Amazon Apocalypse 5: Chapter 13

We marched through the city with minimal fanfare. Prince Herius had his people beating on drums and blowing horns, so he no doubt was disappointed by the scarce crowds and lack of cheering. What fanfare there was would at least prove that he’d made good on his promise to lead an army to war to retake Glacia. The real measure of success would be how big the crowds were on our return.

Naturally, we used a teleportation array to get to our actual destination. Despite the show we put on, marching our way to another planet wasn’t exactly feasible.

The teleportation array was one of the largest I’d ever seen, capable of teleporting a hundred people at once if they got close and sending us off at tremendous range. Prince Herius left with the vanguard, along with his elite troops. Ostensibly, it was to secure our landing site.

Truthfully, I knew Grandma Luthin had done that already to ensure the army would arrive safely. The Samhain ancestors had been the ones to set up the teleportation array on the other side, eliminating the riskiest part of this campaign. Any existing teleportation arrays were undoubtedly under heavy guard by hostile forces, so establishing our own was far safer.

Once Prince Herius’ elite legion was through, the others began going through behind them in batches of one hundred. We were the last to go through, which made sense, as my legion would be a very high-priority one to take out.

Cyra went through with the first group. Myrina followed soon after, and I followed after her. Bridget and Sakura would trail behind with the supply units. Neither were officially part of the army and would be labled as support contractors.

Bridget had made good on her word to bring a couple of chefs who could produce stat-boosting food for us. Sakura was doing general administration for our supply trains and managing the enchanters and smiths I’d hired for gear repair.

When I appeared on the other side of the teleportation array, Prince Herius’ forces were already securing the area. They’d spread out in a circle with shields and spears at the ready, like they expected a cavalry charge at any moment. The griffins were in the air already, circling high overhead, and their riders had their bows drawn and arrows knocked.

Despite their preparation, there was no danger of being found. I saw Prince Herius standing toward the side of the formation. He wore a great golden helmet now and had pulled his long red hair through the top. The result was easy to spot and made it look like he had a flashy red plume, though it was his real hair.

I made my way to him and saw several other legates doing the same. I used Shadowrealm Stride to cheat a little and arrive first.

“If I’m not mistaken, we’re inside a giant palm print.“ I said as I looked around at our surroundings. The area was relatively flat, but I’d noticed a few distinct finger-like furrows on one end of where we’d arrived.

“My great-grandmother, likely. Or our great-grandmother, I should say. But we shouldn’t speak of it. If the soldiers think I have an A-Grade hiding nearby, they might grow complacent.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye while overlooking our surroundings. “For the record, I do not have access to her anymore. She cannot stay here long without catching the attention of the local powers. Vayly of the House of Vaust isn’t known for being reasonable, and the Samhain Clan can’t afford to get entangled with her.”

“She’s that dangerous?” I asked curiously. The last thing I wanted was to be fighting a war side-by-side with hostile local allies.

“Hardly. Her family has a lengthy history, though. The Samhain Clan normally would have the pull to ignore her. But drowning men and women are unpredictable. Such a person could easily drag others down with them just to live a few minutes longer. Who knows what tricks a house as old as hers has.” The prince shrugged.

I frowned. It sounded like the prince thought this entire sector was on its last legs already. If he had no love for the current leaders, why were we here?

“Prince Herius, I have to ask. What is your objective with this campaign?” I asked.

“You saw the quest. Levels, loot, and prestige. All those will be of immense value back home. But I wouldn’t mind securing this world as well. If we can lay claim to it, the Dragon Lodge can pull it into orbit around the same star as Glacia, and then I can claim it as my fiefdom. That would be the ultimate reward, assuming all goes well. If not, winning a few battles should be sufficient to get me the levels I need to increase my rank among my siblings.”

I had suspected it would be something like that. In the world of the System, sometimes the chance to fight was enough of a reason to go to war on its own.

“Then it seems like we should pick some easy fights first. That will allow us to further boost the low-leveled among the legions. They might all be E-Grade now, but D-Grade would be better. Perhaps there are some monsters worth killing in the nearby wilderness? The war ought to have stifled any usual harvesting done on this world before.”

Prince Herius stroked his chin. “A good idea. Let us camp here while we pack up the teleportation array. I will have my griffins scout the area for monsters. Let us get the lay of the land and look for easy prey to wet our blades.”

By the time the other legates had arrived, Prince Herius had already decided on our plans, and they received his orders to set camp. Some of the other commanders were casting me dirty looks. To them, I was an outsider, but by now, it was clear to them that I had more of the prince’s ear than most. Still, I could tell a few of them didn’t intend to let me claim his attention uncontested.

I had good reason to convince the prince to camp here for the night though, and not just because I wanted our surroundings scouted and for the low-leveled soldiers to kill a few monsters. I had a very important notification to see to.

