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

The Prime Architect’s throne room,” Valerie whispered, her grip tightening on her empty hands.

”Yeah,” Sebastian nodded, cracking his bloody, ruined knuckles. ”Let’s go knock.”

—

The hallway leading to the blood-red iron doors was suffocatingly quiet. After the roaring gears, the freezing meat lockers, and the toxic yellow smog of the previous chambers, the absolute dead silence felt like a physical threat.

Sebastian dragged his right leg, his heavy combat boots leaving a smeared, sticky trail of dark human blood and black motor oil against the unpolished stone floor.

*DRAG. CLINK. DRAG.*

He leaned heavily against the cold wall, his left arm pressed firmly against his fractured ribs. Every single breath tasted like pennies and burnt dust. He was running on absolute fumes. The biological steel of his thirty-percent physical synchronization was the only thing keeping his meat-suit from completely shutting down.

”I am officially retiring after this,” Sebastian wheezed, pausing to spit a mouthful of blood onto the grated floor. ”I’m going to buy a couch. A really, really ugly, incredibly soft couch. And I’m going to sit on it until the universe forgets my name.”

Valerie walked half a step behind him, clutching her rusted iron pipe like a lifeline. Her face was pale, smeared with soot and the dried digital blood from her earlier astral hemorrhaging. She looked just as broken as he felt, but her blue eyes burned with that familiar, terrifying corporate stubbornness.

”I’ll buy you the couch, Seattle,” Valerie murmured, her voice a ragged rasp. ”I’ll even throw in a synthetic beer. Just get us through that door.”

”Deal,” Sebastian grunted.

They closed the final fifty yards. The massive, blood-red iron doors towered at the end of the corridor, easily thirty feet high. Blinding, absolute white light bled through the microscopic seam between the two slabs of metal, pulsing with a slow, rhythmic, terrifying heartbeat.

It was the Prime Architect’s throne room. The center of the Hardware Level.

But standing directly in front of the doors, completely blocking the path, was the final roadblock.

*BZZZT.*

A faint, heavily corrupted gray system prompt flickered in the dead, magic-less air between them.

`[Hardware Override: The Fourth Pillar.]`

`[Processing Load: Death and Finality.]`

Sebastian stopped. He let out a long, deeply exhausted groan, letting his head fall back against the stone wall. ”War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. You guys are literally ripping off the Bible now. Someone call a copyright lawyer. This is just lazy.”

The Pillar of Death didn’t roar. It didn’t screech or leak toxic gas.

It simply detached itself from the shadows.

It stood eight feet tall. It didn’t look like a hulking brute or an emaciated skeleton. The entity was clad entirely in a terrifying, rusted suit of armor that looked like a walking iron maiden. The armor was covered in thick, jagged iron spikes, both on the outside and, horrifyingly, on the inside, where thick, dark red blood leaked steadily from the gaps in the metal plates. It had no face, just a smooth, flat iron mask bolted directly to its breastplate.

In its heavy, spiked gauntlets, it held a massive, rusted broadsword. The weapon was as tall as Sebastian, the blade chipped, stained black with dried gore, and unimaginably heavy.

”I really hate the silent ones,” Valerie whispered, her knuckles turning white around her iron pipe.

The Pillar of Death didn’t charge. It simply began to walk forward. Its heavy, spiked boots hit the stone floor with a slow, rhythmic, inevitable cadence.

*THUD. THUD. THUD.*

”Stay back, Princess,” Sebastian ordered, his voice dropping into a dark, guttural growl. ”If that thing touches you, those spikes are going to turn you into a human sieve.”

Sebastian pushed himself off the wall. He raised the jagged brass machete he had ripped from the Sentinel earlier. His right arm screamed in protest, his muscles burning as he hoisted the heavy metal.

He didn’t wait for the entity to close the gap. He forced his broken body forward, lunging with everything he had left.

*SWOOSH!*

The Pillar of Death swung the massive, rusted broadsword in a devastating, horizontal arc. It moved with terrifying, mechanical precision, completely devoid of wasted energy.

Sebastian threw his brass machete up to parry.

*KRA-CLANG!*

The impact was absolutely catastrophic. The sheer kinetic weight of the broadsword hitting the brass machete sent a shockwave straight down Sebastian’s arm.

*SNAP!*

The brass blade completely shattered into a dozen useless, jagged pieces.

Sebastian’s eyes went wide behind his cracked porcelain visor. The broadsword didn’t stop. It continued its arc, the rusted edge slicing horizontally across Sebastian’s chest.

