Awakening a 10,000x Skill Proficiency Multiplier in the Apocalypse-Chapter 82: []: The Guardian, Server 894
The glass crater of the first floor dissolved into a cascade of blue pixels. The heat of the jungle faded, replaced by a cool breeze.
Sebastian pushed himself up from the floor, his joints popping in protest. He was standing in a completely different environment.
It wasn’t a combat zone. It was a massive circular chamber constructed entirely of polished brass and glowing blue crystals.
The walls were lined with thousands of massive interlocking gears that slowly ground against each other with a deep ticking sound.
TICK! TOCK! TICK! TOCK!
It sounded like the inside of a massive pocket watch.
"Congratulations on surviving yourself, Anomaly." A voice echoed through the chamber.
Sebastian turned.
Sitting in the center of the room behind an ornate desk was an NPC. He was an incredibly old man. His skin was pale and stretched tight over a skeletal frame.
He wore robes of deep midnight blue, embroidered with constellations that actually moved and shifted across the fabric.
Floating above the old man’s head was a name tag that lacked a level indicator.
[NPC Identified: Eldric, The Timekeeper]
[Status: Guardian of the Spire]
"You must be the front desk," Sebastian said, his voice still hoarse from his clone crushing his windpipe. He walked forward, his heavy boots echoing off the brass floor. "I’m looking to check out the Divinity package. Which floor is that on?"
Eldric didn’t laugh. He just stared at Sebastian with his strange eyes.
"Divinity is not a package you purchase, Drifter," Eldric said slowly, his hands resting on the glowing desk. "It is an administrative authority. And frankly, looking at your corrupted data streams, I am surprised the server hasn’t simply deleted you to save memory."
"It tried," Sebastian smirked behind his cracked white mask. "I deleted its deletion tool."
Eldric sighed heavily. He waved a frail hand, and a holographic projection of Earth materialized between them.
But it wasn’t the blue and green marble Sebastian remembered. It was a jagged sphere surrounded by a swirling halo of dark purple Void energy.
"You call this world Earth," Eldric said. "The System calls it Server 894."
"Catchy," Sebastian deadpanned.
"It is a farm," the Guardian continued. "The Ethereal Plane is not a game, Sebastian. It is a desperate defensive mechanism. The multiverse is vast, and it is actively being consumed by the Void. The Void Gods are starving. They eat reality."
Eldric pointed a bony finger at the burning hologram of Earth.
"The System drops its seeds into primitive realities like yours. It initiates a Merge. It forcefully introduces magic, levels, and conflict to accelerate the evolutionary process of the native species. It is a crucible, designed to boil away the weak and forge the strong."
"A meat grinder," Sebastian corrected coldly, crossing his arms. "You drop monsters into our cities, murder billions of civilians, and call it an evolutionary crucible. That’s a funny way of saying mass extinction."
"It is necessary," Eldric countered. "The Void only consumes servers that fail to produce a God. If a server cannot generate a player strong enough to reach the top of this Spire, claim the Chronos Heart, and Ascend, the System abandons the server. It unlocks the Abyssal Gates permanently, and the Void digests the planet."
Sebastian stared at the old man. The pieces of the apocalyptic puzzle were finally clicking into place.
The System wasn’t malicious, it was just entirely apathetic. It was throwing billions of lives into a blender just hoping a single diamond would pop out intact.
"So, we’re just digital corn waiting for the harvest," Sebastian mused, pacing around the glowing desk. "And this Spire is the final exam. I pass, Earth gets to keep existing. I fail, and the giant space bugs eat my warehouse."
"Essentially," Eldric nodded. The old man leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he analyzed the broken code radiating from Sebastian’s avatar.
"I have watched thousands of servers fall, Drifter. I have watched arrogant Paladins and brilliant Mages reach this room, only to be broken by the trials above. But you, you are a terrifying anomaly. You do not play by the rules of the magic you wield."
"Rules are for people who can’t read the source code," Sebastian said simply. "How many floors to the top?"
"Ninety," Eldric replied. "And they will test every fundamental limit of your biological and digital existence. You will face environments that cannot exist in standard reality. You will face betrayals from your own kind. The Apostle of the Void is already on the tenth floor, rapidly corrupting the trials to suit his needs."
Sebastian cracked his knuckles. "Then I better get moving. I have a rat to squash."
He turned toward the heavy brass door at the far end of the chamber, clearly leading to the next set of trials.
"Wait," Eldric called out.
Sebastian paused, looking over his shoulder.
The ancient Timekeeper looked at him with a strange expression. It wasn’t pity, but it was close. It was the look of a veteran soldier giving a rookie a final piece of advice before sending him into a minefield.
"Your multipliers and your glitches have made you functionally immortal in a physical brawl," Eldric said softly. "But the higher floors do not just test your health bar. They test your fundamental understanding of your own existence."
Eldric tapped the side of his own head.
"Do not trust the System’s definition of pain, Sebastian. The server will lie to you. It will tell your brain you are dying when you are not. If you trust the code, you will break."
Sebastian stared at the old man for a long moment. He didn’t fully understand the riddle, but he filed it away in his mind.
"I don’t trust the System anyway," Sebastian replied. "It has terrible customer service."
He pushed open the heavy brass doors and stepped into the blinding light of the next floor, leaving the quiet ticking of the Timekeeper’s room behind.
The Spire did not care about giving players time to breathe. Floor 50 was extremely difficult.
