Chaoticus, while the embodiment of one of the primary primal forces of all that was and all that would ever be, enjoyed these moments of the mundane. Sitting in a Coffee Shop, a Dunkin Donuts, what a play on names. Sitting in a Dunkin Donuts in one of the infinite timelines that made up the Multiverse among a race of humans that had no idea that magic was real or that the laws that held them together were malleable. Some of their quantum physicists seemed to have figured out a kernel of the truth and called it probability but their theories did not account for magic, the Gods, or beings such as himself. How could he explain to them that he was the embodiment of every single chaotic possibility that could, would, should, which might or might not exist? Still, it was a good cup of coffee.
As he took another sip of his coffee he felt something new. New? There was nothing new to feel or experience. Thought existence for himself was ever-changing and filled with the delights and horrors of numbers of beings so high that he didn’t bother to quantify them. Yet, he felt as if part of himself was being drawn off somewhere it didn’t belong. Chaoticus continued to sip his coffee as he focused inward, which is to say he focused on Chaos everywhere and found the issue. Infinity was such a long time and when thinking of infinity as a distance quite vast, as Vacuus had explained ad nauseam. He would know as all of space was his realm.
Chaoticus looked inward and followed the stream of chaos that was entering an area that Ordo and himself had agreed, he would not influence unduly. Chaos was everywhere after all, but he would try to keep his fingers out of that pie as Ordo wanted to try something new. Again, infinity was vast so it wasn’t a hard concession to agree to. Besides, it was something new and different which also served his nature. Of course, the amount of Chaos that was being shunted into that region was far more than what would be considered natural, or the agreed amount of influence he’d promised to abide by.
Chaoticus stood from his table, walked out into the early morning of a city somewhere in the middle of what was known on this planet as The United States, and allowed chaos to do its thing as he waited for cameras to glitch, eyes to look away and the attention of others to be on anything but him. When that moment came, he vanished with his cup of coffee and appeared at the metaphorical doorstep of Ordo’s domain. Some would try to force others to do as they wished. Chaoticus had learned long ago that to get what he wanted, all he had to do was wait and events would usually mold to his plan.
The doorstep to Ordo’s domain was the middle of space near a nebula of exquisite energy in the birthplace of stars, one of which was right in front of him. With a slight exertion of his will, he maintained the temperature of his coffee and gravity in a small bubble around him so he could continue to enjoy it while he waited. As he sipped his coffee he considered a place where all the forces came together and the laws that Ordo followed, or set up, he was never sure which. Anyway, those laws governed how stars formed in the common Universes, and Ordo has chosen one such stellar nursery as his personal Domain. Also, it was quiet here. A moment later Order appeared beside him.
Either one of them could appear as any creature they desired but both chose to appear as normal humans, though Ordo’s appearance as an elderly bald man with a white mustache and goatee played up to the stereotype of a wise figure and never failed to impress. Chaoticus on the other hand preferred the appearance of either a young man or woman or when he was feeling quite rambunctious that of a teenager.
“Chaoticus, What has brought you to the doorstep of my domain?” Ordo said with no difficulty even though they were both floating in a vacuum less than 100,000 miles from the surface of a newly forming star.
“I have detected a portion of my nature being redirected into your experiment.”
“Which experiment?”
“The only one you asked me not to participate in so you could test a few ideas out,” Chaoticus said.
“Oh, that one. Hold on for a second,” Ordo said as he paused and focused his attention inward. After a moment he focused back on Chaoticus. “Did you take a look to see what was going on?” Ordo asked.
“No, I detected the draw on my nature and came to let you know. Chaos is my nature of course but I do not break agreements, especially with my opposite. Last time we were at odds…well you remember what happened.”
“Yes, I remember. The others think they run everything but without the two of us, everything fails. We had to start everything over. Like you, I’d prefer not to do that again.”
“Just so,” Chaoticus agreed.
“It would appear that Thora and Justus have been up to no good and have opened a way into my experiment. Luckily for me, they have been stalled and are near each other so they’re fighting tooth and nail to invade my domain first,” Ordo said with a smile.
“Why are you smiling?”
“It would seem that one of Animae’s has absorbed a spark of your nature and, well it seems that he has been a very busy bee. I give you leave while in my presence here to take a look at one who must be your progeny so we can decide how to proceed.”
“Very well,” Chaoticus said as he redirected his focus inward and followed the drain to a realm within himself that had formed from the desires of…Adam. In the next moment, Chaoticus absorbed the knowledge of Adam’s life and accomplishments and knew him as if he was a part of himself. Something new had flourished indeed. Chaoticus took the information in for a moment and then pulled his focus out of Ordo’s experiment as he asked, “You reviewed Adam, as well?
“I did.”
“And you recognized Ptah?”
“I did.”
“Well, I think we both know how a bit of myself entered your experiment, which was supposed to be a test of imposed order at all levels, the question is why?”
“That is a good question, I’ll have to sit down with Ptah at some point,” Ordo agreed before he asked, “But, what do we do about Adam?”
“I find it interesting that he was able to link to me through the spark. The copy of my nature you had running as part of your ordered creation should have been able to mimic almost every aspect of me, yet he instinctually reached out to me with that stunt he just pulled. Additionally, it seems that he is breaking all the limits you have imposed,” Chaoticus said.
