The Omnithaneum

by Matthew Powell

  Back in the game, nothing had changed. The Demons Who Corrupt had never bothered to reinforce the position, which saved Joshua from appearing in the middle of a heavily armed camp. Seeing no one nearby, he headed right for the dungeon.

  The dungeon’s entrance was the mouth of a cave, noticeably sloping down as he stepped past the entrance. The floor and walls were lined with plants, though almost all of them were wilting or dead. If the grotto’s description was to be believed, it was a Demon sorcerer’s magic that caused this. He couldn’t help but wonder if Centus had been here.

  Joshua followed the sloping path to a large empty cavern. The cavern had a large hole in the roof letting sunlight in, disguised among the countless hills and craters dotting the wasteland. Dead grass and vines littered the floor and walls, along with the degraded corpses of what looked like plant monsters. On the opposite end of the room was a markedly different passage.

  This area, judging by the dungeon’s description, had likely been the whole dungeon before it was corrupted. Joshua could already see the battles taking place in his mind, imagining these plant monsters growing out of the walls, turning the grotto into an arena.

  The passage at the other end of the room, he could tell, was the newly corrupted dungeon. The grass and vines that stretched into the passage weren’t dead but were noticeably darker and had more thorns. The entire entrance seemed to radiate with corrupting energy. The energy, Joshua discovered as he crossed the grotto and entered the passage, wasn’t just his imagination.

  Corrupted Radiation Zone Entered!

  Everything in the area will take 1500 damage per minute.

  The damage was only an annoyance to Joshua thanks to Pestilence Sacrifice, not even cutting his passive healing in half, but he could see it being a problem to anyone without regeneration. It was nearly 300 times stronger than the radiation outside that he had come to ignore. A regular player of his level would be killed in under two hours without aid. Since it was impossible to tell just how long it would normally take to clear a dungeon, this was the kind of thing that groups would have to make special preparations to deal with.

  Joshua dismissed the notification and kept moving. The grass underneath his feet crunched loudly as his armored boot stepped on it, and he was surprised to actually take a small amount of damage. Lifting his armored boot, he could see a single blade of grass had managed to pierce right through the armor. It had only done a few points of damage, but the grass had completely ignored both his barrier and the armor’s damage mitigation.

  Joshua expanded his Virulence Aura, killing all the plants nearby. While the damage the grass could deal was so low it had already healed, he saw no reason to take any risks. Even with a good chunk of his Pestilence generation going towards healing, there was more than enough left over to fill the cave.

  A Sickly Spider’s Web stretched out through the stone beneath him, but Joshua found his detection blocked. Either the dungeon itself was blocking his detection, or something deeper inside was. Joshua sincerely hoped it was the former.

  As Joshua walked deeper into the tunnels, the light from the hole in the grotto eventually stopped reaching. The Blight Lord Set’s Plague Vision meant that this wasn’t a problem, but he was starting to wonder how regular groups would be able to cope with this many obstacles. He hadn’t even reached the first monster yet.

  Eventually, the passage opened up into another cavern similar to the first, though without the light. Pestilence Vision didn’t naturally reach far enough for Joshua to detect the entire cavern, but that problem was fixed by throwing a little Pestilence at it. He was starting to push past his generation to deal with all these little tasks, taking nearly 3500 Pestilence/min out of his 3750/min generation.

  The Cavern was mostly the same as the first, with one noticeable difference. In the middle was what seemed to be a giant boar. It was resting on its side at the moment but was still as tall as Joshua. While sneaking past the boar seemed to be an option, it was one that Joshua didn’t even consider as a dozen swords flew through the air.

  Irradiated Razorback

  Tier: 5

  Level: 28

  HP: 300,000/330,000

  The damage that the swords dealt was negligible, serving more as a wake-up call when they struck it in its exposed stomach. The monster sprang to its feet with a loud squeal, reaching a full height of 10-feet tall. Now that Joshua was able to get a better sense of it, the boar was truly monstrous. Not only was it massive, but its name rang true thanks to the massive spines jutting out of its back. The boar’s tusks were surprisingly small, closer to the size of normal animals, but still enough to gut Joshua through his armor if they had that massive beast’s weight behind them.

  The boar charged without a second’s hesitation, forcing Joshua to take to the air on a Pestilence platform. The charging animal crashed into the cavern wall with a loud crunching noise, causing Joshua to think it may have damaged itself. That thought quickly proved false when the monster tore gouged a hole in the wall where it hit, its short tusks leaving visible trenches through the stone.

  The boar backed off from the wall and looked up, staring at Joshua through the darkness, and squealed louder than before. The noise didn’t seem to be some kind of damaging attack, but it was loud enough to be annoying. The boar started pacing, and Joshua realized it didn’t have any method of reaching him. He had thought it might be able to shoot the spines on its back as projectiles, but apparently not.

  Without that potential threat, the boar couldn’t even put up a fight. Unfortunately, Joshua didn’t have any method of damaging the boar either. He tried throwing more swords at it, but the spines on its back seemed to rotate and knock the blades away. Even if they managed to hit, the floating swords were too weak to damage anything but its soft underbelly.

