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

The transition back to Outpost Rust was just as miserable as the first time, but at least Sebastian wasn’t actively dying of Void Toxicity.

He stood in the center of Corbin’s heavily reinforced, lead-lined bunker. The rogue code-smith’s underground lab still smelled like burnt ozone, stale coffee, and extreme paranoia.

Sebastian was fully healed, his thirty percent physical synchronization resting comfortably in his bones. He wore a fresh black leather coat he had manifested from his inventory, completely unbothered by the fact that he was about to declare war on the multiverse.

Gwen was leaning against a stack of server racks, cleaning one of her heavy kinetic pistols with an oily rag.

”So,” Gwen started, not looking up from the gun barrel. ”You walked into Server 112, murdered the top corporate brass, stole their Regional Core, collapsed their entire planetary physics engine, and walked out without a scratch.”

”I got a little scratched,” Sebastian corrected, tapping the faint, silver runic scars on his neck. ”But yeah. Basically.”

”And now you’re back,” she sighed, snapping the magazine back into the grip with a sharp CLACK. ”Let me guess. You want to buy a planet?”

”I don’t buy things anymore, Seattle,” Sebastian said flatly. ”I harvest them. I need Source Code. A lot of it. I need you to chart me a course through the Juncture to the weakest, most vulnerable servers still on the grid.”

Before Gwen could respond, the bunker completely lost its mind.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The emergency sirens didn’t just wail; they shrieked. Every single holographic monitor in Corbin’s lab violently flashed from a calming blue to an aggressive, blinding crimson.

”What the fuck did you do?!” Corbin screamed, dropping a highly sensitive

mana-crystal. It shattered on the floor, but the engineer didn’t even care. He scrambled over to the primary console, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

”I’m completely disconnected! The local network is being hijacked by a massive external frequency!”

”It wasn’t me,” Sebastian stated, his eyes narrowing as he watched the screens.

”I didn’t touch anything.”

”Someone is brute-forcing a broadcast through the Juncture’s ambient static,”

Gwen said, raising her pistols and aiming them at the reinforced blast doors.

”It takes an ungodly amount of power to push a signal through the void. Who has that kind of juice?”

The static on the massive central monitor cleared.

It wasn’t a text log. It wasn’t an audio message. It was a high-definition, three-dimensional holographic projection that forcefully rendered itself in the middle of the bunker.

Two towering figures appeared.

Sebastian crossed his arms. He recognized the armor style. He recognized the overwhelming, arrogant auras radiating from the projection.

They were Saints. The elite colonizers of the Void.

The figure on the left was massive, clad in heavy, pristine white Paladin armor that glowed with a sickeningly pure holy light. He held a massive warhammer resting on his shoulder. He looked like an avenging angel, if angels were entirely sociopathic.

[Entity Identified: Saint Grigori]

[Class: Warlord of the Heavens] [Level: 95]

The figure on the right was terrifying in a completely different way. He was lean, wearing traditional monk robes that had been heavily spliced with glowing, neon-green cybernetics. A heavy, metal halo of floating data streams rotated slowly behind his shaved head.

[Entity Identified: Saint Jin] [Class: Cyber-Monk] [Level: 92]

”Citizens of the assimilated realms,” Grigori’s voice boomed through the bunker’s speakers. It was a rich, charismatic voice, entirely devoid of the static distortion the Apostle had used. It sounded like a politician delivering a victory speech. ”Hear the word of the Grand Design.”

”Oh, great. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are broadcasting,” Sebastian deadpanned, rolling his eyes.

”A cancer has infected the network,” Jin continued, his voice a calm, synthesized hum. ”An Anomaly walks among the servers.

A glitch that defies the sacred geometry of the Ethereal Plane. This virus calls itself the Sovereign of Laws. It calls itself the Drifter.”

Gwen slowly turned her head and glared at Sebastian. ”You made friends fast.”

”I’m a very sociable guy,” Sebastian shrugged.

”This Anomaly has slaughtered our vanguards,” Grigori’s holy aura flared, his

voice dropping into a register of righteous fury. ”It has disrupted the natural order of assimilation. It stole the Regional Core of Sector 112 and plunged an entire world into the void.”

”We declare a Holy Crusade against the Glitch,” Jin stated, clasping his cybernetic hands together in a twisted prayer. ”The Void Gods demand its deletion. The System demands order.”

The hologram shifted, displaying a massive, glowing wanted poster. It featured a surprisingly accurate rendering of Sebastian’s featureless black helmet and dark leather coat.

”To any Warlord, any Guild, any scavenger who brings us the severed digital soul of this Anomaly,” Grigori announced, his smile entirely cruel. ”The Church of the Void offers a bounty unprecedented in the history of the game.”

The text flashed across the screen in bold, golden letters.

[BOUNTY REWARD: Administrative Rights to Three Fully Integrated Planets.]

Corbin choked on his own spit. He fell backward, his chair tipping over, and crashed onto the floor. ”Three... three planets?!”

Gwen lowered her pistols. She stared at the hologram, then looked at Sebastian.

The sheer absurdity of the bounty broke through her hardened smuggler exterior.

”Sebastian,” Gwen whispered, her voice completely hollow. ”They didn’t put a price on your head. They put a solar system on it.

Every single psychotic player with a ship is going to come looking for you.”

The broadcast abruptly ended, the screens returning to their normal blue hum.

The silence in the bunker was heavy and terrifying.

Sebastian stood perfectly still. He didn’t look panicked. He didn’t look angry.

He just stared at the empty space where the hologram had been.

He slowly reached up and cracked his neck.

”Three planets,” Sebastian mused, his voice a dark, unhinged rasp. ”They think my head is only worth three planets? I’m honestly a little insulted.”

”Are you insane?!” Corbin shrieked from the floor, scrambling backward until his

back hit a server rack. ”A Holy Crusade!

They’re sending the entire server population after you! We are dead! We are so fucking dead!”

”Relax, stubby,” Sebastian said, his silver eyes flashing with a terrifying, predatory light. ”This just solves our logistics problem.”

”Solves it?!” Gwen demanded, throwing her hands in the air. ”How does being hunted by the entire multiverse solve anything?!”

”I need ten million units of Source Code to synthesize the Law I need to save Valerie,” Sebastian explained calmly, as if he were discussing a grocery list.

”I was going to have to fly around the Juncture, manually kicking down the doors

of weak servers, and ripping out their cores one by one. It was going to take weeks.”

He turned to look at Gwen, a cold, absolute smile spreading across his face.

”But now? Now, the biggest, baddest Warlords in the game are going to pack their

World Cores onto their ships and fly them right to my front door.”

Sebastian reached into his inventory and pulled out his Rusty Iron Dagger. He casually tossed it into the air and caught it by the hilt.

”Gwen. Corbin. Pack your gear,” Sebastian ordered, the authority of the Sovereign filling the room. ”We are going back to Sanctuary. If they want to start a Holy Crusade, fine. Let them come. I’ll just harvest them all.”