Reborn: Apocalypse (Volume 3): (A LitRPG/Wuxia Story)

by L. M. Kerr

  While Micheal might have dissipated the Celestial Aura that the Beasts warrior had imbued into his two subordinates by killing them, that didn’t mean the fighter knew he was coming. That Aura, by itself, functioned as its own entity, gradually fading over time if its energy was not renewed.

  After some quick thinking, Micheal had come up with a decent, but also somewhat questionable, plan to take on this speed-boosting warrior… but it would only be able to work once. If he got found out ahead of time, the jig would be up for good and he would have to go with his backup plan.

  And he really, really, really did not want to go with his backup plan.

  With a brief sigh, Micheal tapped on his Spatial Ring and brought out two objects:

  Rocks. Two… rocks.

  One of the rocks looked as dull as a rock could look, a plain grey rock about the size of Micheal’s fist. He casually put this rock in a pocket on the left side of his green robe.

  The second rock was slightly smaller and thinner, only the size of Micheal’s palm, and almost completely colorless. It wasn’t crystalline, not like Micheal’s new sword, but instead looked vaguely like a piece of plastic.

  Micheal stared at this rock for a few moments. Before his eyes, as he focused intently on the clear stone, it began to…

  Do absolutely nothing, by all visible indicators. It just sat there, being a rock. A more interesting-looking rock then the plain grey one, to be sure, but still just a boring rock.

  Micheal tucked the rock into a pocket on the right side of his robe, patting it down securely with a satisfied smile.

  He then sprinted over towards a large collection of wood that was located just a few meters from the gaping entrance to the hidden research center.

  With a casual wave, his metal threads wrapped around the wood. Micheal didn’t try to cut them, but instead dragged them behind himself as he sprinted back to the entrance of the underground facility, wasting no time. The pile of heavy wood must’ve weighed at least 3,000 pounds (1360 kg), yet Micheal moved them with only a small amount of effort, his inhuman Strength stat showing its worth.

  As soon as he reached the entrance, he dived through it, pulling the large clump of wood until it completely sealed the opening off. Micheal’s footsteps were silent as death as he rapidly began to traverse down the dark stairs, his eyes rapidly adapting to the light.

  He kept his hands in his pockets as he moved, constantly scanning his surroundings.

  The dark stairway eventually led to what was left of some type of front security checkpoint. A torn metal doorway and a large chunk of a metal wall lay on the cracked tile floor, the remnants of a wooden desk cluttered just behind. This area was dimly lit by a few glowing crystals, some broken and on the floor while others clung weakly to the ceiling.

  At the back of this destroyed room, Micheal found another clear doorway, one that led deeper into the complex.

  He also found the body of a dead Farian, a young male wearing a set of beast-hide armor that did nothing to hide a clearly broken neck, lying right next to the open door. A few steps beyond this, another corpse could be seen, a middle-aged female Farian wearing the remnants of a large grey robe.

  A harsh frown flickered on Micheal’s face when he saw this, vanishing a mere moment later as he returned to his usual veneer of emotionless calm.

  Micheal began to traverse through the ruins of the secret facility, following a long path of destruction to find his target. He was almost, but not quite, grateful for the brutality of the Celestial Silverback user.

  The corpse-scattered trail reduced any ambiguity in where the warrior was headed, not to mention the shattered walls, roofs that were almost caving in, and cratered floors. The warrior was clearly capable of sending out attacks with an incredible amount of force, using Hammer Energy at a level just slightly lesser than the highest amount of Sword Energy Micheal could safely use.

  At this point in time, that level of Weapon Mastery was possible for highly talented humans from the First Wave, but only if they had an Ability that could boost their comprehension and a good deal of help.

  In most other cases, only supreme geniuses should be able to reach it.

  The Celestial Silverback user’s ability to speed up time, combined with help from Constantine’s Seed and Silverback’s own raw talent, boosted the man’s comprehension to be just enough. While faster time did mean you could understand a Concept faster, it wasn’t that simple. Distorted time could make sensing Concepts more difficult, it wasn’t an easy thing to account for.

