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

The command room of Sanctuary was bathed in the cool blue light of the massive holographic war table. It had been four days since the Great Reset, and the dust was finally starting to settle.

Or, rather, the ashes were.

Sebastian leaned over the obsidian table, staring at the newly rendered map of the world. It didn’t look like Earth anymore. The familiar continents were fractured, broken apart by massive abyssal trenches and towering unnatural mountain ranges that had simply overwritten the old geography.

”The scout drones finally broke through the atmospheric interference,” Valerie said, her fingers dancing rapidly across her glowing interface.

She looked exhausted, running purely on caffeine and digital stamina buffs.

”The footage is... it’s bad, Sebastian. The major metropolitan hubs didn’t just get destroyed. They got terraformed.”

She tapped a rune on the table, expanding a high-definition video feed in the center of the room.

Sebastian crossed his arms, his deadpan expression unwavering as he watched the horror show play out.

The feed showed what used to be New York City. The towering glass skyscrapers were completely gone. In their place stood horrific jagged monoliths constructed entirely of fused human bones and rotting grey marrow.

The streets themselves were paved with skulls that chattered relentlessly. Rivers of thick black sludge flowed where the subways used to run.

”The System reclassified New York as a Level 60 Abyssal Dungeon,” Valerie whispered, visibly shuddering. Her face went pale at the sight. ”It’s calling it ’The Necropolis.’ Anyone trapped inside when the Merge happened... they didn’t just die. They became part of the architecture.”

She swiped her hand, changing the feed.

Now, the projection showed London. The gloomy rainy city had been transformed into a terrifying nightmare of grinding gears and hissing steam. Massive brass cogwheels the size of football stadiums slowly rotated in the sky, crushing the remaining historical buildings beneath them.

Rusted clockwork monstrosities patrolled the streets, harvesting the fleeing civilians to fuel their internal furnaces.

”London is ’The Clockwork City.’ A Level 55 mechanical death trap,” Valerie reported.

”It’s standard server behavior,” Sebastian stated, his voice entirely devoid of shock. ”The Ethereal Plane doesn’t like empty space. The System identifies areas with high population density and high emotional trauma, and it drops a massive anchor there to feed the Void Gods. They are called System Cities.”

Wraith materialized from the shadows near the doorway, his dark daggers sheathed at his hips.

”Boss. If these System Cities keep expanding their borders, they are going to swallow the safe zones. We have Sanctuary, but our five-kilometer radius isn’t going to mean shit if The Necropolis decides to stretch its legs.”

”Exactly,” Sebastian agreed. He tapped the holographic map, zooming in on the North American continent.

”Our golden dome is cute. But it’s just a band-aid. To truly secure our borders and stop the System Cities from overriding our land, we need administrative rights over the entire geographical region.”

Valerie frowned. ”How do we do that? You already planted the City Core.”

”A City Core gives you a building,” Sebastian corrected, his silver-tinged eyes glowing faintly. ”I need a Regional Core. It’s an incredibly rare drop. It acts like a master server key.”

He paused and then continued.

”If we plant a Regional Core inside Sanctuary, our administrative authority expands from five kilometers to five hundred miles. We literally become the capital of the Western Seaboard. Nothing can render near us without my permission.”

”And where do we find a Regional Core?” Wraith asked, stepping up to the table.

Sebastian dragged his finger across the map, dragging the projection away from their comfortable fortress and highlighting a massive burning red scar on the West Coast.

”Sector 7,” Sebastian said. ”Formerly Los Angeles.”

Valerie zoomed the feed in on the location. It was a literal hellscape.

The entire city was trapped in a perpetual roaring inferno. The ground was cracked and bleeding magma. Massive towering Fire Elementals composed of pure screaming plasma wandered the ruined highways, casually melting the rusted husks of cars just by walking past them.

The sky above Sector 7 was choked with thick black ash that completely blotted out the sun.

”A Level 45 Elemental Wasteland,” Valerie read the stats, her voice tight. ”Sebastian, the ambient temperature in that zone will apply a constant burning debuff. Your armor will melt to your skin in ten minutes. It’s a suicide mission.”

”I have thermal immunity,” Sebastian shrugged. ”And Wraith has shadow evasion. We’ll be fine.”

”It’s not just the Elementals, Boss,” Wraith warned, pointing to a cluster of crude jagged fortifications built out of melted scrap metal near the edge of the wasteland. ”We have drone footage of survivors. Human players. They’ve formed a massive encampment right on the border of the fire zone. And they are highly organized.”

Sebastian narrowed his eyes, examining the crude barricades. ”Scavengers?”

”Worse,” Valerie said, pulling up a deeply encrypted data file. ”Our intelligence networks intercepted a broadcast from that camp yesterday. They are led by a player calling himself ’Imperator’. He was a five-star military general in the old world. When the Merge happened, the System granted him a unique ’Warlord’ class. He commands an army of three thousand brutalized starving soldiers.”

”A Warlord,” Sebastian mused, rubbing his chin. ”That class thrives on suffering. The lower the morale of his troops, the higher his personal combat stats get. He’s basically keeping his own men starving and desperate just to juice his damage multipliers.”

”Imperator has claimed Sector 7,” Wraith stated flatly. ”He knows the Regional Core is somewhere in the ashes. He’s sending hundreds of his own men into the fire every single day to look for it. Most of them burn to death. He doesn’t care. He just drafts more refugees into his camp.”

Sebastian stared at the burning projection of Sector 7. He didn’t feel a shred of pity for the soldiers burning in the ash. He didn’t feel anger at the Warlord. He just felt the cold calculating annoyance of a man dealing with a rival business stealing his inventory.

”He’s wasting my time,” Sebastian said, his voice dropping into that dark lethal register. ”That Regional Core belongs to Sanctuary.”

”You want to launch a full-scale assault?” Valerie asked, readying her logistics interface. ”I can have the Abyss Knights prepped and Galleon’s railguns loaded onto the Sky-Fortress in an hour.”

”No,” Sebastian shook his head. ”The Sky-Fortress is too loud. Imperator’s men have anti-air capabilities, and I’m not wasting my real-world mana playing tug-of-war with a Warlord’s defensive buffs. We do this quietly.”

Sebastian looked at the Level 25 Assassin standing across the table.

”Wraith. Pack light. We are going to Los Angeles. It’s time to show the General how real warlords operate.”