Apocalypse Redux - Chapter 306: The Final Army

Isaac sat on an asteroid, gazing out at the inner system. There were countless other asteroids around him, plenty of them, but they were so far away that a normal person would barely have been able to see even a bare handful, and even to Isaac, they were just specks.

Ceres was currently on the other side of the sun from his current position, and the nearest asteroid miner was several light hours away. No one was going to get hurt if he picked a fight here.

The Void Dragon wasn’t an actual boss, but it could only be summoned in a vacuum and was far more at home out here than virtually any human could be, agile and flexible as hell.

Isaac knew he could win easily, but that monster would tear open a miner like a tuna can and devour the people inside in two seconds flat. Distance was needed.

And so was a solid surface to draw the summoning circle on. Isaac had once seen someone try and roll out a sheet of paper and draw on in zero-g. It had been in the other timeline, and if the internet had still been around, that video would have gone viral as the funniest video of the year.

Hm, was there a researcher out here he might be able to trick into making the attempt? It would have to be someone he seriously didn’t get along with, obviously, but beyond that … to be entirely honest, it likely wasn’t worth the effort, funny as it would have been to see that again.

Drawing out the circle was a matter of seconds, but placing down the various materials was a pain in the behind. He couldn’t just place them down, if he moved them with just a little too much force, they’d just go flying off again, he needed them to stay down on the rock, in contact with it.

Straps would have been the obvious solution, or maybe superglue, however, it was as though microgravity had been forgotten about when the [System] had been designed because neither of those solutions would fly.

Summoning worked by drawing out the circle, and then, you’d add in whatever items the summoning list wrote out. Anything you threw in after the circle was drawn counted as summoning materials, but such things as air or dust were ignored.

As such, adding glue or straps would result in a misfire, and he’d wind up facing a weird amalgamation of mana instead of an actual monster, with no proper reward. And adding them in ahead of time wouldn’t work either, since that would result in them being counted as part of the ground, the same way that the odd rock sticking up from the ground inside the circle would also be ignored.

So, after playing operation for a good ten minutes, Isaac was finally able to pour mana into the magic circle, dissolving the materials and ensuring that even if he bumped the asteroid, nothing more would happen until he activated the darn thing.

His mana pool began to rise up at massive speeds, his Magic Regeneration Stat currently being 990, and after one more Level up, he’d bump it up to a flat thousand. Right now, though, he regenerated 495 mana per minute, enough to unleash dozens of his customary spammed [Strikes] and not even see his pool dip, or wield most of his sensibly priced flames for a damn long time.

Of course, drawing out Prometheus’ Wrath or other overpowered fires would drain his mana pool real quick, but if he broke them out, the fight was highly unlikely to take very long.

Isaac kicked against the surface of the asteroid to throw himself off into space, and once at a sufficient distance, stopped himself cold with [Speed of Hati]. This would be tricky. That particular sub-[Skill] was the best method of maneuvering out here he had, but it only regenerated once a day, and fighting out here without it would be almost impossible. If he spent too much of it on a given fight, he’d be out here for a while.

Balmung manifested in his right hand, armor formed around him, and a cursed dagger of Cumulative Insanity was drawn into his left from one of his storage rings.

That particular wasn’t particularly dangerous directly, but hits would mess with sensory perceptions, delaying the input from any sensory organs near the point of impact. This fight would be fast as hell, and even the slightest delay in perceptions would leave the monster chasing its proverbial tail.

And after eight minutes of sitting on his proverbial ass, the monster finally made an appearance.

The asteroid shattered like glass as the Void Dragon “hatched”, a monster the size of a commercial airliner tearing its way free of the rock, deep purple scales glittering in spots, others reflecting practically no light at all, large chunks and razor-sharp fragments of stone being flung straight at Isaac.

He dodged, kicking himself sideways and stopping himself again the instant he was out of the line of fire, then flung back a lance of fire that slammed into one of the monster’s eyes.

The dragon roared and a single beat of its massive wings accelerated it well past what would have been the speed of sound had they been fighting in an atmosphere, forcing Isaac to fling himself out of the way again, eyes glimmering slightly from [Wisdom of the Simurgh].

All of the knowledge in the world was theoretically at his fingertips, though it restricted itself to only talking to him about the topic at hand. Namely, orbital mechanics, proper maneuvering, and information about how to read the beast’s wing movements.

Sadly, that information didn’t stick with him when he deactivated the [Skill], just the end result of his deliberations, but then again, he didn’t have the memory capacity for a fraction of the information that he got when he activated this ability.

As the dragon whipped past, Isaac flung the dagger and managed to inflict a small scratch just behind the dragon’s ear. Not that there was any sound out here, however, this particular species’ ears somehow picked up the impact of two objects without a medium to carry sound, so damaging its ears would still be useful.