Quest Completed! Legend in the Making.

You have successfully arrived on Ladwick with an army of elite troops.

Congratulations! You have reached B-Grade. You are now a true powerhouse of the Arcadia Multiverse, and only the mightiest existences overshadow you.

Your class, Sage of Forbidden Knowledge, has reached level 203!

Your race, Homo Fatum, has reached level 204!

Your job, Aethersmith, has reached level 210!

You have received one Signature Skill slot! Please compile your signature skill.

You have a racial upgrade pending confirmation.

You have unused skill slots available.

You have stat points availible for distribution.

“Cyra, you’re in charge. I’ll be out soon,” I said as I threw down my tent and found somewhere comfortable to sit down and go through my new status screens.

First, I assigned my Sage of Forbidden Knowledge class stat points. Those would be the same as usual, now the new points were just more impactful.

The more critical upgrade was my racial evolution, from which I could now pick a number of upgrades.

Congratulations on reaching B-Grade! Your race, Homo Fatum (Epic), can now be upgraded. Your bloodline and past actions have influenced your options, granting you the following options:

Homo Fatum Praesaglo (Mythic): Declare your mastery over the prophecy and fortune by receiving prophecies of the future while sleeping.

Homo Fatum Aternus (Mythic): Attain eternal life and become an implacable pillar of fate. Your body may falter, but your power will never fade completely, and your unique racial upgrade and bloodline will follow you into your next incarnation.

Fate Nexus (Mythic): Abandon your physical humanoid form to become a nexus of fate, through which many threads converge. This racial upgrade will transform you into a living time and space paradox in physical form, making you nearly impossible to kill. May cause temporally induced insanity.

Homo Fatum Deus (Mythic): Step on the path of divinity and become a god.

I pored over the various options. All were pretty specific, and I suspected my current bloodline had narrowed down what I could choose, as all my racial upgrades were related to manipulating fate in my favor.

Praesaglo would make me some sort of oracle. Aternus would make me hard to kill for good, though I wasn’t sure how well my memories would carry through reincarnation. And if they didn’t, was there much point in passing my power through to my next life? I might end up as an entirely different person.

Fatum Nexus had similar drawbacks. I’d decided long ago not to forsake my humanity. So far, that had served me well. Others with scholar classes like mine that hadn’t held tightly to such convictions had quickly lost themselves. I suspected something similar would happen to me the moment I abandoned my humanity.

Left with no better options, I decided to become a god.

I made that selection, but put my pending divinity aside to focus on reading through this Signature Skill stuff I’d gotten thanks to my recent remarkably easy quest. After a bit of fiddling, the System explained what a Signature Skill was.

Signature Skill — Unique abilities belonging to A-Grades and some other entities. These abilities are entirely unique. Each of them can occupy a variety of skill slots, performing functions based on the abilities tributed to their creation. Several movement abilities may produce an all-purpose ability to harness the nature of speed. Several physical enhancement abilities may produce an indomitable body.

The System gave more examples, but I understood the general idea. I would be sacrificing skill slots to make an exceptionally powerful skill compiled from all the abilities I’d sacrificed to it. It made sense to me that this was an option the System would give people at A-Grade. By then, most people would have a huge arsenal of skills collected over a very long life.

It made little sense for A-Grades to make do with hundreds of discreet skills. They needed versatility, which is presumably what these Signature Skills would provide.

One thing was also clear, though. These Signature Skills required a certain cohesive theme. Not doing so risked generating a random Signature Skill. In that respect, it was a natural evolution of picking the right proficiency levels to sacrifice toward evolving a skill.

I needed to go through my abilities list again and find a set that already matched closely with one another, then hope to expand on it from there with a few other abilities. I had a few ideas for what I wanted to mix together, that would have to wait until I went through my pile of skill books that I’d assembled alongside Professor Verlin.

There was no class upgrade for Sage of Forbidden Knowledge this time, which was a bit disappointing. I’d just have to convince the System to give me another one of those upgrade books that I’d used to upgrade from scholar to sage.

With that part of my evolution complete, I started popping open skill books one after another. I’d already read each of them from front to back, so all that was left for me was convincing the System to give me the actual skill.

As Professor Verlin promised, my studying proved very worthwhile, because what should have been days of cramming new abilities into my mind while on campaign turned out to be little more than flipping through my books and reminding myself of what they said. I was done before nightfall.

I had all the abilities Professor Verlin had planned for, but I was on my own as far as this Signature Skill went. A few abilities stood out to me as a matching set. I could group all my eldritch and void abilities, which would hopefully manifest as some sort of all-purpose corrupting energy manipulation ability.

Another option was grouping my movement abilities together. Shadowrealm Stride might merge interestingly with Ethereal Wings and Elemental Step into some instantaneous three-dimensional teleportation power.

