Chapter 28: Epilogue 3 (Herbert)

May 18th, 20X1 1:09 AM

Waves lapped at the shore of the beach where two beaten down cabins stood sentinel over the shore. Corpses bobbed along the ocean and sprawled in the coarse sand of the beach. They were a mix of human and animal. Deer, rabbit, and multitudes of fish surrounding a few dried out husks of greant bodies and other new species discovered or created in the past year. Seven foot long trolls with angular limbs created in the bloody war between the humans of Farbrook and New Faram and the first Greant Sapblood.

Metallic carapace glinted dully in the faint moonlight off the hordes of power grown and enhanced insect species known as ferroent. Nearly every single one of them gained powers related to the earth and especially metal.

Only corpses and insects barely capable of sapience bore witness to the hazy distortions that split the air next to the firepit of the cabin as two sleeping humans flopped to the sand.

Cold, gritty sand crusted under his fingers and stuck to the drool on his cheek squashing Herbert E. Newton's dreams of winning the upcoming Tri-Delve Cup. He opened his eyes in confused horror at the sprawl of unusual notifications that covered his vision.

After nearly six years since his personal Initialization he'd grown accustomed to the System and his powers, but he'd never heard or seen a message congratulating him for traveling to another dimension.

<Initialization processing...>

<ERROR>

<Processing...>

<Foreign System-user located>

<Integrating user: Herbert E. Newton>

<Success!>

<Congratulations, Herbert E. Newton! You have traveled to another dimension other than your own!>

[Stats:

Body: Water (Hydro Authority)

Mind: Icewraith (Icewraith Metamorphisis)

Will: None

]

[Equipped Power List:

Slot One -- Winter's Tempest Ev. 2/Lv. 11

Slot Two -- Arctic Armory Ev. 3/Lv. 4

Slot Three -- Thermal Ionomancer Ev. 2/Lv. 9

]

Herbert slowly sat up as he noticed the rustling tide of the ocean for the first time. He wrinkled his nose at the salty tang and brine, but he couldn't help but smile at the sheer overwhelming amount of water that sang to his senses. He'd always wanted to see the ocean at Neoadia and go to college there so he could swim along the coasts, but he didn't get the scholarships he needed and his family lived in the middle of nowhere. Instead, he had been forced to go to the University of Anchora.

"Les?" Herbert called out as he surged toward the prone form of his friend and roommate. Romulus's eyes blinked open as a suit of robotic armor appeared around him from his Apparatus Vault. Herbert felt the ionized charge of the plasma stream from its battery core through its wire as Les prepared to blast whoever kidnapped them as a prank.

"Herbert?" Les's faceshield withdrew even as his mounted plasma guns charred with a whirring buzz. "Where the hell are we? Is this Maeve again, because I swear to God if your sister—"

"No. This couldn't be her." Herbet shook his head as he glanced at his status again. "It looks like we're in another dimension. Maeve can only planeshift, not dimension hop."

"Potato, potahto. She teleported us out to the middle of nowhere when we stole the vodka out of her room. Is this really so different?"

"Yes, it is." Herbert stood up and turned around to look toward the devastated highway that trailed off into the night. He had felt something die out there from his Icewraith Mind. "She couldn't do that, especially not with how tight dorm security is."

"Okay, fine. What about Hazel? Has your girlfriend somehow dumped us off into another timeline?"

"Why do you keep blaming my people?" He asked while he searched the night even as he prepared to summon his suit of glacial armor out of his Winter's Armory. "You literally hang out with the whole insane powertech crowd. Didn't Gerald and Jane try to create a wormhole or something?"

"No. A thousand times, no, they were trying to create a zoned domain, then replicate the space. That's not a wormhole." Romulus muttered as he scanned their surroundings. "Anyway, we're definitely in a hostile zone. A field of dead over there with mostly unfamiliar monsters. Looks like weaker unintelligent Shimmers and some weird tree people things and a smattering of trolls. Can you sense when they died?"

"I'm not picking anything up with Icewraith, it must have been a while ago." Herbert turned around again toward the dilapidated cabins. "Nothing alive inside of there, either. We're the only things alive that matter on this beach."

"You thinking we should check for supplies?"

"It might be wise. Classic delve rules, right?" Herbert said as he phased through the door with a sharp crack of splintering wood as it froze solid. He studied the brittle door as he poked his finger through the wall with ease. "Hm. Everything seems... flimsy."

Frozen wood crunched in a cascade of tiny pops as Les followed him.

"Think we're outside of a civ zone? Nothing has been adjusted for powers... at all. I don't sense any enchantments or anything special on any of this stuff. It's a complete void."

"But there are sys-spawn, aren't there?" Herbert frowned at his friend as he shined high powered beams of light from his suit across the room revealing a dust covered furniture, a fridge that he sensed no current or charge running through, and two stripped beds.

