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

The headless, lifeless body of the Seraph dissolved into a cloud of harmless white pixels, slipping through Sebastian’s boots and scattering into the dark wind.

Sebastian snatched the glowing orb of Pristine Source Code out of the air before it could fall. He held it up, inspecting the brilliant, unblemished light. It was the purest form of data in the multiverse, and he had just successfully bullied three of its guardians into the grave.

”Three down,” Sebastian muttered, pocketing the glowing orb into his inventory. ”I really hope they don’t have a respawn timer.”

He engaged his [Concept of Mass], dropping his weight to zero, and drifted gracefully down through the floating ruins. He navigated the shattered neon signs and upside-down skyscrapers, heading back toward the dark alleyway where Gwen had parked the Rusthound.

He landed heavily on the rusted metal ramp of the ship’s open airlock.

”I’m back,” Sebastian announced casually, stepping into the dim, oil-stained interior of the cargo bay. ”And I brought souvenirs.”

Gwen poked her head out from the cockpit stairwell. She looked at his completely unblemished, fully rendered right arm, and then at the dark, oily blood staining his black leather coat. She let out a long, shuddering breath, her hand dropping away from her pistol.

”You are a terrifying son of a bitch, Seattle,” Gwen said, shaking her head. ”I literally watched you turn an angel into a piece of rotting garbage. Remind me to never ever ask you for a medical favor.”

”It’s just applied biology,” Sebastian deadpanned, wiping the blood off his glove. ”Where is Corbin? We need to figure out where the hell this operating system keeps its front door. I’m tired of sneaking through the vents.”

——

The interior of the Rusthound smelled like burnt copper wiring, cheap synthetic coffee, and absolute, unchecked panic.

Sebastian stepped fully into the dim, oil-stained cargo bay, the heavy iron airlock doors slamming shut behind him with a deafening clang that finally silenced the eerie, howling void of the Dead Servers. He didn’t look like a victorious god. He looked like a man who had just crawled out of a meat grinder. His black leather coat was plastered with a mixture of gray concrete dust, dark red biological blood, and the glowing green static of his own suppressed Error.

”I need a wet wipe,” Sebastian muttered, casually shaking a chunk of gangrenous, pixelated flesh off the toe of his heavy combat boot.

Corbin practically shrieked as the fleshy mass hit the metal floorboards. The rogue code-smith was huddled over his makeshift, heavily modified computer terminal, his face a pale, sickly shade of green. He looked at the meat, then looked at Sebastian’s perfectly intact right arm.

”You... you got your arm back,” Corbin stammered, his eyes wide behind his grease-smeared goggles. ”You actually killed them. You killed three System Cleaners and looted their source code. That’s mathematically impossible. That’s like... that’s like trying to murder a calculator with a baseball bat!”

”Well, the calculator didn’t duck,” Sebastian deadpanned. He walked over to the terminal, reaching into his bottomless inventory. He pulled out the glowing, brilliant white orb of [Pristine Source Code] he had looted from the final Seraph. He casually tossed the priceless, mythic-tier artifact onto the rusted metal table like it was a cheap paperweight.

THUD.

”I didn’t just come back with spare parts,” Sebastian said, his silver-tinged eyes narrowing behind his featureless black visor. ”These Cleaners didn’t just spawn out of nowhere. They were dispatched directly from the Core OS. That means they have a localized routing history written into their base files. They know exactly where the backdoor is.”

Gwen jogged down the narrow metal stairs from the cockpit, her heavy boots clanking against the grating. She holstered her kinetic pistols, looking thoroughly exhausted.

”We are currently flying entirely blind, Seattle,” Gwen warned, crossing her arms over her tactical kevlar. ”The stealth cloak is completely shot. The starboard plasma engine is missing a chunk the size of a minivan, and the localized gravity out there in the memory ocean is actively trying to pull our hull apart. If they send another wave of those faceless freaks, we don’t have the speed to outrun them.”

”Then we don’t outrun them,” Sebastian replied coldly. He pointed a black-gloved finger at the glowing orb on the table. ”Corbin. Dissect it. I want the navigation route it used to drop from the Core OS into the Juncture.”

Corbin stared at the glowing white orb. His hands were shaking so violently he could barely hold his hydro-spanner.

”Boss, I can’t just plug a USB cable into an angel of deletion!” Corbin panicked, pulling at his greasy hair. ”That is pure, uncompiled kernel logic! If I interface my terminal with that thing, it could format my entire server rack! It could delete my brain!”

”I’ll buffer the connection,” Sebastian offered, his voice dropping into that low, terrifying metallic hum of absolute authority. ”I’ll wrap it in my own Error code to suppress its anti-virus functions. You just need to read the map.”

Before Corbin could argue, a sharp, violent burst of static erupted from the comms-link resting on Sebastian’s chest.

”Sebastian...”

The voice was incredibly faint, breaking through layers of heavy, multiversal interference. It sounded like it was coming from underwater.

Sebastian’s posture instantly stiffened. The relaxed, cynical Drifter vanished, replaced entirely by a man gripped by sudden, cold dread.

”Valerie,” Sebastian said quickly, tapping his comm-link. ”I’m here. I’m on the ship. What’s wrong with the signal?”

In the corner of the cargo bay, a translucent, holographic projection violently flickered into existence. It was Valerie’s Astral Avatar. But she didn’t look like the strong, defiant corporate heiress who had anchored his soul just an hour ago.

Her projection was degrading. The beautiful, brilliant blue light of her Earth-mana was heavily corrupted by thick, jagged lines of gray static. Her azure silk robes were un-rendering at the edges, dissolving into raw, floating polygons. She was kneeling on the rusted metal floor, clutching her head in absolute agony.