Level-Up Apocalypse: Surviving With The Assimilation System

While it lost track of him, he circled around, pushing past the blazing trees. He sought its feet, finding that to be the best start in bringing down a beast of its scale.

The only problem was, even finding its giant feet was a task amidst the smoke-filled forest.

'Where is it?' He wondered.

Taking a quick stop, he slid to a pause, observing the fluctuations in the dense smoke. Racing through the woods, he turned between two trees before–

"Ah!--"

"--?"

He came to a stop, nearly crashing into another person, who reacted as though he were some kind of monster. A man likely around his age with shaggy, ginger hair, carrying a crossbow in his right hand.

["Ascended Sleuth"]
Continue your journey with empire

[Name: Gilbert Hamson] [Level: 76] [Class: Ranger] [System: Default]

'Another survivor? His level is good—why's he look like he's seen a ghost? Ah…probably the dragon,' Finn discerned.

"You—gotta run!" The ranger warned him.

"Run if you gotta, I can handle this," Finn assured the man.

It was reassuring seeing another person, though the circumstances hardly seemed appropriate to feel good. Just above, he could see and hear the breath of the dragon laying waste to another section of the forest.

That horrible sound, like a tidal wave of destruction burning away at the land, caused the ranger to tremble like a soaked puppy.

"You're not…serious, are you? Fighting that thing? It's already killed so many—I've seen so many die!" Gilbert claimed, shaking his head in distress with eyes that had witnessed atrocities.

"Slow down—what's going on here, anyway?" Finn asked.

"It's!—"

Before Gilbert could get another word out, the assassin found the azure flames shining down on their position. Without wasting a moment, he grabbed ahold of the man's arm, dragging him as he pushed his foot off the ground—

["Spring Foot"] ["Supercharge"]

"Waaaaaoh!" Gilbert yelled out from the sudden burst of speed.

Just as the flames touched down, he wound up passing over dozens of meters of ground before somehow sliding into the entrance of a cave.

"Guaaah…What was that?! I feel like puking my guts out…" Gilbert huffed, leaning over, placing his hand against the bumpy, rock wall as he spat out.

"I saved your life. You're welcome," Finn said.

"You don't get it, do you?! This place—it's hell! Everybody was forced into it…I was on the twentieth floor before it just transported me…" Gilbert dropped down, sitting on the cave floor.

The sounds of the beast roaring in the forest echoed like the winds of a calamity. A harrowing noise, turning away any ideas of a pleasant time.

Finn stared at the ranger, "You don't know what happened outside, do you? To Earth."

"What? What're you talking about?" Gilbert asked, looking up.

"Everything out there–it's gone. It's destroyed," Finn admitted, feeling a tightness in his chest when recalling that dreadful scenery.

"...Huh? You're kidding, right? Do you mean…the last of humanity–it's everyone in this place?" Gilbert asked, becoming incredibly pale with the news. "That's a lie, right? How can you know–"

"I was out there," Finn clarified.

Even against the bestial cries outside of the cave, the silence between the two survivors among few upon relaying the news stood stronger.

"Shit…Shit! What the hell do we do then? It's over, isn't it? It's over…" Gilbert mourned.

He knelt down, staring at the man who looked about a single breeze from crumbling away, clutching onto himself as if scared of that possibility.

"Nothing's over," Finn said, not with unshaken confidence, but a necessity to his words.

"If what you're saying is the truth, then what do you mean?...There's not a world for us anymore–it's death, one way or another," Gilbert said, gripping onto his own hair.

"The Tower is still standing. In a broken, dismantled world, it's standing," Finn observed.

Gilbert looked at him, "What about it…?"

Finn stood himself up as the cave rumbled with the ongoing mayhem produced by the rampaging beast, "That means humanity hasn't lost yet. The world is still being held together, barely–that means it's not over yet. It's not "game over"--not until every last one of us gives up."

