Choose Your Apocalypse (A LitRPG Apocalypse, Progression, System Fantasy) [CYA]

<Alex, Real - Secure, High School Upper Hallway>

Alex didn't have time to move. He'd barely had time to think before a lance of vanta-black struck at him.

Even so, his skills combined to allow him to intercept it with his off-hand. This lance had been as big as his wrist, and aimed straight at his head.

Alex had enough focus—even through his panic—to feel his energy moving through his body, concentrating on his upraised palm in interesting patterns.

The incoming energy seemed to almost create a whirlpool within his power, that motion spending the attack's energy instead of letting it invade his body.

Interesting. Can I control the power to reduce what gets through even more? It almost acted sort of like a non-newtonian fluid taking an impact… except exactly opposite of that, where his energies move with incoming power, somehow stealing the attack's power. My mind is strange…

He tried to augment the dampening effect, but the collective magics dispersed before he had time to do anything like that, or even see if it was possible.

He took more than thirty points of damage in both health and stamina.

This attack was at least three times as powerful as the previous plague witch's strike that he'd intercepted.

I really hope that my group felt that attack, and they are coming to help…

Without delay, he rolled off the wall toward the witch. As soon as he was perpendicular to the surface he lunged forward with all his enhanced strength.

The same world—or System—interference prevented his legs from simply blowing through the non-structural half-wall, and he was able to launch himself straight at the all-too-ready undead.

He didn't even consider retreating.

If he pulled back, the witch would get backup and likely secure the stairway against them with foul magics. Witches have foul magics, right?

He had to deal with her now.

Another beam of vanta-black death came toward him—this one seemingly containing much more power, if his Basic Mana Sense was to be believed—and it had only been two seconds or so. Meaning, he couldn't counter it for another three seconds.

So, he did the only reasonable thing. He called a pot-lid from his Inventory, angling it to try to deflect the attack.

Years of play as a child came back to him. He had pretended that pot lids were shields countless times, and now he was actually getting to do just that.

A smile began to stretch across his face as the attack met Alex's improvised shield.

It… did not work.

The attack—whatever it was—struck the pot-lid, and the lid turned to a cloud of rust.

Then, the beam struck his hand, which he had imposed between himself and the attack.

Undeath energy began to rage through him, and he confirmed their group's theory. This wasn't a skill to kill. No it was a magic meant to turn him into an undead.

No. He stalwartly refused to believe that this was it, that he'd just been hit with something that would turn him.

He knew that his life energy won out against undeath, at least in the bodies of his enemies, and shouldn't he have advantage within his own body?

He had home field advantage now.

Yeah. Yeah I do! Even so, the black beam immediately turned more than a thousand of his health pool into undeath energy.

Warning:
You have been affected by Plague - Zombification, introduced to your entire body at once.
Undeath has occurred.

Error Notice:
Life energy is unusually potent and not suppressed by complete undeath.

Once again, Alex's blood entirely dominated the plague that had been introduced into his flesh.

That domination wasn't instantaneous by any means, but it would do.

He was still mid-air, flying toward the enemy, and the witch likely believed him turned even as he came into striking range.

Alex proved her wrong.

As he landed before her, his right hand whipped the dadao forward, and he beheaded the creature, and that was that… Except it wasn't.

Her hand came up, and his Basic Mana Sense told Alex that power was moving through her toward that hand.

He couldn't take another hit from that beam, and his Danger Sense reinforced that sentiment.

Life and undeath don't seem to like one another. Without more thought than that, he grabbed her extending hand with his own, using Basic Life Transfusion at full power—about a hundred mana a second—which meant about two hundred and seventy health was dumped into her extended hand almost at once.

That was more than enough to dust a weak zombie, even if it had been at full health, but this witch was likely not so weak.

It didn't actually matter, though. He hadn't sent the health into her in order to kill her. It was purely to counter the unlife that was flowing up her arm.

As such, what flowed out of him had felt… different, somehow more than health. It actually felt like life even if that didn't make much sense to him in the moment.

The two opposing powers—life and unlife—clashed within her arm, and the conflict of the two—when both were oriented toward doing damage—was explosive.

As to why his magic had been faster? Well, she seemed to have to pull her power from within her center somewhere.

His Life power came from the blood within the hand that was touching her.

The difference in distance traveled was massive, even if she likely had a higher magical agility stat, allowing her magic to move faster overall.