  Joshua came up with a new idea and tried to create floating guns instead of swords. The idea worked at first, but the floating assault rifles were so weak that the boar didn’t even seem to notice them. The floating swords worked so well because they were based on his Plague-Ridden Obsidian Longsword, whereas he had no effective ranged weapon to copy. There was still the Endemic Magnum, but he had been neglecting its upgrades.

  Descending to fight the boar head-on was an option that Joshua was hoping to avoid. While he was confident in surviving a few hits, maybe even trading blows with the giant beast, it may take time to recover afterward. If fights like this were going to be the norm from now on, he needed a way to win without getting his own hands dirty. His sword and shield would ideally be used more for defense than offense.

  Joshua thought to the weapons that the Saints and Demons used against eachother. Replicating something like that with Pestilence would be ideal, but there was a boar to fight right now. He would try to buy one on the auction house later.

  Joshua dropped from his floating platform, and the boar immediately charged to meet him. Joshua caught the boar’s charge with his shield, forcing himself not to jump back as its tusks punched through, almost reaching his arm. Seeing an opportunity, Joshua used the shield’s Envelope ability to grasp the boar’s tusks.

  The monster immediately started thrashing against the hold, nearly ripping the shield out of Joshua’s grip. Joshua formed five more floating shields surrounding the boar, pinning it down and holding it in place. Its spines tore through the shields when it struggled, but Joshua dug into his Pestilence storage to reform them instantly.

  Floating swords formed outside the shields, stabbing through the gaps and creating an iron maiden-like trap. None of the swords were able to pierce all the way through the animal’s hide, much like with the Demon soldier’s armor, but the two infection-variant flying eyes he also created could. They entered the boar through the shallow wounds that the swords were able to create, and that signaled the end of the fight.

  The battle wound down to a fight of endurance. Joshua had to keep using Pestilence to reinforce the shields and swords, while the boar’s health rapidly dropped. The mons
ter didn’t last nearly as long as the soldier outside did, and it fell shortly after the infection began.

  Level 28 Irradiated Razorback has died!

  Zandrius gains 250,000 (1,250,000) EXP

  The EXP, while great, still wasn’t enough for Joshua to reach level 9. More valuable was the Pestilence, of which the boar gave a solid 5000. It wasn’t a massive amount, or even a particularly large amount, but there would be many more of these monsters farther down into the tunnels.

  Joshua found the exit to the next section of the dungeon and sat down next to it. It would take a few minutes to regain his lost Pestilence, and he wanted to spend that time browsing the auction house. It was time to find a real ranged weapon.

  Prices for weapons had dropped significantly since the last time he had checked. Weapons meant for tier 5 players were still rare and expensive, but not nearly as much as they would have been just a little while ago. The prices would likely drop even more if he waited a few hours, but that would be because people started catching up to him.

  Joshua was a little uncertain of what to buy. There were plenty of conventional weapons, such as assault rifles, but they didn’t quite have the piercing power that he would need to fight the dungeon monsters, and they also came with the problem of needing ammunition. Narrowing his search to things that could be powered with his own energy led Joshua to an entirely new section of the auction house.

  Apparently, weapons that could be empowered by a player and didn’t need ammo were in high demand. There were numerous magical bows, advanced laser rifles, coilguns, and more, all specially made to change and adapt according to a player’s energy. It took less than a minute for Joshua to find the perfect weapon for him.

  Rail-Rifle

  Semi-Automatic Light Railgun

  Damage Potential: 1000 Blunt/80,000 Piercing/30,000 Rotational

  Special Abilities: Adaptation, Overcharge

  This Rail-Rifle has been engraved with energy-absorbing runes that allow it to turn the user’s own power into ammunition. Cost varies based on energy used, ammunition may gain special effects and extra damage based on the type of energy. Damage to the weapon may also be repaired with the same energy.

  The runes powering this weapon can be overcharged, creating a single powerful shot. Overcharging will damage the weapon, with the damage increasing based on the amount of energy used.

  Current Bid: 13,000 credits

  Buyout price: 20,000 credits

  The Rail-Rifle’s auction didn’t end for another two hours, so Joshua reluctantly paid the buyout price. This dropped his total credits down to 15,600, less than he had started with when he started playing Macrocosm, but that didn’t deter him.

  While he had the auction house open, Joshua threw the laser rifles he had been looting from the Saint and Demon recruits up for 100 credits each. None of them had been improved by the Plague Dimension, so they wouldn’t nearly make up for what he had spent, but they would certainly help. He was tempted to also sell the Ordnance Bombard and chainmace that he had looted from the Demon soldier, as both would likely sell for more than the Rail-Rifle but chose to keep them instead. They might prove useful later when he needed to upgrade his arsenal.

  The Rail-Rifle appeared in Joshua’s hands as he finished the transaction. It looked like a chrome tube, roughly three feet long, with a stock and trigger mechanism. A series of dim blue lights ran along the outside of the tube, signifying its current uncharged state. A new notification appeared when he grabbed it.

