Apocalypse Redux - Chapter 318: Rewards for a Job Well Done

Congratulations, Planet Earth! The World Boss “The Leviathan” has been slain by the hand of countless people. The matter of the final blow was therefore random and immaterial.

All those who participated will be rewarded based on their contribution, with XP, Aspects, and monster materials.

So, the damn thing was dead, but weren’t there … billions of tons of materials floating out there?

And that was when the swearing started.

Understandable, after all, the body of the monster they’d just been fighting, the literal treasure trove that, if things hadn’t been devalued by the sheer amount of stuff present, would likely have surpassed the GDP of most of the planet.

But good grief, the language being used … Isaac had literally never heard the like, his crass vocabulary had tripled in mere seconds.

And then, the next message slammed home.

The Rewards Levels are listed below, however, there are some

1. Body Pieces may be either a tooth, scale, tooth-sized piece of bone, 50 Leviathan steaks, 1 liter of any bodily fluid, or 50 m^2 of leather

2. World Boss Aspects must be stacked atop a compatible Aspect, but can override previous Skills if so desired, allowing their recipients to customize how they use their rewards.

3. Regardless of how many people hold each rank of reward, only a maximum of 15 Aspects will be handed out.

4. Level Boosts are not immediate, their recipients will receive them and trigger them whenever they choose to (they will trigger automatically if doing so would push their recipient to the maximum Level of 200).

Infinitesimal: Those who participated but failed to reach any reward higher tiers will receive 100,000 XP

Minor: Those who participated in the battle and contributed will receive 200,000 XP

Small: Those who participated in a way that would be noted as being above average in reports will receive 500,000 XP, half a body piece (own choice), and have a 0.1% chance at receiving an Aspect

Sufficient: Those who have done enough that a million like them together would have been able to beat the World Boss will receive 1,000,000 XP, 1 body piece, and have a 1% chance of receiving an Aspect

Significant: This tier requires one to single-handedly affect the battle in some way, be it by briefly restraining the foe so others may land a solid hit, or landing a significant hit on their own. As such, they will be boosted by 1 Level or 2,000,000 XP, whichever is more, gain 5 body pieces, and have a 10% chance of getting an Aspect

Massive: Those who will go down in the history books as having helped slay the Leviathan are going to be boosted by a full five Levels, receive an Aspect of the Leviathan

Decisive: This is a rank that can only be held by a single person per battle.

In this battle, this person was one Isaac Thoma, who both used one of the strongest cooldown Skills in existence to keep the Leviathan pinned for half an hour and eventually flung the beast into space.

As such, he will receive a boost of 10 Levels, an Aspect of the Leviathan, 25 body pieces (24 by his choice, 1 Leviathan Fire Gland), and the World Item [Soul of the Ocean].

This is an item that can affect the world as a whole, altering the entirety of the Earth’s waterways, in ways that may be humanity’s boon or bane.

The [System] was being helpful. That was never a good thing. Almost as though it were trying to incite people to be stupid during the next [World Boss] battle, and make them fight in the here and now … which was exactly what it was doing, of course.

The damn thing had told everyone what he now held, and while he generally didn’t expect anyone specific to try and steal the World Item, considering how many people there were in the world, chances were someone would.

Not to mention that it had just specifically told him that he had a stupidly powerful capability in his hands.

It was only then that he received his personal message.

Congratulations, Isaac Thoma! You have been the thing to make or break the battle against the Leviathan, and, well, you made it!

Due to your accomplishments, you gain the ability to increase your Level by 10 at a point in time of your choosing, however, it will automatically trigger upon hitting Level 190.

One Aspect of the Leviathan has been deposited in your Personal Storage.

One Leviathan Fire Gland has been deposited in your Personal Storage.

Twenty-four Leviathan parts will be deposited in your Personal Storage once you decide on which you wish to receive, your Personal Storage will temporarily expand to hold them should the space not suffice.

You have received one [Soul of the Ocean].

Isaac only had a brief second to frown at the final message before a smooth, blue and green marble around the size of a baseball appeared in front of him, serenely floating in space.

Why oh why could that thing not have gone into his storage too? Did it have to flash itself to the whole world?

He grabbed it and tried to put it into his Personal Storage, which should still have some space left as he hadn’t yet selected any body parts.

The enruned Lesser Space Elemental Core crumbled to dust, he felt the storage open, he extended the hand clutching the World Item … and the storage snapped shut.

Okay, let’s see what the rings do … oh, for fuck’s … deep breaths Isaac, deep breaths.

What was most likely the single most valuable item in existence had slipped from his hands like a greased egg the instant he’d tried putting it into his storage ring, but he’d thankfully caught it, and then [Continent Strode] to the far side of the Moon so he’d have a little privacy with his new item.

