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

<Alex, Real - Endure, High School Locker Room>

Alex held his dadao in his hands before him as he carefully walked down the concrete stairs, Natasha staying four steps behind him with her spear held ready to strike over his head or shoulders. He caught the occasional glimpse of her in the corners of his vision as he advanced downward, sweeping his head side to side just to be sure he didn't miss anything.

Thankfully, the stairway's ceiling mirrored the slope of the stairs, so there wasn't some great dark cavern above them as they descended.

Alex's light rope cast a mostly even light on the area before him, only a bit shadowed by his arms.

Grant's steps behind Natasha were heavy enough to be heard, while not actually being clopping or stomping. Funnily enough, Alex found himself incredibly comforted by the presence of the other two, even if they were more in danger of Zombieism than he was.

The green light at the base of the stairs was bright enough to not be overridden by the white of Alex's lights, and it swayed and rippled like it was coming through water.

Each step was a bit of a stress as Alex was fully expecting his footing to give out, the ceiling to collapse, or something to come sprinting up from below, but… nothing.

His Danger Sense was telling him that something dangerous was nearby, but he couldn't tell what, and it was hard to keep the creeping sense of unease from getting to him.

It was an eventless descent, and when he reached the bottom he was able to see straight out into the large—roughly thirty by thirty by ten foot—concrete room.

There were no obvious opponents, but one side of the room was obscured by what looked like three massive tanks of sickly green liquid that glowed, providing the rippling green illumination. In front of them, and seemingly interconnected, was something that looked like a cross between a mad wizard's contraption and the still from M.A.S.H.

Hawkeye would be proud.

The output went into a roughly two foot diameter sphere. It might have been a coincidence, but it seemed like the large tanks were about half empty, and the littler sphere was nearly half full.

Was someone or something condensing what seemed to be thousands of gallons of… whatever it was into the sphere?

It seemed likely. He whispered back to his companions. "Clear."

The only other notable feature was a door in the right wall… and the odd—slightly familiar—symbols that seemed to have been hacked into the walls.

They weren't like those on the flesh golem bones, but they had some similarities. Even so, that's not why they seemed familiar. He vaguely recalled them from his book, grateful for his much higher mental stats.

"Huh, those look like the runes to block magical detection of various kinds." He spoke normally, even as he stepped out of the door-less archway and learned a lesson that many people have been forced to learn over the years, many of those only at the moment of their death.

It was impossible to see what lay against the near wall without stepping through the door.

He was through the door, now.

His Danger Sense screamed out a warning just before motion caught his attention in the corner of his vision, and his left hand snapped out as Life's Active Defense activated.

He caught a skull in the hand, unconnected to anything, but clacking away, teeth trying to find purchase against the protection offered by Alex's skill.

It was odd, as all damage seems to have been negated because his hand was immune to being wounded. It was likely the skull was trying to impart some sort of poison—venom?—… or something.

"Not clear!" Alex practically shouted as he spun, throwing the skull to shatter on the ground and putting his back toward the portion of the room that he'd seen to be free of enemies. Only then did he see the odd conglomeration of vines and skulls that clung across the entire entry wall.

The vines were almost Vantablack, with the largest as big as his arm, and they were overlapping and as densely packed as long-neglected ivy.

The skulls—not skeletons, just skulls—were scattered throughout like flowers would have been on an ordinary plant.

Every skull was staring straight at him, hollow eye-sockets not inhibited by their lack of eyes.

About half the skulls seemed to be crawling with spiders.

In that moment, Alex was very, very unhappy that his vision had been improved by the System. He could have gone his whole life without seeing such a slithering, scrabbling, entangled mass of arachnophobia incarnate.

One thought flew through his mind. Burn it with fire.

He turned his eyes back to the door, locked gazes with Grant through the arch, and shouted, "Get Pilar. Now!"

Grant didn't hesitate, spinning and sprinting up the stairs, hammer already stowed to increase the pace at which he could run.

Alex almost just lunged back into the stairwell, to make it easier to fight the thing, but something told him that would be a bad idea.

Natasha met his gaze. "Tell me what you need."

He opened his mouth to speak, but in that moment, the next skull shot his way.

Blessedly, it wasn't one of the spider infested ones.

It hadn't been nearly long enough for his defensive skill to be available once more, but that was alright.

He struck the incoming attack with his dadao, using precision and power.

The bone exploded, sending sharp fragments cutting across his body.

Thankfully, his coat blunted most of them, even if his face took some nicks.

Each of the little cuts burned like someone was injecting him with citric acid.

