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

It was a towering colossal column of pure blindingly bright blue code. It stretched from the polished floor all the way up into the infinite dark of the ceiling. Millions of lines of raw Ethereal script cascaded down the pillar in a constant waterfall of data.

It hummed with a sound that vibrated deep in Sebastian’s molars. This was thebeating heart of the world. This was the Admin Terminal that controlled every single law of physics, every oxygen tax, and every monster spawn on Server 112.

And suspended right in the dead center of the glowing pillar, protected by

layers of translucent digital shielding, was a massive perfectly cut sphere of

deep azure crystal.

The Regional Core.

”There you are,” Sebastian whispered, a dark victorious smile spreading beneath

his blank visor.

He slowly walked toward the pillar, and his boots were completely silent against

the glass floor. The final stage of the infiltration had begun. He did not just

need to steal the core. He needed to rip it out of the server without getting

instantly deleted by the planetary firewall.

He stopped five feet away from the humming column of code. He looked at the

beautiful pristine utopia surrounding him. He thought about the starving

refugees being boiled alive in the acid vats just a few miles below this room.

”You guys really built a nice house,” Sebastian muttered. He raised his left

hand, and the green runes of his Spoofing Drive glowed brightly. ”It is a shame

I have to burn it down.”

———

The Inner Spire of Server 112 was a disgusting monument to excess. It was the

kind of place that made Sebastian want to punch a hole through a wall just to

ruin the aesthetic!

There was no dirt here. There was no smog, no rusted iron, and certainly no

starving refugees.

The corridors were incredibly wide, lined with pristine white marble that

practically glowed under the soft ambient light. Floating crystal chandeliers

drifted lazily near the vaulted ceilings, casting a warm golden hue over the

indoor gardens.

Rivers of pure condensed blue mana flowed gently through decorative trenches

carved into the floor. This served absolutely no purpose other than to show off

how much raw power the Vanguard Syndicate had hoarded.

Sebastian was currently wearing the utterly average pudgy face of Trent the

Level 42 Gunner. He stood at attention near a set of heavy mahogany doors. He

was holding his standard-issue kinetic rifle across his chest, playing the role

of the loyal guard dog.

”I really hate rich people,” Sebastian muttered to himself, his voice barely a

whisper beneath his grey and blue tactical helmet. ”They could power an entire

lower sector with the mana they use to keep these stupid decorative bushes

green.”

He shifted his weight, his Demigod-tier muscles protesting the rigid and boring

posture. His [Admin Suspicion] meter sat happily at a flat zero percent in the

corner of his vision.

The Server Spoofing Drive bolted to his arm was doing its job flawlessly. To the

planetary firewall, he was just Trent. Boring, compliant, entirely insignificant

Trent.

But Sebastian wasn’t just standing there staring at the wall. He was listening!

With his physical synchronization hovering at thirty percent, his baseline human

senses were terrifyingly sharp. He could hear the hum of the power grid. He

could hear the heartbeat of the Elite guard stationed fifty yards down the hall.

And more importantly, he could hear the faint encrypted radio frequencies

bouncing through the local network.

BZZZT.

A tiny burst of static caught his attention. Sebastian didn’t move his head, but

his eyes tracked the origin of the signal. It wasn’t coming from the Vanguard

comms. It was a sloppy and poorly masked frequency bleeding out from the

ventilation shafts above the grand concourse.

”Target is in sight,” a tense hushed voice crackled over the intercepted

frequency. ”We are above the Server Pillar room. Delta team, what is your status

on the perimeter loop?”

”We looped the camera feeds on Sector 9,” a second voice replied, sounding

equally panicked. ”You have a three-minute window before the automated

heavy-borgs cycle back around. You have to crack that diamond door now, or we

are dead.”

Sebastian suppressed a dry chuckle.

Spies. Smugglers. Rebels from another server trying to pull off a grand heist.

’Amateurs,’ Sebastian thought, staring straight ahead. ’You don’t loop a camera

feed for three minutes in a Tier 5 citadel. The system’s sub-routines will flag

the static image variation in sixty seconds.’

”Moving in. I have the decryptor chips,” the first voice announced.

Sebastian casually tapped the side of his helmet, adjusting his internal comms

receiver to fully isolate the rebel frequency. He didn’t want to arrest them. He

didn’t care about protecting the Syndicate’s property. He was genuinely curious.

He waited for thirty seconds until the Elite guard down the hall turned the

corner to begin his patrol route. The moment the corridor was empty, Sebastian

moved!

He didn’t use [Void Walk]. That would spike the Suspicion meter. He just relied

on his raw and unadulterated physical agility.

