As Adam watched General Eris look up a thought crossed his mind. The place he’d connected to through his Soul Core, could it be an Echo? An echo inside a region of Chaos, Primal Chaos, whatever outside of The System? That would make sense. Could that region of Chaos contain the possibility of his Chaotic nanites? Maybe even copies of other things he’d created? That begged another question, Where was the region of Chaos that echo was located in? If the System was centralized, that location either had to be in a parallel dimension or outside the radius of The System’s influence. As he hadn’t felt like he’d travel a great distance when his construct made the transition he was betting it was somehow parallel to the Universes and Dimensions The System had absorbed.
Adam’s thoughts were halted when a stasis bubble enveloped the location Adam was sitting in.
“Well that was a lot easier than I thought it would be,” General Eris said as he pushed a button on an intercom on his desk and said, “Send in the containment crew, I have the subject trapped and ready for transport.”
Adam found that every movement he tried to make was suppressed. Something was negating the signals from his brain to the rest of his body making it impossible for him to get commands to his body. That was interesting. He could still think, which meant that his ability to Adapt was still in effect. So, the effect must be technological. He’d definitely have to download the specs on that technology, it was a doozy.
“Not to worry Adamantadine, we’ll get you squared away shortly and then you and I can have a nice long talk about what you can do for the Conglomerate..”
Adam activated Technomancy, which didn’t require a movement, reached out as far as he could, and detected the satellite in orbit above his position that was generating the field while the General spoke. He found the containment crew making their way into the office and adjusted the settings on the satellite and waited until the doors to the office the General and he were in opened. As the four-person crew was stepping through the door the field around him expanded and moved and shrunk to only encompass the four members of the Containment crew. As they stopped moving Adam also modified his physical structure to include backup neural connectors utilizing only nanites so that while he was in his normal humanoid form he could continue to move his body. He really wanted to look at how the technology only affected his body while leaving his mind active. If they’d hit him with something that just locked him down, this could have gone badly for him. If he was honest with himself, being brought down a notch as he realized there were still things that could affect him was a bit humbling. This brush with a bad day had been a good reminder that he was not all-powerful, at least not yet.
“As I was saying General, we need to talk,” Adam said again.
“What? How?” The General blustered as he pushed various buttons and even tried to send out emergency communications from an embedded transmitter within his skull. Adam had of course known it was there as soon as he’d activated Technomancy. In fact, he knew every single technological device within about 100 million miles which was about 10 million miles more than the average distance of the Earth from the Sun. Technomancy had gone through a significant upgrade during “The Squeeze.”
“Don’t you worry about the what, or the how General? All you need to know is that with a thought I can self-destruct every piece of military hardware on, or near Suigen.”
“You can’t do that, the city would be defenseless against the monsters, and millions would die!” the General shouted as he stood.
“I can destroy your military and I’d even be nice enough to open a Gate to Nexus so the population here could evacuate to safety. Seeing as it seems that you at least have some sense of duty your containment force can stay right where it is in the doorway and you and I can have that chat,” Adam said as he settled into the chair, realized he didn’t like how it felt and had his nanites modify it to something more comfortable, with a drink holder, a drink and some crackers to snack on.
“How are you doing that, my sensors didn’t detect an ability usage, in fact, my scanners only show that you have a single ability?” General Eris asked wide-eyed.
“Don’t you worry about that General. What you should be more worried about is how I’ll respond if I’m attacked again. I did not seek out your assets, they tried to kill me. I don’t take kindly to assassination attempts. Besides, as you’ve seen I’ve had the bounty withdrawn.”
“You did that? How did you get that bitch to do anything?”
“Pretty much the same way I’m going to get the Conglomerate to do what I want, I sat down with her and had a talk,” Adam said with a bit of mirth in his voice.
“I don’t buy it. She absolutely hated the Arch Mage. The only way you’d get her to withdraw a bounty against him, his family, and you for helping him is if you physically replaced her with a double or rewired her brain.”
“After meeting her, I would concede that you are correct,” Adam said as his smile turned mischievous. “She will no longer be an issue for the Arch-Mage, his daughter, or myself. In fact, you might say that she will be going out of her way to make amends for the way she had behaved recently.
“How did you manage that?” General Eris asked.
“I would like to say I threatened her until she capitulated but that would be a lie. I was forced to ensure that she did what I wanted going forward. Someday she might be her own woman again. Now, she’s my puppet and will do whatever I want her to do.”
“Is that so?” The General asked as he looked thoughtful for a moment.