Regardless, her arm exploded, dealing further damage as her magic went crazy within her, seeming to bounce and rebound around within her, flowing along odd pathways that Alex knew for a fact that he hadn't had before the System, and he didn't think he had even still.

No, I just have blood vessels. He wondered if it fulfilled the same purpose.

Regardless, that gave him enough time to do a backstroke with his sword, cutting her torso in half. just below her ribs.

Kill Notice:
You killed Zombie Plague Witch (Uncommon), Level 14

Reward:
Experience to be granted when in a safe location.

At that moment, he heard people running up the stairs.

He dusted the witch before turning to look toward the stairs.

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The other Initiates came up in good order, but they all seemed horrified when they looked at him.

Natasha was the first to speak. "Oh, Alex… I'm sorry."

John frowned. "I thought he was immune."

Alex turned toward them. He tried to ask what they were talking about, but it came out as a groan.

Weapons were leveled at him, and Pilar's fingers were wreathed in flame.

Oh… that's not good.

<John, Real - Secure, High School Upper Hall>

John cursed internally. Alex was a zombie.

His already torn and disheveled clothing now hung rent open over clearly gray, undead flesh. The great, almost waxy appearance a clear indication, especially after so much recent exposure.

How did I miss it in Wilmer? I guess he was more heavily clothed, and I wasn't really looking for it…

He needed to end this threat, as he'd failed to do with Wilmer. He hesitated, however, guns leveled at the man, but his fingers were off the triggers as he hoped against hope that he was seeing incorrectly.

The zombie Alex made his big sword disappear, and John felt his eyes widen. It kept his skills?

They might all be in serious trouble if that were the case. Its hand moved again, and John's fingers came into the firing position.

Before he could squeeze off even a single shot, though, Natasha called out in a harsh whisper, "Wait!"

They all regarded her while keeping most of their attention on the clear threat before them.

Then, John noticed it too.

Zombie Alex was pointing at a small round thing on his chest.

John squinted to make it out. It was white with black lettering, and it simply said, 'I did my best.'

Huh… that's odd.

<Alex, Real - Secure, High School Upper Hall>

Alex shivered in relief as weapons were slightly lowered, and Natasha seemed to be looking at him more closely.

Oh, good. I won't get killed by friends today.

They didn't look like food to him as the cheesecake lady had, but something was telling him that it would be relieving to bite them. He likely could push some of the plague off onto them, making his task easier. It would be like lancing a boil or taking a cool drink to ease a scratchy throat.

Yeah, he wouldn't do that.

That was a terrible idea.

It would be against everything that he believed and wanted.

He took a single step toward them.

"Alex." Natasha's voice was calm, though her stress was evident. "Alex, are you in there?"

"What are you doing?" Grant's voice was a harsh whisper.

"Analyze him, Grant."

Grant frowned, then his eyes instantly widened. "He's still human? How is that possible? Look at him."

Alex looked down at his hands and saw that they were gray and waxy looking… except his circulatory system looked to be fully intact… somehow, red and blue lines were visible more starkly under his transformed skin than usual.

His Basic Mana Sense was making him aware of his Life energy flowing throughout his body with every beat of his heart.

A pulse of mana washed out from Lenka, and she pointed at the doors behind him. "Lots of undeath in there, but it's not moving. Other sources in some rooms on this floor and downstairs at the edge of my pulse, but nothing seemingly moving on the way in this direction." She then looked directly at Alex. "He is full of undeath."

Alex closed his eyes and sank to his knees. He had an idea to help them understand, since apparently he couldn't speak.

He thought he remembered the hand-sign for 'again', and so he made it.

Pilar frowned. "Why is he signing 'more?'"

Oh… that was the wrong sign… oh well. Hopefully, it would still work. He opened his eyes to see.

Lenka frowned, then another pulse of power rushed out and back. "There's… less? Yeah. There's less undeath in him than even a few seconds ago."

John looked between the two of them. "So… he's recovering?"

"I think so? That would make sense to me."

Natasha visibly shivered. "I don't want to face what did that to him."

John then seemed to understand. "Plague witch? If so, it wasn't trying to hide his transformation… or his resistance forced it to manifest differently?"

Alex nodded, smiling, even though he didn't know if the last assertion was true or not.

It must have been an unpleasant smile, because the others shifted back a bit.

But, he was thinking about the plague witch. He had hard-countered her, and still he'd been reduced to a state of full undeath. It was going to take him more than a quarter hour to completely purge this from his system by the looks of it and…

Wait… why? Why should I let my passive regeneration handle this?

