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

<Alex, Real - Endure, High School Gymnasium Basement>

Alex was in a world of twisted agony, and he reflexively stowed his dadao to keep from hurting himself or others in his current state.

In times past, when he was sick, sometimes he'd have true pain where his head, stomach, or whatnot hurt. At other times, he'd just feel like something was off. His head would feel foggy, or his body would feel stiff and sore for seemingly no reason.

This was the second type, cranked up to eleven… with a dump truck load of the first added on top for good measure.

Even though he had no thought for checking, the System notices finally forced their way into his vision.

Wounds:
Curse of Necrosis, mild x ??
[5HP x 1 required to heal]
[8 HP x ?? required to heal]
Body overloaded with Curse of Necrosis
Advanced Necrosis
[1,???+ HP x 1 required to heal]

Spider Venom, virulent x ??
[7HP x 1 required to heal]
[10 HP x ?? required to heal]
Body overloaded with Spider Venom
System Shock
[1,???+ HP x 1 required to heal]

On the plus side, his blood attribute was seemingly letting him combat the venom and curse—even if not directly or very effectively. He could feel his Life fighting a losing campaign against the secondary effects in his lower leg, likely adding to his agony.

He tried to use Basic Life Transfusion to swirl his Life through his flesh and cleanse it, just as he had with the zombie plague.

It did not work. In fact, it backfired spectacularly.

If his Life was an army, he'd just sent a horse-borne cavalry charge against entrenched machine-gun nests.

Sure, he removed some of the targeted curses and venom, but he lost vastly more of his Life energy than such was worth.

His Life did not like losing, and it went a bit crazy, trying to make up the ground that he'd just lost through his bad leadership.

His entire body pulsed with Life as it strove to keep the venom and curses contained with even more limited resources than before.

The Life in his blood on the ground responded, and he reflexively pulled with Basic Life Transfusion and the Life that had been in the blood came into him, leaving the red liquid seemingly unchanged physically.

To his Basic Mana Sense, however, it seemed… lesser somehow.

Regardless, the return of the previously lost Life was a small balm in an otherwise entirely awful situation.

Unfortunately, the soothing wasn't enough to do anything significant to improve his situation. Even so, it had helped, and it gave him hope for a path forward. He cast his senses outward, trying desperately to find something, anything, that could help.

In that moment, he once again detected the Life he'd put into the swarm monsters, and it was seemingly trying to come back to him in order to help despite the distance.

…Help? How could it help?

He had no idea, but something about the very chance gave him something to latch onto.

At that exact moment, Pilar sent a wash of flame over one quarter of the room.

Alex screamed, not truly in pain, but in horror as some of his Life was snuffed out, eradicated along with the corpses of the spiders and rot tendril that had been over there.

It didn't actually hurt—at least not in comparison to his lower legs—but the shock of having it cut off and… ended was jarring to say the least.

Pilar instantly stopped her clean-up efforts, coming to squat beside him. Only then did he realize that Natasha was already there, trying to help him, worry clear on her face.

They were speaking to each other, but he couldn't make sense of their words.

In his moment of lucidity—limited though it was—he looked down and immediately wished that he hadn't.

Through the shredded remnants of his lower pant-legs, he could see muscle exposed and rippling with horrific cramps.

Worse yet, black something seemed to be growing through and across everything, even as a sickly fluid was leaking from around uncountable pairs of little puncture marks.

His hands were red and yellow, slick and sticky with blood and pus from where he'd been unconsciously clutching at the seizing muscles. The skin on his hands was starting to redden and swell as well.

He turned and emptied his stomach at the sight and onslaught of sensation that came with it.

Still, he couldn't let that stop him.

Something deep within him drew him toward the remaining remnants of his Life in the fallen foes, and with nothing else to strive for, he set out.

He flopped down and belly crawled toward the closest source, diffuse though it was.

He dragged himself through his own vomit, then across the crinkling, crackling, squelching remains of the spiders.

Natasha and Pilar were trying to talk with him, seemingly unwilling to touch him, but he couldn't understand them.

