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

The Grand Arena was a graveyard of broken code and sheared bedrock. The silence following the collapse of the Event Horizon was heavy and suffocating.

Up in the stands, one hundred thousand spectators remained entirely motionless. Their brains completely failed to process the apocalyptic display of power they had just witnessed.

Across the massive crater, the Apostle was trembling. The black glitching strings of data that composed his avatar were sparking violently.

”You... you broke the server!” the Apostle shrieked. His voice was a horrifying blend of human desperation and digital distortion. ”You are a virus! An anomaly!”

Sebastian casually walked around the edge of the smooth perfectly spherical crater. He did not rush. He moved with the slow inevitable momentum of a man clocking in for a blue collar shift.

”I am the guy who is going to take your City Core,” Sebastian corrected. He popped his neck.

”Now, are we going to do this the easy way, or are you going to throw more trash mobs at me?”

The jagged static smile of the Apostle returned. It stretched unnaturally wide across his face.

”You rely entirely on broken spells,” the Void proxy hissed. He raised his hands.

”You think you are a god because you found an exploit in the magic system. But I have Administrator access. And I say... magic is disabled!”

The Apostle slammed his hands together and screamed a command that bypassed the standard rules of the game.

”ADMIN COMMAND: SYSTEM OVERRIDE. MAGIC LOCK!”

BZZZT!

A massive suffocating wave of heavy red energy exploded from the Apostle. It washed over the entire arena. It hit Sebastian like a physical wall.

Instantly, the comforting limitless well of mana inside the chest of Sebastian slammed shut. The glowing blue interface in the corner of his vision turned a dead flat grey. Every single spell icon on his hotbar was violently crossed out with a red X.

[System Alert: Zone Restricted.]

[Magic Disabled. All Conceptual Laws Suspended.]

Up in the stands, the crowd gasped. The Mages and Clerics realized their hands were completely empty of power. The glowing magical torches illuminating the arena flickered and died. It plunged the pocket dimension into a harsh natural twilight.

Valerie was standing near the eastern ruins. She panicked. She raised her staff and tried to summon a basic hard light shield. Nothing happened.

”Sebastian! My skills are locked! I cannot cast anything!”

The Apostle let out a victorious grinding laugh. He reached into his tattered cloak and pulled out two long jagged blades made of pure condensed static.

”You cannot use magic here, mortal,” the Apostle mocked as he stepped forward.

”You are just a Level 10 Drifter in starter clothes. Your health pool is a joke. Your physical defense is zero. Without your glitches, you are nothing but meat.”

Sebastian stopped walking.

He stood perfectly still in the dim light. He looked down at his hands encased in black leather gloves. He looked at his greyed out UI.

Then, he reached up and slowly wiped a smear of dust off his white half mask.

A low genuine chuckle rumbled in his chest. The chuckle turned into a cold dark laugh that echoed across the silent arena.

”You idiots always make the same mistake,” Sebastian said. His voice dropped the tired deadpan tone. It was sharp now. Lethal.

”I started as a Drifter,” Sebastian stated as he looked up at the Apostle. ”Do you know what the Drifter class perk is? It is not magic. It is that we can equip anything.”

Sebastian did not cast a spell. He did not need to. He reached into his physical inventory space. He bypassed the magic lock entirely and grasped the hilt of a weapon he had not used since his apartment hallway.

”Manifest,” he whispered.

THUD!

With a heavy resounding impact that physically shook the marble floor, the Earth Sword appeared in his right hand.

It was a brutal ugly weapon. It was a Level 5 Iron Broadsword entirely encased in a thick jagged shell of hardened concrete, slag, and raw earth. It weighed easily over two hundred pounds. A normal Level 10 player would not even be able to lift it off the ground.

But Sebastian was not just a digital avatar anymore. He had a 5 percent physical synchronization with the real world. His biological muscles had been rewritten into living steel.

He hoisted the massive weapon with one hand. He rested the flat of the concrete blade against his shoulder. He rolled his neck. His silver tinged eyes locked onto the Apostle.

”Let us see how much health you have under that admin armor,” Sebastian smiled.

He did not teleport. He did not use a dash skill. He simply relied on his synchronized physical stats.

BOOM!

