Apocalypse: Regression

“Nick, are you sure we’re ready for this? You know that starting this process might cause more difficulties?” Seo-ah asked as Nick held the twenty-five essences needed to form the domain heart. He had thought, originally, it would take a while to gather them, but with the whole group there, they’d been able to harvest the needed items quickly by hunting random lepus, vulpe, and sciurus monsters hiding around the edges of the arctic tundra.

Mr. Walters alone had bagged quite a few, disappearing for a few minutes only to return dragging a half dozen lepuses by their ears, leaving a wide red wake behind him from the still dripping corpses of his bloodied prey.

“Yeah, Seo-ah’s got a point. We should perhaps wait for the mercenary guilds and the others to come through that portal first,” Topaz said as she slowly worked on taking care of her grenade launcher after the fight, cleaning the chamber and reloading it.

“Fat lot of good that’ll do,” came the familiar voice of Akiko as she appeared beside Nick, munching on a vienna sausage while looking around. “I barely made it through myself.”

“Woah, where did you come from?” Topaz looked more fascinated than ever as she stared wide-eyed at Akiko.

“From the ninja shadow realm, where I’m able to merge with the great spirit of darkness to bypass the sight of mortals.”

“Wow . . . really?” Topaz’s eyes lit up as if she was a kid, hearing lore about her favorite TV show.

“Huh? No. I just walked from the portal. If you weren’t so busy staring at your boss, you’d have easily seen me,” Akiko quipped with a laugh before turning her attention to Nick. “But yeah. The Dungeon Oversight Association has gone crazy over the rift with the Crimson Crusaders; your secretary, Darleen; and even your formerly loyal mercs from the Branches of Yggdrasil all arguing that they should have the rights to the rift. The DOA, in response, is trying to seal the entrance and stop anyone from coming through.”

“That’s not good . . . We need reinforcements.” Nick sighed, staring at the essence, still a little hesitant to begin the process as he had no idea what would happen when he started forming the heart.

“Yeah, we figured as much, boss,” Akiko said, taking a pause to finish her sausage. “That’s why me, Eizo, and Landry decided to break through.”

“Oh, where are they?” Nick asked, checking to see if they were nearby.

“The ninja shadow dimension? Is there actually a ninja class like my Alchemist class?” Topaz asked, turning her head so quickly it looked like she might give herself whiplash.

“Please tell me you didn’t really believe me . . .” Akiko frowned at Topaz, who looked even more disappointed with Akiko’s response than Akiko was with her question.

“So where are your people?” Seo-ah asked, the only one in the group who hadn’t even bothered to whip her head around.

“Yeah . . . we could use the reinforcements. Are they coming?” Nick added, frowning.

“No clue. They’ll be here though,” Akiko assured him. “They’re probably going to create a distraction and sneak through, since security was already tightening behind me.”

“Go figure. It’s always a bureaucrat stopping us from doing the right thing,” Arnold grumbled as he joined the group while the rest of the Walters were busy dismembering the enemies they’d killed, carefully doing their best to preserve as much of the skin as they could while separating the fat and the meat, the bones, and the fur into three neat piles. Their work in the winter mountain dungeon dismantling wolves had clearly paid off.

“Don’t blame them too much. They just don’t know who is right and wrong. Their order is what has preserved peace between the guilds and stopped territorial skirmishes since their founding, but they’ve never seen a rift like that before, so this is all new territory to them,” Mr. Walters said, taking the DOA’s side as he continued to work, not even looking up from his craft as his skinner’s blade cleanly scraped across the hide he was working, cutting the fat off in one quick motion before dumping it into a bucket to be boiled and broken down later.

Nick, remembering how tough some of those monsters were, could only imagine the armor that could be made from the hides and the artic hare’s horns as he watched Mr. Walters take it apart for guild usage. He was also curious about what alchemical creations Topaz could make, but he didn’t have time to talk to her about it. Instead, he just nodded along with Mr. Walter’s logic as the old man spoke.

