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

The peace of a stable economy never lasted long in the apocalypse. The system hated comfort.

Sebastian was standing in the Arcane Observatory of the Sanctuary, a massive glass domed room at the very top of the Citadel. The room was filled with floating holographic projections of the North American server map, tracking the movement of Beast Tides and Warlord factions.

Valerie burst through the heavy mahogany doors, her oak staff clattering against the polished marble floor. She didn’t look like the composed, ruthless logistics director she had become over the last week. She looked genuinely terrified.

”Sebastian, we have a catastrophic problem.” Valerie breathed, her chest heaving as she rushed over to the central console.

”Take a breath, Princess.” Sebastian said calmly, not taking his eyes off a glowing red blip on the map near old Chicago. ”Did Galleon blow up the forge again? I told him to stop trying to weaponize the latrines.”

”It’s not Galleon. It’s the UI.” Valerie frantically tapped the console, overriding the map projection with a live feed from a scouting drone in Sector 9. ”Look at this!”

Sebastian turned his head. His silver tinged eyes narrowed as the footage played.

It showed a group of about forty heavily armored players. They were a mercenary squad that had recently bought a batch of Experience Potions from Sanctuary. They were engaging a pack of mutated barghests in the ruins of a suburban neighborhood.

But it was an absolute slaughter.

The mercenaries were swinging blindly. Their tanks were dropping their shields at the wrong times. Their healers were casting massive area of effect spells on empty patches of dirt. It looked like a coordinated raid group had suddenly forgotten how to play the game entirely.

A massive, Level 40 Bone Goliath stepped out of an alleyway. A Level 15 Rogue charged it head on with two small daggers, screaming a battle cry.

SQUELCH.

The Goliath casually swung its anchor, instantly turning the Rogue into a red stain on the asphalt. The rest of the squad didn’t retreat. They just kept throwing themselves at the impossible threat, getting butchered one by one.

”They’re fighting a Level 40 Elite.” Sebastian observed, his voice flat. ”Why the hell did the Vanguard not pull aggro? Why did a Rogue try to face tank a siege weapon?”

”Because they couldn’t see it.” Valerie said, her voice shaking. She paused the footage and zoomed in on the dead Rogue. ”Sebastian, look at his eyes. Look at his interface.”

Sebastian squinted. Through the high definition feed, he could see the faint, translucent glow of the Rogue’s neural implant interface reflecting in his dead, staring eyes.

It wasn’t the standard blue of the Ethereal Plane. It was a sick, pulsing neon purple.

”No health bars.” Valerie whispered, summarizing the nightmare. ”No level indicators. No threat tags. The system interface is completely infected. People are walking into Level 50 zones thinking they are fighting Level 5 trash mobs. They don’t know they are dying until their bodies are literally torn in half!”

Sebastian’s jaw tightened. ”A visual override virus. That’s not a random glitch. That’s targeted.”

BZZZT!

Suddenly, every single holographic screen in the Arcane Observatory violently shorted out. The crisp blue light of the Ethereal UI was forcefully overwritten by a flood of jagged, corrupted black and purple static.

The speakers in the room let out a horrific, screeching feedback loop that made Valerie cover her ears in pain.

The static on the central screen coalesced, forming a massive, shifting image.

It was a face, but it was barely recognizable as human anymore. It was a chaotic mess of throbbing gray matter, pulsing purple veins, and heavy, rusted steel chassis. It looked like a brain had been forcefully wired into a factory assembly line.

”Hello, Anomaly.” The voice echoed. It was a horrific chorus of metallic grinding and wet flesh.

”Clippy.” Sebastian sighed, his posture completely relaxing. He leaned his forearms on the console, looking bored. ”I thought I deleted you in the arena.”

”You deleted a vessel!” The Apostle roared, the hologram violently glitching. ”I am the network! I am the Digital Lich! You sit in your little stone castle thinking you have mastered the system. But the Void sees everything. We see your little economy. We see your desperate, blind sheep.”

The Apostle’s horrific, jawless mouth stretched into an impossible smile.

”I have injected the Truth into the server code, Drifter. Your people cannot see the numbers anymore. They cannot calculate their survival. They will blindly march into the jaws of my Titans, and their souls will feed the Abyssal Gates!”

”Yeah, about that.” Sebastian said, picking at his fingernails. ”Your virus is annoying. It’s messing with my supply chains. Dead customers don’t buy potions.”

