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

Sebastian stood in the center of the frozen intersection.

The silence of the frozen city block was a huge difference to the chaos that had been raging just seconds before.

Hundreds of Void Crawlers that were once terrifying apex predators were now nothing more than brittle ice sculptures.

”Well,” Sebastian muttered and kicked a frozen spider leg that snapped off with a satisfying TINK. ”That takes care of the pest control.”

He looked up at the red sky. The massive Abyssal Gate still hung suspended over Downtown Metropolis.

It pulsed with a purple light and released a steady stream of corrupted mana into the atmosphere. The smaller spiders had stopped pouring out but the gate was not closing. If anything the tear was slowly stretching wider.

”Boss,” Wraith’s voice crackled over the comm-link. The Assassin sounded strained. ”The drones... the atmospheric pressure readings around the gate are spiking. Something else is coming through.”

”Yeah, I figured the spiders were just the appetizers,” Sebastian sighed and rolled his shoulders. His synchronized muscles ached with a dull heavy throb.

”Keep the Sky-Fortress steady, Wraith. Do not engage. Just keep the civilians on the platform from jumping off in a panic.”

High above, the floating basalt platform of the Sky-Fortress hovered near the ruined bank building. Valerie was slumped on the edge of the stone. She was bleeding from her nose and completely exhausted from maintaining the hard-light bridge.

The fifty rescued civilians were huddled behind the heavily armored Abyss Knights. They were weeping.

SCREEEEECH!

The Abyssal Gate tore open further. The sound was like sheets of metal being violently shredded at once. The skyscrapers surrounding the portal literally leaned away from the spatial distortion. Their steel frames groaned under the impossible gravitational pull.

Then a hand stepped through the void.

It wasn’t a claw. It wasn’t a paw. It was a shifting mound of human-like fingers fused together by raw purple flesh and jagged geometric blocks of black code.

It gripped the edge of a fifty-story corporate tower and effortlessly crushed the top ten floors into powder.

”Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me,” Sebastian deadpanned as his silver-tinged eyes widened slightly. ”That is not standard lore.”

The Void Titan pulled itself into reality.

It didn’t have a defined shape. It was a skyscraper-sized abomination of shifting meat and digital polygons. It defied every fundamental rule of biology and physics.

It hovered above the ruined city. It made the Ethereal Plane World Bosses look like cuddly house pets.

[Entity: Void Titan (Concept Class)]

[Level: ???]

[Status: Eradicating]

The sheer scale of the monster blocked out the red sky. The city went entirely dark. It was illuminated only by the purple glow radiating from the Titan’s shifting geometric core.

Sebastian didn’t draw a weapon. He just stared up at the monstrosity.

”Alright, big guy. What’s your gimmick?”

The Titan didn’t roar. It didn’t spit fire or breathe ice. It didn’t even swing its massive fused limbs.

It simply vibrated.

WUB-WUB-WUB-WUB...

A low-frequency hum erupted from the center of the Titan. It wasn’t a sound that could be heard with the ears. It was an atmospheric wave of audio-kinetic energy that bypassed the eardrums and struck directly at the cellular level.

The vibration hit the ground first. The asphalt of the streets instantly liquefied. The remaining glass in the city shattered into dust.

Then it hit the biologicals.

”Guh!” Sebastian grunted. His boots slid backward on the ice as the invisible wave slammed into him.

His chest vibrated violently and his internal organs rattled against his ribcage. His twenty percent physical synchronization kicked into overdrive. His dense magical muscle fibers rapidly hardened to protect his vital organs.

He was fine. It hurt like a bitch but his health bar barely chipped.

But he was the only one.

”Sebastian!” Valerie’s voice screamed through the comm-link instantly followed by a wet coughing sound.

Sebastian whipped his head up. His silver eyes locked onto the Sky-Fortress hovering a thousand feet above.

The hum ignored the thick basalt walls of the floating platform. It bypassed the heavy Ethereal armor of the Abyss Knights. It was a frequency specifically designed to liquefy the water and soft tissue inside a baseline human body.

Up on the platform absolute hell broke loose.

The fifty rescued civilians didn’t even have time to panic. The moment the hum washed over them their eyes bulged. They dropped to their knees in perfect terrifying unison.

”Help...” a businessman gurgled as he grabbed his throat.

POP.

Blood violently exploded from his nose and ears. The man collapsed and violently vomited a massive torrent of dark red blood and bile onto the stone deck.

His liver and lungs had simply ruptured under the intense acoustic pressure. Within three seconds the entire group of civilians was dead. They were drowning in their own liquefied internal organs.

The Abyss Knights clad in their heavy armor fared slightly better but only barely. Because they had been leveled up in the Ethereal Plane training dungeons their stats were higher than baseline humans. But they were still essentially mortals trapped in an apocalyptic blender.

”Hold... the... line!” one of the Knights roared as he dropped to his hands and knees. Blood leaked steadily from the visor of his helmet.

He coughed and a wet pink froth coated the stone. ”Medics! We need...”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He collapsed sideways and his body twitched uncontrollably as his internal organs began to fail.

”Boss!” Wraith’s voice was barely a whisper over the comms.

The Level 25 Assassin was visible now because his optical camouflage was entirely disrupted by the sheer pain. He was leaning heavily against a railgun mount and clutching his stomach. Blood poured freely from his tear ducts and stained his dark half-mask.

”We are... critical. The frequency is... tearing us apart.”

Even Valerie was entirely paralyzed. Her high-tier class offered massive stamina and magical affinity but her physical defense was currently useless against a conceptual audio attack.

She was curled into a fetal position on the edge of the platform and gripping her staff so tightly her knuckles were white. A steady stream of blood dripped from her chin.

”Fuck,” Sebastian hissed. His calm pragmatic demeanor finally shattered.

He couldn’t use his Absolute Zero breath again. The Titan was too high up and the blast would definitely catch the Sky-Fortress in the crossfire. That would freeze Valerie and Wraith to death. He couldn’t use his Gravity Domain without a solid anchor point in the sky.

The Titan shifted its massive fleshy bulk. The low-frequency hum grew louder.

WUB-WUB-WUB.

The sound began to physically warp the space around the creature and distorted the skyline. It was charging up a second pulse. If that pulse hit the Sky-Fortress the Abyss Knights and Wraith and Valerie would be turned into soup.

Sebastian’s mind raced. He had the power of a god but his physical vessel was bottlenecking his output.

At twenty percent synchronization his brain could only handle casting basic or mid-tier conceptual laws into reality. The heavy hitters that could one-shot a Void Titan required a much deeper connection to the server.

He looked at his hands. The faint silver runic scars etched into his skin were glowing softly.

”If I open the tap,” Sebastian muttered to himself. ”My brain is going to melt.”

Up on the platform Valerie let out a weak agonizing scream as the frequency spiked.

Sebastian’s jaw clenched. He had spent his entire first life watching people die because he wasn’t fast enough or strong enough or ruthless enough. He had reset the timeline to fix those mistakes. He wasn’t about to lose his only competent lieutenants on Day Zero.

”Hang on, Princess,” Sebastian growled. His silver eyes flared with absolute determination. ”I’m going to pull the plug on this overgrown subwoofer.”

He closed his eyes and completely ignored the massive Void Titan looming above him. He reached deep into his own mind and grasped the invisible digital tether that connected his biological body to his Ethereal Plane avatar.

He found the synchronization limiter. It was a safety protocol designed by the server to prevent a human brain from instantly overloading when exposed to pure cosmic data.

Sebastian mentally grabbed the limiter.

And he violently ripped it in half.