System Finale: An Apocalyptic Space Opera LitRPG (The System Apocalypse Book 12) Read online

  System Finale

  The Final Book (book 12) of the System Apocalypse

  by

  Tao Wong

  License Notes

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  System Finale

  Copyright © 2022 Tao Wong. All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2022 Sarah Anderson Cover Designer

  A Starlit Publishing Book

  Published by Starlit Publishing

  PO Box 30035

  High Park PO

  Toronto, ON

  M6P 3K0

  Canada

  www.starlitpublishing.com

  Ebook ISBN: 9781990491269

  Paperback ISBN: 9781990491832

  Hardcover ISBN: 9781990491849

  Contents

  What Happened Before

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Books in the System Apocalypse Universe

  Glossary

  Erethran Honor Guard Skill Tree

  John’s Erethran Honor Guard Skills

  Paladin of Erethra Skill Tree

  John’s Paladin of Erethra Skills

  Grand Paladin Skills

  Administrator Skills

  Other Class Skills

  Spells

  Equipment

  What Happened Before

  Traitor. Rebel. Heretic.

  John Lee is all those things. Betraying Earth and turning on them with the Galactic Council vote has set Earth free of the political games it was forced to play, but at the cost of violence and war. Rebelling against the Galactic Council and revealing their deepest secrets has seen him marked for capture, torture, and worse. As a heretic, John has departed from the normal lines of inquiry for the System Quest and, in so doing, become one of the few to breach the mythical 91% completion rate for the Quest.

  Forced to flee the capital of the Galactic Council, Irvina, John Lee and the rest of the crew runs and fights for months in the Forbidden Zone. There, they encounter outcasts, loners, and beings of great and frightening power. Among them is a sapient Golem who entrusts John with his legacy, a sentient, modified golem named Ezz. Further help arrives in the form of the Systemers, a religious group who believes the System itself is God and seek to free it from the clutches of the System Administrators. When the Galactic Council finds John and his friends, the Systemers sacrifice their island. Endila, child-prodigy mechanic, stows away on the Nothing’s Heartbreak.

  Unfortunately, for all their running, their final goal was always known. Breaking into the solar system that Xy’largh, home and birthplace of the dragons that populate the universe, was always going to be a challenge. With all eyes on them, the team manages to breach the protective barrier and enter the solar system, the Galactic Council’s fleet right behind them.

  Mere hours away from reaching the planet and some modicum of safety, John and his team is betrayed. Dornalor, Pirate Captain and trusted pilot, turns them in to save himself and the other crew members, all but Mikito and John.

  Luckily, his betrayal was foreseen and Mikito escapes to meet with an old party member.

  Playing bait once again, John allows himself to be captured and taken by the System Administrators, his fate yet to be determined.

  Chapter 1

  I almost prefer the torture sessions to this. At least when they’re sticking flesh-eating worms under my skin or extracting bones from my extremities, the results are focused, and the intentions of my torturers are easy to guard against.

  This is just so much more insidious.

  “Well, what do you think?” Merdof asks impatiently.

  “A little too bitter,” I answer at last, swallowing the lump of chocolate.

  “It’s chocolate. Of course it’s bitter!”

  “It’s only sixty percent cocoa. You added a bunch of sugar and milk to it too, to give it creaminess, but still managed to make it too bitter. I’d expect it to be that bitter and rich at around eighty or ninety percent,” I reply, pocketing the remaining piece of chocolate.

  “You’re still taking it.”

  “Of course I am. It’s chocolate.” I lean back in the chair, fixing the man across from me with my stare. I’m told it’s unnerving when I just look at people. Something about the simmering anger or the way a part of me—the part that has blossomed and grown thanks to the System and a lot of Intelligence points—runs the numbers and angles if I need to take someone apart.

  Maybe it says something about my life that the need is all too common.

  “What?”

  I shrug, letting my gaze roam over the industrial kitchen we’re in. It looks similar to what I’d expect a full-sized industrial kitchen would look like, with multiple stoves, burners, gleaming metal appliances, and kitchen sinks. Of course, the sinks are sonic disruptors, and the stoves are convection ovens that generate heat via Mana Stones, but outside of those details, a typical commercial kitchen.

  “No, seriously, what?” he asks.

  “Just trying to figure out your play.”

  “Chocolate.”

  I give him a flat stare and he shrugs.

  “You’re a smart human. You know what the play is.”

