Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 222: Vulture

Despite the arguments going on outside, the rules for calling in help were clear. If you set off an emergency alert, the loot would be evenly distributed across all parties involved, and in case of disputes, the people who’d originally fucked up the situation would usually wind up with the short straw.

Of course, no one ever liked losing loot, so it was always a bit of a chore to enforce the rules despite them having been laid down in several international treaties.

Arguing was understandable, if annoying. Arguing while the clock was counting down to what might be armageddon … that was a lot less ok.

But that was why Elena had stayed outside to crack some skulls.

The interior of the spire was a mess of broken masonry and twisted shards of metal, creatures rustling within the cover.

Creaking, clanking, the fingers-on-chalkboard sound of metal scraping against metal … the hairs on Isaac’s neck rose unbidden as they advanced.

Normally, even with three S-Rankers involved, this first chamber was a dangerous place, to be approached with caution. With the current setup, that meant having the scout slightly ahead of the group, the mage raining down fire and the warrior protecting the mage.

Even a few months ago, this would have been dangerous to even them. But Isaac had leveled up during R’lyeh, and the others hadn’t been idle either.

They’d farmed the hell out of the Summer and Autumn Events, had truly masterwork gear created, and Isaac’s actions at the city of weirdness had earned him a significant amount of leeway when it came to [Raid Bosses].

He’d hit Level 130 on November 16th, and along the way, he’d bought himself a nifty new [Skill]. He’d have bought it before getting [Lessons of History], but that other [Skill] had been just too useful for that specific situation.

The Meaning of the Name (legendary)

Two Titans.

Prometheus, the forethoughtful, and his brother, Epimetheus, whose name means afterthought.

One who is intelligent avoids mistakes and traps before running straight into them. One whose hindsight might let him avoid making the same mistake twice, but by that point, the damage will already have been done. It should be clear which is the better thing to have.

This Skill grants its user the power held by the Titan that his Class is named after.

Preternatural, nigh-absolute foresight, gained by boosting the user’s pattern recognition ability, mental celerity and temporarily granting them the ability to store all that information.

This process can be done subconsciously for short-term predictions, such as in combat, but anything longer term will both be more expensive and require active attention.

The efficacy of this Skill increases with the amount of information the user has access to, and may produce incorrect results if working off incorrect or incomplete data.

While this Skill does check the veracity of the user-provided info by checking it against all other available information, that is of limited use and may slow down the workings of this Skill if prioritized after the foresight itself or be of extremely limited usefulness if the predictions themselves are prioritized.

Cost: 20 mana per second for short-term predictions (combat), 50 mana per second for long-term predictions

If you also have Lessons of History, these Skills will work in concert to provide superior results for both and it will run subconsciously beside its sibling Skill.

When the first mechanical bird fell from the ceiling like the blade of a guillotine, he noticed it with his [Aura], and the vast sea of information he had about this enemy was channeled through [The Meaning of the Name].

Where before, he’d just have intercepted it with a regular strike, aimed by a human with their Perception Stat above 400.

Now though … a single Kabar manifested in his hand and he threw it skywards while taking a single step to the side when the bird crashed to the ground, knife blade stuck in its internals, having flown through a gap in the armor that only existed for a split second when the construct moved in a single specific way.

More and more birds launched themselves at the human interlopers and fell from the skies, going inert before they could move more than a few meters.

Several clusters remained, steel feathers gleaming and ready to be launched in a devastating shotgun blast, but they were torn apart by a series of well-placed tornadoes. Powerful AOEs took a bit to prepare, but if you knew when you’d need to start channeling for optimal deployment, getting the timing down was a piece of cake.

Isaac didn’t even deal with the bird beyond the loners of the original wave, he was more focussed on dealing with the tree-trunk-sized centipedes bursting from the ground ahead. Balmung carved through their copper-colored carapace as if it were paper, each single cut bisecting a dozen different vital systems.

Hacking and slashing, they advanced through the chamber. Isaac in the front, bouncing around like the pinball he’d named his combat style after, Amy following a few meters behind him, casually obliterating any enemies that dared to clump up, and Arthur was next to her, with nothing to do. Yet.