["That's right. Right now, I have to believe with everything I've got. It doesn't matter if it's far-fetched, or if I don't even trust it…If I can say it, if I can make somebody else believe, then it's real.

Nothing's for certain. It might even be less than a one percent chance that it can all be fixed.

But, if that's not true, the only alternative is that…it's the end of everything.

So, the only thing to do then is to believe in a path to victory."]

The ginger-haired, youthful man sniffled, trying to suppress his own panicked tears, "You really think…it can be fixed? People we lost, all that…It can be brought back?"

"I know that there's somebody waiting for us at the top of this messed up tower. Whether it's God or some all-powerful alien, I'll beat the shit out of him if that's what it takes to turn the clock on this hell," Finn declared with a straight face.

Gilbert looked at a loss for words, "Do you hear yourself…? You're making it sound simple."

"Maybe it's that I have nothing left, but now—I feel like I can do anything. I don't have any fear of failing," Finn admitted.

It was the truth; a certain freedom inhabited his body, as there was only one path ahead, only one choice to make—fight.

"Anyway…I'm going to handle that noisy dragon. I'll make it quick," Finn declared as though it were a simply chore such as washing the dishes, heading out of the cave.

"Wait, seriously, man—you can't!—"

Though Gilbert reached out, the ranger stopped as he finally took notice of the level wielded by the reckless assassin.

A harsh wind blew through the forest, leaving Finn dashing out right into the fiery fray.

["Phantom Stream"]

He sprinted with silent steps, becoming a blur like a shadow in the night, quietly moving with sublime speed. Fireballs rained down in all directions, exploding into the forest surface as screams echoed.

A roar from the grand beast parted the smoke, granting him a view of it from below as he approached.

["Critical Observation"]

The hue of his irises shifted as he perceived the weaknesses of the dragon, few as they may be. In his vision, red spots were shown at the ankles, knees, and chest of the dragon.

It was clear to him that the legs of such a colossal creature would prove to be its weakness, though the chest surprised him.

'Alright, time to put this down,' he resolved.

Approaching the obsidian feet of the colossal beast, the white-clad fist of his activated with a turning of a clock—

[Chronos Trigger: Accelerate]

The time pertaining only to his own body was elevated, allowing him to ascend his movements tenfold faster. As if warping, he blitzed past the heels of the beast, unleashing a massive slash—

["Critical Severance"] ["Vital Strike"]

As small as his daggers may be compared to its feet, it didn't matter; the width of its Achilles' heel was slashed in its entirety.

'—And down it goes,' he thought, coming to a sliding halt.

Both of the dragon's heels were split open with a gash that rained down violet blood. A roar of pain left the beast's maw, rumbling the entire forest as it came down like a collapsing mountain.

He stayed clear of its path, witnessing countless trees be crushed on its descent before slamming into the ground.

The ground shattered, breaking into pieces that split up as he shuffled on his feet to stop himself from falling.

"—Hope nobody was under the big guy," Finn mumbled to himself.

He didn't waste the opportunity to hop onto its fallen wing, running up its field of a body.

'With my skill set, a large, slow target is perfect,' he thought.

—That confidence was brushed away as beneath his feet, the vast body he ran across suddenly vanished into thin air. He felt down to the ground, finding the fields of black scales simply gone without a trace.

It didn't make sense seeing something that could rival mountains simply "poof" away. That's when he noticed it—the strange man standing across the smashed forest grounds.

A tall, four-armed man with a face twisted in rage like a snarling hound. Armored in obsidian scales, the imposing man breathed out azure smoke, swaying through his glossy, sable tufts.

"A pesky fly. It's been years since I've been pushed to use this form," the scaled man huffed.

[Special entity recognized.]

["Oracos, The Dread"] [Level: 115]

It was only then did the assassin realize that the oddly-formed man was the very same dragon he cut down.

'It changed its form? I guess it realized it was at a disadvantage with that big body,' Finn observed.