Apocalypse: Every Woman I Invest In Makes Me Stronger

The vibration travelled up through his boots. He steadied himself as the edges of the Space moved. The dark around them stretched. Places that had been walls a minute ago opened into more ground. The soil spread with it, broad and usable. The air changed, less stale, as if the room had remembered how to breathe.

Then the results.

[Survival Space]

[Total Capacity: 10,000 cubic meters.]

[Space Anchor Points: 3.]

[Soil Activation: Unlocked.]

[New Skill Acquired: Space Fissure.]

He read each line twice. Ten thousand cubic meters was real room. Supplies. People. Crops that were not a joke. The three Anchor Points pulled his eye first. Before this, getting back to a chosen spot had been limited by conditions and daily uses. Three anchors, each usable once every twenty-four hours, was a different kind of map.

He opened the detail.

[Space Anchor Point]

[The host may establish up to three spatial anchor points at eligible locations.]

[Each anchor point may be activated once every twenty-four hours.]

[Anchor points allow the host to establish a connection with the designated location.]

A supply depot. A shelter he trusted. One left open for the moment everything went wrong. He would have to test the limits. Even the basic version could save him days of walking through streets that wanted him dead.

Next.

[Soil Activation]

[The soil within the Survival Space can now support natural plant growth without the use of fertilizer.]

That one made his face change. Food was the hole every group fell into. Cans ran out. Scavenging was a clock. With Aria’s Plant Symbiosis and soil that did not need a bag of chemicals, he had a start. Light and water were still problems. A start was more than he had had yesterday. Farm a piece of the new ground. Grow it. If he managed it, the Space stopped being only a hole to hide in. It became a base.

Then the last one.

[New Skill: Space Fissure]

[Rank: SSS.]

[Description: The host can create a spatial fissure capable of severing or consuming objects and incoming attacks that intersect with its boundary.]

[Daily Uses: 5.]

His eyes narrowed. Spatial Cut was a blade he threw. This sounded like a crack in the air itself. A normal attack had to beat armor. A spatial one might not care, depending on the target and the rules. The Hornscale Beast had already shown it could foul spatial work. If Fissure could tear its barrier, he finally had a way to hurt it on purpose. If not, he needed to know that before he stood in front of it again. He was not going to spend the skill on a guess.

He looked around the expanded ground and found a thick metal plate in the stores. Set it a few meters off. Raised his hand.

”Space Fissure.”

The air in front of him warped. A thin pale line appeared before the plate, so narrow he almost missed it, and the air around it bent like the world had grown a hairline crack. The line widened. For an instant the plate seemed to lose a section of its middle. No bang. No sparks. A clean piece of it was simply gone.

He walked over. The edges were smooth, as if the missing metal had never been there. He crouched and ran a finger along what was left. No heat. No melt. No sign a blade had passed through.

”Interesting.”

One of five. Promising. It might handle things that trusted armor. It might eat an incoming attack instead of only blocking one. That last part was still a theory.

Aria had come up while he was looking at the plate. ”How does it feel?”

”Like I’ve got another way to kill something that doesn’t want to die.”

She gave him a look. ”That’s not reassuring.”

”It’s not supposed to be.”

The corner of his mouth moved anyway. She shook her head, smiling, then the smile left.

”Ethan. I need to tell you something about the thing outside.”

”The Hornscale Beast?”

She nodded. ”Plant Symbiosis is stronger. I can feel disturbances through the plants even when I can’t see what’s making them. The one that was on the dome has moved.”

”Where?”

”Inside. First floor. Near the lobby.”

His gaze sharpened. ”Injured?”

”I don’t think so. Its energy feels weaker than before. I can’t tell if it’s recovering or holding itself down on purpose.”

That mattered. A wounded animal might be a window. One hiding its strength was a trap. ”Did it notice you?”

”I don’t know. I stayed back.”

”Good. Don’t go near it again unless you have to.”

She nodded. He looked toward the boundary. The beast had already shown it could foul his jumps. If it was sitting in the Museum getting its strength back, he could not assume it would stay polite. He needed to know whether Fissure could get through the barrier. There was only one way to find out.

He checked the sword. Counted the charges. Fixed the lobby in his head. He was not planning a stand-up fight unless the thing forced one. Test the skill on the barrier. Leave if it failed.

Aria watched him. ”You’re going back out?”

”Long enough to test something.”

”Against that?”

”You know another creature with a barrier that kills teleportation?”

She did not answer. He looked at her once more. ”Stay with Elena. If anything changes, tell me.”

Then he jumped.

The Museum was quiet in a bad way. The wreck of the last fight was still everywhere. Broken cases. Glass under the weak light. The damaged dome open to a grey sky. The Hornscale Beast was where Aria had said, curled against the remains of a stone platform in the lobby. Black scales. Curved horns. Eyes closed.

He did not take that for safe. He stopped well back and fixed on the neck. If the barrier covered the whole body, a test on the neck still told him something. If the barrier had thinned, he might even mark it.

He raised his hand. ”Space Fissure.”

The air twisted. A thin crack formed between him and the beast and ran at the neck. Before it reached the scales, a pale-purple barrier came up around the creature. Golden sparks where the two forces met. The fissure shook. For a fraction of a second he thought it might go through. The barrier rippled. Faint patterns spread across it like cracks in glass.

Then the fissure collapsed. The air went normal. The beast was untouched.

His face hardened. ”So that’s how it is.”

One charge spent. Useful anyway. Fissure could stress the barrier. It could not finish the job alone. He would need the barrier down, or a moment it flickered, or another ability stacked on top. He did not know how long the barrier could take hits. He did not know if the beast could thicken it.

A faint scrape from the lobby. He froze. The head had moved. The eyelids lifted. Dark eyes fixed on him.

Neither of them moved. Then the Hornscale Beast unfolded, slow, almost lazy, and rose. The weight of it pressed the damaged floor. Stone shifted under the claws. It looked at him. Then, clear as a man’s mouth, it smiled.

A chill went down his spine. It was not only answering the failed cut. The look said it had understood what he tried, and found the result funny. How smart is this thing? Kate’s warning came back. Mutants evolved past instinct. The stronger they got, the more mind they grew, and mind made size into something worse. This one already had unusual spatial control. If it could also read what he meant to do, the fight got uglier.

He started to retreat. He had what he came for. No reason to stand there and hand it a free swing. Before he could jump, the floor trembled.

Faint at first. Easy to call debris. Then again, stronger. Dust off the ceiling. A low rumble through the building. He stopped. The beast turned its head too. For the first time since he had arrived, the smile left. The body went rigid. It was listening.

Another tremor. This one from under them. Deep below the first floor, under the basement levels, something enormous was moving. A pressure came through the building and sat on his chest. Not only weight. A presence. Strong enough that the Hornscale Beast took a slow step back.

He stared at it. The thing had shrugged off attacks that killed ordinary mutants. It had fouled his space work and made the Tiger King give ground. Now it was wary of whatever was waking under the Museum.

A deep crack ran the building. The floor split in places. Concrete tumbled into the dark. The rumble got louder, with a heavy impact that shook the walls. Every instinct he had said leave. He reached for the jump.

Before he could go, a roar came up from under the Museum. The sound was so hard the remaining windows blew out at once. Dust poured. The hall shook. Across the lobby, the Hornscale Beast lowered its head and stared into the dark below.

It did not look amused anymore. It looked careful. Ethan had seen that look on things that knew they were facing something that could kill them. Whatever was under the Museum was not an ordinary mutant. And from the way the Hornscale Beast had just stopped smiling, it might be worse than anything he had met so far.