Chapter 189: Cataclysm

“You even stole the name from the phoenixes,” Harvey chuckled.“I did?” Tyler asked, confused.

“Fulgur is Latin for lightning, and Fulmination is an explosive outburst of lightning,” Harvey explained.

“Since when do you speak Latin?” Steve asked.

[You better not take credit for my incomprehensible wealth of knowledge,] Julius warned.

“I took it as an elective in college,” Harvey lied.

[Just tell them about me. I don’t get why you’re hiding it.]

[I’d ask if you really think that’s what they’d think after everything else they’ve seen the last two months, but I already know you don’t.]

[Tiny chance,] Julius quipped.

“Well, don’t blame me,” Tyler replied. “I didn’t pick the name, the Loom did.”

“It definitely fits! I can’t wait to see that skill in action!” Harvey smiled.

“Should we go test it out?” Tyler asked hopefully.

“Definitely not,” Steve rejected. “Random lightning strikes in the middle of the neighborhood would scare people on a good day. Our neighbors have suffered enough.”

“Fine,” Tyler grumbled, stomping towards the chapel doors. He walked like he’d just run a marathon, slightly stilted with his legs spread out wide. His weave had been put through the wringer after gaining 9 levels, an Imprint, and his first F-Grade skill all in one day. Harvey just hoped he’d be ready by the time they found the lieutenant tomorrow. He was confident they’d slip under the radar for a little while, but that didn’t guarantee they’d manage to get up close and personal with one of Hell’s most valuable demons in less than a day.

The trio walked the short distance back home and stumbled through the door to see Cash and Celeste helping Max and Samantha set the dinner table. The kids were doing their best, but the angels had to fix most of it once they’d turned their backs. Still, they both did it with a smile, showing an uncharacteristically delicate touch that Harvey had only seen glimpses of before.

“Oh, perfect! You guys got back just in time,” Cassandra smiled.

After a few pointed reminders for everyone to wash their hands, they all gathered around the table. Eleanor had gone to grab a few extra chairs from the rubble of Mackenzie and Samantha’s home, but they had to squish to fit four more people in.

“So,” Cassandra smiled contentedly as everyone appreciatively dug into their food. “We’ve learned so much about the System, but I haven’t gotten the chance to ask the angels what it’s like back home.”

“What do you want to know?” Cash asked through a mouthful of potatoes.

“I guess the first thing I’ve been wondering about is what it’s like to be a kid when you know one day you’ll grow up to fight monsters?” Cassandra asked.

“Not everybody takes that path,” Celeste began. “Most of us go to school just like you Earthlings do. We spend our early years in general education, learning language, history, math, science, and getting exposed to different paths. At twelve, we choose an academy dedicated to the one we want to pursue.”

“Are you already gaining levels at that point?” Steve asked.

“No. The System doesn’t allow the sapient races to start ascending until we’ve reached a baseline level of biological maturity. For most, that’s around 16 or 17 years old,” Celeste explained.

“I wasn’t able to create my Class until I was 18,” Cash admitted. “That was fine with me, though. I wasn’t ready to throw myself into training yet. Not like Celeste. How old were you when you started? 14?”

“15,” she corrected.

“Most people think the System waits until you know what kind of person you want to be. All I knew at 15 was that I wanted to have fun, but Celeste comes from a long line of warriors who have done a lot for Heaven.”

Celeste just rolled her eyes, not saying anything as she kept digging into her dinner

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“I’m in my 50s, and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,” Steve muttered.

“Is that how you became a Captain?” Harvey asked.

“She should’ve been the Commander,” Cash exclaimed. “The only reason she’s not is that it took our planet longer than usual to get the chance to conquer a new world.”

“What would that have to do with who gets to command?” Eleanor asked.

“The Commander and Lieutenants for the next integration were already selected from my cohort when we graduated from the academy, relegating her cohort to serve as highly capable footsoldiers.”

“There’s no reason to argue about it now,” Celeste warned. “Seriously, Cash, you’ve gotten too comfortable around this family.”

“Can you blame him? We’re awesome,” Harvey jabbed.

“Can I ask something?” Eleanor interrupted, her incredibly shy nature having returned in full force with all the changes happening around them.

“Of course,” Celeste said.

“How old are you guys? You’re talking about joining the army at 15 or 16 years old!”

“25,” Cash answered.

“I’m 22,” Celeste added.

“No kidding! I didn’t know we were the same age,” Harvey chuckled. “I never thought to ask.”

“Neither did I,” Cassandra noted. “You all just seem so much wiser than us that I assumed you were older.”

