Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 257: Chaos Incarnate

What the hell had warned people? Some kind of [System]-based warning he hadn’t known about because even in the other timeline, no one had been stupid enough to summon a Tier 10 monster before the first Tier 9 had graced the light of day?

That certainly couldn’t be it as Isaac had killed a few Tier 9s to get their Aspects

So what hat exactly defined a “skipped” Tier? Maybe the skipped Tier referred to the world at large? Humanity was barely dealing with Tier 8, and hadn’t even touched Tier 9, he’d skipped damn far ahead of the curve. So perhaps that was what the [System] was counting, a person getting two Tiers ahead of the curve?

Or maybe the problem was that he’d gone straight to Tier 10 before clearing a good portion of Tier 9? After all, of hundreds of monsters at that Tier, he’d killed a grand total of 2.

Or maybe it was a prank from Loki? Making an announcement to potentially land Isaac in hot water? It would certainly explain why the [System] was referring to a skipped Tier when the definition for that was so shaky.

… No, that wasn’t it. If it had been Loki, he’d have been around to gloat. What about some kind of [Skill] belonging to a world leader?

In theory, that might be it, but Isaac doubted it. Amy had referred to multiple world leaders being warned. Assuming all the information had been correctly passed down the line, that meant that they were probably dealing with something inherent to the [System] that contacted them, rather than them gathering information.

Also, why would they all be getting the exact same information that clearly gave them a supremely basic overview of the situation? They knew the monster had been summoned, but even if each of them had gotten an infinitesimal additional piece of the puzzle, that should have been enough to collectively figure out more about the current mess.

And in that case, he’d be getting called onto the carpet for the ass-reaming of the millennia right now.

Not to mention that he’d been in a separate space, the likes of which were mostly divorced from the normal means of detection. Global detection, let alone local detection, should have been impossible.

If he really thought about it, this was almost certainly him being asked for his expert opinion, not something aimed at punishing him.

Isaac froze the moment he was on the other side of the portal, half believing he was imagining his surroundings. The corridor was bog standard concrete-and-steel utilitarian construction, common amongst government buildings in places that weren’t usually visible to the public. So far, so basic.

But when his sensory [Aura] drifted off him, revealing all that surrounded him as it pierced through some of the world’s best shielding as though it weren’t even there, he instantly recognized where he was. Not because he’d ever been here, in either timeline. No, he’d seen it on TV countless times.

He was under the Bundestag, the German seat of government. All of this was fresh construction, stuffed to the gills with magic and [Skill]-based reinforcements. Interesting. More interesting was why on Earth Amy had been able to open a portal here. But as much as he might have wanted to investigate that, it would really have to wait until later.

Two guards clad in the seemingly ubiquitous discrete government bodyguard suit looked him up and down, asked him a couple of quick “are you you and are you planning on murdering anyone” questions, and then one of them hurried him deeper into the building. The other was already busy with the next arrival, who had likewise appeared through a portal and looked damn important, though Isaac didn’t recognize her.

The situation room was exactly what Isaac would have expected. Reinforced to the nines, shielded from most forms of surveillance, chemical or biological warfare, and heavy shielding that would stand up to most intruders for at least a few minutes. Even Isaac might have a little trouble getting through there, it would stop him for maybe twenty seconds.

There was a wall of screens with enchantments that allowed the people in the room to pick out every detail on any of them without becoming blind to any of the other images. The table in the center of the room had an utterly superfluous enchantment that allowed for the creation of holograms, though a woman in the uniform of a Brigadengeneral was using an Aspect to create the same effect. Apparently, the designer hadn’t considered how hard it was to use an enchantment like that without some serious skill at mana manipulation.

As for the people inside, Isaac recognized most of them from TV as well. Ministers, specifically, and, of course, the Bundeskanzlerin.

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Heidi Goldschmidt had the “in my day, we worked twenty-five hours a day, walked barefoot through the snow to work, and the path was uphill both ways” energy that was normally found on grouchy old farts who couldn’t do much anymore yet still thought they were hot shit.

Except in her case, that energy manifested in actual strength of both mind and body, even at almost seventy years of age. Looking at her, Isaac would have believed her if she’d told him a story like that.

“Who do I talk to about getting a proper overview of the situation?” Isaac whispered to the aide closest to the door, “I got hurried over here without any information beyond something about a skipped Tier?”

Of course, this being the world after the [System], there really was no such thing as speaking quietly to avoid being overheard. Whispering was just a way of signaling to others that you’d prefer they didn’t listen in.

