reached!]

[Evolution Requirement Met. Basic Weight evolves to Tier 1: Heavy Burden!]

[Proficiency Overflow Detected! Heavy Burden leveled up to 10/10!]

[Evolution Requirement Met. Heavy Burden evolves to Tier 3: Gravity Well!]

[Proficiency Overflow Detected! Gravity Well leveled up to 10/10!]

[WARNING: Concept Threshold Breached. Spatial Mass Law Unlocked.]

[Gravity Well evolves to Conceptual Law: Gravity Domain.]

Sebastian did not feel a rush of elemental fire or the crackle of lightning. He felt the terrifying and absolute certainty of mass. He understood on a fundamental and mathematical level how to grab the invisible fabric of gravity and violently pull it straight down.

”Lions! Skulls! Charge!” Baron K roared, raising his sword. ”First one to bring me his head gets a thousand silver!”

RAAAARGH!

The vanguard surged forward. Five hundred heavy tanks sprinted across the ash. THUMP THUMP THUMP. A wall of spiked steel coming right at him.

Sebastian raised his hand with his palm facing the ground. He did not target a single player. He targeted the exact spatial coordinates of the entire vanguard and extended the radius to a full five hundred meters.

He smoothly pushed his hand down.

”Gravity,” Sebastian said simply. ”Times one hundred.”

VROOOM!

The effect was instantaneous, catastrophic, and completely silent.

There was no magical explosion. There was no flashy particle effect.

The battle cries of five hundred charging players were violently and horrifically cut short.

WHAM!

It was as if an invisible and massive anvil had been dropped directly from the heavens onto their shoulders. The vanguard did not stumble. They did not fall to their knees. They were brutally and instantly slammed into the hard floor of the valley.

CRUNCH! SCREECH! SPLAT!

The sound that followed was nauseating. It was an overlapping noise of screeching and tearing metal and wet concussive impacts.

Under exactly one hundred Gs of force, the pristine iron and steel plate armor did not protect them. It became a catastrophic death trap. The heavy breastplates instantly buckled inward, crushing digital ribcages into splinters and driving jagged shards of steel directly into the players lungs and hearts.”Oh fuck!” one Guardian gurgled out.

SNAP! Knees bent backward with loud pops. Legs just gave out under the impossible weight.

CRACK! Skulls hit the rock hard enough to break the stone. Helmets flattened like pancakes, crushing the heads inside.

The physics engine of The Ethereal Plane began to literally scream in protest.

Translucent blue error codes flooded the sky as the server desperately tried to calculate the extreme and instantaneous deformation of five hundred character models simultaneously.

Blood did not spray. Under that much gravity, it couldn’t. It was forcefully squeezed out of their mouths, noses, and ears. The blood pooled heavily on the ash and was unable to splash upward.

The players could not move. They could not log out since the game combat lock prevented it. They were pinned like crushed insects under a titan boot and entirely unable to expand their lungs to breathe. They just lay there choking on their own liquefied organs as their health bars rapidly hemorrhaged into the red.

The other 4,500 players in the back slammed on the brakes. SCUFF! People tripped over each other.

Absolute and horrified silence fell over the canyon.

They stared at the 500-meter circle of hell. The vanguard was gone, replaced by a twitching, bleeding carpet of smashed metal and meat.

Baron K was at the edge, flat on his back. His custom armor was flattened. His eyes bulged, blood leaking from his mouth. ”Shit... fuck...” he wheezed, his HP at two percent.

Sebastian casually stepped forward and crossed the threshold into his own Gravity Domain. The conceptual law recognized him as the caster, granting him absolute immunity to the crushing force. To him, the gravity was perfectly normal.

He walked slowly through the dying players. SQUELCH. SQUELCH. His boots stepped in crushed bone and jelly.

He stopped next to Baron K. He looked down at the paralyzed and terrified guild leader.

”I’d tell you to surrender,” Sebastian said, his voice flat but tired. ”But honestly, I just want to see what the server does when your health hits zero under this much pressure.”

Baron K let out a wet and bubbling gurgle. His eyes filled with a terror that transcended the digital game.

Sebastian did not finish him off. He just kept walking and stepped over the flattened bodies as his cold eyes locked onto Viper and the remaining trembling army.

”Who’s next?” Sebastian asked.

The front line broke. Run!” The Crimson Skulls turned and scrambled, screaming in pure panic. The meat grinder was officially open for business.