“Yeah.” Nick voiced his agreement. “He’s right. Without them, guilds our size wouldn’t survive. It’s just annoying that they can’t see how this situation isn’t like the others, but”—Nick took the twenty-five essences and clicked the button to begin forming the domain heart—“we don’t have time to wait on reinforcements. We need to act now and assume none are coming.”

As soon as Nick hit the button to form the domain heart, a large red pulsing ball with tiny tendrils of energy wriggling out of its surface before diving back in like flares of plasma on the sun appeared in front of him. At the same time as the tiny sphere, no larger than a grapefruit, appeared in front of him, a system notification also popped up.

Congratulations on harvesting enough essence to form a Domain Heart! This heart will take one hour to complete and can be placed anywhere upon completion. The heart, so long as it stands, will allow the owner to use additional essence and materials to construct infrastructure and buildings that will aid in protecting the owner’s outpost within the foreign lands.

Please be warned: if the Domain Heart is destroyed, all buildings created and attached to it through the system will be destroyed as well.

So it will aid in protecting us, Nick thought as he read the notification, Seo-ah practically knocking him over as she leaned on him to read it as well.

Just as soon as he thought the notification was over, the red heart pulsed with gold energy, and the core began to morph and transform until the crimson had been completely replaced by a bright, aureate glow as the golden shine grew brighter.

Update! Domain Heart has transformed due to Class Synergy into Heart of the Gym. Several fortification and protection builds have been replaced by class-related buildings that will enhance training rates, buff growth potential, and increase the abilities of the Domain Heart creator’s class.

Immediate effect: So long as a Trainer is within 1,000 feet of the Heart of the Gym, their Training!! base class skill can affect 10 times the targets. This effect does not require the full completion of the Heart of the Gym to activate.

As Nick read this bonus, his jaw dropped. He opened up the skill list to look at Training!!

Training!! (Heart of the Gym)

Allows the trainer to select 70 individuals and help those individuals improve both their skills and their stats at a faster rate than normal so long as the users are within 308 feet of the selected individuals. Individuals selected for the skill will also not suffer penalties or drawbacks from overtraining.

Note: The number of individuals and rate of improvement will vary based on the user's charisma and skill level.

Current improvement rate: 215.6%

Nick nearly fell over as he read the bonuses. At first, he was elated. The idea that he was going to get seventy slots for his Training!! buff, was absolutely amazing, but then he had a pang of regret. He wondered what the buffs and bonuses would have been if someone else had created the Domain Heart. If Maria had made it, would it have been a heart built around the hero class and much stronger than his own?

“If she had made it, it would have been a paltry flat, static buff to aura blades and abilities,” the Black Witch’s voice answered his question before he could even finish thinking it. “The buildings would have all done more damage, but that would be it. If your alchemist had made it, potions would have been more effective, and if your priest had made it, it would have become a sanctuary that would heal any within it. All admirable effects, but none with as much potential as the heart you created,”

How do you know? Nick thought back to the Black Witch as he watched the golden heart continue to grow in front of him, slowly reaching the size of a basketball.

“Because I have found the ruins of other men, the hearts of fallen people. Those that put their heroes in charge of the domains had great weapons, weapons that fell and were destroyed by greater armies. Our realm only lives because my heart, much like yours, is from a charisma-based class. It helps me empower my soldiers so that they can defend the lands better than any weapon could,” she explained. “If you make it to my city, my fortifications, then you can also partake in my boons, buying the items my Domain Heart, the Heart of a Thousand Coins, lets me sell.”

Items that might help me protect my own people, Nick thought as he considered the possibilities. But, before he could ask further, Seo-ah was peering over his shoulder, immediately making demands. “Oh! Training!! is upgraded! Put it on me!”

“It’s already on you,” Nick said, shaking his head at the girl. He had never taken it off Seo-ah for a minute. She was the permanent beneficiary. But, he did take that moment to make sure it was also on everyone else there.

