Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 185: The Last Few Points on the Checklist

The Demon Lord didn’t even have time to fully emerge before being yanked into Isaac’s subspace.

In an instant, he transformed into his latest [Form of Horror]. It was the combat form he’d created after Seoul, updated to incorporate all of his latest gains.

A four-meter tall humanoid figure with thin, oddly proportioned limbs, each nonetheless rippling with muscles. Snakes could be damn strong. Old Reliable had been incorporated in many different points, forming claws, teeth, spiked on knees and elbows, a crown of thorns on his head, and finally, two oversized swords that looked identical to Balmung in all respects save size floating around him.

Wreathing this deadly figure was a shimmering field that was owed to the various illusion-based monsters which would make accurately targeting him slightly more difficult.

To top it all off, he was now armored up with Lindwyrm scales.

However, all of that had just been his external powerups, completely ignoring the internal upgrades.

The venom-spitting glands of the Greater Hydra that he’d had in the previous version had been upgraded by those of the Lindwyrm, for a deadly corrosive venom that was vastly more dangerous than the previous reason.

Isaac had also copied the acid cloud deployment capability and integrated it into the [Form of Horror], though he could only use it once per transformation and to a far lesser degree than the original bearer of the power.

Lastly, his body was now threaded through with the metal wires of the Razor Apparition. They were mostly there to reinforce his internals, but there were also a few he could “deploy” as whips in case of an emergency. Without [Absolute Blade Mastery], those weapons would have been a recipe for accidentally smacking himself in the unmentionables with them, but the whips of barbed wire were still “blade-y” enough to be covered by the [Skill] and he could use it with all the finesse he had when wielding Balmung. Sadly, Isaac lacked knowledge of any whip-specific maneuvers, so he couldn’t get the most out of this weapon.

In the end, though, it wouldn’t matter. Not against this enemy.

Isaac leaped into the sky, a simple jump taking him above the monster’s head and then, the good ol’ combo of [Wave Charge] and [I Am The Sword] carved a channel clean through the Demon Lord, top to bottom. The goal wasn’t damage, it was easy access to the beast’s internals.

Once he hit the ground, he leaped straight back up, the flying swords rocketing through the air and supersonic speeds to pierce the monster’s eyes.

Meanwhile, his claws flashed, tearing tendons and the largest blood vessels he could reach, no empowering [Strikes] necessary.

Hellfire flew from the demon’s hand, flowing over Isaac like a warm shower. Sure, his clothing went the way of the dodo in less than a second, but he had spares.

The Demon Lord’s tree trunk arm flew through the air and slammed into Isaac to fling him backward… except Isaac had dug his claws in and responded by running up the arm and leaping into the hole at the shoulder.

Hellflame washed the inside of the monster, a tactic that would have worked against most foes, but Isaac was immune to the attack, which meant that unless it used its arms to get at him, it was dead.

Even if the Demon Lord had somehow been able to shove its arms into its own insides on a mental level, it simply couldn’t bend that way.

Another burst of hellfire washed over Isaac and stayed in place, leaving him feeling as if he were standing beneath a waterfall. A last-ditch attempt that might have worked in another situation, but not this one.

Least Demon Lord (Lv. 44 Raid Boss) has been slain. 50,000 XP gained

Somehow, that felt very anticlimactic. It was a [Raid Boss] that had died under his claws, and his claws alone. No “heroic deed has been noted”, no comment, just a solo kill of a [Raid Boss] and 50k XP.

The monster vanished around him as it was sucked into a new sword to add to his collection, which Isaac took as his cue to summon a new outfit from [Fully Geared]. Showing up in his birthday suit after this … not a good look.

He emerged into the new world covered in soot and blood that had dripped onto his skin, then boiled away into nothingness to leave behind a tar-like substance that clung to him like, well, tar. In other words, it was abundantly clear that Isaac had put on new clothes after the fact.

“Wait, it’s over already?”

The question had been whispered, but in this new world, anyone who thought whispering let them fly under the radar was behind the times.

Isaac phased the dirt off himself and marched towards the command area, gave a short report, and proceeded to help with the overall cleanup. There wasn’t much for him to do, though. [Engineers] and [Geomancers] fixed the damage the island had sustained vastly more quickly than he ever could, [Logistics Officers] and various [Mages] with telekinetic [Skills] took care of the heavy lifting with lightning speeds and between portals and extradimensional storage spaces, there was very little for him to carry.

On one hand, no one liked feeling useless. On the other, it was heartening to see everything here work like a well-oiled machine. Isaac got himself a bottle of sparkling water and sat down where the feast had been held earlier while Patrick had a soda next to him with his phone.

Suddenly, his colleague did a picture-perfect spit take, which startled Isaac enough to choke on his own drink. Of course, he could breathe liquid and was fine. Patrick, on the other hand, needed a spell for that, which he promptly cast.

“What’s up?” Isaac asked, only for Patrick to wordlessly pass over his phone while using water magic to clean up the spilled soda.

… if Isaac hadn’t already choked on his own drink, he would have done so now. The British Prime Minister, with his pants down, on live TV.