He grit his teeth against the pain, watching his health tick downward briefly before his prodigious life force took over, rising to the occasion and pushing back on whatever was going on.

Horrifyingly, he didn't seem to be able to directly counter it, just work against the effects, trying to hold out for whatever it was to run out of power.

Notice:
Curse of Necrosis, partially opposed.

Wounds:
Curse of Necrosis, mild x 10
[8 HP x 10 required to heal]

Apology Tutorial Notice:
A curse can either be cured, resisted, or opposed.

A cured curse is gone.

A resisted curse, either does not take effect, or if not fully resisted, the result can be cured by whatever resisted it, given enough time and energy. If so, this is still reflected as a 'Condition.'

Opposed curses have their effects worked against, which slows their spread, and causes them to waste energy that would otherwise have been spent wreaking havoc. In this way, the curse might run out of energy before the recipient dies. If so, this is reflected as a 'Wound.'

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Cold tea… His blood attribute didn't directly counter curses. It couldn't even resist them.

If this thing imparted curses…

He swallowed in sudden concern. This couldn't be a protracted fight, but thankfully, he wasn't that far from it.

He grimaced, and then, before it could throw another skull at him, he lunged forward, grabbing the vine.

As soon as he came in contact, the magic around his hand went crazy.

A series of notices began flickering in and out of his awareness, at about one per second. Thus, he was grateful that he hadn't waited to begin dumping Life into the thing via Basic Life Transfusion.

And he did give Life, not just HP.

Both his total HP and maximum health dropped in tandem, and his energy ran rampant through the plant… or it tried to.

He did succeed in causing it to pull back, away from the door though which Natasha still waited, eyes flicking all around to try to watch every part of the doorframe.

The vines sloughed off the wall, not in death, but seemingly to get a bit of space from him. The resulting piles split into two, pulling into a clump on either side of the room before rising to take on eight-legged, many-headed shapes.

Only then did Alex think to Analyze them.

Rot Tendrils
Level ?

Alex grimaced. It would be a novel experience to be able to detect the level of his opponents once again.

The outside of the plant-spider things swarmed with what seemed to be actual spiders, even if they seemed to be lumped into the 'rot tendril' analysis.

It was at that point that he realized that he must have ticked off someone who had sway within the System, because this was somehow beyond a nightmare.

Hey, I hear you hate spiders, so why not have massive spiders crawling with uncountable lesser spiders. I hope you enjoy spiders on your spiders, because you have them now.

He was rambling internally, and he did his best to pull himself together. He almost shouted out a formal complaint, but it was so close to his first one, that he was concerned it might be seen as 'abusing the function' or something like that.

The creatures were each, seemingly, some type of swarm creature, because Analyze was just giving a single result from each grouping.

He wasn't sure if that was good or bad, but he was sure that he didn't really have a response to such monsters.

Travel with the living flamethrower or find a solution… His Basic Life Transfusion had worked well for 'swarms' of undead, but this thing—even somehow feeling full of death and undeath—clearly wasn't undead…

How do I know that?

It was then that he fully realized that it felt like he could still sense lingering remnants of his life energy within each of the swarms.

At the very least, how it was acting and interacting with the things was unlike how it did with the undead. That was as good an explanation for his feeling as anything else. He didn't know what that meant, and now was hardly the time to contemplate it.

Not only was he in a momentary standoff with two nightmare beings, but the ground itself was being covered with spiders, spreading outward in overlapping waves from either side.

Cold, over-brewed tea…

This was going to be… unpleasant.

The creatures were far enough from the entry-wall that Natasha was able to see them, and her eyes widened with a mix of horror and helplessness.

She was as equipped to deal with them as he was… so not really at all. It wasn't like he carried around a massive tissue box to crunch such a cursed thing.

Wait a minute… If the situation had been a bit less dire, Alex would have slapped himself in the forehead.

He didn't have time to explain, as rippling twitches going through the two swarm-things made him think they would attack soon.

He pointed his dadao at the creature to his left, even as he sprinted for the one on the right. "Contain that one. Force Shield!"

He saw just enough to watch her eyes flick to the creature and then down to the growing wash of arachnids, a panicked look filling the already widened eyes.

As he ran, he began building up power in his Force Burst spell, gladly paying the little bit extra to hold it in readiness even as it built in power.

Whether the thing was somehow startled, or it was simply trying to draw him into a better position for the other to spring on him from behind, the one he'd targeted pulled backward, quickly reaching and starting to clamber up the walls.

