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

Running with only one arm completely threw off his balance. The heavy, biological steel density of his body felt lopsided. He had to consciously adjust his stride, leaning slightly to the left to keep himself from tipping over.

”This is incredibly annoying,” Sebastian grumbled, vaulting over a rusted ventilation unit. ”I feel like a broken shopping cart.”

High above him, the three Cleaners stopped their pursuit of the Rusthound. Their flawless, faceless heads snapped downward, instantly locking onto the massive, glitching energy signature of the Anomaly running across the rooftop.

[MALWARE ISOLATED. EXECUTING TARGET.]

The three entities split up, diving down into the ruined city from different angles.

FWOOSH!

A beam of deletion light struck the roof just three feet behind Sebastian. A twenty-foot-wide crater of absolute nothingness appeared in the concrete. The sudden loss of structural support caused the entire building to violently tilt.

Sebastian didn’t stop. He sprinted to the edge of the roof and launched himself into the air, dropping his mass back to zero.

He sailed across a hundred-foot gap, aiming for a massive, floating corporate plaza. As he flew through the air, he saw one of the Cleaners teleport directly into his flight path. The Seraph raised its glowing white hand, ready to un-render him mid-air.

”Not this time, you shiny freak!” Sebastian roared.

He didn’t try to punch it. He forcefully applied a localized [Gravity Domain] to a massive, floating hover-car nearby. He cranked the gravity to five hundred times normal, violently yanking the heavy vehicle directly into the Cleaner’s path.

The hover-car slammed into the Seraph. It didn’t do any damage, but it forced the entity to instinctively delete the vehicle, giving Sebastian exactly one microsecond of cover.

He shot past the dissolving car and landed heavily on the floating plaza, rolling awkwardly over his good shoulder to absorb the kinetic shock. He popped back up to his feet, panting heavily. His black tactical suit was covered in gray dust from the ruined concrete.

He ducked behind a massive, flickering holographic billboard displaying a smiling anime mascot.

He needed to separate them. He couldn’t fight three of them at once. He needed one to isolate itself so he could test his new, sickeningly fleshy malware.

BOOM!

A beam of white light sheared the top half of the billboard completely off. The smiling anime mascot was instantly erased, leaving only a hissing stump of twisted metal and sparking wires.

Sebastian pressed his back against the remaining concrete base of the sign. His heart was hammering against his ribs, a sensation he hadn’t felt in weeks. He was mortal right now. He was fragile. If they touched him, it was game over.

He peeked around the edge of the concrete.

One of the Cleaners had broken off from the group. It was gliding silently down toward the plaza, its six hard-light wings pulsing rhythmically. It moved with a slow, terrifying, inevitable grace. It was coming to finish the job.

Sebastian looked down at his left hand. He flexed his fingers, feeling the heavy, sickening weight of the [Concept of Flesh] pooling in his digital veins. It smelled like raw copper and rotting meat.

A cold, utterly unhinged smile spread across his pale face beneath the cracked porcelain mask.

”Come here, you stupid pigeon,” Sebastian whispered, coiling his muscles tight. ”Let me show you how the other half lives.”

—-

The silence of the Dead Servers was oppressive. The ruined, floating cyberpunk plaza offered plenty of hiding spots, but hiding from an entity that didn’t use physical eyes was an exercise in futility.

Sebastian crouched behind the thick concrete base of the shattered billboard. His breathing was slow and measured. He ignored the terrifying, phantom itch of his missing right arm. He focused entirely on his left hand.

Beneath the sleek black leather of his tactical glove, raw, corrupted data was violently churning. He was actively holding the newly synthesized [Concept of Flesh] and [Concept of Pain]. It felt disgusting. It felt like holding a pulsating, severed heart that was desperately trying to beat its way out of his palm. The sickly pink and copper-colored energy bled through the fabric of his glove, emitting a foul stench of raw meat and coagulated blood.

He didn’t have to wait long.

The System Cleaner glided down onto the floating plaza. It made absolutely no sound as its feet touched the cracked pavement. There was no crunch of gravel, no heavy thud of boots. It was entirely weightless. It was just a towering, faceless statue of pure, blinding white light.

[SCANNING PROXIMITY. MALWARE DETECTED.]

The voice echoed through the local server architecture, completely devoid of inflection.