The exit was easy enough to find, a door at the end of the chamber. Isaac kicked it open and dove through in an instant, avoiding a bladed whip that almost took his head off.

As Isaac dashed deeper inside the boss chamber, Arthur grabbed the whip and yanked, causing the monster to go flying.

He hadn’t done any damage in this chamber, so the monster hadn’t adapted to him. Heavy armor in a single sheet kept out Amy’s spells, a lack of openings for Isaac to exploit, whip-based armament that made dodging or blocking its attacks a pain in the ass.

There were a few tricks that let you deal with the Spire’s adaptations.

First, you could fight minions with your regular [Skills], then trash the bosses that were only prepared for your weakest attacks with your big finisher.

Second, you could only attack using part of your [Skill]set, then kill the boss with the other one. This was an option for Isaac, but his flames and [Compounded Impact] were mana hogs, and going that route would have taken too long.

Thirdly, you could do what they’d done here, keep part of your team back just for killing the boss.

The first floor was cleared when Excalibur destroyed the monster’s final core, carving through the construct’s heavy armor even more easily than Isaac’s blade had destroyed the centipedes earlier.

That was one terrifying weapon.

Unlike most weapons, Excalibur did damage to other pieces of equipment based not on its physical sharpness, but the weight of history attached to the blade. In other words, in order to withstand its touch, an object needed to be decently well-known outside of a niche group. Historically important, the weapon that had taken a nobody to the third or even fourth Evolution.

Of course, while an object like the Rosetta stone might resist the blade’s cut through basically anything properties, they also needed to resist the full physical might of a Level 130-ish melee fighter. The crossover between the groups of “insanely durable” and “important” was pretty small.

In fact, there were only a few weapons that qualified.

Isaac’s Balmung, Admiral Yi Sun Shin’s bow, wielded by one of his descendants, apparently someone had recently found Clarent, the only copy of Mimung that was currently in use, and, of course, Jingu Bang.

Perhaps there were a few others, somewhere out there, but there couldn’t be many. Anything that found itself in Arthur’s range wasn’t getting away intact.

Floor two went by much as the first had. It was a series of rooms instead of one big chamber, but the general idea of “Isaac chops up the monster, Amy bombs areas, Arthur wrecks the boss” still worked.

Floor three, more of the same, for the most part at least. One big creature with two dozen whips, but with an addition of oil sprayers that almost caused Isaac to faceplant when he entered the chamber.

Arthur did slip, but he planted Excalibur into the ground, then used his grasp on its grip to fling himself at the monster and summoned the blade back into his hand at the moment of impact. By the time the monster had peeled him off, Amy had iced over the ground, creating a rough surface that allowed them to stand without slipping.

Floor four was where stuff got tricky.

The monsters were too tough for Isaac to casually hack apart, and there were no easy clumps for Amy to blow sky-high. Sure, their previous modus operandi still worked, but it was a little too slow for Isaac’s taste.

So they switched it up. Isaac charged ahead, doing whatever damage he could in passing, while Amy flung orbs of compressed air into the newly created openings, and the monsters exploded from the inside. Anything that survived the pair of them fell to Excalibur.

The fourth boss faced them with a decentralized control nexus to protect against Excalibur and heavily armored internals against Amy’s air orbs, but it had the exhaust pipes, gaps in the armor for improved freedom of movement, and all the various things the previous bosses had removed to deal with Isaac.

Sure, this thing was faster than its predecessors, but he knew what it would do before it did. His knowledge of monsters and how they fought, and with [Lessons of History] constantly gathering more information every time the monster did move, that advantage was only going to grow.

A single wave of his hand sent a wave of Kabars flying at it, and he barely even had to use [Remote Wielding] to adjust their trajectory as they flew through the gaps in the armor, then ignited with the flames of a solar dragon once they lodged somewhere important.

The boss had begun to fall before they’d even entered its room.

