Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 126: Homecoming

Once, the low rumbling of the plane’s turbines would have ground at Isaac’s nerves, a perennial reminder of the fact that there were better things he could be doing with his time. And while he still would have rather just stepped through a portal and been home in under a second, he wasn’t quite as annoyed at his current mode of travel.

Isaac leaned back in his seat and sighed as he opened up the [Bloodline] menu.

Familial Powers (High Human, Hildebrand’s Heir)

Racial Bloodline (automatically unlocked)

Aspected Bloodline I (Cost: 1 Skill point)

Improved Stats I (Cost: 1 Skill point)

Skilled Bloodline I (Cost: 1 Skill point)

Empower Relatives I (Cost: 5 Skill points)

Emergency Beacon (Cost: 3 Skill Points)

Situational Activation (Cost: 1 Skill point)

Permitted Activation (Cost: 1 Skill point)

Inherited Aura (Cost: 5 Skill points)

Craft specific Bloodline? Y/N (Cost: 5 Skill points, will deactivate this menu in its entirety)

Making other people stronger could be done really cheaply, or it could get super expensive, depending on how you went about it. Adding individual abilities as you gained them was perfectly workable, but it would result in a vast collection of seemingly random [Skills] that would supersede the holder’s regular abilities. Holding someone else’s Core [Skill] meant that one would be able to get one fewer core [Skill] belonging to one’s own [Class] of an equivalent Evolution, and so on.

One could pack on a fuckton of powerful abilities, but it could prevent future descendants from collecting the [Skills] that were right for them, potentially even crippling them.

Then there was the small issue of high Evolution [Skills] needing a certain degree of Stats backing them. Someone trying to summon a legendary weapon like Balmung at Level one would probably burn out their mana channels. Something like that would heal, sure, but it would be incredibly painful.

Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem because it wasn’t possible to get access to high Evolution [Skills] without having the required Stats. Sure, you could level up without spending Stat points, but that would have been just plain daft, wouldn’t it?

Then you had the option of making your [Aura] inheritable, which was a terrible idea. [Auras] were the most personal part of the [System], something that needed to be chosen by the wielder themselves. An ancestor’s [Aura], even a legendary one, would likely be nigh-useless.

Another awesome trick was the ability for [Bloodline]-holders to send out a distress call to everyone else who had it, a must-have in the current climate. A couple of young girls, with a powerful bloodline but their only defender being away most of the time … terrible things might happen otherwise.

Of course, [Bloodlines] also risked granting people who’d only just gained access to its powers the ability to throw around fireballs or bolts of lightning. Given that this usually happened in toddlers … yeah, the two limiting powers of [Permitted Activation] and [Situational Activation] were likewise absolutely vital. The former would lock the selected [Skills] unless both parents granted permission for them to be used, and they would then become permanently available once the children became adults. The latter, meanwhile, let the progenitor of a bloodline create certain circumstances that would allow for the use of the selected [Skills].

The optimal choice truly was simply creating a [Bloodline], spending a mere five [Skill] points to create complete package and being done with it. Of course, doing so would make sure you’d never get the chance to fix potential mistakes.

Another thing to consider was the limit of how strong a given [Bloodline] become, which was limited by the rarity of the third Evolution [Class] of its originator. A common [Class] might allow for a couple of Level’s worth of Stat points and maybe one [Skill] to be imbued into the bloodline. Meanwhile, Isaac’s legendary third Evolution would let him dump an absolute fuckton of power in there, making his family the equivalent of a peak second Evolution fighter.

Yet that would lock them into that particular niche for essentially the rest of their lives, and he didn’t want to do that to them, let alone any potential new siblings, nieces, nephews, children or grandchildren. What he wanted was something to keep everyone safe, to allow them to defend themselves, without removing future choices or taking up core [Skill] slots.

Therefore, he first bought [Empower Relatives] so he could actually pass his [Bloodline] on to his family, then set out to create it.

Bloodline of the Hellborn Survivor (legendary)

The legacy of a warrior who lived through countless battles, countless injuries, countless tragedies, someone who came through it all completely intact. And that is what this Bloodline represents.