Unfortunately, it left behind yet more waves of spiders that Alex trod upon even as some in the piles began to latch on and scurry up his shoes and legs, despite how quickly he was moving. Their progress was marked with a wave of searing torment that he refused to acknowledge because to do so would mean stumbling and certain death.

Instead, he used Basic Life Transfusion to try to counter the rising tide long enough to do what he needed to do.

It was a losing battle, but he'd only needed a couple of steps into the wriggling mass to be in position.

He released Force Burst with nearly 40 MP, doing his utmost to direct most of the blast forward.

Three things happened, then.

First, and most importantly, a heavy wave of force rolled forward, crushing every spider like the insignificant thing that it was until the wave hit the main body of the swarm-thing.

The skulls cracked and shattered, and the vines were pulped against the solid concrete wall.

Second, a small wave of force went backward and outward, crushing the three or so feet of spider-tide that were in those directions.

Third, his pants were shredded below the knee as the dozens—maybe hundreds—of the little things that had been frantically crawling up his legs, biting him all the while, were thrown outward, already popped by the force.

Huh… so it only starts from my clothes and goes outward if there aren't enemies further in?

The pain and itching, agony and burning struck him then, breaking through his frantic attempts to hold them back, and he looked down to see most of the skin missing from the exposed parts of his legs.

His shoes were tough enough that the spiders who had crawled downward were simply turned to paste around his ankles and feet, the leather no worse for wear.

A single kill notification rang out, giving him an overwhelming sense of relief. He momentarily ignored the notifications on wounds and other results of his short fight.

Alex almost relaxed, but he hadn't forgotten the other one.

He spun to face it, seeing it already mid-air, having sprung at his retreating back moments earlier.

His eyes widened in horror as he tried to recharge Force Burst, but he wasn't going to get it in time. Even though the spell didn't have an explicit 'cool down' or anything like that, Alex simply couldn't move his mana fast enough to activate it again in such short order.

If he survived this, he'd need to fix that… somehow…

A Force Shield sprang into being only five feet from him, causing the flying rot tendril to slam to a stop against it, sending a rain of spiders outward like the ripples in a pond after a rock was thrown in.

Or a nova of debris after an explosion… a spider nova…

His nightmares were going to be all sorts of awful in the near-term… and the long-term…

…

Maybe he just wouldn't sleep for a while…

As the spiders rained down around the room, Alex found himself utterly horrified at the situation that he'd found himself in.

This is not fighting slow, shambling zombies…

His eyes flicked to the tanks in the back half of the room, grateful to find them undisturbed… except the spiders that had been thrown to splash among the crevices.

Hopefully they'll die when the rot tendril does…

Regardless, he'd had time to refill his Force Burst with mana by that point. He jumped forward, shrieking involuntarily at the pain in his lower legs. He only was able to move about four feet, despite his greatly increased strength—a far cry from his ability to jump up a flight of stairs just hours earlier—his calves both seizing up from the damage, curses, and venom going through them.

He did not want to check his notifications, yet.

Even so, he got close enough to activate another Force Burst, which impacted against Natasha's shield, reenacting the end of their fight with the wight.

Her shield was propelled back and away, carrying the bulk of the rot tendril to slam against the wall.

Alex's Force Burst would not have had enough power to crush the creature on its own at their current distance from the wall, but with the hammer of the Force Shield, Alex was able to be the arm that swung it, and the second rot tendril was crushed, half its body turning to paste.

The sound of running footsteps was already coming down the stairs, and Alex was backpedaling despite his twitching feet and sluggish muscles, while trying to recharge his Force Burst. After all, the rivers of spiders were regathering themselves and streaming toward him and Natasha yet again.

Pilar fearlessly shot into the room, seemingly having sprinted down the stairs.

Alex was paying enough attention to see the woman notice the black flows, understand they were spiders, and fully comprehend the horror of so many little biters.

Pilar pulled mana forth, a fire blossoming in her hands even as a shriek escaped her lips and her eyes tried to pop out of her face.

Alex thrust his sword toward the mangled rot tendril and yelled, "That first!"

It was a testament to the strength of their short working relationship that Pilar swept the beam of fire that she'd initiated at her feet out and toward the rot tendril, despite there being far, far more spiders near at hand.

A blessed kill notification came to Alex's attention, and all the little spiders crumbled into curled heaps, a horrific, almost inaudible overlapping wail accompanying their collective demise.

Alex slumped to the ground then, unable to stay standing as his ravaged lower-legs finally overcame his ability to ignore them.

As his focus pulled inward, he had a single parting thought.

Creepy basements are the worst, and they hadn't even dealt with the ominous liquid yet…