And then, they reached the top floor, which was just one gigantic boss chamber, surrounding the core that served as the Spire’s heart. A titanic orb, ten meters across, filled with intricate machinery and wrapped in heavy armor, connected to the floor and ceiling by a series of rune-covered cables.

Ludicrously powerful cooling systems ensured that it would not overheat while a series of portals allowed the core to safely influence the outside world.

That would have been bad enough on its own, but countless floating orbs that projected forcefields would be running interference, and countless more that had a series of blades orbiting them would be attempting to slice them to ribbons.

The whole affair wasn’t classified as anything other than a regular monster, but it was easily the equivalent of a Tier 7 [Raid Boss].

[Telekinetic Rending Storm] was a nasty AOE that created a pair of overlapping whirlwinds containing telekinetic blades, one rotating clockwise, the other counter-clockwise. If something got caught in there, it was only coming out in pieces.

With the storm blocking the orbs’ main approach, Isaac and Arthur only had to defend a pair of narrow approaches on either side of the spell.

Sparks flew as floating blades scraped off Arthur’s armor while a dozen shield orbs flew in close, blocking his strikes at his arms. They’d tried to block Excalibur directly, which had gone predictably poorly.

But they were also utterly unable to damage the knight, which meant that side of the storm was handled.

Isaac lacked his friend’s defenses, but he had his own tricks.

A dozen floating blades danced through the air in a carefully controlled pattern, bouncing off a dozen flying enemy weapons in a single swing, knocking the attacks off target.

The shield orbs were a pain, though. [True Cut] was too expensive to use on all of them, [Sundering Strike] worked best against physical armor, and burning through the shields would have gotten real expensive, real fast.

The first [Telekinetic Rending Storm] was thrown forwards, into the crowd of reinforcements, and it was rapidly replaced by a new one while a hail of [Magic Missiles] hammered most of the remaining blade spheres.

And then, a third one tore across the intervening space, obliterating the enemy swarm with impunity.

It was then that the core began to intervene directly. Where before, it had been content to assemble its spherical minions and teleport them into the chamber, it now began to glow with power, mana flowing along the cables that held it and flooding the room.

The elemental detonations numbered in the dozens at first, then the hundreds as the core’s power carved runes into the walls, floor, and ceiling, then overloaded the sigils to produce short-lived yet incredibly destructive effects.

Tongues of flame were brushed away with casual ease, ice melted by conjured hellfire, lighting deflected by suddenly appearing two-handed swords as Isaac began to counter the onslaught.

Hundreds of attacks were blocked, rendered useless by his fire resistance, and burned out of the air, but dozens still made it through.

A glob of acid cost him most of his left boot before he used [Fully Geared] to swap it out for one not currently being eaten by the incredibly caustic fluid. His shoulder was rendered useless for the five or so seconds it took to melt the ice that had frozen it solid. Flames blinded him for a crucial moment, allowing a wind blade to carve a deep gash into his chest.

But those small victories were to be the last the core had.

Now that she wasn’t spamming crowd control spells, Amy was free to unleash her full arcane might against their foe.

All members of Professor Bailey’s team had been offered the [System Researcher] [Class] for their first Evolution. Three of them had taken it.

Raul had left that path as soon as he could, realizing that while he was good with just magic, it wasn’t where his path really lay and had switched to a more druidic path, becoming one of the greatest nature mages in the world.

Patrick, meanwhile, had gone all in on the academic parts of his [Class], forging countless spells for any and all situations, each a masterpiece that would no doubt be taught in classrooms for decades to come, should he choose to make them publicly available.

Amy, on the other hand, had gone the exact opposite way. No hard rules, no carefully balanced spell patterns for her, just mana, experience, and determination. She’d been a [Spellweaver Savant], connected to the very essence of magic. And then, Isaac had given her one of the Aspects dropped by the Heart of Madness, a Tier 7 [Raid Boss], which she’d absorbed before her fourth Evolution. Combined with all her other achievements, it had given her the [Manaborne Spellweaver] [Class] and [Homo sapiens magia] race.