  Would you like to modify the Rail-Rifle with Pestilence?

  Joshua thought yes and felt a small quantity of Pestilence flow through him into the rifle. The weapon almost immediately began to change. The chrome took on a brown color, with black specks along the surface. The dim blue lights began to shine bright green, before dimming once again. The stock and trigger mechanism took on an almost organic texture, slightly disturbing Joshua. Even the weapon’s stats had changed slightly.

  Infested Rail-Rifle

  Semi-Automatic Light Railgun

  Damage Potential: 1000 Blunt/80,000 Piercing/30,000 Rotational/50,000 Infection 5000P/shot

  Special Abilities: Adaptation (Pestilence), Overcharge

  This Rail-Rifle has been engraved with energy-absorbing runes that allow it to turn the user’s own power into ammunition. Cost varies based on energy used, ammunition may gain special effects and extra damage based on the type of energy. Damage to the weapon may also be repaired with the same energy. Current adaptation (Pestilence) gives each shot an infection DOT.

  The runes powering this weapon can be overcharged, creating a single powerful shot. Overcharging will damage the weapon, with the damage increasing based on the amount of energy used.

  The weapon was certainly impressive, Joshua thought, as he immediately dismissed the notification and attempted to recreate the weapon with pestilence. Joshua realized it wasn’t going to be that easy when his first attempt failed miserably, creating a gun-shaped pile of goo that he quickly reabsorbed.

  Recreating his sword and shield was only so easy because he had crafted those items from Pestilence originally. Recreating something that he had bought instead of crafted would require more effort.

  A few more attempts ended similarly to the first before Joshua realized what he was doing wrong. When he was forming the sword and shield, he just imagined the shape that they were and recreated it, while Pestilence Manipulation and Pestilence Mastery filled in the missing details. That worked fine for things as simple as swords and shields, but something like the railgun was slightly more complicated than that.

  But then, why was creating the Endemic Magnum so simple? Perhaps it had something to do with the crafting process. Crafting his weapons and armor had involved basically dumping Pestilence into the process and vaguely guiding it with ideas but recreating those things with Pestilence Manipulation required more in-depth knowledge of the item.

  Finally thinking of an idea, Joshua coated the Rail-Rifle with a thin layer of Pestilence. The energy, in the form of a thick cloud, slid into the weapon and scouted out its insides. He didn’t need to truly understand how the weapon worked, which was good because he had no idea what any of the parts did, he just needed to know what to copy. Once he figured it out, the skills should fill in the rest.

  With the Pestilence-coated Rail-Rifle in his left hand, Joshua began to recreate it with his right. Rather than try to create the weapon all at once, he focused on a single piece at a time, using the original to sense out every little bit. He probably missed a few pieces along the way, but he could feel Pestilence Mastery step in, like a guiding hand, to fix the mistakes.

  Five minutes and 15,000 Pestilence later, Joshua was holding an imperfect replica of the Rail-Rifle. It was weaker than the original, just like his swords had been, but that weakness also meant each shot cost less to fire. That added with the decreased cost from Pestilence Mastery, lowering the total cost of each shot to 2500 instead of 5000.

  Joshua dismissed the creation and reformed it, this time in under a second. Now that he had the process figured out, he could create it just like the swords and shields. The cost for each one, after Pestilence Mastery, came out to 10,000 per rifle. It was a steep cost, especially since he still had to pay for each shot, but Joshua already had ideas about how to make the new weapon more efficient.

  Since the new guns were just a product of his own Pestilence instead of a separate weapon, he should be able to modify them. The floating gun was controlled entirely by his Pestilence, so a trigger and stock weren’t needed, causing the new gun to look more like a floating tube.

  That sheared the cost down to 7500, but now he had to deal with the power problem. The shots from the weakened rifle-clones were only as strong as a powerful sword swing. In that situation, it would be more efficient to just create dozens of swords and skewer everything. The shots had more penetrating power, sure, but they also needed raw damage. There was also the issue of appearance. After all, a bunch of floa
ting tubes didn’t exactly inspire fear in the enemy.

  The result was a disk, half a meter in diameter and an inch thick. The rifle’s old internal working was spread out inside the disk, with a few extras to make it more powerful. The exact working of it probably made no sense in terms of real physics, Joshua realized, but they certainly worked in-game. It probably didn’t even count as a railgun anymore, since there wasn’t any rail, but he didn’t care so long as it worked. The extra parts had even strengthened each shot, though it came at a cost.

  By Joshua’s estimate, each shot should be roughly as powerful as the original gun’s, though he had no way to check until the next fight. Energy started gathering near the edge of the disk, slowly flowing towards the center, whereupon it would launch a solid projectile at over two kilometers per second. At least, Joshua thought it was that fast. If it wasn’t, then this whole thing was a waste and he could have gone with a regular gun. The extra power rose the cost of each shot up to 3500, but that was a small enough price to pay.

  Joshua formed five of them, forming a half-halo behind him. He couldn’t wait to test out his new toy on the next enemy, so he immediately rushed towards the next room. It was time to have some fun.