The Seraph slowly turned its smooth, featureless head toward the concrete barrier where Sebastian was hiding. It raised its right hand. The fingers began to glow with that terrifying, absolute white deletion code. It didn’t need to see him. It was simply going to erase the entire concrete structure and Sebastian along with it.

”Now or never,” Sebastian muttered.

He didn’t run away. He didn’t try to dodge.

Sebastian engaged his [Heavenly Steps].

Fzzt.

He instantly folded the spatial coordinates between his hiding spot and the Cleaner. He didn’t teleport behind it. He didn’t try to flank it. He materialized directly in front of the faceless angel, entirely inside its guard.

The Cleaner’s glowing hand was inches from his chest, ready to un-render his heart.

But Sebastian was faster.

He didn’t throw a closed fist. He shot his left arm forward, his fingers spread wide, and slammed his palm completely flat against the center of the Cleaner’s pristine, glowing white chest.

”Welcome to mortality, asshole,” Sebastian snarled.

He didn’t just touch the entity. He aggressively, forcefully injected the malware directly into its core logic gates.

[Action Registered: Apply Concept of Flesh.] [Action Registered: Apply Concept of Pain.]

The System instantly, violently shrieked in protest. Massive, glaring red warning windows exploded across Sebastian’s vision, desperately trying to block the unauthorized code transfer.

[CRITICAL ERROR: TARGET ENTITY IMMUNE TO STATUS EFFECTS.] [TARGET IS COMPOSED OF KERNEL LOGIC.]

”I’m the Sovereign of Laws!” Sebastian roared, his silver-tinged eyes flaring with blinding, authoritative light. ”Multiplier!”

He rammed the 10,000x Nexus Glitch directly into the back of the malware. He took the horrific, organic concepts of meat, bone, blood, and agony, and multiplied their foundational weight by ten thousand. He shoved the data through the firewall with the sheer, brute-force torque of a collapsing star.

The firewall shattered.

The reaction was instantaneous, and it was the most visually revolting thing Sebastian had ever witnessed.

The moment the [Concept of Flesh] infected the Cleaner, the pristine, blinding white light of its body violently bubbled.

”SKREEEEEE!”

The sound wasn’t a synthesized system warning. It was a high-pitched, tearing shriek of raw code being forcefully translated into biological matter.

The flawless, hard-light chest of the entity suddenly turned a sickly, bruised purple. Then, wet, pink human flesh rapidly and aggressively began to grow over the light. It spread like a terrifying, high-speed mold.

Thick, blue veins bulged out from the newly formed skin, throbbing wildly as a heart was forcefully rendered into existence inside its chest. A jagged, uneven ribcage snapped into place with loud, wet crunches, expanding and contracting as the entity was suddenly forced to breathe.

”Oh, God, it’s actually working,” Sebastian breathed, taking a half-step back, thoroughly disgusted by his own creation.

The transformation spread to its faceless head.

The smooth white dome blistered. Two wet, horrific slits tore open in the front of its face, revealing wide, panicked, bloodshot human eyes that darted around in absolute terror. A jaw literally tore itself open below the eyes, the skin stretching and ripping to form a mouth filled with jagged, uneven teeth.

”HAAAAAAAGH!”

The Cleaner screamed. It was a raw, wet, incredibly human sound of pure, unadulterated agony.

The [Concept of Pain] had fully initialized. For the very first time since the dawn of the Ethereal Plane, the perfect anti-virus software was feeling the agonizing, mind-breaking sensation of its own existence. The air around it smelled of burnt ozone and fresh, coppery blood.

The system UI above the entity’s head violently flickered, updating its stats in real-time.

[Entity Identified: System Cleaner (Corrupted)] [Level: ERROR] [HP: 100,000 / 100,000] [Status: Biological Vulnerability Active. Severe Pain Detected.]

”Look at that,” Sebastian smirked, pointing his single hand at the floating text. ”You have a health bar now. That means I can kill you.”

The Cleaner couldn’t even formulate an attack. The sheer shock of possessing a nervous system completely paralyzed its combat logic. It clutched its newly formed, fleshy head with trembling, meaty hands, screaming hysterically as blood poured from its tearing jaw.

But the horror wasn’t over.

Because the entity was no longer made of pure [NULL] light, it was no longer exempt from the standard physics engine of the server. It suddenly possessed physical mass.

The sideways, chaotic gravity of the Dead Servers immediately took hold of the newly formed meat-suit.