Once past him, the dragon twisted unnaturally in space, body whipping around though the head managed to stay lined up on Isaac throughout the process, purple energy pouring up from the bottom of its gullet.

Cosmic radiation, entropy acceleration, enhancing the consequences of vacuum exposure, all fused into a single burst of purple energy that tore through space, the odd rock struck being practically erased, first reduced to dust, then eventually converted to iron.

The monster’s head swept up and around, chasing Isaac as he jumped from spot to spot, flashing past the monster, Balmung carving straight through scales and muscle, but being too short to cause serious damage.

But in time, he managed to not only properly put out the eye he’d hit with the flame, but sufficiently curse the monster that all its senses save touch were acting on a few milliseconds worth of delay.

So Isaac decided to switch his method of flight, using his flames as impromptu rockets. Expensive, mana-wise, but mana regenerated far more quickly.

Even so, suddenly switching was one of the most disorienting things Isaac had ever done.

When he could step on empty vacuum for locomotion, he had perfect control over his movement and could come to a dead stop relative to any celestial body he chose.

But using the combination of fire and mass nullification, he needed to first nullify his momentum before reversing, coming to a stop was damn difficult, and turning was really just adding extra momentum along a different vector and going spinning off into the void while the dragon chased him, purple blasts and gleaming claws seeking to end his life.

Isaac threw his cursed dagger again, watched it bounce off the bony ridge just above the intact eye, and instantly burned fire at full power and came to an almost complete stop, something the monster would only be able to perceive by the time it had already flown past.

He’d mistimed the burst a little, but another kick-off empty space positioned him perfectly, and then, his metaphorical muscles bulged as he drew upon the [Power of the Behemoth].

Normally, the force transferred by executing a melee strike against an enemy in microgravity sent one flying backwards, forcing one to correct the altered momentum before doing anything else. A sharper sword could mitigate that somewhat, parting flesh with a reduced transfer of momentum, but not eliminate the issue entirely, far from it.

But the admittedly smallest aspect of his currently active [Aspect of the End] meant that he could put himself above, well, fundamental physics.

The dragon’s momentum pushed it into his sword as it flashed towards its neck, and in an explosion of blood, the monster’s head and a good chunk of its spine were separated from the rest of its body while Isaac got clipped by a wing and got flung ass over teakettle.

Void Dragon (Lv. 180) has been slain. 45,000 XP gained

Ow.

Isaac turned and glared at the body, which was rapidly vanishing off into the distance. How long would he be chasing that thing for?

Also, there was the small, small issue of the monster’s blood not freezing just because it was in a vacuum and that the way it was spreading out, he’d have to take a massive detour to avoid getting utterly filthy.

… if there’d been a rock in headbutting range, he’d have smacked it with his forehead.

Welp, time to go salvage some materials.

As he worked on the body, having it slip a little bit away every time he touched it, he went over the battle in his head. He’d spent 2,317 points of mana during the fight, but regenerated over one and a half thousand in the same time span. That had worked well.

However, Isaac had burned [Aspects of the End] for a little over 23 seconds. That was too much. If he replicated this fight exactly, he’d be able to kill three more dragons, and then have to wait for another eighteen hours before he could go again. And that would leave him with barely any margin of error.

Of course, he could do another couple of fights on top of that by using his cooldown [Skills], but even that wouldn’t necessarily give him his Aspect.

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***

The next fight started twenty minutes after he was done harvesting. One minute to find an asteroid, eleven minutes to get the summoning circle set up, eight minutes to regenerate his mana.

This time, he wouldn’t do anything fancy, not go into strategizing, no nothing. Just raw power applied straight to the monster’s skull.

Isaac ran away from the charged circle, constantly retreating until it triggered automatically due to the “scaredy cat summoner” function.

The dragon appeared and began chasing after him immediately, exactly like he wanted to.

He just brought himself to a dead stop, relative to where the circle had been, turned around, and began accelerating again, going straight for the monster’s head.

In a game of chicken, Isaac would normally lose automatically, he either dodged or got crushed, even against other humans on his Level. He was all about speed, not raw power.

… Except when he became a literal unstoppable force. Well, technically, not so much unstoppable as being unable to have his momentum altered, making him an unacceleratable object rather than an unstoppable force, but did semantics really matter here?

Isaac activated [I am the Sword] a split-second before the dragon’s breath hit him, the deadly attack harmlessly washing over him for a single moment before the two of them collided.

He emerged on the other side of the dragon, frantically wiping at his eyes even as he turned to chase the dead body. Next time, he was aiming a little higher and going to take off the top of its head, trying to avoid going straight down its gullet and through the entirety of its torso.