Nothing existed to him but the vague cloud of Life in a grouping of spiders miles ahead.

No! It's right there. I can reach it.

After what felt like years of wriggling through one of his worst nightmares—but was likely less than a minute—he reached the area in question.

He reached out and slapped his hand down on the spider, ignoring the sensations the action brought on even while activating Basic Life Transfusion to draw his Life back in.

It was a small sip of cool water on parched lips in the middle of the desert.

It rushed through him like a shock, and immediately, something changed.

He vehemently ignored the System notice that tried to pop up. He didn't trust that he'd understand it.

He wasn't cured, not by an inch or a mile, but he somehow knew that the curse was easier to resist now, and the damage it inflicted was easier to cure. Still not easy by any means, but easier.

It now felt like he had a chance… against the curse.

The venom was as horrific as ever… but he felt the call of other remnants of his Life energy scattered about.

He began rolling across the crunching awful, pulling in any miniscule fraction of his Life that remained, no matter how minor.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Each bit seemed to increase his blood's ability to fight off the curse by a fractional amount. It was like each bit carried with it some knowledge of how the spiders had resisted the contact curse from the vines they had called home.

The venom was as virulent as ever, but he didn't despair. He could survive one ravaging horror… probably.

He just needed to get his resistance to this curse as high as possible. Then?

He couldn't think about what would come after.

<Natasha, Real - Endure, High School Gym Basement>

Natasha watched as a bloodied and clearly delirious Alex rolled and crunched through piles of spider remains.

She and Pilar both alternated between wanting to drag him free and wanting to trust that he had some purpose behind what he was doing, because they could both feel that the man was slowly dying before them.

Natasha had pulled out one of their few health potions, which she'd gotten from Grant, but the Tutorial had given her a 'One-Time Notice' that cursed individuals couldn't be healed by such an item.

"There!" Pilar pointed, and Natasha saw it this time.

"Yeah, that was something."

"It's like he pulled a bit of… yeah, something from among the…" The woman gagged, retching slightly before mastering herself enough to continue, "among all that."

Natasha nodded. "Then we leave him to it. Unless we come up with something better, we don't stop him. We might even be able to help…"

They both turned to look back through the door where Grant sat on the lowest step, trembling and rubbing his arms, his visage as pale as a sheet.

Natasha frowned. "Do you think he'll be okay?"

Pilar nodded. "Yeah. He just has a quite reasonable fear of spiders."

Natasha looked around at the remains of what had almost swept up through the school and gave a shiver of her own. "Yes… quite reasonable."

<Alex, Real - Endure, High School Gym Basement>

He finally found it.

There was another large concentration of his Life in the back corner, and he'd made it there. He slapped his hand down on the slick, wet vines and pulled.

Immediately, his returned fragment of Life swept through him, and all that was within him gained an edge against the venom.

The vines, of course, had some means of resisting the venom of the spiders that they carried. His Life had picked up on some of that… somehow.

He wasn't immune by any stretch—even though the vines likely had been—but he'd somehow gotten enough that his Life now had a fighting chance.

And that was it.

Pilar had torched the other half of the remains, and he felt that none of his Life remained on his side of the basement.

The other side had been torched, so that was that.

He splayed out to lie on the uneven but somewhat giving ground.

The muscle spasms were continuing, but his mind had seemingly decided that it had had enough, cutting off most of the sensations from his legs.

…That or a good portion of the nerves were severely damaged… Yeah… that sounded more likely.

With nothing left that he could do, he finally, finally released his death-grip on consciousness, slipping into the awaiting black bliss.

He was back instantly… or had it been longer?

On one side, it felt like he was asleep for hours, but on the other, it felt as if he'd just blinked.

He opened his eyes, shifting slighting to stretch upon waking.

His bed crackled and squelched, his covers seeming almost to cascade around him as he moved even just a bit.

Alex froze, momentarily confused about where he was, and what was going on.

Then, an involuntary yelp escaped his lips, and he scrambled to get to his feet, trying to extricate himself from the mounds of spider carcasses.