As its first holder was a High Human, all others also gain this powerful Race. In addition to this, it grants countless Skills useful to surviving attacks.

Firstly, it comes with extraordinary regenerative capabilities, which even extend to injuries to the brain, a separate mana storage to power said regeneration and the power for organs to take over the function of other, damaged ones. And when all of that proves insufficient, the body will temporarily gain the power to ignore nearly all injuries. Starting once they have reached the age of majority, they also gain significant resistance to pain.

Secondly, the holder of this bloodline has the ability to phase through solid objects, granting them the mobility needed to escape all confinement.

Thirdly, it automatically grants a preternatural level of skill with all bladed weapons, as well as stealth.

In addition, this Bloodline makes analyzing its holders nearly impossible.

However, there is more to this Bloodline than mere survivability. Its holders may wield the very Hellfire that forged its progenitor, but only in the most dire of circumstances, with their parents’ permission, or if they have reached the age of majority.

Lastly, anyone in possession of this Bloodline is able to use it to signal distress to anyone else who hold it once a year.

Finalize Bloodline Y/N?

In essence, it would grant most of his survivability related [Skills], the [Emergency Beacon] [Skill] to prevent kidnappings and [Grand Hellflame] to give everyone some teeth, though he’d locked down the highlydestructive [Skills].

What he’d also locked down was the pain-dampening aspect of [Undying Focus] during the developmental phase. His descendants would be able to fall out of a third floor window, hit the ground head-first, and still be perfectly fine, but they needed to still feel the pain of the impact. Children learned things in one of two ways. Either they were told not to do them by their parents and they listened, or they ignored the sage advice and skinned their knees or something, and then there hopefully wouldn’t be a repeat performance.

The thought of a person who’d grown up unable to feel pain and didn’t take damage from anything … that was a scary thought. Hell, it was a stretch to assume that person would even reach adulthood instead of dying in some incredibly reckless, Darwin-award worthy stunt.

Once they were adults, being wrapped in proverbial cotton wool when it came to injuries should have been fine. Before then, all they’d get was the ability to survive almost all injuries.

Now that he was done with that, Isaac had nothing else to really do, so he decided to lean back in his chair and went to sleep. He’d levelled up a couple of times to afford the [Bloodline] and [Empower Relatives], and invested the Stat points he’d gained along the way into his various Attributes.

During this, he’d passed a hundred points in Fortitude, which gave him back some measure of control over his body, including the ability to extend his need for sleep beyond the few minutes per day he actually needed. It was a complete and utter waste of time, but he could afford it.

***

Isaac woke up shortly before the final descent and spent it staring out of the window, watching the city grow closer and closer. Not only that, but he also even managed to spot his home, making the classic ‘I can see my house from here’ joke actually true.

Getting out of the plane and the airport, meanwhile, was stupidly easy. After all, he’d gotten here on an official, governmental plane. That sort of thing tended to open quite a few doors.

As for the materials he’d gotten, the stuff that didn’t fit into his storage space ended up having to be placed in massive crates which Isaac carried with some difficulty. Weight wasn’t really the issue, but balancing it was a little tricky, but doable.

And that was when they ran into the reporters. A whole sea of people had gathered around the exit that they would have been the most likely to take, and the guess had been correct. But they’d been afflicted by a case of ‘old world thinking’ when they’d assumed that this meant he’d have to go past them.

Instead, tall, thin, blonde German man stepped out in front of them, greeted Isaac with a wave and suddenly, a swirling portal appeared next to him.

“So, how was your Korean vacation?” Patrick asked.

“Not very vacation-y.” Isaac replied, barely suppressing an eyeroll “What about you guys?”

“Hard at work. So, shall we?” Patrick waved at the portal.

Isaac nodded and marched through, immediately dumping the boxes on the ground once he was on the other side. Patrick had opened the portal in such a way that the only thing people could see was the woods, but it was actually located right next to his home.