He took a deep breath and began to exhale slowly, because—honestly—he thought this was going to hurt.

Basic Life Transfusion might do what he needed.

Instead of transfusing his life into another item or creature, he simply took it from his blood and transfused it outward to everything else.

When he did so, he found out that he had been right.

It hurt.

He managed to not scream, but it was a near thing as he fell to the ground twitching.

Once again, something more seemed to flow with the use of the spell than just health points.

He had a thought as it flowed outward. He didn't want to die by spending all his health to attack his own body, so he used Basic Life Transference to draw the Life back into his blood afterward. For that's what it felt like. It was his very Life energy, rather than just health.

In the end, it was as if the spell didn't actually trigger.

Instead, his life energy moved as if it were about to be transfused out, but no mana moved to carry it away from him and to another, because it hadn't been directed to be carried to another.

His health—his Life energy—then moved back, having swept through his tainted body, scrubbing it clean.

Even so, it wasn't free.

It cost him a quarter of his remaining health, but that was better than having to wait for his entire health pool to be purged.

Alex coughed up blood, but his flesh lost the six-months-dead look, regaining proper color. Even so, he didn't come out unscathed.

Wounds:
Advanced Necrosis
[7000 HP x 1 required to heal]

But he was cured of zombie-ism. He even got a notification confirming it.

Notice:
You have cured Plague - Zombification (Rare), level 14 x [1170/1170]
You have done so using your innate Attributes and the manipulation of Life energy alone.
Reward increased due to the affected individual's state of infection upon the start of the curing process.
State of infection before curing began: 100%
Reward increased due to the high level of this plague's origin.

Reward:
Due to Blood Attribute - Life Finds a Way (Unique)
Second Rebirth from Blood

Experience to be granted when in a safe location.

Alex crawled over to the wall and just leaned against it, groaning.

Natasha came over and knelt beside him. "Hey, you look a lot better."

Another ripple of power left from and then returned to Lenka. "There is no undeath within him anymore."

Alex smiled. "Better… ow…"

Lenka smiled. "Glad to have you back."

Natasha gently patted his shoulder. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Two hours…"

She frowned. "Do we need to pull back?"

He shrugged slightly, wincing at even that motion. "I have to."

Hey, he could speak a bit easier the second time. Yay.

There was some quiet talking before the agreement was made.

Natasha nodded. "We pull back. I'll act as rear guard."

She then leaned down next to Alex's ear.

"Next time, maybe let us help from the beginning? That would probably have made things a bit easier. John could have helped kill the thing at a distance at the very least."

"That…" Alex swallowed, using Create Water to fill his own mouth so that he could swallow and moisten his dry throat. He gave a weak smile, then continued, "That would probably be a good idea."

She toed the two piles of ash, pulling them into her inventory. "Come on, let's get you back."

<James, Real - Secure, High School Gym Roof>

James was having the time of his life.

The hordes flowing by before branching out to various streets and buildings gave him a constant stream of targets a couple of levels above himself.

He didn't dare hit the most advanced undead. They might be able to get at him somehow, and at the moment, they were simply killing their lessers to level themselves.

He was gaining experience at a good clip himself, and if his Analyze Skill and analytical skills were accurate, it looked like it took killing two undead of an equal level for an undead to level up, or an equivalent number of lower leveled ones.

If that were true, then it would take the equivalent of more than five hundred thousand level one zombies to get one of them to level 20… But he was only level 4, even if close to leveling again. With this city's population in the millions, they might actually have to face monsters that powerful before this was all said and done.

That's a truly scary proposition. Who knows how high they could actually get… It didn't bare ruminating on. He couldn't do anything about it at the moment.

Kaylee had checked in and let him know that the lower doors were holding.

Whenever he leaned out to look, he could see that any undead that neared those doors would take a swing or two at them in passing, but when the wood and metal stayed unyielding, that individual would move on, only to be replaced by another shortly thereafter.

It was more like being a part of a riverbank than a dam, and he was grateful for that.

Though, riverbanks give way more often than dams… He grimaced at the idea before throwing another knife at a distant target.

The blade vanished before hitting, and he cursed. Through practice, he'd gotten the range out pretty far, but he had overestimated his reach, and now he'd have to wait for his mana to recharge without a new kill to reward him.

It had been a rookie mistake that he really couldn't afford to be making.

Focus in close. Pick your targets. Level and get stronger.

It was a solid plan, he just hoped it worked in the long run.