“Dr. Thoma, thank you for coming,” Goldschmidt announced as she turned in his direction, “I called you here because you’re the eminent authority on predicting monster strength, and abilities, and planning for those strengths. I, and every person on those screens over there, have received a notification about how someone skipped ahead and summoned a Tier 10 monster. I need a general prediction of its strength and a plan.

“Don’t bother going into your supporting evidence unless asked, we don’t have much time. Just a quick and concise summation of what we need to watch out for.”

Isaac had switched out his damaged armor for a casual outfit when he’d left the Void Island, which left him standing in front of, well, not only the Bundeskanzlerin but also the President of the United States, the British Prime Minister, and every other Nato head of state wearing jeans and boring t-shirt. And boy was he regretting his choice to not pack a spare suit into [Fully Geared] in case something like this happened. He could have, but noooo, he’d wanted more combat power.

He took a deep breath and began his speech.

“Basically, we can expect Tier 10 to continue the same trend we’ve seen in Tiers 7 and 8. They’ll either get big, I can’t imagine a Tier 10 Walking Mountain being anything small, magically powerful, or just have a lot of great power in a small package, with the latter category functioning a lot like humans with power that doesn’t fit their small frames.

“The good news is that it should currently be impossible to contain a monster at that Tier for any length of time.”

“How is that good news?” someone interrupted

Isaac … Isaac decided to swallow a rude reply in favor of responding calmly. One did not snap back at the president.

“It means that this monster will be roaming around, not locked up in a cellar somewhere until it multiplies. If it’s still alive, it’s either free or about to free itself, and once it attacks somewhere, we’ll know about it.

“And before then, if it’s not on the surface, it’ll probably be bashing its way out of an underground structure, which should be visible to seismographs. If the pattern holds, the monster will start spawning in more of its kind after two and a half days. You can probably hold off on putting your respective military forces on high alert until then, a single, non-boss monster shouldn’t require that level of response. And all of that only applies if it’s still around.”

“You think someone killed it?” Goldschmidt asked.

“It’s possible,” Isaac said, “Now, I only summon monsters I either know everything about and know I can beat or a monster where I’ve killed every single weaker monster, and in the latter case, I only do so with a lot of backup, but …”

“Get to the point,” Goldschmidt shot him a glare. Isaac winced, but he’d managed to explain how he couldn’t be the one responsible for the mess without lying. Probably worth it.

“Given the right matchup and time to prepare, I could probably take a Tier 10 right now. With how much mana Tier 10s cost, we’re dealing with someone at a high Level, and it’s not inconceivable that they’re S-Rank. And an S-Ranker might be able to beat a Tier 10 if the matchup’s right.”

“What about artificially-leveled individuals who put all their points in Magic Power?” the British PM asked.

“That method grows exponentially less effective the higher someone’s Level grows,” Isaac said, “We might have a problem with people like that in five years, but not yet.”

“And your plan for taking the monster down if it isn’t?” Goldschmidt asked.

“I’d take a look at it, analyze it, figure out what cooldown [Skills] would be the most effective against it, and then, we can cycle in S-Rankers to unleash their biggest attacks on it. Tier 10 standard monsters aren’t [Raid Bosses], designed to offer a challenge to a group of fifty, who each hold half a dozen city-block-leveling aces up their sleeves. Standard monsters are meant to mostly be fought one-on-one, and even if this monster is at the upper end of the predictions, throwing cooldown [Skills] at it until it dies should be enough.”

“Thank you, Dr. Thoma,” Goldschmidt dismissed him as she went back to talking with the other people on the screens.

Being dismissed so casually was a very sobering experience, Isaac reflected. Normally, even when he wasn’t talking, he was somewhere near the center of attention. Sure, he also tried to avoid taking over situations, but that wasn’t the same as being relegated to being a wallflower.

Still, he’d said his piece, and explained how he wouldn’t summon a monster like that unless he knew he could beat it. Which he did, but considering that no one knew about the other timeline, it would be misunderstood in the way he wanted it to.

After fifteen minutes, Isaac closed his eyes for a brief moment, the standard three-second nap of a high-Level human, and slipped into the [Round Table]. All he had time for was scribbling a quick note and then “woke up”.

Another fifteen minutes or so after that, Isaac felt the shift as Arthur swapped out whose [Skills] he could draw on.