  “Yeah, I do. Good cop, bad cop.” I raise one stump of a hand, the fingers and wrist still growing back from the latest session. “Torture, pain, mutilation, and death.” I raise my untouched other hand. “Chocolate, friendly conversations, and betrayal.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But what makes you think I know anything worth all this effort?” I shake my head. “We’ve been at this for what, nearly a year now?”

  I’ve kind of lost track of time. The Administrators cheat a little, twisting how much time passes in this dimensional plane they’re keeping me in. I know, via the Administrative Interface I still have a modicum of access to, that I’m still attached to Xy’largh and time compressed, but I don’t know exactly how much.

  “In your Earth years, yes.” A pause, then the grin again. “Just over, in truth.”

  “Can’t be cheap. I know the System doesn’t like when you waste so many resources putting up a time compressed zone. Hell, our experience gains have been hammered because of it.”

  “But still good, do you not think so?”

  “In a sense.”

  I have to admit he’s right. One of the reasons why they let me have my System access is to let me code solutions for the System. I’m still gaining experience from it, though it’s incredibly heavily discounted. But considering when I’m not being tortured, I have nothing better to do half the time, I’ve been a good little worker bee.

  It amuses me that the other Administrators thus far have yet to patch the cheat Mikito and I found. It’s not as if it’s not staring all of us in the face when we access the System Ticketing Board. Sometimes, I wonder if they’re using it to track her. I can’t think of how, but for all my skill and ability to absorb information, the System literally runs everything in our lives, and I’ve had only a few years to work out how to use it. Some of the other Administrators have had literal centuries.

  “You are correct, however,” Merdof says. “Every day that you delay us, it grows harder to justify keeping you alive.”

  “Then don’t.” I shrug. “I mean, I’m not exactly wanting to die, but considering my other options…”

  “And what if I said that rather than death, the other hand gets you? For eternity.”

  “Eternity’s a long time.”

  “We have Skills.”

  I grunt, closing my eyes for a second. It’s a sign of weakness, of them getting to me. A year ago, I wouldn’t have even given them that much. A year ago, I was all piss and vinegar, ready to take
everything they could throw at me with the confidence that I’d come out swinging.

  A year ago, I hadn’t been put through hell and back.

  Truth is, pain—constant pain—and the things it does to a person is impossible to predict. You never know how you’ll react, what you’ll do when your daily existence can change on a whim. One moment, you’re working on a new ticket, the next, you’re screaming your head off.

  And I do scream. I might not have broken, I won’t break—at least not yet, though the gods know what it’d be like a thousand years down the road—but I do scream. Holding it in is worthless, since by that point, they’ve stripped everything from me anyway—skin, organs, dignity….

  A year ago, I would have not given them this much. But all this time has stripped me down, burnt out foolish egoistical things like not screaming. Sure, I’ll think about telling them all I know. I’ll flinch. They know it, I know it, so why bother hiding?

  But…

  “I guess I’ll be screaming a long time then.”

  A grim nod. “He’s not your friend.”

  “I never thought he was,” I reply.

  “The Prime Administrator will not save you,” he continues.

  “Didn’t figure him to.”

  “And we will capture your friends.”

  “I’m sure you will try.” I return his heated gaze with my own, taunting him.

  He stands, fast and hard, and the mask falls away. I’m not surprised. They keep changing the good cop, hoping at some point they’ll find someone that works. They’ve tried it all—big and ugly but friendly to thin and cute and perky. At least five different sexes at last count, just under a dozen races. Some don’t last more than a few days, others like Merdof last months.

  They all break eventually.

  I guess if I had a skill, it’d be pissing people off.

  He claps his hands and they come, dragging me out. I could fight, but what’s the point? The bracers on my hands short-circuit any of my Skill use. And the moment I try, they’ll drain me of Mana, shut down my link to the System, and beat me even more.

  More importantly, I’ve never managed to kill the guards before I’m caught.

  So I wait for the time when my friends come and rescue me.

  And even if they do drag me into the room—gods, the room—and truss me up for my latest round of torture, I wait. Knowing that somewhere, sometime, they’ll come for me.

  I just have to hold out.

  ***

  When they throw me back into my cell—and it is a cell, with about nine feet of space both ways—I’m left bleeding and broken. The System of course does its thing, and within ten minutes, I’m back to normal, albeit without a shred of functioning clothing. It doesn’t bother me anymore, recreating my wild youth on Wreck Beach.