“Them too,” Akiko said, pointing toward the rift as Captain Eizo, leader of her company, and Landry, the wild berserker from her group, walked through the red portal.

“I don’t know why you’re so eager. I love the buff, but it’s not like we’re stepping into the gym,” Lou shrugged, seemingly not sharing the excitement the others had.

“What are you talking about? The battlefield is the gym! Do you think you don’t get a good workout when you play soccer, rugby, or football? If that works you out, then how would a battle where you’re moving even faster, your life literally depending on it, be any less successful at breaking down your muscles and letting you build them back up again?” Mr. Walters immediately snapped at his son.

“Sorry, dad,” Lou muttered, looking like a scolded puppy as he lowered his head and continued to work on dismantling the rabbits, only to stop a second later because his pile of kills was now empty.

“You have to remember, son, that everything is training, and training is everything. You must always seek to have perfect form, focus on the future, and do things the right way no matter what you do, as if you’re always training for the ultimate event of your life. Our bodies, brains and muscles, are always eager for us to tear them apart with rigorous and thorough exercise, and there is no activity that is not an opportunity.

“Except waiting in line to be seated at a country breakfast restaurant near the old Phoenix Guild dungeon. You’re not going to get much training done there,” Lou shot back with a snicker as he alluded to Allen’s mother’s restaurant.

“You’re being ridiculous. Of course you can work out there! Even if you’re just standing in place, you can flex and relax your muscles over and over again. Just give it a try. Flex like you’re about to pose, then relax, then do it again until you wear the muscles down. It’s not only effective, but important. Back in the day, many great weightlifters used to get completely gassed just trying to hold poses for an hour or two at Mr. Olympic competitions.

“Of course that’s why you look like you’re trying to flex at the restaurant dad. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the girl batting her eyelashes at you before serving you twice as much bacon as the rest of the table,” Lou replied, continuing to laugh, his dad clearly not understanding what was funny.

“You know, I hate to interrupt you all, but, uhh . . . why do those monsters look like they’re forming up in a line? They’re just wild beasts . . . right?” Captain Eizo asked as he pointed out into the distance.

Nick turned his head to see what the captain was talking about, only to see the head of a large vulpe, fifteen feet at the shoulder, emerging from the distance as it pushed its way through the trees with a hundred shapes beside it—creatures that resembled massive bears made of ice, wolverines with rocky exteriors, and cats of some kind that faded in and out of sight.

Activating his Omni-Trainer’s Insight, he began to analyze the monsters in front of him, trying to identify the species he didn’t know, but unable to see the cats for long enough, he was only able to get his Omni-Trainer’s Insight off on the wolverine-like creatures.

Gulo Gulo

Level: 45

Type: Rock Beast

A formidable predator of the icy tundra. Standing at nearly seven feet long and covered in jagged, rocky skin, this beast resembles a monstrous wolverine with obsidian claws.

Insight Note:

Rocky Protective Skin: Its skin is as tough as stone, offering substantial protection against slashing attacks and reducing damage taken from most physical sources.

Obsidian Claws: The claws are razor-sharp and capable of slicing through armor and defenses with ease. They can also channel cold energy to inflict additional frostbite damage.

Enhanced Strength: The Gulo Gulo possesses immense physical strength, allowing it to overpower opponents with brute force and powerful swipes of its claws.

“The wolverine thingies have super strength and sharp obsidian claws and are nearly invulnerable to slashing damage,” Nick informed everyone as he and the others watched the large beasts slowly move forward like predators stalking them and looking for the perfect moment to tear them apart.

Nick could feel the tension as everyone rushed to make what preparations they could: rough sharpened stakes hammered into the ground to protect their eastern and westestern flanks, an armor enhancement skill cast by Captain Eizo, as potions of speed and strength were handed out by Topaz. Each member doing their best to supply the others with buffs for the upcoming fight Nick glanced back at the Domain Heart, wondering if the enemies would focus on them, or go straight for the heart, and how much he’d be willing to sacrifice to keep it alive in the upcoming battle.