Evolving Classes In The Apocalypse-Chapter 38: A Thrust of Trust

"Ah, is that so?"

Marcel said it with a small smile staining his lips.

"I know a very private place. Will you follow me?"

I jerked my jaw forward, gesturing for him to lead.

Marcel was still smiling, and the smile was mischievous, like he had something up his sleeve that he couldn’t wait to unleash.

He led me across the valley. We walked downward for some time and finally stepped onto a vast stony plain. It wasn’t merely stone, though. There were patches of grass scattered here and there, but the color of the blades had adapted to match the pale grey of the rock itself, blending so well that the ground looked like a single dead surface from a distance.

Marcel kicked at the earth, then dragged his foot across it, testing.

"This place works quite well for free movement, and there’s hardly any part that has retained the trait of the flesh affliction within a hundred meters. We can move as freely as we want."

He spread his arms.

"Will this be okay?"

I studied the surrounding ground, scanning the patches where grass met stone. No discoloration. No movement beneath the surface. I nodded.

"It should do... do you have any weapons?"

He chuckled shyly and scratched the back of his head.

I narrowed my gaze as I studied this strange reaction.

"Don’t tell me..."

"Listen, listen, I’m an Awakened, I don’t have access to the Axiom Store like other people. Aren’t you an Awakened too?"

I paused. The question was simple enough, but I didn’t know how to answer it. My silence stretched a beat too long, and Marcel’s eyes widened with genuine shock.

"Wait! You’re an Established already?! Didn’t you just..."

I raised my gaze and held his with grim seriousness.

"That’s not the point here. If you are an Awakened and you don’t have a weapon, how do you fight and kill Undefined? How do you protect your people?"

Marcel’s expression shifted. The mischief drained from his face, replaced by something quieter and more deliberate.

With a cool smile, he shifted his gaze from me to a point behind me. His pale green eyes glowed ghostly for a moment.

Then the air behind me detonated.

The wind itself seemed to explode, a thunderous crack that sent a shockwave rippling across the stony plain. My clothes whipped violently against my body and loose gravel skittered across the ground like shrapnel.

I spun around. The stone where Marcel had been looking was fractured, split clean through with fissures radiating outward like a frozen spiderweb.

I turned back to him. My pulse was louder than I wanted it to be.

"What did you do?"

Marcel held my stare. The glow had faded from his eyes, but the mischief hadn’t returned. He looked serious.

"I heard it’s a fatal rule not to expose your skills to anyone. If I explain the way my Class works, does that mean you’re willing to do the same?"

I didn’t answer immediately.

He was right to think like that. Even though humanity’s foes were clearly defined for them, revealing your Class and skills to someone meant giving them enough information to deliberate on your weaknesses. Even the tiniest detail about what you can do points to what you can’t do. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

In a world where alliances shifted and survival rewarded paranoia, that kind of knowledge was as dangerous as any weapon.

But Marcel had just shown me his hand first. He’d spent that currency without waiting for a guarantee.

’Either he trusts me more than he should, or he’s confident enough in his abilities that exposure doesn’t worry him.’

Both possibilities were worth noting.

I sighed and nodded.

"Naturally."

A radiant smile broke across his face. He pointed to the fractured rock behind me.

"I can mark things, and when I mark them I can disrupt their flow. That’s my Awakened Skill. My Class is called Severed Stream."

He paused, as though deciding how much to share.

"I can affect the flow of things. Undefined have some kind of liquid always flowing through their body... I can seemingly disrupt it."

I turned the information over carefully.

The Class itself sounded ordinary on the surface, something that prioritized utility more than raw combat, but that was most likely where its true efficiency lay. Disrupting flow. If the application of that Skill could extend to anything that moved through a system, blood, energy, momentum, then what he’d just described wasn’t a utility Class at all.

It was a killing tool hiding behind a modest name.

I nodded, keeping my expression measured.

"My Class is nothing as impressive. It’s called Hollow. Currently, my Awakened Skill allows me to bypass attacks, and my Established Skill gives me a strong mental defense against mental attacks."

His eyes went wide.

"Amazing! That means you are a natural nemesis for Cognitive Horrors!"

"While you are for Flesh Horrors..."

He nodded, the excitement dimming into something more contemplative. He folded his arms across his chest.

"I have always suspected it, but it seems like the Classes we are blessed with are usually fatal to one affliction horror while making us insanely vulnerable to the other."

"Granted, we haven’t fully established if those two horrors are all there are."

Marcel smiled. It was the kind of smile that knew something.

"I’m certain they aren’t."

I stared at him for a moment, wanting to ask what exactly made him so sure. But asking too many questions would give me the lower hand in whatever game he wanted to play. Or I could simply be overly cautious.

’Which is necessary.’

I let the silence sit for a breath, then shifted topics.

"Still, you need a weapon. How about we do this instead? How much Essence can you afford to give me? I can get you a good weapon in the Dimensional Store."

Marcel’s gaze dropped to the ground as he thought it over. When he spoke, his tone was careful and gentle.

"The Defined Essence I’ve been amassing is nearing the threshold I need to become an Established, so I do want to be careful about my spending."

He lifted his head.

"But this is also a great opportunity. If I can get something valuable, I will not hold back. There are some threats that I hope don’t decide to attack, because they will be more difficult for me to mark. Having a good, strong weapon will help me handle that."

I nodded, simultaneously summoning the Axiom Dimensional Store.

"Alright... I’ll check for something for you. What’s your preferred weapon of choice?"

Marcel was silent for a moment, his eyes going out of focus. They glistened warmly, as though catching light from something I couldn’t see, and then sharpened back onto me.

"A spear. A spear would be quite alright!"

He sounded strangely excited about it. Personally, I considered the spear an annoying weapon choice.

"To each their preferences, I guess."

[Welcome, to Axiom Dimensional Store]

[Dear Transcendent, what would you like to spend your precious, hard-earned D.Es on today?]