Level-Up Apocalypse: Surviving With The Assimilation System

There was not a wound, but a tougher portion of skin on his neck, like that of scar tissue from a healed injury. He calmly picked himself up on the solid, yet liquid surface, finding his footing before looking ahead.

The faceless entity remained ahead, simply standing there watching him without any sense of urgency. On the flipside, Finn didn't feel any sense of dread as he looked at it now, looking upon the boundless abyss without a fluctuation in his heart rate.

["Death."]

Experiencing the finality of life and escaping it, there was a certain calmness instilled in him. As he clenched and unclenched his hands, feeling his own fingers, they were left cold as though having sat in ice for hours on end.

He steadily exhaled a breath, adjusting himself from the side-effects of returning from the other side, staring at the one that could easily send him back.

The faceless entity slowly walked towards him as its body morphed; its malleable flesh contorted as if shaped by unseen hands. Handprints appeared across its accursed body, pushing and moving its tar tissue.

Its bare body became one of sable armor; a familiar appearance, as the entity formed from its own flesh a massive axe, dragging it along the surface of the abyss.

Seeing the equipment that was being formed of its own flesh and the weapon it chose to bear, Finn felt a rage bubbling in his gut; it taunted him with the appearance of his fallen friend.

"That's right. You'd be here, wouldn't you, Damian?" Finn quietly said, recognizing the malevolent entity for what it was: a gathering of the fallen.

As the being that took the form of his companion approached, the abyss rumbled; the surface broke. Finn watched as colossal, black limbs shrouded in gauntlets rose from the depths, each carrying axes of their own.

The arsenal of weapons stood in great length akin to trees, some even rivaling skyscrapers as the young man found the starless sky filled with the sight of those axes. All at once, the army of armored arms swung, bringing down the cataclysmic array of blades as he was left with little space to move freely.

His vision was utterly consumed by the sight of the falling axes, like a row of skyscrapers collapsing upon him. He stared past them, at the single open point in the air above–

["Blink Slash"] [2:59]

Into the open, black sky, he appeared, spinning around with his back facing the abyss below as he found another set of arms swinging upon him before he could even begin plummeting.

"--Replication."

["Blink Slash"] [2:59]

Just before the colossal blades could catch him, he warped out of the way. He appeared a dozen meters away, still in the air as he watched the axes clash at the spot he vanished from; the collision caused an array of sparks to fly outward.

The sound of the massive formations of steel striking against one another made him wince slightly, though unable to pause for even a moment as he fell.

Amidst his fall, more arms sprouted from below, already slashing up at him as though he were an apple falling from a tree. In the air itself, there was no foothold, leaving him immobile as the hungering blades hunted him.

"Replication!" He shouted.

The invocation summoned a duplication of himself, having the perfect replica grab onto his arm. He was tugged fiercely, being tossed out of the path of the abyss-rising axes. As he glanced back, the doppelganger took his place in being cut apart, reduced to nothing but a puddle of darkness within a moment.

"Hah," he breathed out, finally able to drop down as his boots landed on the unbreaking surface of the abyss.

The goal was to reach the faceless embodiment of the dead, though he once more found obstacles in the way of that. In place of the axe-wielding arms, he witnessed great ripples expanding across the abyss' surface–

"Shit," Finn let out, hearing that unsettling sound

It was the call of whales, echoing through the hollow night. All at once, a number of the behemoths of the sea rose from the depths. The pod of whales, of black skin like that of orcas, yet with a great, silver horn protruding from their heads–narwhals.

From the dark sea, the majestic, yet horrifying creature rose, soaring into the sky as their calls continued to emit. They circled around the young man, bringing Finn having to hold his ground at the sight of many of the colossal narwhals.

"I'm so damn tired," Finn muttered, looking up at the flying whales.

There was no doubt an uphill battle is what he found himself in; the thought of it was tiring to his exhausted mind. While a large part of himself felt more inclined to simply fall over and sleep forever, he chose to fight, if only because of the guilt that weighed heavy.

All he could think of were those that had fallen, those that never got the chance to fight. He remembered the dreadful sight at his mother's home, along with the fresh memories of the friend he stuck his blade into.

'Why am I the one that's still alive? I'd trade my life for any of theirs in a heartbeat. But, that's not reality. The only truth right now is I'm here, and they aren't. All I can do now is fight, as they'd want me to,' the thoughts filled his mind, granting him the resolve to clench his weapon.

It was akin to forcing oneself to get up from bed at the crack of dawn; leaving the comfort of pillows and blankets as his own body hardly wanted to listen to him.

The calls of the whales continued to resonate like a siren, ushering him to his death. Against creatures of such mass, a dagger would be like trying to skewer a bull with a toothpick.

He relinquished the small blade, calling upon a much larger weapon in its place–the ebon greataxe with a wing-engraved handle. As it manifested into his grip, the exhausted man's shoulders slumped slightly at the weight he wasn't used to.

"You always carried this around like it was nothing," Finn remarked in a quiet voice, reminiscing of the one he inherited the weapon from as he looked at its stainless edge.

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