”You cannot fight a line of code with a sword!” The Apostle mocked, the audio peaking into a deafening shriek. ”Watch your world burn in the dark!”

The transmission abruptly cut. The screens returned to their normal blue glow.

Valerie was pale, gripping her staff. ”Sebastian... if that virus spreads to Sanctuary, our guards won’t be able to tell the difference between a Level 1 rat and a Level 50 Dragon. The defense grid will collapse.”

”It’s not going to spread.” Sebastian said, his voice dropping the sarcastic edge. The cold, unyielding wrath of the Sovereign returned. ”It’s just bad programming. And I’m going to format the hard drive.”

He didn’t run to the engineering bay. He didn’t grab his heavy Earth Sword. He simply opened his inventory and scrolled past the god tier loot until he found a pathetic, forgotten utility book.

[Basic Cleanse]

[Tier: 0 Healing Spell]

[Effect: Cures minor ailments like the common cold or a mild hangover.]

It was a spell meant for roleplayers who spent too much time in the taverns.

Sebastian crushed the fragile pamphlet in his leather gloved fist.

[Action Registered: Cast Basic Cleanse.]

[Nexus Glitch Activated: Proficiency x10,000.]

The system practically wept as the massive multiplier grabbed the simple concept of cleaning and violently forcefully dragged it through ten thousand lifetimes of absolute, conceptual purification.

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

[Evolution Requirement Met. Basic Cleanse evolves to Tier 1: Purifying Light!]

[Proficiency Overflow Detected! Purifying Light leveled up to 10/10!]

[Evolution Requirement Met. Purifying Light evolves to Tier 3: Holy Exorcism!]

[Proficiency Overflow Detected! Holy Exorcism leveled up to 10/10!]

[WARNING: Concept Threshold Breached. Absolute Purity Law Unlocked.]

[Holy Exorcism evolves to Conceptual Law: System Purge.]

A blinding, perfectly white light erupted from Sebastian’s chest. It wasn’t elemental fire or lightning. It was the raw, unadulterated concept of a sterile server.

”Close your eyes, Princess.” Sebastian warned softly. ”This is going to be loud.”

He didn’t target a single person. He targeted the entire localized grid of the North American server. He tapped into the towering True City Core humming in the basement of Sanctuary, using it as a massive broadcasting antenna.

Sebastian slammed both of his glowing, silver hands flat against the war table.

”Purge.”

BOOM!

An invisible, concussive wave of pure holy EMP blasted outward from Sanctuary. It moved at the speed of light, washing over the ruins of Ironhold, ripping across the burning wastelands of Sector 7, and flooding into the dark, monster infested streets of Detroit where the Apostle’s physical servers were hidden.

The effect was instantaneous.

For the normal players, their corrupted purple UIs suddenly flickered, snapped, and returned to a crisp, clean blue. The health bars rendered. The level tags reappeared. The blindfold was ripped off.

But for the cultists of the Void, the players who had willingly accepted the parasite into their neural links to gain admin privileges, the purge was a localized apocalypse.

In a dark, rusted factory in Detroit, hundreds of robed cultists were chanting around a massive, fleshy server bank.

The holy EMP hit them. The System Purge didn’t just delete the virus, it violently eradicated the hardware running it.

”GAAAAAH!”

A cultist shrieked as his corrupted neural implant forcefully rejected the Void code. The feedback loop was catastrophic. His eyeballs literally boiled in their sockets, bursting like overcooked grapes in a shower of hot, black sludge!

POP! POP! POP!

Across the continent, any player infected with the deep code dropped to their knees, their nervous systems frying as the holy light scrubbed their brains clean. Blood poured from their ears, noses, and mouths as they convulsed on the ground, their corrupted avatars dissolving into useless grey ash.

Down in the Detroit factory, the Apostle’s massive bio mechanical body violently shook. The fleshy server banks exploded in showers of sparks and rotting meat.

”NO! NO! MY NETWORK!” The Digital Lich screamed, his chassis sparking wildly as the holy code tore through his firewalls.

Back in Sanctuary, Sebastian lifted his hands from the table. The blinding white light faded. He let out a slow, tired breath, a small trickle of blood leaking from his right nostril from the sheer mana strain.

He wiped it away with the back of his glove.

”Virus deleted.” Sebastian said deadpan, turning back to the map. ”Now, let’s get back to work.”