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

The silence that blanketed the ruined remains of Downtown Metropolis was heavy and absolute. The deafening hum of the Void Titan was gone. The chaotic shrieks of the Void Crawlers were silenced.

There was only the soft sound of the toxic blue blood slowly eating away at the concrete foundations of the crushed skyscrapers.

Sebastian lay on his back in the center of the devastated intersection. His black leather coat was soaked in his own sweat and digital blood.

His physical body had finally stabilized. It dropped back down from the agonizing 50 percent synchronization to a manageable 20 percent. The terrifying glitching effect had faded and left his flesh solid once more.

He stared up at the sky. The massive jagged wound of the Abyssal Gate was completely gone.

”Fucking finally,” he rasped. His throat felt like he had swallowed a handful of broken glass.

High above the Sky-Fortress slowly descended through the thinning red smog. The heavy basalt platform hovered gently over the ruined street. Its anti-gravity runes pulsed with a low steady thrum.

Valerie peered over the edge. Her face was pale and her dark hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat. A thick smear of blood stained her upper lip.

But she was alive. The localized necromancy of her Arcane Valkyrie class had managed to jump-start her internal organs the moment the Titan’s hum ceased.

”Sebastian!” she called out. Her voice was hoarse but filled with desperate relief. ”Are you in one piece?!”

”Mostly,” Sebastian grunted. He planted his hands on the asphalt and pushed himself up. His joints popped loudly. ”I think I pulled a hamstring rewriting the laws of physics. How’s the crew?”

Wraith materialized next to Valerie. The Assassin looked like he had been run over by a truck. He was heavily hunched over and clutched his ribs but he offered a slow respectful nod down at the street.

”Abyss Knights took heavy internal damage Boss. But no casualties. The hum stopped just in time.”

”Good. Get them back to Sanctuary,” Sebastian ordered and brushed off his coat. ”The medics are going to have a long night.”

He didn’t realize it yet but the battle wasn’t entirely private.

A mile away safely tucked behind the barricades of their makeshift forward operating base Colonel Vance and the surviving members of the National Guard watched the feeds.

The military had deployed dozens of high-altitude stealth drones before the EMPs wiped the local grids. The drones were shielded from the magical interference and had recorded the entire event.

Vance stood frozen in front of a ruggedized field monitor. His jaw was slack. His hands trembled uncontrollably.

He had watched the skyscraper-sized Titan emerge. He had watched his elite Vanguard operators get slaughtered. And then he had watched the man in the ragged coat point a single finger and literally delete half of a god from existence.

”Mother of God,” a communications officer whispered and stared at the screen. The drone feed showed Sebastian standing amidst the ruins. His silver-tinged eyes glowed faintly in the dark. ”He isn’t a bioterrorist sir. He’s... what is he?”

Vance swallowed hard and a cold sweat broke out across his neck.

”He’s the only reason we are still breathing. Send the footage to Command. Tell them the rules of engagement are officially null and void.”

Back in the ruined city Sebastian cracked his neck and prepared to order Wraith to drop a rope.

Suddenly the world held its breath.

The ambient noise of the wind completely died. The sizzling of the acidic blood stopped. The very rotation of the Earth seemed to pause for a microscopic fraction of a second.

BING! BING! BING!

The sound didn’t come from the sky. It didn’t come from a speaker. It erupted simultaneously inside the minds of every single surviving human being on the planet.

From the terrified refugees hiding in Tokyo’s quarantine zones to the military commanders in deep underground bunkers to Valerie and Wraith hovering on the Sky-Fortress.

It was a celestial harmonious chime that carried the terrible unyielding weight of absolute authority.

Sebastian froze. His deadpan eyes widened slightly. He knew that sound.

A massive translucent golden scroll unrolled itself in the center of his vision. It wasn’t a localized error message or a skill upgrade. It was a global broadcast.

[GLOBAL SYNCHRONIZATION INITIATED.]

[DIMENSIONAL MERGE AT 100%.]

[WELCOME TO THE ETHEREAL PLANE.]

[TUTORIAL COMPLETE. MAIN STORY BEGINS.]

”Oh, shit,” Valerie whispered over the comms. ”Sebastian... my UI. It’s changing.”

All across the globe reality was violently overwritten.

In a ruined apartment complex in London a terrified mother holding a kitchen knife suddenly gasped as a blue interface flashed before her eyes.

[Class Assigned: Novice Rogue. Level 1.]

In a military hospital in New York a trauma surgeon frantically wrapping bandages around a soldier’s severed leg stumbled backward as glowing green runes materialized over his hands.

[Class Assigned: Field Medic. Level 2.]

The System was no longer a game confined to a digital server and it wasn’t just bleeding into the world anymore. It had officially swallowed Earth whole.

Every single human who had survived the horrors of Day Zero was forcibly integrated. Their physical actions and their survival instincts and their latent talents were instantly calculated by the server’s omniscient AI and translated into hard unyielding stats.

If you had fought you became a Warrior. If you had hidden you became a Rogue. If you had patched wounds you became a Cleric.

There was no opt-out button. There was no customer service to complain to.

The brutal mathematical laws of the Ethereal Plane now governed the physical universe. Gravity and thermodynamics and biology were now secondary to Mana and Hit Points and Levels.

Sebastian stared at the golden text hovering in his vision. The Great Reset had happened exactly on schedule.

He didn’t panic. He didn’t despair. He just let out a slow tired breath and swiped the notification away.

”Well,” Sebastian muttered as he looked up at the fully rendered permanent UI health bars now floating above the heads of Valerie and Wraith. ”I guess playtime is officially over.”

He pulled the heavy concrete-encrusted Earth Sword from his inventory and rested it comfortably on his shoulder. His silver eyes scanned the dark ruined horizon of his new reality.

The world was broken and the monsters were real and the apocalypse was fully installed.

”Let’s go home, Princess,” Sebastian said and a cold predatory smirk touched his lips. ”We have a world to conquer.”

---

The Great Merge did not care if you were ready. It did not care if you were sleeping, driving, or hiding under your bed with a shotgun.

In the span of a single microscopic fraction of a second, the fundamental laws of physics that had governed Earth for billions of years were violently uninstalled. In their place, the brutal source code of the Ethereal Plane was aggressively downloaded into the physical universe.

But the system was not a benevolent god handing out superpowers. It was a calculating machine. If you resisted the patch update, you were categorized as a glitch.

And the system purged glitches.

In an alleyway in what used to be downtown Seattle, a middle-aged accountant named Gary stumbled out of a dumpster. He was covered in trash and trembling violently.

When the blue screen popped up in his vision offering him the class of ’Peasant’, Gary swiped his hands through the air.

”Turn it off! Get this AR bullshit out of my eyes! I’m calling the police!”

He completely ignored the low guttural growl echoing from the shadows.

A stray golden retriever had been wandering the alley just minutes before the Merge. Now, the dog was gone.

In its place stood a Level 5 Barghest.

It was a massive hulking hound made of jagged bone plating and rotting muscle. Its jaw was unhinged, dripping a highly corrosive acid onto the pavement.

”Shoo! Get out of here, you ugly mutt!” Gary yelled, picking up a brick and throwing it at the monster.

The brick bounced harmlessly off the Barghest’s bone armor.

[-0 Damage] floated into the air.

The monster lunged.

Gary didn’t even have time to scream. The beast’s jaws clamped down on his shoulder and neck.

CRUNCH.

The accountant’s collarbone snapped like a dry twig. The beast violently jerked its head backward, ripping Gary’s entire right arm and a massive chunk of his ribcage clean off his torso.