Awakening a 10,000x Skill Proficiency Multiplier in the Apocalypse

The transit from the safety of Sanctuary to the absolute epicenter of the Pacific Ocean was rough.

Sebastian, Valerie, and Wraith materialized on a jagged platform of floating debris just outside the entrance of the Spire.

”Fvck me,” Sebastian muttered, wiping a splash of freezing seawater from his face. ”I really need to invest in a waterproof coat.”

Towering before them was the Spire. It was a massive structure made of obsidian. It pierced the clouds and extended all the way into the sky of the assimilated Earth.

The tsunami it caused upon landing had completely wiped out the coastlines, leaving the ocean churning.

A shimmering golden portal stood at the base of the black tower.

[System Notice: The Spire. Floor 1.]

[Requirement Met: Top 100 Global Leaderboard.]

[Proceed?]

”Valerie, Wraith,” Sebastian said over the roar of the waves. ”The System says ’Players’. That means individual instances. We might get separated. If we do, survive. I’ll see you at the top.”

Wraith gave a silent nod and stepped into the shadows.

Valerie gripped her staff tightly and stepped into the light.

Sebastian followed, the golden energy washing over his body and dragging his consciousness into the tower.

VWOOSH!

The transition dropped him into a dense green world.

Sebastian’s boots hit the soft earth. He looked around to see he wasn’t in a dungeon or a stone corridor. He was standing in the middle of a dense jungle.

The trees were massive, their trunks as wide as houses, and the canopy above completely blocked out the sky. The humidity was incredibly heavy.

[Trial Commencing: The Jungle of Mirrors.]

[Objective: Defeat Yourself.]

”Defeat myself?” Sebastian read the floating blue text. He let out a dry chuckle. ”Great. A therapy session mixed with a deathmatch. Just what I wanted.”

A few yards away, the air began to ripple and distort like a heat wave. The distortion solidified, pulling color from the surrounding leaves until a figure stepped out.

Sebastian stopped smiling.

Standing ten feet away was a man wearing a ragged black leather coat, a dirty cloth tunic, and a plain white half-mask covering his upper face. He had a rusty iron dagger sheathed at his hip.

It was an exact mirror image.

”Well, shit,” Sebastian muttered. ”I really do look like a homeless guy.”

The clone didn’t banter or offer a villainous monologue. The System AI piloting the mirror image operated on pure mathematical logic. It scanned Sebastian, calculated the threat level, and immediately accessed its inventory.

The clone raised its right hand and snapped its fingers.

SNAP!

Sebastian’s eyes widened in horror. ”Oh, you motherfucker!”

The clone had his stats. The clone had his passives. Worst of all, the clone had his 10,000x Nexus Glitch!

The sky above the jungle canopy instantly ignited into a blinding white light. The clone hadn’t cast a basic fireball. It had completely bypassed the magical scaling tree and dropped a [Forbidden Spell: Solar Flare] directly onto their shared coordinates.

”Void Walk!” Sebastian screamed, forcefully channeling his mana.

FZZZT!

He slipped into the parallel dimension a fraction of a second before the miniature sun hit the jungle floor.

BOOM!

Even from the safety of the Void, the blast was staggering. The physical world outside his muted dimension was instantly annihilated.

The towering trees didn’t burn, they were completely wiped out. The earth liquefied into a raging sea of molten orange glass.

The shockwave tore through the massive jungle instance, flattening everything within a five-mile radius.

Sebastian stood in the parallel dimension, his heart hammering against his ribs. He watched his clone standing completely unharmed in the center of the raging inferno, protected by the exact same friendly-fire immunity that Sebastian enjoyed.

’It has the multiplier,’ Sebastian’s mind raced. ’It has the god-tier spells. If I drop a Gravity Domain, it will just drop one too. If I use Dimensional Sever, it will counter with a Water Mirror. It is a mathematical stalemate.’

The clone stood in the cooling crater, its head tilting slightly as its AI desperately tried to locate its missing target.

Sebastian watched the digital copy. He noticed something.

The clone’s posture was stiff. Its movements were calculated, rigid, and entirely dictated by the optimal combat parameters of the game.

The System knew how to use the glitch to cast massive spells. But the System didn’t know how to be a desperate human fighting for his life in a dirty alleyway. The System only knew math.

”You think you’re me?” Sebastian whispered in the Void. ”Let’s see how you handle some bad programming.”

Sebastian moved. He walked through the parallel dimension, completely immune to the molten glass beneath his feet. He positioned himself perfectly, exactly two feet behind the clone’s back.

He didn’t draw his Rusty Iron Dagger. His clone had the God-Slayer’s Edge passive too. A knife fight would just result in both of them dying instantly.

He needed to strip the magic away entirely.

With a mental twitch, Sebastian toggled off his Void Walk.

POP!

The roaring heat and the blinding orange glow of the glass crater violently crashed back into his physical senses.

The clone spun around with terrifying speed, its right hand raising to snap its fingers for another Solar Flare.

Sebastian didn’t cast a spell. He didn’t use a skill. He just lunged forward with all of his twenty percent synchronized physical strength and tackled the clone directly into the dirt.

THUD!

They crashed hard into a patch of earth that hadn’t fully melted yet. The clone’s fingers sparked with the beginnings of a fusion spell, but Sebastian violently slammed his knee into the clone’s forearm, pinning it to the ground.

”Cancel that, you cheap knockoff!” Sebastian roared.

It was a desperate and ugly street fight. There was no grace. There were no flashing magical runes. It was just two overpowered beings wrestling in the mud like drunken brawlers.

The clone’s left hand shot up, its fingers wrapping around Sebastian’s throat. The grip was like an industrial vice. Sebastian felt his windpipe instantly begin to crush under the sheer strength they both shared.

Sebastian didn’t try to pull the hand away. He ignored the pressure. He raised both of his hands and drove his thumbs directly into the clone’s eyes.

SQUELCH!

Thick digital blood exploded from the clone’s eye sockets, coating Sebastian’s leather gloves in a warm mess.

The clone thrashed wildly, its mouth opening in a silent scream of system-generated pain. But it didn’t let go of his throat.

Sebastian’s vision was starting to swim with black spots. His lungs burned for oxygen. He had seconds before his health bar zeroed out from asphyxiation.

He pulled his thumbs out of the ruined eye sockets. He slid his hands down, his palms slapping against the sides of the clone’s face. He locked his left hand firmly under the clone’s jaw, and his right hand over the crown of its head.

”Math doesn’t win street fights,” Sebastian gasped, blood leaking from his own lips.

He violently twisted his arms in opposite directions, putting the entire weight of his heavy body into the torque.

CRACK! SNAP!

The clone’s cervical spine shattered completely. The kinetic force of the twist severed the spinal cord and ripped the vertebrae apart.

Jagged shards of digital bone tore outward through the front of the clone’s throat. The grip on Sebastian’s neck instantly vanished.

The clone lay there, its head twisted at a horrifying hundred and eighty degree angle. Thick black blood bubbled up from its ruined throat. It let out a wet, gurgling sound, choking on its own fluids as its health bar rapidly dropped into the red.

Sebastian rolled off the dying copy, gasping heavily for air. He coughed, rubbing his bruised neck as the clone’s body finally gave out.

The digital avatar shuddered once, then dissolved into a flurry of grey ash, leaving behind nothing but the smoking glass crater.

[Trial Complete.]

[Floor 1 Cleared.]

Sebastian lay on his back, staring up at the artificial canopy of the jungle instance. He wiped the clone’s blood off his mask with a trembling hand.

”I really hate this game,” he wheezed.