Sebastian kicked off the ground with terrifying kinetic force. The bedrock beneath his boots shattered into dust. He crossed the fifty yards separating them in a fraction of a second. He moved faster than the corrupted eyes of the Apostle could track.

The Void proxy barely had time to raise his static blades in a desperate cross guard.

”Too slow,” Sebastian growled.

He did not swing the blade. He brought the heavy concrete encased pommel of the Greatsword up in a brutal vicious uppercut directly into the jaw of the Apostle.

CRUNCH!

The sound of shattering digital bone was nauseatingly loud. The sheer physical torque of the synchronized muscles of Sebastian bypassed the admin level defense of the Apostle completely. The jaw of the Void proxy was entirely annihilated. Teeth and shards of static exploded into the air.

”GAKKK!” the Apostle choked. His body was lifted two feet off the ground by the impact.

Sebastian did not give him an inch to recover. He dropped the Earth Sword to the ground with a heavy clang. He did not need it for this. This required a personal touch.

As the Apostle fell back down, Sebastian stepped inside his guard. He pulled his right arm back. His muscles coiled like thick industrial steel cables. He drove a bare leather clad fist directly into the center of the chest of the Apostle.

SMASH!

It was like a wrecking ball hitting a sheet of drywall. The fist of Sebastian punched clean through the tattered cloak and heavy breastplate of the Apostle. The sternum caved inward with a horrific wet snapping sound.

Sebastian drove his hand deep into the chest cavity of the avatar.

The Apostle froze. His red eyes widened in absolute unadulterated agony. He dropped his static blades. He grabbed the arm of Sebastian with trembling glitching hands. He tried desperately to pry him off.

”Looking for a backdoor?” Sebastian whispered. His face was inches from the horrifying jawless monster. ”Let me close it for you.”

Inside the chest of the Apostle, the fingers of Sebastian brushed against something warm and pulsing. It was incredibly vile. It felt like a massive beating insect made of pure slime.

It was the Void Seed! It was the parasitic anchor keeping the Apostle connected to the dark gods.

Sebastian gripped it tightly.

”No... wait...” the Apostle gurgled through his ruined throat. His eyes leaked black ichor.

”Get out of my server,” Sebastian snarled.

He violently ripped his arm back.

SHLUCK!

Sebastian pulled the glowing purple black Void Seed completely out of the chest of the Apostle. It thrashed and pulsed in his grip. It leaked acidic bile onto his gloves.

The Apostle let out a silent horrifying scream. Without the Seed to anchor his corrupted code, the avatar violently collapsed. The human beneath the glitch was instantly rejected by the game engine.

The Apostle spasmed wildly on the ground. Thick boiling black ichor poured from his chest wound and his empty mouth. He twitched twice, and then his body dissolved entirely into a puddle of foul bubbling sludge.

[Target Executed.]

[Admin Override Terminated.]

[Magic Restrictions Lifted.]

The grey filter instantly vanished from the vision of Sebastian. The glowing blue UI returned. The comforting hum of his limitless mana pool rushed back into his chest.

Sebastian stood over the puddle of sludge. He looked at the disgusting Void Seed throbbing in his hand. Disgusted, he squeezed his fist.

POP.

The parasitic organ burst like a rotten grape. It dissolved into useless black pixels.

He wiped his glove on his coat. He picked up his Earth Sword and turned to face the empty arena.

High above, the massive floating golden platform of the Announcer descended. The NPC was shaking. His eyes were wide as he stared at the man in the ragged clothes who had just beaten an Administrator to death with his bare hands.

”M-Match Concluded!” the Announcer stuttered. His magically amplified voice cracked in fear.

”The Last Combatant Standing... The Drifter!”

A blinding pillar of golden light erupted in the center of the crater.

Sebastian walked toward it. The crowd was absolutely silent. No cheers. No boos. Just pure terrified reverence for the apex predator of the server.

Resting on a pedestal inside the light was a massive perfectly cut diamond. It radiated an aura of pure unadulterated reality bending power.

The True City Core!

Sebastian grabbed it. It was heavy. It pulsed with a heartbeat that matched his own synchronized rhythm.

He looked over at Valerie and Wraith. He gave them a single tired nod.

”Tournament is over,” Sebastian muttered as he stowed the Core in his inventory.

”Let us go build a real castle.”