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

”You’re a developer’s pet project,” Sebastian corrected him, pulling his right hand out of his pocket and casually flexing his fingers.

”You’re the guy they put in the game when they don’t know how to actually balance the boss mechanics. ’Just make him invincible,’ they said. ’That’ll stop the players.’ It’s pathetic.”

Mateo’s eyes narrowed slightly, a brief flicker of annoyance breaking through his perfectly stoic facade.

”Your arrogance is a highly documented variable,” Mateo stated, gripping his halberd with both hands. The blue plasma blade flared, dropping the temperature in the room by twenty degrees. ”The Archons watched you manipulate gravity to crush the Vanguard. They watched you synthesize a Law of Decay to rust the Holy Crusade. Your physics edits are impressive for a glitch.”

Mateo took another heavy step forward, the starlight floor rippling beneath his boots.

”But I am not governed by physics,” Mateo declared, his voice rising in volume. ”My Invincibility tag is not a shield. It is not an armor rating. It is a foundational truth written into the core of Server 112. You cannot crush me with gravity, because my code dictates I cannot be crushed. You cannot age me with rot, because my code dictates I cannot decay.”

Sebastian just stared at him. He didn’t summon his green Admin UI. He didn’t try to pull out the [Law of Rotting Gravity]. He just stood there, looking incredibly bored.

”Are you done reading your own patch notes?” Sebastian asked.

”I am going to bisect you,” Mateo promised smoothly. ”And because you are a virus, I am going to enjoy watching the system permanently delete your fragmented remains.”

Mateo charged.

For a Level 99 entity, his speed was almost incomprehensible. the system actively assisted his movement, pushing him forward with zero friction and absolute kinetic momentum. He crossed the thirty yards between them in a literal fraction of a microsecond.

The massive, absolute-zero halberd swung in a devastating horizontal arc aimed directly at Sebastian’s waist. The blue plasma blade tore through the air, leaving a trail of frozen, shattered oxygen molecules in its wake. It was a swing designed to cut a battleship in half without slowing down.

Sebastian just raised his right hand, extending a single, black-gloved index finger, and pointed it directly at the charging Executioner’s chest.

”Let’s test your code, buddy,” Sebastian whispered.

The tip of the halberd was exactly one inch from Sebastian’s black leather coat. The freezing temperature was already singeing the fabric. Mateo’s eyes were locked onto his target, fully expecting the satisfying, unhindered sensation of his blade cleaving through the Anomaly’s biological meat-suit.

The ultimate clash between the System’s perfect, invincible cheat code and a man who possessed absolute Root Access.

Sebastian didn’t flinch. The red emergency lights of the breached Hub reflected off his completely calm, silver-tinged eyes. He didn’t need to fight the man. He just needed to talk to the server.

The heavy energy halberd was less than a millimeter from tearing Sebastian into two neat, frozen pieces. The kinetic force behind Mateo’s Level 99 swing was so immense that the ambient air pressure in the Inner Sanctum was physically warping.

Sebastian’s expression remained perfectly deadpan. He didn’t brace for impact. He just stared at the glowing gold [Invincibility] tag hovering over the Executioner’s head.

He tapped into his green, heavily corrupted Administrator UI. He didn’t access his combat spells or his conceptual laws. He completely bypassed the physics engine and reached directly into the Ethereal Plane’s active user registry.

”Force Disconnect,” Sebastian whispered.

He didn’t yell it. He didn’t need to. The command was injected straight into the localized foundational code of the server with the absolute backing of his 10,000x multiplied Root Access.

BZZZZZT!

Mateo froze.

The entire rendering of his forward momentum was catastrophically paused. The blue plasma of his halberd sputtered and instantly died, turning back into a dull, heavy piece of mundane iron.

”What... what is this?” Mateo gasped.

His voice sounded thin, reedy, and incredibly distant. The Executioner’s eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated terror as his perfect, stoic facade shattered completely. He tried to pull his weapon back. He tried to step away.

But his physical avatar was locked in place, utterly paralyzed by the server overriding his motor functions.

Sebastian slowly lowered his finger. He slipped his hand back into his coat pocket.

”You really should have read the fine print on that invincibility tag,” Sebastian noted casually, taking a slow step around the frozen Executioner to admire the absolute panic setting in on the man’s face. ”It says you take zero damage. It says your health bar can’t be lowered. It makes you a perfect, unkillable object inside the game.”