“Maybe about the System, but almost every human I’ve met knows a lot more about the world than we do. You guys don’t dial in to one path to power like we do, so you end up learning a little about a lot of different things compared to our obsessions with one subject. We don’t start branching out until we’re older and our ascension slows down,” Cash explained.

They spent the rest of dinner talking about what life is like back on the angels' home planet. Everyone participating in this trial came from the same planet, even though Heaven itself sprawled across multiple galaxies and countless worlds. Apparently, multiversal transportation was still expensive even with the System’s help, so it was easier to assemble an integration army from one or a small cluster of planets rather than gathering the best of the best from the entire faction. Even if they could, Heaven was fighting over dozens of planets at once, leaving most planets under their control largely responsible for fending for themselves.

They talked about everything from sports to music to food until Harvey was forced to excuse himself to finish inscribing his shotgun before they left for Hell. Cassandra and Mackenzie used the interruption as an excuse to put Max and Samantha to bed while Steve, Tyler, Cash, and Celeste went over their plans.

“I’ll be back in a little bit,” Harvey called out as he let the garage door close behind him. Setting the shotgun on the workbench, he pulled out three bottles of ink. The first was ruby red and half-empty, containing the simple Healing Ink he’d made all the way back in Veils End. The second was his Sanctified Bulwark Ink – a mix of dragon bones and holy water – and the third was his Dragon’s Fortitude Ink. He had three essence crystals seated in the shotgun ready to power a trio of essence-hungry arrays, and he’d already decided that he wanted the same healing and burst self-repair arrays he’d inscribed on his dad’s shield, plus some sort of projected barrier that was similar to his dad’s Paternal Aegis skill. He obviously couldn’t replicate the skill with a simple array, but he could probably achieve a single short-lived shield he could use in a pinch. Adding a shield to a shotgun seemed counterintuitive at first, but considering the inks he already had available and the fact that the offensive inscriptions were already inscribed on the bullets themselves, it was the best idea he could come up with. The fact that his opponents would never expect his most powerful weapon to double as a shield was a nice bonus, too.

The problem was whether he should use the holy ink or stick with pure dragon bones. Both could support the shield and burst of self-repair he wanted in case the gun ever got so damaged it couldn’t function properly, so it came down to what resonances he wanted inside the gun. Dragon’s Fortitude was Epic while Sanctified Bulwark was only Rare, but that extra dose of Holy might be the difference in his shield holding or shattering like a plate against a demon’s attacks.

In the end, he chose to assume they’d survive this battle and aimed to future-proof his magnum opus by using resonances that would work in any situation. He had no idea what kind of enemies they’d face once they made it back to Earth, but he doubted it would be more demons.

Putting the Sanctified Bulwark Ink away, he got to work. Even though he had plenty of experience inscribing the burst healing and self-repair arrays, he once again chose to make use of his Adaptive Inscription skill so he could ensure all his arrays played nicely with each other. Aethersteel was a highly essence-conductive material, giving him plenty of room to work with, but he wanted to squeeze every ounce of power he could out of his inscriptions. The hard part was finding a sequence of runes that could produce a stable barrier that didn’t disperse the second the crystal ran out of juice. He needed a self-sustaining shield that only consumed essence while actively protecting him, rather than constantly bleeding power simply to exist.

It took almost a quarter of the bottle’s worth of testing, but he eventually found an array that let him project a stable, circular shield that sprouted from the end of the barrel and was large enough to protect from his head down to his thighs. The shield was milky-white, just like the bones the ink was made of, and slightly transparent, letting Harvey still see his opponents as long as he could ignore the runic pattern matching the one inscribed on the gun.

[Congrats. You’ve just made the multiverse’s most lethal umbrella,] Julius said flatly.

Harvey pointed the gun upwards and was forced to acknowledge the point.

His design finally ready to go, it only took him half an hour to permanently inscribe all three arrays. The self-repair would function in a passive state just like the ones painted all over his armor, but he could use the power stored in the essence crystal for some quick emergency field repairs. As he placed the ink bottles back in his inventory, burning light erupted from his Weave.

The light that had once felt painful was now his favorite drug, and he smiled as it slowly faded back into his skin. Excited to finally see what name the System had given his greatest creation, Harvey activated Artificer's Eyes.



Item | Cataclysm | F-Grade | Epic

A pump-action shotgun forged from Heaven’s strongest steel and inscribed with the bones of a dragon and the blood of the man who killed it. Like the dragon whose essence flows through its runes, Cataclysm stands unyielding before all opposition and unleashes apocalyptic destruction.

Soul Forge: +10 Vitality, +10 Endurance, +5 Willpowe