The next thing he tried was putting it into his pocket and then used [Fully Geared] to swap armor, but doing so caused the World Item to not only pop out, but also go flying.

Ok, that was unacceptable. This item could not be stored, could not be hidden, everyone knew he had it and knew it was valuable.

He needed to use it, now, everything else could wait.

Soul of the Ocean (World Item)

The Boon given to the slayer of the Leviathan is the gratitude of the sea itself, allowing its holder to reshape the water of an entire planet, restoring it from its damaged shape.

The holder may choose what the ocean is restored to, how quickly this change occurs, what parts of the world are restored (up to and including all of them), and what, if any, is excluded from the effect.

This is a single-use item, the user will need to set all parameters prior to activation, at which point the item will be destroyed.

As a World Item, the Soul of the Ocean cannot be stored in any manner of spatial device.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Aaaaand there it was, that was why things were fucky with the rings.

But yeah, he really needed to get rid of this thing, by using it in a way that did the most good and pissed off the least amount of people. Restoring the ocean sounded nice and all, but there were quite a few messes one could make.

It might obliterate any newly created land that humanity had made, by restoring the ocean to where it had been even a few decades ago, sink cities by returning it to a different era in the geological sense, obliterate every harbor, ship, and other structure man had built in the water by sheer accident, and so on.

He had a pretty good idea of what to do with it, but he couldn’t risk making a mistake here. So he asked around.

Amy made a joke about how he’d have to pay Raul’s salary if he accidentally trashed the ecosystem and it had to be restored, Karl pointed out that there was a clear demarcation between useful manmade structures and the likes of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Patrick provided a list of what should and shouldn’t be touched and which era had had the most abundant wildlife, and what should be excluded from reversion, and Bailey pointed out that there were some games that could be played with the whole thing.

Isaac also triggered [Blessing of Innovation] and [Wisdom of the Simurgh] to boost his knowledge, trying to get as much information as possible in what little time he had.

People were already bugging him about what the damn World Item did, and what he was going to do with it. All sorts of offers, threats, bribes … including some that were decidedly illegal. “Providing women” was almost certainly a metaphor for sex slavery or at the very least, decidedly disgusting coercion, so Isaac took note of who made those offers and moved on.

The longer he spent considering what to do, the more insistent the voices became, almost tempting him to cut himself out of the communications network, but after maybe a minute of work, Lieutenant General Gibbs overrode the whole mess.

“This is not an auction house, this is an important communications network currently coordinating live-saving operations all over the Pacific. Every person to start shouting about World Items is getting removed, no exceptions.”

Then, he sent another message directly to Isaac.

“Dr. Thoma, I don’t know where you ran off to, it was probably a good idea to take yourself out of the line of fire, but you need to do something soon. Destroy that thing, throw it into the sun, use it to clean out the pollution in the ocean or sink Russia into the sea, or hand it over to whichever government you want, just do something. Merely having you somewhere out there with that kind of capability is causing all sorts of messes down here.”

Isaac winced, but replied, “It’s a single-use item, I’m planning on using it to clean the ocean of pollution, I need five minutes.”

“I’ll try to buy you that,” Gibbs replied.

Huh, didn’t know he had that in him, Isaac thought. Gibbs was supposed to be the “safe” option, the mediator who listened to outside input. But it seemed like even his patience had limits.

But it only took him two minutes to finish his deliberations and teleport back into orbit above what had once been Oceania.

And then, he triggered the Soul of the Ocean. The blue and green marble in his hand slowly became malleable, his fingers sinking into the surface for a few seconds even as he relaxed his grip until it was basically non-existent, before finally dissolving into water, which soon vaporized in the vacuum of space and finally vanished completely.

“I’ve activated the World Item to …” Isaac began to explain, only to be cut off by yet another [System] message.

Attention, Planet Earth!

The World Item [Soul of the Ocean] has been triggered, altering the Earth’s water in ways its holder has decided.

Currently, it will:

1. Restore the islands and coastlines destroyed by the Leviathan (only the landmass, flora, fauna, and human population will not be included)

2. Remove all pollutants from the ocean and store them in appropriate natural resources (ex: Great Pacific Garbage Patch —> undersea oil reserves), deliberate human construction (ex: harbors, Venice, artificial reefs, artificial islands) will be excluded from this effect.

3. Reset oceanic flora and fauna to Year 1 BC, including species diversity and population levels.

4. Scrub the radiation released during the battle from the ocean

5. Enlarge the polar ice caps to compensate for the energy released by nuclear weaponry during the battle against the Leviathan.

6. Removal of monster-created volcanoes

All changes will happen over the course of a single day, to give ships and personnel the chance to clear the area where islands will rise.