"Yeah... maybe. But they didn't appear out of nowhere. The originals were created by people, weren't they?"

"Back home anyway." Herbert pushed back outside as glacial armor sheathed him in the familiar frigid layers of protection. Tendrils of frigid air breezed around him in a veiled aura. At the touch of ice and cold air, his Body of Water and Mind of Icewraith flooded his entire being with power. Power shivered through him as his stats synergized with each of his other powers.

They stepped onto pavement that cracked beneath the forceful weight of their armored steps.

"By the Savior, what kind of hell dimension are we in?" Herbert sighed. "If people actually live here, we'll probably kill them with a sneeze."

"Probably." Les's voice crackled tersely over his comms. Herbert knew he was probably glued to the different readouts of his scanners. A familiar boredom yawned inside of him as he plodded along one step after the other. Too bad he couldn't skip the creeping walk into the dark wilderness.

Water whispered to his senses everywhere around him, from the vapor in the air to the stores in their bodies. Not to mention the sheer multitudes of plants that waved in the breeze along the curved highway.

Nearly an hour passed of them walking through the gray night that would've been pitch black if they'd been pre-System mundanes. Nothing attacked or even moved except for them.

"We can move faster," Les said finally as propulsors slid out of carefully hidden seams along the soles of the mechanized boots, up the calves, shoulders, and palms of his powersuit with a click. "Water cannon?"

"Sure." Herbert nodded as he transformed his body into pure water before he streamed into the open canister of Les's familiar Mach II Aqua.

Power slammed into his liquid form as the gold plated enchantments charged and boosted Herbert's transformed body with transcendent energy. A secondary system linked up to the cylindrical canister to plug his mind into the sensors scattered throughout Les's suit while wires looped through his suit toward the suit's power cores. Red light bathed the innards of the canister.

His Thermal Ionomancer let him generate harmless plasma that he could kick quite the charge through. If they ever needed it, this system let them piggyback off each other's strengths while mitigating their weaknesses. When they'd tested it, they'd destroyed a target ranked at LR-20 that should've been indestructible to anything with a maxed out evo-3 combat power and below.

It was their trump card.

Vibrations stirred him as Les soared into the air before they blasted forward in a thunderclap as they shot through the air. If Herbert hadn't transformed, the g's would've wrecked havoc on him, but it was of no concern like this.

He watched from his backseat canister as their speed chewed through miles like Hazel tore through her favorite Chinese food place's dumplings. Ice frosted through his body, creating a pressurized fog that steamed out of the vents of the water cannon as anger spiked through him. Would Hazel think he'd ghosted her?

No, no, she wouldn't think that. He and Les disappeared together but... if he ever got home he'd have a hell of a time explaining that he had disappeared into another dimension. Savior damn him.

What would his sister and parents think if he stopped returning their calls or check-ins?

Pings flashed across his canister as they jerked to a stop.

Highlighted boxes sectioned out the sensors' viewports as he zoomed in on what appeared to be a ragtag crew of people fighting a horde of those odd tree spawn.

You are reading story Power Initialization [Superpower Crafting LitRPG] at novel35.com

"What do you think, Herb?" Les asked through the sub-system of speakers hooked up to the water cannon's canister.

"Let's help them. If they're having trouble, they could be worth some good experience. If not... then the people of this world are more fucked then we thought."

"Want me to blast you?"

"Do it." Herbert sloshed with excitement as he prepared to push with all of his powers.

Red light changed to yellow as a target reticle appeared on the viewports as Les aimed the water cannon mounted down at a particularly nasty section of tree spawn with hulking trolls that were planning a rout.

A gentle charge with Thermal Ionomancer confirmed.

Green light flashed before his aquatic body guzzled through a series of tubes into an empty grenade. A concussive blast slammed into the grenade as he whistled through the air to crash into something with a wet thump.

Bang!

Water erupted from the grenade in a torrent as he shoved with all of his might. Razor-sharp glacial spears tore through tree spawn and troll flesh. Freezing wind churned around him as ice sheeted over the corpses and the ground.

Herbert appeared as he absorbed all the ice and ripped all the water out of the shredded bodies around him. His modest six foot frame grew a whole foot as he towered over the rest of the sys-spawn threatening the humans that still hadn't turned to look toward him.

Too slow.

No wonder they had trouble.

Herbert didn't bother to use Arctic Armory to kill the rest. They weren't worth his evo-3 power. Blue plasma needled through each tree spawn, metallic insect, and troll with ease. Instead of heat, he used the thermal part of his power to flash freeze the moisture in their bodies which he then shoved his will into with Body of Water and Mind of Icewraith.

By the time the people turned toward him with their guns and middling display of powers, he had already killed everything.