I could also try something with my Luck or Charisma scaling abilities, but both those were mostly new to me. No, I found myself leaning on one set of abilities more often as of late. They were a set of passive abilities quite famous in the Dragon Lodge, and in a sense, they were the abilities that had set me on the path to getting my current job.

I settled on combining my Dragon Lodge abilities. Out of everything I had. These four were both high-ranked and there were enough of them to define a cohesive theme to the Signature Skill. With four dragon-themed abilities, even if I added a few more abilities to the mix to try to broaden the functionality of the new Signature Skill, it would probably remain soundly anchored to the concept of dragons.

I was only worried that I might be leaving some power on the table with this. I was up against some pretty tough foes back on Earth. Would this dragon-themed Signature Skill really be enough?

Sure, dragons were proud, large, fearsome beasts. I knew that firsthand from my battles with the Torchdragon back home. From reading through the Dragon Lodge’s spell books, the ones that could use spells had enormous mana reserves as well. But I’d been able to battle the Torchdragon on roughly even terms. At my current level, I could probably beat it handily. Would this ability really give me the sort of power boost I was looking for?

I hesitated a little while longer before deciding to go through with it. If I had any regrets, all I had to do was wait until A-Grade for more Signature Skill slots.

You have sacrificed your Dragonscaled Mage ability!

You have sacrificed your Dragoneyed Mage ability!

You have sacrificed your Dragonblooded Mage ability!

You have sacrificed your Dragonsouled Mage ability!

As I concocted this new skill, my mind went to Bridget, making soup on the stove. First, she added the main ingredients. Then, the spices followed based on what her instincts as a chef told her. I would do the same.

You have sacrificed your Commanding Aura ability!

You have Sacrificed your Awakening the Inner Beast ability!

You have sacrificed your Firescourge Breath ability!

You have sacrificed your Starlight Beam ability!

You have sacrificed your Mana Siphon ability!

You have sacrificed your Ethereal Wings ability!

My instincts told me that was about right, and ever since I’d boosted my luck stat and gained my fancy fate bloodline, I’d learned to trust in those instincts. The die was cast. Now it was time to see what I rolled.

Generating ability... Analyzing past performance... Blending unique soul signature... Crusader Status Detected... Unique opportunity detected, requesting administrator approval... Permission granted. Now analyzing new Signature Skill.

Incarnation of the Apocalypse Dragon (Unclassified Rarity)

• The imprint of your existence in the shadowrealm has taken on the form of an Apocalypse Dragon, a race of ancient monsters that traverses the void in search of habitable worlds to consume. You too can consume the mana and life essence of worlds to enhance your immense reserves of life and power.

• The exact capabilities of this signature skill are untested, but the cursory analysis suggests it should be possible to use it for flight, mana absorption, various energy beam and fire attacks, dramatically enhanced physical robustness, enormous bonuses to mana pool size, and an innate terror-inducing effect toward enemies.

New Quest Available!

Path of the Chaos Dragon

Your new signature skill has synergized with your Sage of Forbidden Knowledge Class and your newly claimed Godling status.

The title of Chaos Dragon lies unclaimed, and you are now among its most qualified claimants.

Taking this title will provide several unique bonuses and further your path to godhood. However, other claimants seeking the title for themselves will need to kill you to take it.

This quest will be ongoing until you claim full godhood.

I frowned at the unexpected new quest. But looking it over, I saw no reason to refuse. The Chaos Gods and their friends already wanted to kill me ever since my early spat with the Chaos Wolf. So what if they had one more reason to do so?

I accepted the quest.

Congratulations!

You have gained the unique title: Chaos Dragon.

Left behind by the first generation of architects, the Chaos titles are a unique series of identities capable of warping the fabric of reality, and are granted unique privileges regarding interacting with the Kindling under the jurisdiction of the System.

• This title grants a massively increased affinity for harnessing chaotic energies from non-physical planes by utilizing willpower.

• These unnatural chaotic energies can be used to possess similarly aligned entities or bring an area into alignment with your soul.

• Equipping this title will provide +50% additional bonuses to all your physical stats, but will reveal your identity as chief claimant to the title of Chaos Dragon.

I suspected the Chaos Gods I’d butted heads with so many times recently wouldn’t be happy to find out I had something like this.

<Note>

I swear we’re getting to the actual campaign stuff soon! Just had to get this last bit of stuff out of the way. We’re a bit overdue for some more action coming up soon. But the series’ plotlines are still moving along.

Also, boom! Made 4 chapters while keeping my lead. It was close and I had to stay up until 2AM last night working on chapter 18, but I made it. So yes, I think we can move up to a 4 chapter per week release rate. If need be, I'll take a break, but right now things are coming out smoothly enough to sustain it.