“General, I’m not naïve. I know that your Conglomerate,” a word Adam said with slight disdain in his voice, “isn’t going to change its ways overnight. What it will not do is have my help killing innocents or subjugating people on a whim.”
“While I can understand how you might come to that conclusion can I ask, do you even know what the Conglomerate actually does?” The General asked.
“As far as I’ve seen hire assassins to do your dirty work. I admit they probably saw the bounty on me and came after me without your tacit approval but as big as Councilor Cilira stated your organization is, I very much doubt they would have needed any special permission,” Adam said.
“Correct, they tried to collect a bounty that was sanctioned by The System. Even my superiors would agree that they were well within their contractual rights to try to claim that bounty when the target in question appeared within the same city they were in. That begs the question. Why were over 20 high-level assignation types in Suigen?”
“I don’t understand the question if there is some hidden meaning. They were obviously waiting for contracts,” Adam said.
“True, they were waiting for contracts from the Conglomerate, though, it would be more appropriate to say they were on their relaxation time after being on the front line for a month.”
“Front line, you say that like there’s a war going on?” Adam asked.
“There is a war going on, against an endless enemy out past Farpoint,” The General said.
“A war, against who, or what?”
“If you have access to every technological device, do you by chance have access to a planet in the same orbital plane as Suigen on the opposite side of the star it orbits?” General Eris asked.
“No, but I can in a moment,” Adam said as he used Mold Chaos to create a handheld satellite, linked it quantumly to himself, and then used his ability Spellweaver to create and then cast a Teleport Object type spell to a point approximately 1 light second above where the planet would be.
The General watched a handheld icosahedron form in Adam’s hand and then winked out of existence with an audible pop as air rushed in to fill the space it had just occupied, “What was that?” General Eris asked.
As Adam started reviewing the data in his Mindspace he said, “That was a small satellite that I just teleported over to that side of the Sun to take a look around. I’m connected to it in real-time. What exactly am I looking for?” Adam said and then asked. Adam looked over the images he was receiving and asked,” You have a fleet around that planet near a technological portal. Where does it lead to?”
“The Enemy,”
“The Enemy?” Adam asked.
“You were in the company of Arch-Mage Maneece weren’t you?”
“I was,” Adam affirmed.
“As I understand it you were around him during an incursion into his dimension and may have even helped thwart the attack. Did you by chance get to see him summon an Angel-type creature?” General Eris asked.
“It was an Arch-Angel, but yes, I saw him summon it, why?” Adam asked.
“To summon one of those creatures you must make it past our first line of defense and participate in the primary line of defense against the incursion forces which are being battled by the Angels and the Allies. They act as the initial line of defense while the Conglomerate takes on anything that makes it past. As the Angels focus on the larger entities we are left with cleanup. Anyway, to be able to call on an Angel you must help with the defense of the initial line of defense and also save an angel's life. Arch-Mage Maneece, when he was on duty as an attaché assigned to our forces found himself in the right and wrong place at the wrong time. He was able to save an Angel’s life and earned the right to call on his assistance when needed,” The General explained.
“Okay, I understand that the Angels are coming from a deeper part of the System which probably makes them incredibly powerful, why is that so important?” Adam asked.
“Neither the enemies nor the Angels and their allies are part of The System,” The General said.
“Not part of the System? How is that even possible, Almost everything I’ve seen so far has been incorporated into The System,” Adam said.
“The enemy is pouring into System Space near the mapped center of The System. They consist of the most vile creatures we have ever come across. While undead have existed on System worlds and even sometimes appear in Dungeons or the Labyrinth what is coming through the spacial rifts we’ve detected make those monsters babies by comparison, General Eris explained.”
“Have your troops been able to scan the creatures and determine their equivalent levels?” Adam asked.
“The creatures coming through the rifts are much higher level than are legendary or even Mythical class characters. As you know our Mythical class individuals don’t have an upper level, but we also don’t have a lot of them.”
“When you say Mythical you’re talking about the class level above legendary, what some people refer to as the Apocryphal Class level?” Adam asked.
“Yes. We refer to it as Mythical. It’s easier to say and remember, though it truly is a toss-up on which you think is rarer Legendary, or Mythical, both words represent about the same rarity and significance.” The General explained.
“The creatures are equivalent to your Mythical Class individuals?” Adam asked.