  Regardless, whatever combination was present was enough to bring the warrior to the level he was currently at. Even a glancing blow from an attack like this would be enough to obliterate Micheal, shattering his bones with ease.

  Anyone that specialized in direct, frontal combat would have a rough time fighting against this warrior.

  Micheal slunk through a slurry of rooms at a fast, but calculated, pace, moving as quickly as he could while maintaining maximum awareness. The route the Celestial Silverback user had taken seemed to cross through every possible intersection that Micheal could see. The warrior had branched out down all of these intersections several times, but always seemed to return to the one main path.

  Micheal was puzzled by this for a while, before he saw something that made everything clear.

  He had just glanced down one somewhat short branching hallway, damaged and partially destroyed like all the others, when he saw a large spurt of red pooling out from a broken doorway. As soon as he saw that, the gears clicked in his head, and it all came together.

  The warrior was killing Farians that might be able to slip past him as he travelled deeper into the complex, preventing any Farians from escaping upward and sounding the alarm. Apparently, even the fact that he had stationed the entire rest of his team up top did not offer enough reassurance.

  Micheal realized this was probably because of him, something that caused his heart to twist. In the original timeline, the Celestial Silverback’s subordinates had probably taken over this job, clearing out the facility for him. Because Micheal had killed so many of them, and forced the remnants to wait up top, the Celestial Silverback was forced to do it himself.

  The number of Farians in the facility was a fraction of what it would be at full capacity, at times when the Life Festival would not be active, but the death toll was already in the double digits.

  The frown that had vanished from Micheal’s stern visage finally made a permanent reappearance, his eyes hardening alongside it as he continued to track down the killer.

  ‘There was no other way.’ He sighed, forcing himself to refuse even a shred of doubt entry into his heart. This was his single best chance to deal a heavy blow to the Beasts of Providence, greatly setting back their plans while working towards a better future for all.

  Every other plan he thought up, from attempting to simply warn the Lord Justiciar, to trying to track down the Beasts of Providence directly and take them out ahead of time, to a dozen other variations, were all ones he had gone over and discarded. Some entailed too much risk and variation, while others required too large a time investment, or held other problems.

  Micheal kept repeating these points in his head as he followed the murderer’s trail, clenching his fists so hard his knuckles turned white every time he passed by a new corpse.

  Because of the non-optimal route that the powerful warrior from the Beasts of Providence was forced to take, the warrior’s movements were notably slowed down.

  It wasn’t a drastic change — the elite leader was capable of moving unnaturally quickly in the first place — but Micheal judged it to be at least a big enough delay to offset the time Micheal had been locked into wasting by wiping out the man’s subordinates.

  As this thought occurred to Micheal, in the midst of running through another ruined doorway, into a room full of crushed wooden desks, the sounds of combat found their way to Micheal’s ears.

  Yells, explosions of energy that shivered in
the air, loud grunts and impacts… a veritable plethora of violence pulsed in the air.

  The noise had come out of seemingly nowhere, the walls of the underground facility specially designed to dampen sound.

  Micheal’s gaze sharpened as he picked up on it, the frown on his face lessening slightly.

  ‘I might not be too late!’ One worry in his heart slightly eased.

  Even with all the effort he had put forth, because he didn’t know exactly how things went down here in his original timeline, the fact that he might have already failed was a thought that had been hard to dismiss.

  He did know that there had been survivors from this incident, which meant that the Beasts of Providence came in and came out quickly, instead of taking their time to wipe out everyone.

  The fact that the sounds of battle were still ongoing could only mean one thing.

  Myla Hannis had yet to die.

  Micheal slowed down, keeping his eyes trained forward as he silently moved through a decrepit room that was full of shattered glass and metal tables. He had no idea what the room was used for, but paid that no mind as he crossed it, reaching yet another damaged doorway.