*SQUELCH.*

The blade tore through the thick leather of his tactical coat and bit deeply into his flesh. Hot, bright red blood sprayed across the corridor.

”FUCK!” Sebastian roared, stumbling backward and clutching his bleeding chest.

The cut wasn’t deep enough to hit his lungs, thanks to his biological steel muscle density, but it hurt like absolute hell. He fell to one knee, coughing violently as the metallic taste of blood flooded his mouth.

The Pillar of Death didn’t pause. It raised the massive broadsword high above its faceless iron helmet, preparing to split Sebastian cleanly in half.

”Hey, ugly!”

*WHAM!*

Valerie sprinted forward, swinging her rusted iron pipe with all her remaining strength. She aimed perfectly for the back of the entity’s knee joint. The pipe bent on impact, hitting the rusted iron armor with a loud, ringing crash.

The blow didn’t do any damage to the thick metal, but the sheer surprise of the kinetic hit made the entity stutter. The broadsword’s downward swing went wide, the heavy blade slamming into the stone floor right next to Sebastian’s ear, kicking up a shower of rock and sparks.

The Pillar of Death slowly turned its faceless iron mask toward Valerie.

It raised its left hand, backhanding her with its spiked gauntlet.

”Valerie, move!” Sebastian screamed.

She tried to duck, but she wasn’t fast enough. The spikes caught her shoulder.

*SHHHK!*

”Ah!” Valerie cried out, her body violently thrown backward. She hit the stone wall hard, sliding down to the floor, clutching her bleeding shoulder. Her mechanic’s overalls instantly soaked through with dark red blood.

A cold, absolute, and utterly terrifying fury ignited in the very center of Sebastian’s chest.

The pain in his fractured arm vanished. The burning in his stitched leg ceased to matter. He wasn’t thinking about the Architects or the Core OS anymore. He was just a man watching someone he loved get hurt.

The Pillar of Death ripped its broadsword out of the stone floor and turned back to Sebastian.

Sebastian didn’t stand up. He didn’t try to find another weapon.

As the entity raised the massive broadsword again, Sebastian launched himself upward from his knees. He didn’t aim for the entity’s body. He threw himself directly at the falling blade.

He reached out with his bare, bloody right hand and grabbed the sharp, rusted edge of the broadsword mid-swing.

*SQUELCH!*

The jagged iron sliced deeply into his palm, cutting straight down to the bone. Blood poured down the blade, but Sebastian’s grip was an absolute, unyielding vice. His thirty-percent physical synchronization clamped down, arresting the massive weapon’s momentum through sheer, unadulterated brute force.

The entity froze, its mechanical gears grinding as it tried to pull the sword free.

”You don’t get to touch her,” Sebastian snarled, his voice a low, vibrating growl of pure malice.

He didn’t let go of the blade. Using his bloody grip on the sword as leverage, Sebastian violently threw his entire body forward. He slammed his right shoulder directly into the center of the entity’s spiked iron chest.

*CRUNCH!*

Four thick, rusted iron spikes punched cleanly through his black leather coat, burying themselves deep into his shoulder and ribs.

Sebastian didn’t scream. He just gritted his teeth, wrapping his good right arm entirely around the entity’s armored neck. He was pinned to the monster’s chest, his own blood rapidly mixing with the dark, foul-smelling fluid leaking from the iron maiden armor.

”Let’s see how your neck handles basic physics,” Sebastian spat.

He planted his heavy combat boots onto the stone floor. He locked his arm around the entity’s helmet, and with every single remaining ounce of his biological steel strength, he violently twisted his hips and tore his arm backward.

*CREEEAAAK... SNAP!*

The heavy, rusted iron collar of the armor buckled. The thick, mechanical gears and biological fibers functioning as the entity’s spine completely sheared under the impossible torque.

The Pillar of Death went entirely rigid. The red light bleeding from the seams of its armor sputtered and instantly died.

The massive entity collapsed backward.

*KRA-DOOM!*

They hit the floor together. Sebastian was still pinned to the monster’s chest by the spikes. He gasped, staring up at the dark stone ceiling for a long, heavy second. He didn’t move. He couldn’t move.

*BZZZT.*

`[Pillar 4 Offline. Processing Load Terminated.]`

The corridor was completely, utterly silent.

”Seattle?” Valerie’s voice was a weak, trembling whisper from the wall.