Sebastian leaned in close, his silver eyes glowing with a dark, terrifying amusement.

”But it doesn’t stop the server from kicking you out of the lobby.”

Above Mateo’s head, the pristine, golden [Status: Invincibility Tag Active] suddenly violently flickered.

The majestic gold letters rapidly corrupted.

They turned a sickly, bruised purple before shattering into a frantic stream of jagged, red error codes.

[WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED USER DETECTED.] [ROOT COMMAND OVERRIDE INITIATED.] [SEVERING CONNECTION TO HOST SERVER.]

”No! No, wait!” Mateo shrieked. It was the most pathetic, human sound Sebastian had heard all day. The Level 99 Executioner, the apex predator of the Hub, was suddenly realizing that all his stats meant absolutely nothing. ”Archons! Fix this! Restore my connection!”

The three towering pillars of light on the central dais flared wildly, the Grand Archons desperately trying to counter-code Sebastian’s command. But they couldn’t.

Sebastian held the Legacy Code. He held the original, uncorrupted anti-virus keys. He had higher admin privileges than the gods of the system themselves.

Mateo’s digital reality began to violently unravel.

His sleek, dark armor—gear that had taken decades to farm and refine—suddenly un-rendered. It just ceased to exist, popping out of reality and leaving Mateo standing in his base, untextured gray under-mesh.

Then, his inventory wiped.

Hundreds of high-tier potions, rare crafting materials, and legendary weapons forcefully spilled out of his digital storage space. They hit the starlight floor and instantly dissolved into useless green static.

”My gear! My levels!” Mateo sobbed, staring down at his hands.

His level tag was dropping in real-time.

[Level: 99... 75... 40... 12... 1...]

”It’s a harsh economy, Mateo,” Sebastian said, his voice completely devoid of pity. ”One minute you’re the CEO, the next minute you’re bankrupt.”

The final stage of the Force Disconnect initiated.

Mateo’s physical avatar couldn’t sustain its presence without a server connection. The game was aggressively evicting him.

His gray under-mesh tore apart, revealing the raw, jagged polygons of his base character model. The polygons violently separated, vibrating with a horrific, high-pitched screech of tearing audio files. Mateo didn’t bleed.

There was no gore. There was just the absolute, terrifying visual of a human consciousness being forcefully formatted from a hard drive.

”GAAAAAAHHHH!” Mateo’s scream dissolved into a blast of raw, dial-up static.

His entire body combusted into a localized explosion of bright red error squares. For a fraction of a second, the shape of a man lingered in the air, composed entirely of screaming glitches.

And then, with a soft, entirely underwhelming POP, he winked out of existence.

There was no corpse left behind. There was no blood to clean up. There was no loot dropped on the floor.

Mateo, the invincible Supreme Executioner of the Ethereal Plane, was just gone. Deleted from the database. A completely empty space on the floor was the only proof he had ever been there.

Sebastian stood in the absolute silence that followed. He slowly reached up and brushed a single, stray red pixel off the shoulder of his black leather coat.

He had just weaponized the ultimate form of horror in a digital universe. He hadn’t just killed a man. He had erased him. He was a walking, talking deletion protocol, and he had just shown the creators of the game exactly what it looked like when the rules no longer applied.

”Connection terminated,” Sebastian murmured into the quiet room.

He didn’t bother checking his UI for experience points. You didn’t get EXP for emptying the trash bin.

He turned his attention away from the empty spot on the floor and looked up at the three colossal pillars of light waiting for him on the central dais. The Grand Archons had stopped humming. They were perfectly, terrifyingly still.

Sebastian cracked his knuckles.

”Alright, management,” Sebastian called out, his boots clicking against the starlight floor as he resumed his slow, inexorable march toward the center of the room. ”Your bouncer is gone. Now, who wants to talk about my refund?”

Sebastian walked up the shallow, floating steps of the central dais. His black leather coat billowed slightly, catching the ambient, localized breeze generated by the sheer magical pressure of the room. He didn’t draw a weapon.

He didn’t need to. He possessed the ultimate trump card in the Ethereal Plane, and he was ready to cash it in.

He stopped ten feet away from the three towering pillars of light.