But how often would he have to repeat this to get his Aspect?

***

Five hours, eight more dragons, eight more corpses to harvest, and not a single Aspect in sight.

But despite the frustration of not getting an Aspect, Isaac was perfectly happy with the results of the fight. The materials would be useful, and he’d gotten enough XP to Level up.

Level 189. This one had been a long time coming.

At first glance, it wasn’t very obvious why that was significant, it wasn’t an Evolution point or a nice round number, but it just so happened to be the Level which gave him the final point needed to buy [Call of the Gjallarhorn] and the Stat points he’d gotten allowed him to bump all three of his primary Stats up to a flat 1,000.

And the [Skill], it made him feel like he could say “Apocalypse, I’m ready, bring it”.

He wouldn’t, obviously, but still, it would be very useful. And there was just one more [Skill] he wanted to buy, but that one was more of a “helpful after the fact” kind of deal.

[Calamity’s Crimson Seal] was the last thing he really needed to complete his end-of-the-world [Skill]set. In essence, it cast a planetwide energy field after an “apocalypse” was beaten, which would slap anyone who tried to end the world with one hell of a debuff and highlight their location for everyone who wanted to stop them.

Of course, that [Skill] would only be useful once they started kicking the ass of apocalypses, but it was a fine example of the concept of “better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it”.

However, today wasn’t about that [Skill], because he hadn’t bought it yet.

Call of the Gjallarhorn (legendary)

When gods and giants clash, when the dead sail forth from the underworld upon a ship made from the fingernails of corpses, when the Midgard serpent rises from the depths of the ocean and the sun and moon are devoured by a pair of wolves, Heimdall will blow the Gjallarhorn to signal the start of the final battle.

The Einherjar will descend from Valhalla and the very gods will go to war for the final battle of Ragnarök until, at the very end, the Earth lies devastated and the last survivors of gods and humans are able to rebuild while upon the bones of their enemies.

Yet being able to rebuild requires one to have won first. That’s where this Skill comes in.

Every person willing to honestly fight against an oncoming calamity is boosted by it, gaining Stats equal to the peak of their current Evolution (up to the third), grants them their choice of up to five Skills from any pure-combat Class up to the rare rank and the third Evolution, which they will keep for the full of duration of the conflict.

These Skills will then be boosted up to Level 15 and their users will gain the knowledge of how to use them to their greatest effect.

People in the fourth Evolution will gain five Levels immediately, but have to pay back the XP debt incurred before being able to continue leveling or being able to receive the benefits from this Skill again.

This Skill can be activated once a year, on up to 50,000 individuals per Level of this Skill, but only against threats of apocalyptical nature.

In addition, this Skill may clash with Skills that have similar effects, if so, the stronger boosting Skill will activate and the weaker will not function, refunding the cooldown to the user of the weaker Skill.

Synergy effect: Hildebrand’s Heir

Any person affected by the Call of the Gjallarhorn may choose two of the user’s teachable [Skills] and gain them at the epic rarity and Level 10

Affecting 50,000 people sounded powerful as hell at first, but sadly, that came with some pretty harsh caveats. Namely, the fact that the boosted would be thrown at an apocalypse, and individuals would not be strengthened if they were already at the fifth Evolution, which was the exact group that was going to do the bulk of the heavy lifting when it came to fighting an apocalypse.

Still, 50,000 people who’d either gain enough Levels to gain a central [Skill] even with a legendary [Class], or a basic [Skill] at the very least.

Isaac grinned. Oh, it would be a sad day if he ever had to use it, but he imagined it would still be satisfying as hell to whip out this kind of trump card.

However, all that being said, he wasn’t in the asteroid belt for shits and giggles. There were Aspects to be gotten.

And after another seventeen battles, he finally got that done.

Aspect of the Void Dragon:

This is the distilled essence of what makes a Void Dragon a Void Dragon. Gain a mind capable of grasping the enormity of the universe, handily survive in the vast empty vacuum of outer space, travel the stars or project the power of the void into a devastating breath attack.

Requirements for Activation:

10,000 XP

Open Aspect Slot

Grants:

+20 Agility

One of the following Skills:

Wings of the Void

Star’s Heart

Scales of the Void

Void Dragon’s Breath

Infinite Mind

Void Lungs

There was a small issue here, though. The Aspect he was stacking this on belonged to a [Raid Boss], and held [Moment of Immortality], which he could not upgrade with this one.

Thankfully, that [Skill] was a bit of a special snowflake, one he could keep irrespective of what Aspects he got after the fact, or override with any [Skill] from his new Aspect he needed.

First, there were the obvious upgrades.

[Draconic Heart] became [Star’s Heart].