Air stirred from above as Les hovered right behind Herbert. Whirring clicks resounded as plates pulled back too quietly for these weak humans to hear. Herbert flashed out a message with a series of pushes and pulls with the reserves of water left in the water cannon. ["Time?"]

["Five seconds."] Les responded as tiny vibrations buzzed into the canister.

"Wh-what the fuck? Who the hell are you two?" shouted the lead person in a bulky mismatched set of armor with a disgustingly basic rifle in his arms. It trembled as he struggled to decide whether he wanted to point it at Herbert or Les.

"Hi, I'm Herbert Newton. This is my friend Les. Do you have a town or somewhere we could go?" He transformed back into flesh and blood, although he remained in his arctic armor.

"I'm Hank Harver and we're the Voluntary Farbrook Defense." He said as he glanced at Herbert and Les, still suspicious.

"Wait, Dad, stop. Did you say ‘Newton’?" asked one of the other men as flames kindled across his hands. He stepped closer as the dim light of his flames shifted across Herbert’s face. "Eli?"

"What?" Herbert asked sharply as the man stepped forward. Second glance showed he looked to be about his and Les's age or maybe a year younger. He withdrew the ice helm from his face as he stepped closer. "My name isn't Eli."

"Uh, are you sure? You're not Elias Newton?" He looked him up and down before he glanced up at Les. "You look exactly like him... are you Roman then?"

"No. My name is Romulus. What is this about?" Les's voice crackled before the feedback cut out as his faceshield slid back too.

"Tommy, leave these poor people alone." Hank Harver growled as he stepped forward to whisper in his son's ear. But to Les's sensors and Herbert's Body of Water and Mind of Icewraith, it was all too clear. "These are scary people, fuck! They could be monsters, as far as we know."

"They went missing a year ago, a few months before the monsters started showing up." Tom whispered back.

"You think they had something to do with it?"

"No... I don't know, maybe?"

"If they don't cooperate, we'll kill them and find out."

"We aren't 'monsters' or spawn. We mean you no harm." Herbert interrupted loudly as he rolled his eyes. "Are there more of you? A town or somewhere we could go?"

"Why do you want to know?" Tom growled as his flames darkened along his fists. The light and heat were pathetic. "You going to stick your nose where it doesn't belong again, Newt?"

Power built in Les's suit as he prepared to fire one of his many weapons.

"By the fucking Savor, you're all idiots, aren't you?" Herbert growled before Les eviscerated them. "Point us to town and we'll straighten this out. You won't even be able to hurt us."

"Oh yeah?" Tom hissed as he lunged for Herbert and swung his fist toward his face. He didn't bother to dodge or do anything. Bone crunched as the flames sputtered out on Tom's hand as he reeled back.

"Babies hit harder than you." Herbert scoffed. "Look. You can't stop us. If you don't take us back, we'll look for wherever you live ourselves. Maybe that'd be better anyway. You're all too weak and slow. Come on, Les."

He transformed into water again as he flooded himself back into the water cannon's canister before they soared up into the air.

["How did he know your middle name?"] Les asked with a series of clicking buzzes. ["Where are we?"]

["I don't know, but they said something about us missing. I guess we'll find out once we reach whatever village they live in."]

Herbert watched the woods flicker beneath them as they flew straight toward the dim horizon of lights so unlike the bright dazzling gleam of cities like there were back home. They really were in a different dimension. He checked the kill notifications with an internal frown.

<Congratulations, Herbert E. Newton! You have slain:

GREANT (x 12)

TROLL (x 6)

FERROENT (x 20)

TOTAL SLAIN:

With the powers:

Enhanced Phytokinesis Ev. 1 (x 10) [GREANT]

Accelerated Growth Ev. 0 (x 1) [GREANT]

Natural Arsenal Ev. 0 (x 1) [GREANT]

Mighty Brawn Ev. 1 (x 6) [TROLL]

Passive Heal Ev. 1 (x 6) [TROLL]

Ferro-Earth Control (x 20) [FERROENT]

Your powers surpass the evolution rank of the available powers>

<Processing...>

<Congratulations, Herbert E. Newton! For killing another sentient species additional experience has been awarded to Thermal Ionomancer>

Herbert felt no change from the System regarding his power levels. The combined experience from each sys-spawn wasn't even a drop in the bucket for him.

If these people struggled this much, were they really that weak or were these spawn just the fodder?

You can find story with these keywords: Power Initialization [Superpower Crafting LitRPG], Read Power Initialization [Superpower Crafting LitRPG], Power Initialization [Superpower Crafting LitRPG] novel, Power Initialization [Superpower Crafting LitRPG] book, Power Initialization [Superpower Crafting LitRPG] story, Power Initialization [Superpower Crafting LitRPG] full, Power Initialization [Superpower Crafting LitRPG] Latest Chapter