  He found himself in a short hallway that was lined with stone pillars, several of them cracked, with a few large boulders of earth sagging down from a badly damaged roof. Flickering crystals lit the way, shuddering as loud explosions shook the air.

  Beyond this hallway, however, rested what Micheal had been searching for.

  A very large, circular room that had been cast a flurry with the clash of energy.

  And in the center of that storm of power, in the middle of that room...

  A masked warrior, shrouded in a silver Aura, wielding two glowing hammers with abandon as he nigh annihilated all in his path.

  The Celestial Silverback user.

  .

  Chapter 52

  Silverback wielded his two large Golden Sun Warhammers with ease as he fended off a veritable deluge of attacks, his Celestial Aura enhancing his movements so much that he left a glowing trail in Micheal’s eyes.

  Those attacks the Leader of the Ape Division was fending off came from a swarm of warriors that had surrounded him.

  More than two dozen elite warriors from the Farian Shadow Guard were doing their best to strike him down, each one covered in their own unique Blood Aura, showcasing five different types of Bloodline Magic. Micheal also spotted a few downed members of the Guard, bodies laid about haphazardly on the floor, either dead or unconscious.

  Every Farian trained from birth to find the one type of Bloodline that resonated the most within them. Their bodies were unique, gifted with a Physique that let them naturally tap into the ‘Concept’ of various creatures in a similar approach to how Micheal drew upon the ‘Concept’ of ‘Sword Mastery’ when he used his Sword Energy.

  Farians drew on specific Bloodlines, gaining mysterious powers, enhanced strength or speed, empowered durability, as well as a whole host of other possible perks.

  More than half of the present members of the Shadow Guard utilized the Rhindor Bloodline, drawing upon a Blood Aura that not only greatly enhanced their defensive power but also boosted their speed, while mildly boosting their strength.

  While it didn’t grant them great attack power, in terms of staying power, this was an ideal Bloodline to wield against this particular Celestial Silverback user.

  Silverback relied upon his hammers to attack, imbuing them with Advanced Tier Hammer Energy as he struck down any that approached. Even those that attempted to dodge were given no mercy, the hammers flying out and magically returning to the warrior’s hands, one of the unique powers of a Golden Sun Warhammer.

  The true difficulty in dodging his blows came not from his magical weapons, however, but from his extreme speed. The man held back nothing as he drew upon his Celestial Aura, using it to pummel the enemies that were trying to stall him.

  Most of the other Bloodlines Micheal saw, like the Red-Winged Tiger Bloodline, the Blue-Shard Beetle Bloodline, and more were ones that mostly focused on raw attack power and speed. While they weren’t able to measure up to Silverback, they far surpassed most ordinary Second Rate Warriors, placing these Farians at the peak of that tier and ranking them as Elite Blood Masters, a level above normal Blood Masters.

  The discrepancy in Bloodlines, Micheal surmised, in the quick glance he stole, probably had to do with some of the dozen and a half bodies he had spotted lying on the floor either in this room or on the path to it. Members of the Shadow Guard that couldn’t take a hit either died or somehow dodged, leading to an imbalanced number of Rhindor Bloodline users as the casualties stacked up.

  Standing face to face with the powerful warrior from the Beasts of Providence was a Farian Micheal recognized, one that didn’t dodge the attacks of the Celestial Silverback warrior, instead opting to take them head-on.

  The Shadow Captain Tanin, known in history as the Great Treeguard. He was a member of the Reemer Tribe, the same Tribe that controlled the village Micheal had briefly visited while gathering information. The warrior kept a low profile among the Tribes, acting as a retired veteran that did not seek power or authority in the day, all the while serving as one of the three mighty Shadow Captains in the night.

  His particular Bloodline was a relatively common one, the Ancient Tremont Tree Bloodline, but one that Tanin was able to draw on to an absurd degree, making up for its somewhat lowly stature. The Shadow Captain used it in a multitude of ways, from gaining an extremely sturdy and powerful defense, to imbuing his blows with a colossal amount of strength, to launching energy-formed roots that shot out from thin air.