And it was a good thing that he’d put down the heavy stuff, because a pair of tiny blond missiles smashed into him a moment later.

“Hey there!” he exclaimed, sweeping up both his sisters in a huge hug “Were you waiting for me?”

“Of course.” Viktoria said, though then her face fell “The news said you got hurt.”

… there was nothing more depressing than a teary eyed preteen, was there?

Isaac sighed and put the pair down, then ruffled their hair.

“Yeah, but I got better. And now I’m fine.”

“Really?”

This time, it was Tanja who asked the question, sniffling.

“Really. I’m fine, fit as a fiddle.”

That put a little smile back on their faces and Tanja poked him with her finger “Only old people say stuff like that.”

Isaac let out a bark of laughter.

“If I were old, could I do … this?”

And just like that, he swept up the pair in his arms once again and tossed them onto his shoulders, one of his sisters sitting on each one.

“Let’s go find Mom and Dad, shall we?”

As it turned out, their parents had been waiting over by the containers Isaac had lived in when he’d first moved here all along, it was just that they’d decided to let their kids greet their big brother first.

After getting what would have been bone-crushing hugs under normal circumstances from both his parents, Isaac looked them both right in the eye before saying “We need to talk.”

The reactions that elicited were rather grim, but sadly, that was appropriate for the situation.

“Basically, once someone hits Level 50, they gain the ability to pass down some of their powers to their children. However, there’s an option that allows direct blood relatives, like parents and siblings, to also gain those benefits. And that’s what I’d like to do.”

“We’re getting superpowers!” Tanja cheered, echoed by Viktoria a moment later.

“Sort of.” Isaac said.

“Are you sure this is safe?” his mother asked.

“Absolutely. You can choose what to pass on, and I picked the powers that would make you safer.” Isaac nodded “Is there a reason I shouldn’t pass on those powers?”

His mother hummed thoughtfully, then glanced at the twins, so Isaac added “There’s also an option to limit the use of certain powers and I locked down anything dangerous.”

“Aw …” Tanja moaned, sounding heartbroken, prompting a slight chuckle from the adults.

“So, shall we?” he asked, and his parents nodded.

“[Empower Relatives]” Isaac stated with authority, and suddenly every member of his family was wreathed in a red light that sank into their skin as power built within them.

“Ok, please remember that you’ve suddenly gotten a whole lot stronger and faster, so be careful for a few minutes. You’ll adapt quickly, but …” he broke off, looking at Tanja who was sitting on her ass at the base of a large tree, looking dizzy.

“Ok, see, that can’t have actually injured her.” He told his parents before they could rush over “But that doesn’t mean you should keep running into stuff because you can’t constantly regenerate!”

Tanja quailed under his glare, but didn’t look all that sorry.

“All that being said, I do have a lake nearby that I had built for aquatic monsters but didn’t get around to using for that. So, did you two bring your swimsuits?” he offered to give his parents a little time to talk.

His sisters’ cheers were all the answer he needed. So after waiting a couple of minutes for them to get changed, they headed out into the forest.

Of course, it was mid-October by now, but with superhuman Fortitude that was hardly a problem.

Yet when they arrived at the large body of water, Isaac first sat down his sisters at the shoreline.

“You two are really strong now, you know that, right?”

They both nodded.

“That means you’ve got a really big responsibility now. You need to be careful with other people now, ok? No roughhousing with friends, no hitting people if you don’t have to defend yourselves, alright?”

More nods.

“Now, all three of us know that you watched that movie Mom didn’t want you to watch. So, as they said, if you have power, you need to be responsible, ok?”

A third set of nods.

“Alright, now I can show you some of the fun you can with these powers.” Isaac announced proudly, earning cheers.

And that was how his sisters found out that it was possible to waterski with a person yanking on the rope while standing on the opposite shore.

All in all, that was a good day. Isaac wished it could have gone on forever, but eventually, he’d have to leave, do other things. Hell, after Korea, he had a good excuse for dropping off the face of the world to ‘recuperate’ after such a ‘traumatizing’ fight. And there were a few people that deserved some of his personal attention …