[Freeform Magic], [Forcefull Spell], [Arcane Overcharge] were the first boosting [Skills] she used, taking mere milliseconds to do so. More followed, each activated so quickly that even Isaac had trouble following what she was doing. He did recognize the final piece that slid into place, maybe a tenth of a second after she’d started, one that turned the already incredibly powerful construct into something greater than the sum of its parts.

[Spellwoven Gestalt].

The core of the Spire, functionally immovable, weighing hundreds of tons, was incredibly durable and very hard to move.

… Amy’s spell punched it clean from its rightful place, slammed it into the opposite wall so hard that even the nigh-indestructible material the Spire was made from cracked, and when the core fell back to the ground with a clank, picked it right back up and did it again. And again. And a few more times for good measure.

After a full seven impacts, Amy had blown through most of her mana, but the core was basically scrap metal at that point.

Technically “functional” by the barest of margins, as in, the only reason Isaac didn’t consider it fully destroyed was the lack of a kill notification.

But if hitting hard were all [Spellwoven Gestalt] did, it would have been a rather disappointing 4th Evolution legendary central [Skill], wouldn’t it?

Each rent ripped into the monster’s body tore open further as weaker versions of the original spell were cast right in the biggest wounds the original attack had caused.

The second wave of echoes, triggered from the largest internal damage points, was both so weak as to be practically non-existent and utterly superfluous. Shrapnel bounced off the barrier she’d conjured.

And that was that, no more [Raid Boss]-equivalent.

“No proper loot.” Amy grumbled, making the nearest metal shard float into her hand “Is this stuff useful?”

“It breaks up a few minutes after the monster is killed.” Isaac shook his head “The Spire is a dick like that. Let’s see if Elena’s made any headway outside.”

They left through the exit portal that had appeared on the far wall, coming into a place that was both more and less chaotic than they’d left.

Sure, the original group was waiting in an orderly formation, but a lot of new arrivals were raising hell.

It took a full five seconds for the first person to notice their return.

“Holy shit, they cleared it.” Someone whispered, but for the most part, the pandemonium continued.

Isaac pressed his hands together and created a sudden, incredibly hot, flame between them, superheating what little air was there. It exploded out from between his palms with a sound like a gunshot, making everyone jump in surprise or fright.

He jerked a thumb at the entrance “We cleared the Spire, it’s ready for the next group. We’ve collected a full profile of the creatures inside and passed it on to that guy, he’ll be passing out a bestiary in a few minutes. I’ve still got a couple of cooldown [Skills] left and I’ll be accompanying the next group. So, who wants to go inside?”

The next group went in, and he held back for a bit, wanting to avoid gathering ire by hogging all the XP. But it rapidly became clear that the rest of the group, while enthusiastic, wasn’t quite up to snuff. They’d probably have cleared the place, but not without taking casualties, potentially even fatalities.

He still didn’t kill everything, but he did a lot more than he’d done before. [Compounded Impact] in particular was a wonderful anti-boss move.

And as for the core, it ate an [I Am The Sword]. It was a very durable object, so tough that, instead of breaking when he impacted, it was pushed away, tearing free from its moorings.

For the briefest second, it was sandwiched between him and the wall, being crushed, until it slid out, the massive ball of death ricocheting across the chamber.

Then, it took two dozen cooldown [Skills] on the nose and at least a few slipped through the cracks in the armor.

Now that they had an excuse to know all about the Spire’s inner workings, Isaac and Elena were able to create a perfect series of groups, complete with divisions as to who should engage the minions, who should engage the boss, and what set of abilities would work best against the core.

The runs went well from that point onwards, but then, the argument over loot started. Urgh.

Elena cleared that up with a couple of thorough dressing-downs.

The fact that there was so little loot meant that most people had soured on the idea of summoning another Spire and they headed home.

Amy was heading to London and Arthur had to hoof it from there to Camelot while she stayed in the city.

Isaac and Elena headed to Germany, dealing with both some more logistical stuff that hadn’t been appropriate for a gala and exploring the city together.