“You have to see the spacial tears to understand how big the invasion force is. The Angels and those fighting alongside them focus on the bigger threats. A lot of the other creatures get passed them and we get a majority. Even with our forces, which measure in the tens of quadrillions, we only stop about 80% of those that get past the Angels. The rest escape into the Labyrinth, dungeon, or surrounding dimensions or flee into open space. The hostiles that Conglomerate Forces engage range in equivalent levels from Basic through Mythical. The Angels do a good job of focusing on the Mythical enemies so not many of them make it us. Our main forces, or first line of defense, focus on the few Mythical that make it through and the Legendary creatures. Our second line of defense focuses on the Legendary creatures the first line misses and our third line of defense mop up whatever they can,” The General explained.
Stolen novel; please report.
“What happens to the rest of the monsters that make it through?” Adam asked.
“The war is a closely guarded secret. Adventures think that Farpoint and the Purple Line access harder areas and provide better leveling because that’s just the way it is. Truthfully, there are monsters in the Purple Zone, as we call it, that hungrily devour any of the monsters that make it into their territory. Think of it as monsters feeding monsters that breed and make more monsters. This gives Adventures plenty to do. Also, some of the monsters enter the Labyrinth and are never seen again. The Labyrinth probably moves them to locations more appropriate to their level where they can be a proper nuisance to Adventures, but we don’t know for sure,” The General said.
“If that is so, how do you know you’ve killed one of these invading monsters instead of a normal one?” Adam asked.
“The System informs you and you also receive a bonus reward for the kill. It’s a great way to earn System credits for our forces and Adventures,” The General said.
Well, there was no way Adam was going to say he worked outside of the system now. They’d think, and they’d probably be right, that they’d get some kind of special reward if they figured out how to kill him and make it stick. Those thoughts passed through Adam’s mind for a moment before he said, “What is your proposal?”
“If you truly control Queen Pellmir her support could go a long way to fund the war effort. Every bit of revenue we can generate extends the time we can continue to oppose the invasion,” The General said.
“Are you saying that your forces will eventually fall?” Adam asked.
“It’s better if you see the magnitude of the problem for yourself. Both the Invasion forces and the Angelic army seem to be endless, at least they have been for, well I don’t even know how long. The War was history before I was born. Some of our Academics believe The System came online to try to stop the war.”
“How so?”
“If there is a demonic versus angelic war that implies an afterlife. A couple of academics have theorized that the System was brought online to prevent sentient creatures, or beings with souls from dying and joining that fight,” the General explained.
Adam looked thoughtful for a moment then said, “In my travels, I have noticed that something seemed to be off about the various afterlife settings I’ve come across.”
The General jumped in, “The Astral plain, at least that part of it within the territory The System controlled by the System, Souls, and yes, Souls do exist, are shunted to an “Afterlife” that The System has created. We know this because a race of beings that came before left archives of the tests they conducted and instructions for how to conduct the tests. The simple explanation. The System shunts the soul to a new location and provides a new body for the soul to inhabit so it can’t move on to where souls actually go.”
“If that’s true, couldn’t the Angels be coming from another System-generated Universe where Angels are the norm?” Adam asked.
“Why would the System allow creatures on either the demonic or angelic side to exist with attributes and abilities that fall outside the levels that The System has provided?” The general asked.
“Maybe there are multiple Systems and they’re at war?” Adam answered jokingly.
The General responded to Adam as if the point he’d made were serious, “That thought has crossed the minds of more than a few academics. The problem is that we have witnessed God-level power in the war from time to time on both sides. There also seem to be rules on how often the “Gods” may assist their minions. If one side pushes too far something steps in and rebalances the battlefield.”
“How exactly?”
“It depends. The last time, forces that had fallen were all immediately resurrected and went back to battle. With the influx of dead soldiers behind the front line of the enemy it wasn’t long before the enemy force that had broken through was dealt with and the war continued.”
“That doesn’t sound too impressive, even I could do that, well at least I think I could, I’ve never actually tried to resurrect something,” Adam said.
“I have something to show you, please come with me,” The General said as he stood and a panel that Adam had detected with Technomancy behind the General slid open as a portal activated. The General turned toward the portal he said, “This portal is part of a series of teleporters that will get me to our Command post in our 3rd Defense Line. From there I will be able to show you what the Conglomerate actually does.” When he was finished speaking the General stepped through the portal.
Adam stood and followed the General through the portal after making sure to put his nanites in their full defensive mode and activated Stutterstep just before he stepped through. There was a slight feeling of disorientation as he was zipped from teleporter to teleporter. There was no way to know how many he’d slipped through, but he knew there had been more than two teleporters in the chain. Also, while it seemed like less than a second had passed for him the magic that fueled his Stutterstep ability had expired which meant it had been more than a second to get to wherever he was now.