He pushed off the marble floor, his boots making absolutely no sound, and

bounded up the side of a decorative pillar. He grabbed the edge of the elevated

catwalk running along the upper perimeter of the concourse and vaulted himself

over the railing.

He crouched in the shadows, his grey armor blending into the dim lighting of the

upper alcove. He looked down through the ornate iron grating.

Directly below him were the massive polished diamond doors that guarded the

Server Pillar. That was the exact room Sebastian needed to access to steal the

Regional Core!

Three figures dropped silently from a ventilation grate in the ceiling.

They were clad in mismatched dark leather armor, holding sleek glowing datapads

and heavy plasma cutters. They didn’t have the heavy imposing presence of

Vanguard soldiers. They moved with the frantic jittery energy of players who

knew they were completely out of their depth.

”Hurry up, man!” the smallest of the three hissed, looking frantically over his

shoulder. ”If Guild Master Regis catches us down here, he won’t even kill us.

He’ll just throw us in the acid vats.”

”Shut up and let me work,” the leader grunted.

He stepped up to the biometric scanner next to the diamond doors. He pulled out

a handful of highly complex glowing red microchips.

Sebastian leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands. ”Oh, those are nice,”

he murmured.

They were top-tier decryptor chips. The kind of highly illegal hardware that

cost millions of silver on the black market! They were designed to forcefully

bypass biometric locks by brute-forcing a billion false physical signatures into

the scanner until it registered a false positive.

The rebel leader jammed the chips into the side of the glowing blue scanner

panel.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.

The scanner flashed wildly, cycling through red and blue lights as the chips

flooded its logic gates.

”Come on, come on,” the leader muttered, sweat dripping down his face. ”Just

open.”

Sebastian shook his head in the shadows. ’You forgot about the secondary

physical ward, you idiot.’

The Ethereal Plane’s high-tier defense architecture was ruthless. It didn’t just

rely on digital locks. It relied on absolute brutal force to punish anyone who

failed a hack!

Down below, the biometric scanner suddenly stopped flashing. It turned a solid

glaring red.

[System Alert: Unauthorized Intrusion Detected.]

[Deploying countermeasures.]

”Shit! It locked us out!” the hacker screamed, ripping the decryptor chips from

the panel. ”The door is sealed! Run!”

They turned to sprint back toward the ventilation shaft.

They didn’t make it two steps!

The air around the diamond doors violently warped. It didn’t make a sound. There

was no flashy portal or booming announcer. Four figures simply tore themselves

out of the digital ether and materialized directly in front of the fleeing

rebels.

They were Guild Master Regis’s personal Void Wardens.

They were towering ten-foot-tall monstrosities clad in heavy pitch-black armor

that seemed to absorb the light around them. They didn’t have faces, just smooth

obsidian helmets. They wielded massive two-handed executioner swords that

crackled with dark purple Void energy.

”Oh, this is going to be messy,” Sebastian whispered, pulling a generic stale

protein bar from his inventory and taking a bite. He chewed slowly, watching the

show.

The rebels screamed. The smallest one raised a plasma pistol and fired a

desperate panicked shot.

PEW!

The glowing blue plasma bolt hit the chest of the lead Void Warden. It didn’t

even leave a scorch mark. The Warden didn’t flinch.

SWISH.

The Warden swung its massive executioner sword in a lazy horizontal arc.

It was a completely unblockable high-tier physical strike! The heavy blade

cleaved cleanly through the rebel’s leather armor, through his ribcage, and out

his back.

SQUELCH!

The top half of the player’s body slowly slid off his waist, hitting the

pristine white marble with a wet heavy thud. Blood sprayed violently across the

floor, painting the walls in a gruesome arc of crimson.

”NO!” the leader shrieked, dropping his datapads and raising a small pathetic

kinetic shield.

CRUNCH!

A second Void Warden brought its heavy armored boot down directly onto the

leader’s knee. The bone snapped backward with a sickening pop. The hacker

collapsed, screaming in pure unadulterated agony as the Warden grabbed him by

the throat and lifted him entirely off the ground.

”Please! We surrender! We yield!” the third rebel sobbed, dropping to his knees

and throwing his hands behind his head.

The Void Wardens operated on absolute merciless logic. They didn’t take

prisoners. They didn’t care about surrender mechanics.

The Warden holding the leader simply squeezed its massive gauntlet.

SNAP.

The leader’s neck shattered like dry twigs. The body went limp, the health bar

deleting instantly. The Warden tossed the corpse aside like a piece of garbage.

The kneeling rebel didn’t even have time to beg again. The third Warden stepped

forward and drove its heavy sword directly down through the top of the man’s

skull, pinning him entirely to the marble floor.

CRACK!