‘Elena, what the hell did you do?’ Isaac thought. He decided to not immediately contact her, that might have looked suspicious. Hopefully, she’d have gotten some answers now.

It took a little longer, but soon enough, it was time to pack up and Isaac marched through a portal alongside his colleagues, bade them goodbye, and headed home.

On the way, he sent a quick text to Elena, getting a reply mere minutes later, telling him to take his time and only come over during the planned meeting. Alright, that left him time to evolve his [Class] before then.

Before he did anything though, he slotted his final set of Aspects. He now had the XP to spare, he hadn’t really needed them up until now, and where the Aspect of the Lindwyrm was concerned, he’d now actually gotten his hands on one.

So he immediately slotted the Aspect of the Lesser Space Elemental followed by the Aspect of the Space Elemental.

Aspect of the Space Elemental:

This is the distilled essence of what makes a Space Elemental a Space Elemental. Twist space into a pretzel, make said spatial twisting vastly easier, even alter the very flow of time, or you may render yourself immune to such manipulations.

Requirements for Activation:

2,000 XP

Open Aspect Slot

Grants:

+10 Magic Power

One of the following Skills:

Warp Space

Spatial Affinity

Fixed Point

Slow-Zone

[Warp Space] and [Spatial Affinity] were self-explanatory, [Slow Zone] let him slow down things near him at a mana cost that made it near useless to him, and [Fixed Point] allowed him to resist hostile teleportation effects. Incidentally, the cost was also why [Warp Space] wasn’t a viable option.

Fixed Point (rare)

Time and space. Space-Time. Everywhere, anytime, omnipresent. A fixed point in reality, indomitable, immoveable. Or so it seems.

Mages, Space Elementalists and monsters of all stripe are capable of twisting space into all kinds of contortions, making it loop in on itself and creating a world that, quite simply, no longer makes any kind of sense. While time itself is somewhat more durable, it too can be influenced, and with it, the people in the influenced area.

With this Skill, none of that will be an issue. You will become a fixed point in space and time, highly resistant to spatial and temporal warps, as well as hostile teleportation/planeshifting efforts.

As the world grew stronger, the likelihood of him needing a [Skill] like that grew along with it.

Meanwhile, [Spatial Affinity] was something he’d neither need nor use for years to come, but far down the road, he’d need it.

Before slotting his final Aspect, Isaac took a moment to check his emails … and immediately regretted it. He was not only being spammed by various military organizations, arms manufacturers, and military contractors but also … he wasn’t all that sure how to sum up the final category. It basically amounted to people who wanted to get, ahem, stepped on by the giant monster. Oh, for fucks sake.

Isaac categorically decided against publicly announcing he wouldn’t be helping with anything like that as he didn’t want to Streisand-Effect himself and just ignored everything.

That just left one final Aspect.

Aspect of the Lindwyrm:

This is the distilled essence of what makes a Lindwyrm a Lindwyrm. Physical Power, deadly acid, one of the most insane personal defense Skills in the world and an overall increase in sheer draconic badassery are all things that can be gained by slotting this ability.

Requirements for Activation:

5,000 XP

Open Aspect Slot

Grants:

+10 Strength

+10 Agility

One of the following Skills:

Lindwyrm’s Heart

Lindwyrm’s Raiment

All-Dissolving Breath

Moment of Immortality

All the usual cool tricks that came with a [Raid Boss] Aspect, including the ever-ubiquitous [Moment of Immortality]. That [Skill] was a bit of a special snowflake, something that you could get from multiple sources, something you could decide not to upgrade and therefore keep when you slapped another Aspect on top of, and you could upgrade it by gaining it from multiple sources.

Moment of Immortality (legendary, 2x slotted)

What kind of monster can have its guts hanging out, be bleeding from countless arterial wounds, and still be fighting? One with this Skill, that’s what.

Moment of Immortality activates automatically when it is needed, granting the user the ability to survive with massive bloodloss and without a complete set of internal organs. In fact, few things short of being pulverized will be able to kill the Skill user while it is active, but it is by no means a perfect defense.

Moment of Immortality lasts for twenty seconds and can only be activated two times every 168 hours.

Multiple Aspects that grant Moment of Immortality can be slotted, with a maximum of three.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as powerful as it looked at first glance. If you took damage that was bad enough to trigger the [Skill], the chances of you being able to get yourself out of it quickly enough to prevent the second charge from activating.

Then again, this was a lifesaving power he was whining about. It was fine as-is.

The other [Skill] he grabbed was “just” an upgrade of the base Aspect of the Acid Drake.

Lindwyrm’s Heart (legendary)

Your heart beats with the force of a thunderstorm, its every movement sending immense magic coursing through your body, enhancing all corrosion-based magic and Skills and dissolving foreign energies attempting to corrupt the bearer’s blood. In addition, foreign corrosive/venom/poison effects are vastly reduced in power.

Lastly, the heart of a draconic beast grants the bearer enhanced longevity and vitality.

Overall, it rendered him highly resistant to acid attacks, which were able to fuck with his regeneration. It also seriously helped against other health-sapping effects.

With all of that done, Isaac threw fifty-thousand XP into leveling up his [Class] and evolved.