“… So yeah, just like the item says, I fixed everything about the environment I could and tried to restore the world to the pre-Leviathan state as best as possible,” Isaac finished lamely as once he’d read the whole thing over.

The message had pretty much said everything, including his thoughts behind everything where the idea hadn’t been obvious.

Slowly, the crimson stain on ocean began to abate and he saw the beginnings of old-new islands rising from the oceans, the rubble at the bottom shifting to reform old lands.

The survivors would have the devil’s time surviving there once they returned from wherever they’d evacuated from, but that was something that could be helped. Bringing in plants and animals to restart the ecosystem with was going to be expensive, however, Isaac was sure it was going to be worth it.

Just a few more things left to take care of, during which time he’d stay up here and just watch.

Firstly, he wanted to grab his Aspect and slot it.

Aspect of Leviathan, the Demonic Prince of Envy

This is the distilled essence of what made Leviathan a monster worthy of being struck down by divine might in the final battle for the fate of the world.

Gain the indestructibility of a World Boss, flames that surpass all previous hell fires, turn any water around you into a lethal trap, or cloak yourself in the nigh-indestructible scales of the primordial serpent.

Requirements for Activation:

100,000 XP

Open Aspect Slot

Grants:

+100 Agility

+50 Strength

Progressive Invulnerability

Moment of Immortality

Sea of Damnation

Mantle of Indomitable Scales

Transcendent Hellflame

As a World Boss Aspect, it may be slotted onto any compatible Aspect stack, and override previous Skills to slot its own.

He’d also already had all the needed XP, so he’d slotted it the instant he’d pulled it from his storage.

The obvious pick was [Progressive Invulnerability], as it was pretty powerful and more durability could never hurt.

Progressive Invulnerability (legendary)

The true power of a World Boss, that makes them functionally invulnerable to many kinds of attacks capable of taking down titanic enemies.

Every time you lose a body part (with skin/muscles/bones, ten percent of total volume), all remaining instances of that body part will take half as much damage for the next five minutes, this effect compounds.

This Skill can be activated once every month and will remain in effect for half an hour once triggered.

This increased survivability would be incredibly useful, especially combined with the next [Skill].

Mantle of Indomitable Scales (legendary)

The scales of the Leviathan offer some of the greatest degrees of protection of any natural armor, practically requiring divine intervention to break.

This Skill allows the user to cloak themselves in those very same scales, summoning armor that lasts for 24 hours or until dismissed.

Cost: 1,000 points of mana

Isaac was pretty sure that that [Skill] was slightly overselling itself, and he’d have to check if it messed with his flexibility any, but it should be really useful.

His favorite [Skill], though, was the one he’d dropped the Aspect-based Hellfire one, which had become utterly superfluous when he’d gotten [Divine Fire].

Sea of Damnation (legendary)

Thalassophobia is the fear of deep or large bodies of water, such as the ocean, particularly deep lakes, or other vast and unexplorable nastiness. But the definition of “phobia” is an extreme and irrational fear.

When someone wielding this Skill is angry, that fear suddenly becomes very, very, rational.

Up to 50,000,000,000 (50 billion) liters of water around the user can be made to be incredibly dangerous, making falling in a near-death sentence.

It can be activated once a week and will be active for one hour after a five-minute ramp-up period.

It was the Aspect version of the Leviathan’s ability to turn the sea itself against anyone who fell in. In any area with water, this would make him a deadly threat.

Congratulations, Challenger of the Apocalypse, for defeating a monster of the end times!

As such, you will receive 3,000,000 XP, and due to your Skill “Aspects of the End”, you have received the sub-Skill “Sea of the Leviathan”, and your time pool has been increased by 10 seconds.

Ah, that old chestnut. Apparently, [World Bosses] were the “Monsters of the End Times the [Skill] had talked about.

Sea of the Leviathan (Subskill of Aspects of the End, gained by killing a Monster of the End Times)

The ocean. Deep, unknowable, and a place that makes it almost impossible to fight without highly specific adaptations.

As such, dumping someone at the bottom of the sea tends to be somewhat problematic for one’s foes.

This Skill summons a 500-meter diameter sphere during which all enemies suffer the negative consequences of being underwater (no breathing without water breathing abilities, weight/resistance of the water, pressure equivalent to a depth of Aspects of the End Level * 50 meters) while granting the user all benefits of underwater combat (swimming in any direction with a body temporarily optimized for underwater existence, ignore all negatives).

It was slightly weaker than the version he could have bought with [Skill] points, but it had been free. And it would be nasty as hell when he applied [Sea of Damnation] on it.

And it was one hell of a noob-stomper, capable of alternatively crushing them with water pressure or drowning them in conjured water.

Also, summoning a ball of water in the path of someone moving quickly would lead to an uncomfortable collision.

Almost as uncomfortable as the countless conversations he’d have to have after this.