Adam stepped out of an alcove to find the General standing before him and gesturing toward an opening to his right. As he turned and followed the general his True Sight and Scan abilities let him know that there was a floor under him, but it was completely transparent and didn’t block or distort normal vision at all. Additionally, as they stepped out of the tunnel, a layer of darkness stopped all light from entering the room he stepped into. Adam found himself standing on an invisible floor in and an invisible room.
If he wasn’t standing on a floor, Adam could almost believe that he was in deep space. As he looked around himself he noticed that he could view in all directions, even the other side of the portal he’d stepped through if he stepped off to the side and viewed past the flat panel of darkness that marked the entrance to the tunnel.
“This is my personal observation point which is located in the third line of defense. If our line of defense is a sphere, we are on the equator of the sphere with the top of that sphere above us and the bottom below us,” The General explained.
“What is the scale?” Adam asked as he made his way up to stand beside the General.
The General pointed at a Nebula that was about the size of a basketball in what would be the center of the sphere which was directly in front of the portal they’d stepped through, “This sphere of defense, because the entire sphere is covered with ships and sensors covering the entire sphere is about 100 light years from the object that looks like a Nebula that you see?”
“That’s not a Nebula?” Adam asked.
“No,” The general said as he brought his hands together and spread them out slowly which caused the image to magnify until they were looking at streams of creatures of all sizes fighting each other in a gaseous area that contained distortions, and fractures, where creatures were still coming through. Adam watched as Angel-like creatures, both winged and not fought with medieval weapons as well as more technological beam weapons and even some weapons that resembled firearms that could be found anywhere on Earth.
Creatures that died, winked out of existence while new creatures came through the fracture, and new Angels and those fighting the invasion force popped into existence and joined the fight. The scale and number were staggering. There had to be trillions, no, more than quadrillions of creatures fighting one another.
Adam watched as the General pulled the point of view back to show those invaders that had made it past the angelic forces trying to get as far away from the fight as possible as they were intercepted by ships of all sizes and kinds and even some individuals and creatures that seemed at home in the vacuum of space. As the General had explained it seemed like that first line of defense focused on the invaders that were more powerful or bigger than the others which still led to the destruction of a lot of the smaller creatures as well.
The General pulled the point of view back again and Adam saw that the forces in the 2nd line of defense were making a concentrated effort to destroy as many of the main groups of enemies as they could but always focused on any of the boss-type creatures that made it past the first line. Adam also noticed that the 2nd wave of defense was spread out in range back to the 100-light-year range he was looking on from.
“That volume of space is huge. If you have so many forces overlooking this breach how are any of the creatures getting away,” Adam asked.
“There is 4,190,000 cubic light years volume in this 100 light-year radius sphere we’ve placed around the incursion point. Within that area, there are several star systems, stars, rifts into the labyrinth as well as weaknesses in the fabric of space that lead to parallel dimensions. Some are natural but some are caused by the weapons and methods used to destroy the Legendary and Mystical monsters that are coming through. From this far out it just looks like a bunch of ants moving back and forth but I can assure you that there are quadrillions of individual battles going on within this incursion zone,” The General said.
“How can you maintain this many forces? The normal life cycle of men and women would seem to make it unlikely that enough people could be birthed to maintain this level of attrition for as many years as you’ve claimed this has been going on. I assume there is some attrition?” Adam asked.
“Oh yes, we lose roughly 25% of those that come here to fight each day. Before they come here their minds and souls are backed up and their bodies are cloned. When they die, we activate the clone and send it back in. Unfortunately, when they die the System does not award as much experience for leveling though we know that the soul attaches to the clone, we’ll We’re pretty sure it does anyway, else how would a clone gain experience for dying? Though the clone has no memory of dying which is weird. Our scientists aren’t exactly sure why that is yet.”
“Back on topic, you were about to say something about God-like influence before we came here,” Adam said.
“Yes, I wanted you to see the size of the conflict. When God-like powers become involved that whole center mass can be affected. The residual energy also affects those within the first defense line and sometimes reaches out to the 2nd defense line. We think The System scatters or absorbs the energy which is what causes it to dissipate. Of course, it could just be a function of the inverse square law where energy is concerned. No one is sure why the energy bleeds off. What we do know is that when it appears large chunks of one army or the other are either destroyed or resurrected and the fight goes on.”
“That begs the question,” Adam mused out loud, “Why?”
“Why what?” General Eris asked.
“Why are they at war, why are they at war here? Why is the Conglomerate even participating in this war? There are a whole bunch of different why questions that need to be answered?”