  More interesting for me is the way the System works on my mind. Constant torture has rewired certain parts of me, the anticipation of pain nearly as bad as the pain itself. Chemicals—both good and bad—flood my body, some to dull what happened, others to ready me for another long bout. I could name them—stupid Intelligence—but that kind of data has been side-slotted somewhere in the System and I’m content to leave it.

  No, what’s more interesting for me is the way the System slowly clears some of the chemicals and memories, taking the “bite” out of them. It doesn’t remove the memories—in fact, again with the evil Intelligence boosts, I can remember all of the sessions in vivid detail—but the emotional impact gets dulled. The memories themselves are slowly moved away from my mind to something else, the part of me that the System has boosted and changed ever since I started increasing the Intelligence attribute.

  For a very, very long time, I believed—the Questors believe—that the System can’t really read our minds. It can—at best—read the flashes in our brains—or the alien equivalent of our mushy organ—and interpret that for its own use. It’s capable enough that when it injects information into us—like our Skills or Classes—it can read how we take it all in, make adjustments, and ensure that when we need to trigger them, they work. Sort of like strapping electrodes to a brain and watching the MRI imaging. You can see the parts flash up for arousal, boredom, logical thinking, and you can make guesses, but the exact details? That’s impossible to guess.

  That’s why, we always believed, the Shop doesn’t sell information in our heads. Because the System doesn’t have it—and if it doesn’t have it, it can’t sell it. However, the past year has me wondering about all that.

  The way the System pulls memories of my torture sessions, dulls my feelings and the emotional impact, sideloading them just like my Skills so that they’re accessible but no longer directly affecting me… It begs the question. How can it do that if it can’t read my thoughts?

  Obvious answer—it’s recording where everything goes in high-stress situations, then pulling all of it aside later to shunt away. It’s why PTSD and nightmares are less common. At first, that was my prevailing theory. It lined up with all the information the Library has, it didn’t break the prevailing theories and tests that had been run, and well, it was comforting. To know that the System had limits, that there were places in our minds, in our existence, where we were safe.

  Unfortunately, the longer I’m subjected to all this, the more I doubt the theories. Reflecting on how easily the System manages things like adjusting the size, spacing, and alterations of where and when spells fall, how Skills are triggered, and even things like putting Portals in the right place, I have to wonder—how does the System know all this without reading our minds?

  More to the point, with how easily it extracts the memories of the pain and fear and humiliation, leaving but portions of the emotional toll behind, the way it smooths things out, I can’t help but think there’s something more going on. A series of deliberate choices to aid an individual. Not necessarily to heal them all the way, but to keep them functioning.

  Functioning and processing Mana and Leveling, which as far as I can tell—and everyone agrees—is what the System really cares about. The intake of unaspected Mana and processing of it through our bodies—and how and why we do that is a mindfuck of its own that someone else can deal with—is what the System wants. Everything else—from Dungeon Worlds to Levels to Statuses—seems to be built around that. Even Levels are just a method of slowly pushing individuals to take in more Mana.

  Of course, one does wonder why not just force us all to take in as much unaspected Mana as we can and call it a day? Outside of the very real barriers that physical bodies, unused to the rigors of processing such levels, would fail—and trust me, you don’t want to see those experiments—something else is holding back the System.

  After all, there’s nothing to stop it from slowly fattening us up from birth, adding more and more Mana processing ability until we’re all pulling in Mana like Legendarys and cycling it back to the System. There’s no reason it can’t do that, at least from the experiments the Corrupt Questors have undertaken.

  Yeah, they stole children—or in some cases, bred them specially—just so they could then slowly force the kids to take in more and more Mana. It’s a little disgusting really, and a lot of the failed experiments are the ones you don’t want in your head. But with the right Classes, spells, and enchanted locations, it’s possible to get a few kids to process unaspected Mana at incredibly high levels.

  Most of those experiments ended badly. The other aspect of being able to process so much unaspected Mana is the ability to wield it. Most end up with weird System Classes, twisted and unique, almost all focused on spell work. Which they then wield on their captors, more often than not, since most of their captors and the Questors aren’t the loving, kind father figures you’d want around.

  One experiment took heed of the cautionary tales and managed to bring up a kid who had the power of a Legendary—well, the Mana pool and regeneration rate at least—while still a Basic Class. He even loved his

  “parents” and stood by them when the Galactic Council found their little hideout. They all perished that day, of course.

  You don’t defy the Council and expect to live.

  Which is why, when my brain finally stops wibbling in the corner and I have some control over my body and emotions again, I limp over to the showers. Walking without the toes of one foot sucks, but at least they left me the other one this time. I hate crawling to the showers.