Star’s Heart (legendary)

Within your chest, a star blooms, your every heartbeat an explosion of power that sends fire coursing through your body.

Where you tread, the ground turns to lava (toggleable), and if you want something gone, you may enhance the firepower of your flame magic to great heights. And if you wish, you may channel your inner strength into a fire or breath-based attack, overcharging it with mana and even your physical stamina to unleash devastating power.

Furthermore, the power of a star empowers your heart, and through it, your very life, extending your lifespan by millennia at a minimum and possibly more, depending on other Skills that may empower/synergize with this one.

Once again, a powerful fire attack and longevity booster.

[Dragonscale Mantle] became [Scales of the Void].

Scales of the Void (legendary)

Cosmic radiation, micrometeorites, various gasses, the odd supernova or pulsar. Space is kinda dangerous when you think about it, even if you somehow figure out a way to breathe in a place devoid of air.

This Skill might not help with that last one, but it does with all the others.

The Scales of the Void render their bearer immune to all the natural dangers of the void, and grant enhanced heat, radiation and kinetic damage resistance while in outer space.

Furthermore, the user may choose to resist external sources of acceleration to avoid being flung about, although doing so can easily cause damage if too much force is nullified.

This [Skill] had changed somewhat, instead of boosting his armor, it would massively increase his combat power out here in space.

And now, for the new [Skills]. The obvious pick was [Wings of the Void], the single best space maneuvering ability that wasn’t from a [Class], both in the long and short term.

Wings of the Void (legendary)

The world is a vast place. The universe is incomparably vaster, and far harder to move through. After all, there is nothing to push against, nothing to walk on, no proper medium to travel through. And, you know, it’s kinda big.

The Void Dragon is one of the few creatures capable of traversing this place, its great wings hurling it through the vast emptiness.

With this Skill, its user will be able to manifest these wings on their back and use them to move and maneuver through space, while also allowing the user to engage “travel mode”, which allows them to constantly accelerate without being affected by relativistic effects or the light speed limit, however, this renders you unable to affect the normal world, and you cannot move through solid objects, though gasses and small rocks are pushed out of your path.

When travel mode is deactivated, the user will revert to their velocity and direction at the moment of activation.

In addition, this effect can be disrupted from the outside.

Cost: 100 points of mana per hour of manifestation, 5,000 points per hour of travel mode

The simple fact that these wings worked out here made them useful as hell.

But travel mode offered a path to go FTL, one that could be massively enhanced when combined with a couple of other abilities.

Of course, having no limit as to how quickly one could move sounded insanely powerful, but getting even to the nearest star system would take a long time, as it was a little over four light-years away. And the Milky Way as a whole was 100,000 light-years across.

On its own, Travel Mode was mostly an intra-system movement option, but still incredible.

Now Isaac just had to check if [Continent Strider] stacked with this, or if he could use his other methods of acceleration while in Travel Mode.

And for his final [Skill], it had been a hard choice whether or not to keep [Moment of Immortality], but in the end, that [Skill] had multiple sources and he still had another from his Demon Lord Aspect. If he needed it twice, something would have gone seriously wrong.

In the meanwhile, [Infinite Mind] could theoretically be replaced by [Blessing of Innovation] or [Wisdom of the Simurgh], but both of those were temporary. And finding out that he’d wasted minutes or hours going the wrong way would really suck. Being able to properly navigate out there, permanently and without using up any of his most powerful boosting [Skill] would be invaluable.

Infinite Mind (legendary)

Space is huge. Big enough that trying to wrap one’s mind around the concept is practically enough to give a man an existential crisis.

And there are people who want to navigate that place on their own? Are you sure you’re not talking about the incarnation of the Dunning-Krueger effect there?

Anyway, that’s what this Skill is about.

Firstly, it enables its user to perceive the vastness of space without risk.

Secondly, it helps them to navigate space by allowing them to identify individual stars, granting a solid grasp on orbital mechanics, and everything else needed to navigate between the stars.

Oh, this would be so much fun to play around with.

Isaac grinned a pair of leathery wings manifested on his back, both a purple so dark they were practically black, and then, he flexed them, sending him flying through space.

The effect reminded him of how [Speed of Hati] functioned, actually, it was exactly the same effect, but Isaac had plenty of experience walking, he’d done so for most of his life. “Walking” by flexing his back … not so much.

After two or so minutes of experimenting, Isaac decided to flee behind a large nearby asteroid. The last thing he needed was someone filming this and putting it on the internet. It was nice out here, but there was a serious lack of privacy if someone cared to pay attention to you.

But once he’d managed to get his new wings under control, he was very happy with everything. His flames didn’t work in Travel Mode, unfortunately, but [Speed of Hati] and [Continent Strider] did, and getting back to Earth was a cinch.