"What the salty lemon eye-wash!?!" He frantically looked around, finding Pilar and Natasha off to one side. There was no sign of Grant or anyone else.

Natasha held up her hands in a calming gesture. "Calm down, Alex. You're awake, and you're recovering. You've just been through something traumatic."

Alex shuddered, trying to keep from rubbing his arms, where he knew more horror awaited. "Why was I covered in dead spiders?"

The Russian shrugged. "You were rolling around in them and seemed to be getting some help from the process. We didn't really understand what was going on, but when you suddenly stopped moving and passed out, we were afraid that you needed more of whatever it was, so…" It was her turn to shudder.

"You… buried me…?" His voice was small, and he wasn't sure he wanted an answer, even if he already knew what it would be.

Pilar cleared her throat. "We kept your face uncovered, but… yeah. It was gross work, but we weren't willing for you to die because we couldn't stomach the solution."

His whole body was trembling as he strove not to vomit or shriek. The fact that they were all dead spiders did not help his mindset. Still, he had enough mental fortitude that he was able to think with a modicum of clarity. You don't want to discourage this, Alex. In the future, something like this just might be exactly what you need… Calm yourself, Alex. Calm.

He took several long breaths while the two women regarded him carefully.

"Thank you for your work to help me." He shuddered. "I'm going to go take a shower."

He moved past them, with the two women parting to give him plenty of room even with his bow-legged gait. He knew the walk was silly, but he was determined to interact with the ick that covered him as little as possible. Even so, little bits slowly slid down his body to send shivers through his whole being.

"Where is Grant?"

"He's in the side tunnel, guarding the steel door out to the rest of the undercity."

Alex hesitated, one foot on the first stair. He felt like he should go deal with that. He didn't want to let Grant get hurt on his own, but when Alex started to turn, the squelching in his armpit stopped him cold.

Natasha cleared her throat. "Do you need the spiders any more? Or any of the other remains?"

"No… thank you." He took another step then paused. "How long was I out?"

"Less than an hour… Somewhere close to thirty minutes?" Pilar glanced to Natasha, and the other woman nodded.

"Yeah. After five minutes, we could see your injuries closing, even through the… obscurement. So, we assumed it was working… Whatever 'it' was."

He grunted. "Thank you, again. I'll try to be back soon. I want to examine those tanks."

He felt a spark of mana behind him, and Pilar called up after him. "We'll just do some clean-up until you return."

Finally, Alex let himself see his System notifications. Most of them had an odd… grayish hue, and they were marked as being no longer relevant. That's interesting.

Beyond those, only three stood out.

You killed
Rot Tendril (Uncommon), level 13 x 2

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

System Notice:
New Attribute Acquired

Basic Resistance - Curse (Lvl 1)

Details:
Innate ability to combat curses.
Your Life energy has a minor boost when combatting curses.

Description:
Whether desecrating a sacred site, spitting in a witch's eye, or through some other means, you have found yourself cursed. Unlucky you!

Your Life has learned to combat curses, allowing you to directly oppose that which others must simply bear through or heal against… assuming they survived at all.

System Notice:
New Attribute Acquired

Basic Resistance - Venom (Lvl 1)

Details:
Innate ability to combat magical venom.
Your Life energy has a minor boost when combatting magical venom.

Description:
So, you've been bitten by a magical predator and got more than some teeth-marks to show for it? Today just isn't your day, is it?

Your Life has learned to combat magical venom, allowing you to directly oppose that which others must simply bear through or heal against… assuming they survived at all.

Alex used the reading of the notifications as a much-needed distraction to allow him to get to the locker room shower with as little mental anguish as possible.

Only as he turned on the water did he remember his own Create Water spell.

He cursed himself for a fool, but it was done, now.

There was also the fact that he wouldn't have been able to fully clean himself with that spell and the mana he had available, but he might have knocked himself out by trying.

And I will need that mana for other things all too soon…

Even so, he could have had some relief.

Regardless, it was pointless now.

It was time for the blessed relief of a hot shower. Who knew? It might be one of the last ones he'd have for a long while.