“Agreed but we haven’t had the opportunity to investigate those questions. Since I was promoted within The Conglomerate it has been my job to try to prevent as many of the invaders from making a foothold as possible.
Adam looked thoughtful for a moment and realized he wasn’t going to find the answers he was looking for this far out. Adam issued commands through his quantum links to Queen Pellmir. “General, contact Queen Pellmir, you’ll find that she has become much more amenable to opening negotiations with the Conglomerate. She won’t give anything away for free but she won’t automatically say no either. Additionally, while I will not work for the Conglomerate, I will work with and help in any way I can if what I’ve seen thus far is an accurate representation of what is going on near the center of The System. That said, what do I need to do to be able to go help with the Second or First line of Defense so I can get a feel for what you all are facing?” Adam asked.
“No offense intended Adam, but what is an Ambassador, even a Mythical Ambassador of Chaos going to do?” The General asked.
“You’d be surprised.”
“Very well, there is a world within the second line of defense currently being overrun by a particularly nasty swarm of putrescent creatures. If you’d follow me, I’ll take you over to another teleporter that will get you to the ship that is in orbit over the swarm's attempt to get into a Dungeon entrance. Show us what you can do,” The General said as he turned and walked back into the hallway passed the teleporter they arrived at and into an obvious bridge of a ship that had another teleportation alcove on it. As the General entered the bridge he called out, “Get Captain Kali on the line.
A moment later the image of a blue man reminded Adam of Admin Thrawn from Star Wars, “Yes General Eris, what can I do for you?”
“In a moment I’ll be sending this man here to you via the teleporter. He wishes to help with the clearing of the planet you’re orbiting,” General Eris said.
“Very well, we need all the help we can get,” Captain Kali said.
General Eris turned to Adam, “When you’re done, free to gate back into my office and we’ll finish our talk, maybe find something the Conglomerate can do for you that you do want. I understand that you do not want to be one of our assassins for hire but as you just learned that is just a minor facet of what the Conglomerate does. If you can help in this area, that help would be much more helpful to the Conglomerate and beneficial to you.”
“If everything is as you’ve shown me and this is not some sort of trick, I’ll think about it,” Adam said as he stepped into the teleporter and appeared on the bridge with Captain Kali.
“Welcome Aboard, I can either teleport you down to the surface or I can take you to an airlock and let you exit the ship and fly down, if that’s something you can do,” Captain Kali said.
“How far is it to open Space directly above us?” Adam asked.
“About 10 meters or so. 100 meters will be completely clear of the ship and anything close by, though right now we’re in the clear,” Captain Kali said.
Adam looked around the small bridge which only had five stationed personnel plus the captain, committed it to memory, and said, “I’ll teleport back aboard when I’m done down below,” before he teleported 100 meters directly above the position he’d been standing in. Adam found himself floating in space above a grey planet. Below he noted that the local star was bathing the planet in the light where a sickly green smug had stained the planet in a wide area. With no frame of reference, it was hard to tell how big it was but if he was 100 miles up a smug that big had to be hundreds of miles in diameter.
Adam activated Obscure and Flight and started heading down to the planet. There was almost no reentry friction which indicated that whatever Atmosphere was here was sparse. As Adam made his way lower into the atmosphere he realized that the area that contained the green smug was hundreds of miles in diameter and that the green smug was a bunch of small slimy, green-scaled creatures that resembled demonic imps as described in most Earth-based fiction.
Adam adjusted his course until he was over a group of about 50 Conglomerate personnel that were using beam weapons and abilities to ensure that nothing entered a cave they were guarding. That must be the entrance to the Dungeon they were protecting. There was no way to know without entering and it looked like these people could use some help. Adam activated Technomancy and injected his voice into the Commander's headset.
“Commander, Captain Kali should have let you know I was on my way down. Any problem with me landing in the middle of your formation beside you?”
“If you can get there, None. We can use all the help we can get, where are you?” The Commander asked.
“About 300 meters above you, invisible to most scan types. Be there in a second,” Adam said as activated Freedom of Flight and seemed to teleport to the ground as he moved so quickly that he seemed to materialize on the ground next to the Commander out of thin air when he dropped Obscure and Freedom of flight.
Without diverting his attention from the battlefield around him the Commander called out, “Welcome to my little corner of Hell!”
Even with weapons fire, screams, and screeches from the creatures that were swarming toward the circular formation the Commander had his soldiers in, Adam heard the Commander just fine. As he looked around, he couldn’t disagree, it did look like a hoard of demons of all kinds were attacking from all sides. The imps he’d seen were just flying above everything else below them in layer upon layer.