[Smuggler’s Bolthole] was one of Jason’s [Skills] that let him move stuff from his inventory into a given, pre-selected location that he had some degree of ownership over or affiliation with. He had to have had the items in his storage for a while and couldn’t be directly contested, meaning he couldn’t be actively chased by the police or something like that, but this counted for the bottle of Ankou ectoplasm.

He dumped it on the [Round Table], which had thankfully become a real location as the [Skill] leveled, and waited.

During that time, he managed to get his hands on a copy of the notification. It had been extremely simple and basic.

Warning! A Tier 10 monster has been summoned by someone skipping ahead. Due to the potential danger, you and other leaders around the globe have been notified.

Isaac was now certain this was an inbuilt, [System]-based warning system, tacked on at some point. It barely gave any information, therefore, its impact was minimal.

In the end, it took around two hours of waiting, but then, something happened. Specifically, the screen showing the feed from the White House situation room suddenly became engulfed in chaos.

For a brief moment, Isaac hoped that this wasn’t Jason’s doing, that he hadn’t interpreted “deposit proof of the monster’s death somewhere it will be found quickly and won’t go amiss alongside some information on the cult we haven’t shared” as “cause as big of a fuss as possible”.

There were so many questions Isaac wanted to ask, but he held his tongue. He’d already caused enough trouble for today and probably burned all his luck for the year by not getting caught yet.

It took only one minute for the information about an intruder in the White House to be shared. Apparently, said intruder had placed a vial of mystery goop and a letter on the desk in the Oval Office, and then lit a match under a smoke detector to set it off. That had drawn in the Secret Service, who’d found a mystery package that hadn’t been supposed to be there, and that had triggered a whole series of alarms.

Any remaining hope that the timing of this had just randomly happened to coincide with, well, today died when someone examined the vial. Ankou ectoplasm.

Godsdamnit, Jason!

But at least it had gotten the message across.

Then some poor sap, who’d ended up stuck in the Oval Office when quarantine procedures had been enacted, had read the letter.

It had basically apologized for the mess caused, and explained that its writer had been able to tell how fighting an Ankou would be safe but not known about the [System] warning. And then, to prove its bonafides, it had provided some intel about the cult that the Round Table hadn’t shared yet.

That was when the arguing started.

“So, this is a threat, we all know that, right?”

“Maybe. But that might just have been a quick and dirty method for getting us all to stop worrying and prove that the monster is dead.”

“And the solution to that is to stick it in a place no one should ever be able to break into?”

“If it had been in the bedroom, I agree, that would be a threat. After all, the bedroom is a private place. No one should be able to break into the Oval Office, yes, but it’s still a public space and one that got the information across very quickly.”

“Someone still walked straight into the White House without getting seen once. Who the hell can do that?”

“The same person who can kill a Tier 10 monster, apparently. Dr. Thoma, how sure are you that you could kill a Tier 10?”

The question getting thrown his way was so sudden that it caught Isaac completely off guard.

“Given all the information I have, I can confidently say that most S-Rankers could beat a Tier 10 monster as long as it was a good matchup,” Isaac explained.

“For example?” Goldschmidt asked.

“I’m a surgical striker, not a wrecking ball, so I wouldn’t trust myself against a Walking Mountain, but if I had to, I would go after a Galeborne Wyvern or Primordial Phoenix. Monsters with weakpoints, which are almost certainly vulnerable to pinpoint attacks.”

Not a single lie had passed his lips yet and he’d been right here the entire time, especially when Jason had broken into the White House.

“So we’re dealing with an extremely powerful individual with great sources of intelligence, and who can be extremely stealthy. Am I the only one assuming this is the Ghost?”

“The Ghost” was the nickname Jason had earned himself after kicking the ass of anyone who’d gone after Karl

“What about Insight? They’ve been handing out intel like this since the beginning.”

“Maybe they’re the same person?”

And so on, and so forth. Isaac kept his trap shut unless he was asked a question, and in time, he got sent home.

***

“So, how come you knew how to teleport down there?” Isaac asked.

“They want loyal teleporters to know where that place is so they can be made to play taxi in an emergency,” Amy told him.

“No one ever told me,” Isaac pointed out.

“I asked them if they knew what the limitations of your portals are and they decided to leave you alone,” she explained.

“Thanks,” Isaac said, “Being thought of as a taxi first whenever shit went down would suck.”

“So, how did it go? There was something about a disturbance in the White House …”

“Oh, don’t even get me started …” Isaac sighed, then explained.