  While the other Farians were Elite Blood Masters, Shadow Captain Tanin was considered a Grand Blood Master, the rough equivalent of a First Rate Warrior among the Farians.

  Micheal’s brief scan finished.

  The battle continued.

  Instead of jumping in to join the fight, as soon as Micheal arrived, he opted to turn around and sprint back to the entrance of the hallway.

  The battling warriors were so engrossed in their fight, none present had actually noticed Micheal’s furtive figure arrive and leave, including Silverback.

  Micheal took full advantage of that as he pulled out a thin and cylindrical metal Artifact from his Spatial Ring and waved it out in front of him.

  This was a Metal Plate Liner, a relatively inexpensive Artifact that only cost 8,000 Points, one that also came to be known as a glorified aluminum foil dispenser.

  Sheets of wavy, metal foil flowed out from the Artifact, following Micheal’s mental commands. He used these thin sheets to completely block off the hallway, sealing the one exit to this area airtight.

  In function, this did almost nothing. The foil was, by no measure, tough or durable. It could withstand the bits of dirt and stone that were flung into the hallway from the ongoing battle, but even a moderate poke by anyone present would easily tear through it.

  This foil was primarily used to design delicate metal prints and diagrams that were needed if you had a few certain Abilities. Apart from that, its main other use lay in rapidly constructing or repairing complicated Artifacts that required small metal parts.

  There didn’t seem to be any good reason to bring it out at all, not at first glance.

  However, the instant Micheal finished sealing off the room, its overall weakness notwithstanding, he instantly spun around and…

  Sat down calmly on the ground and casually slipped his hands back into his pockets. Space around him then distorted as he quietly called a Time Bubble into existence, upping his speed as much as he could without requiring too much focus.

  Once again, he didn’t make any noticeable or overt movements. This time, however, a faint small blip of light rose up from the depths of one of those pockets.

  Specifically, the pocket on his right, the same pocket he had stuffed the clear rock into.

  This blip of light vanished almost as soon as it had appeared and then… for the thir
d time, nothing seemed to happen.

  A look of intense concentration appeared over Micheal’s face as he remained sitting, keeping his hand in both pockets. A few beads of sweat formed and dripped down his forehead, falling to the floor beneath him.

  In front of Micheal, the battle continued unabated.

  The Celestial Silverback user was definitely also at the level of a First Rate Warrior.

  Typically, when one First Rate Warrior squared off against another First Rate Warrior that also happened to be backed by an elite troop of powerful Second Rate Warriors, the conclusion of the battle would be predetermined.

  Even if the lone First Rate Warrior was stronger than the First Rate Warrior that had a team, he would still be forced to retreat, especially if facing teamwork on par with that of the Shadow Guard.

  However…

  This was not always the case.

  When a specific First Rate Warrior was overwhelmingly strong, approaching the barrier between a Supreme Warrior and a First Rate Warrior, often they would be able to face down multiple First Rate Warriors.

  Micheal was easily able to determine that Silverback was not this powerful. After all, if he had been this strong, the battle would’ve already reached its conclusion.

  Unfortunately, this was not the only exception to the rule.

  If a warrior had a slew of powerful enough Artifacts, he might be able to overwhelm his enemies, even if he was equal or even weaker than them.

  And…

  If a warrior had a set of Abilities that strongly countered the power of his enemies…

  The same exception applied.

  A Celestial Silverback user was, in the end, still a Celestial Silverback user. The two speed-boosted Great Ape users that Micheal had faced had been relatively easy to handle, but the main boss himself was an entirely different story. Not only was he able to manipulate his Celestial Aura with a high level of skill, he was also much better at fighting.

  When attacks from the surrounding Shadow Guard zeroed in on his body, the Leader of the Ape Division exerted the minimal amount of effort required to either dodge or deflect each blow.