Awakening a 10,000x Skill Proficiency Multiplier in the Apocalypse-Chapter 68: []: Deployment, The Sky-Fortress

The sub-level engineering bay of Sanctuary was a chaotic hazard of sparks and screaming metal.

Sebastian kicked the heavy iron doors open and strode into the massive cavern.

Valerie followed closely behind. She coughed as the thick blue smoke from the Storm Core battery hit her lungs.

"Galleon!" Sebastian barked. His voice carried effortlessly over the deafening noise of automated dwarven machinery. "Tell me you didn’t blow up the basement!"

"Boss!" Galleon popped his head out from under a massive armored turbine.

The dwarf’s face was entirely black with soot. His beard was singed, and his eyes were wide with energy.

"Blow it up? I made it beautiful! You asked for transport! You asked for heavy fire support! I gave you a flying war crime!"

Sebastian walked past a pile of discarded railgun barrels and looked at the center of the cavern.

Sitting in the massive launch bay and hovering three feet off the ground was the Sky-Fortress.

It wasn’t a sleek jet. It wasn’t a helicopter. It looked like a massive chunk of the Citadel had been violently ripped from the walls and strapped to a jet engine.

It was a flat armored platform of pure black basalt and titanium. It was roughly the size of a basketball court.

Lining the edges of the platform were six highly illegal mana-conducting railguns.

"You built a floating brick," Valerie said. She stared at the monstrosity in sheer disbelief. "Sebastian, this thing looks like a dumpster."

"Flying shapes are for cowards who obey gravity," Galleon scoffed. He wiped grease on his leathers and patted the side of the thick stone hull.

"She doesn’t fly. She repels the earth. I hooked up the anti-gravity runes you pulled from the dungeon directly into a localized mana-engine."

"What’s powering it?" Sebastian asked as he stepped up onto the heavy metal ramp.

"That’s the best part!" Galleon grinned. He revealed a mouthful of crooked gold-capped teeth and pointed to the center of the platform.

Encased in a thick transparent cylinder of hard-light magic was a massive frozen blue Dragon’s Heart. They had ripped it out of Velkhana.

It was pulsing slowly.

THROOM.

THROOM.

With every beat, thick cables of blue energy pumped raw absolute zero mana into the platform’s thrusters.

"It runs on dragon juice and terrible ideas!" Galleon laughed. "Top speed is roughly very fast. The shielding is rated to handle indirect nuclear blasts."

"Just try not to press the red button near the helm unless you want to violently vent the exhaust into the passenger cabin."

"Noted. They would have a heart attack, but I love it," Sebastian smirked.

He walked to the control pedestal at the front. It wasn’t a steering wheel. It was a flat slab of glowing runes that synced directly with his physical mana pool.

"Wraith," Sebastian tapped his comm-link. "Assemble the Abyss Knights. Meet us in the hangar."

"On my way, Boss," the Assassin’s static voice replied.

Ten minutes later, the heavy blast doors of the engineering bay opened.

It wasn’t an army of thousands. Sebastian didn’t want the liability of a massive raid group. He had hand-picked exactly twenty men.

They marched into the room in perfect unison. These were the absolute elite.

Wraith’s core assassin squad formed the vanguard. Behind them were the fifteen heaviest survivors from Colonel Vance’s military unit and the remnants of the Iron Covenant.

They had all been forcibly leveled up in the Ethereal Plane’s training dungeons.

They weren’t wearing standard military kevlar anymore. They were clad in heavy pitch-black Ethereal plate armor forged by Galleon.

They carried massive glowing broadswords and heavy repeating crossbows enchanted with explosive runes.

"The Abyss Knight Corps is ready for deployment," Wraith reported as he materialized beside Sebastian. "Morale is violent. They want payback for the city."

"Good. Point that anger at the bugs," Sebastian said.

He looked at the twenty men filing onto the Sky-Fortress.

"Listen up! We are not going down there to fight a fair war. We are going to exterminate a pest problem."

"Stay on the platform. Man the railguns. Do not step off the edge unless you want to get eaten by a spider the size of a minivan. Clear?"

"SIR, YES, SIR!" the twenty voices boomed in the cavern.

Valerie stepped onto the platform. Her grip tightened on her oak staff.

She looked at Sebastian with her blue eyes filled with calm determination.

"I’ll handle the civilian extraction. The Valkyrie class has hard-light bridges. I can pull people out of the skyscrapers while you clear the streets."

"Don’t burn out your mana pool, Princess," Sebastian warned and gave her a serious look. "If your sync rate pushes too hard, your physical brain will fry. Save some juice for the boss."

"Worry about yourself, Drifter," Valerie smirked faintly.

"Galleon, open the roof," Sebastian commanded. He placed his hands on the glowing runic steering console.

"Opening the sun-roof! Try not to scratch the paint!" the dwarf yelled from the control booth.

With a deafening screech of heavy machinery, the massive titanium blast doors above the engineering bay slowly slid apart.

The sickly blood-red light of the apocalypse spilled down into the dark cavern. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Sebastian channeled a tiny fraction of his glitched mana pool into the Dragon’s Heart.

The Sky-Fortress groaned. The anti-gravity runes flared a blinding icy blue.

WHOOSH!

The sheer displacement of air knocked loose tools off the workbenches below as the massive stone platform lifted off the ground.

It didn’t hover gently. It shot straight upward with the terrifying thrust of a rocket.

They blasted out of the Sanctuary’s roof and into the bleeding sky.

The freezing wind instantly whipped at Sebastian’s black leather coat. He stood at the helm, entirely unbothered by the sheer velocity.

Below them, the safety of the golden dome shrank into the distance. Ahead of them lay Downtown Metropolis.

It was a nightmare of epic proportions. Entire city blocks were burning.

The smoke was so thick it looked like a solid black wall.

Massive dark shapes scuttled up the sides of the remaining skyscrapers. They tore through glass and steel to get to the screaming civilians hiding inside.

"Target area reached! Left flank! Skyscraper at three o’clock!" Wraith barked.

A massive Void Crawler was clinging to the side of a glass corporate tower. It was desperately trying to pry open a reinforced safe room on the fortieth floor.

"Light it up," Sebastian commanded smoothly. He didn’t even turn his head.