“He has. I detected another some time ago, his daughter Pandora, now that I’ve reviewed him. I pulled her out of the experiment and placed her in a similar timeline to the one Adam started in. I haven’t checked on her but if you haven’t come to me yet, she must be doing all right.”
“And Adam’s parents and friends?” Chaoticus asked.
“I have taken no action to help or hinder them, though you know at the power level we exist at, others will try to leverage them against Adam once they understand how powerful he is,” Ordo said.
“I concede, others will always try to impose order but as you know from experience, shit happens!”
“Hence, my experiment, which now seems to be corrupted by others who should have kept their noses out of it!” Ordo said with a hint of irritation.
“What will you do?” Chaoticus asked.
“If you would be so kind as to cut Adam off from yourself. I have no issue with him utilizing that which is within the boundaries I’ve set up, but among all the other Advantages he has, that is one he does not need. I would like to see if he will be able to break free and find his way to you on his own?” Ordo said.
“Why?”
“Because the experiment was to set up an enclosed system that would survive forever. Others have mucked it up. I believe Adam might muck up their plans in return. You know, Karma.”
“Karma? Don’t bring her into this, though I see what you mean and forever is a long time,” Chaoticus said.
“I know, you’re going to tell me random things will make it fail and I’m going to say that I put a System in place to prevent that,”
“Isn’t the existence of Adam, proof that it won’t work?” Chaoticus asked.
“Not really, Ptah interfered,” Ordo said.
“Just so, whether the influence came from within or without, the experiment was never going to work?”
“You may be right, but I would like for it to play out a bit longer and give Karma her chance,” Ordo said.
“Very well, I’ll seal the breach into my nature as you seal Justus and Thora’s breaches.
“Thank you Chaoticus, I do believe Karma will require that I owe you one, you need but ask.”
“I’ll remember, Have fun with your experiment Ordo,” Chaoticus said as he teleported back to his own Domain in the heart of his nature where the form he had taken, his coffee, and anything else he’d allowed to remain a pattern was absorbed into the roiling white pearlescence of Chaos. Chaoticus focused his attention on the link to Adam and followed it until he could piggyback the connection. Once he’d done so, he utilized the permissions Ordo had given him to recreate Adam’s Place of Power within the simulated Chaotic environment Ordo’s System had created and redirected the link between Adam and his nature to that Place of Power, instead of the one that had been created within his nature. There was still a link between that new place and himself but he put a block on it and this time he would be notified immediately if Adam tried to follow or draw on it.
Once he was done, Chaoticus watched as Ordo placed new restrictions on Adam that would prevent him from drawing on an unlimited amount of chaos as well as a limit on exactly how powerful any construct he created could be. He reset them so they would fall within the rules of the System he created. Ordo couldn’t affect Adam, nor would he try. Primal Order trying to directly impose its will on Primal Chaos never went the way anyone wanted it to go and like it or not Adam carried a portion of Chaoticus within himself. No matter how he’d acquired it, it was fully integrated within Adam now.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Chaoticus sat back and watched Ordo take action through his link to Adam.
***
Adam, and all of his clones, floated in a sphere just over a light-year out from the incursion point where the Putrescent forces and the Angels flooded into this Universe from wherever they were coming from. The Conglomerate forces had fallen back for the most part. Only those who were taking on the worst threats were still engaging, which Adam was monitoring but leaving alone. His clones were dealing with everything else.
Adam did a quick check of his Status sheet. It looked like he’d maxed out the level of the Mythic class at level 5,000. All of his base attributes had only gone up by 9,258, which for him wasn’t much of an increase. His new Chaos attribute had increased by 46,292 to 51,000 which was slightly impressive. His hit points were still just over 15.6 Billion with Stamina and Mana at 391.8 billion each. So not much of a change there either. It seemed that there wasn’t much of a change based on levels, which must mean that any major improvements would come from abilities, which wouldn’t be something he’d notice with his Soul Core the way it was. Also, it would be no joke to earn XP from creature kills, and just to level from 4,999 to 5,000 would have required 160 million XP.
Adam had killed somewhere north of 676 quadrillion master level creatures which netted him between 382,900 XP and 892,500 XP per kill. The average was right around 512,500 XP. If his math was right, and he knew it was, he should have earned 3.4E +23 XP plus or minus 1% Instead, his experience log showed that he had, 400,119,525,001. Also, his combat log stopped tracking levels and XP awards once he hit the maximum level. He felt kind of cheated but he knew that he would be one of a kind within this System. Also, if not for his cheat, he’d still be underpowered when facing the creatures coming through the first so the Conglomerate's technology must really be helping out, or something else was going on. One of the creatures he was looking at right now with Scan was showing an error in the level block which made it far bigger than anything he’d ever run across before. If he didn’t know better, he would say that it looked like a humongous lobster-type creature that had crossed with an Octopus with the head of a mind flayer. It was at least as big as a planet as it fought humanoid figures that were just as big.
He might be able to hurt it, but if not for the Angels and the technology present Adam didn’t believe the Conglomerate would have a chance against this invasion. The legendary and mystic creatures didn’t come through all that often, which worked in the defender’s favor. Adam closed his Status Screen and prepared to move forward and close the spatial rifts down when a single voice flooded the space around him from everywhere that was powerful enough to freeze everything else and him in place declared,
“ENOUGH!”
At that moment the lower spatial rift sealed and every creature tainted with the slimy green corruption evaporated as the Angels and their allies turned back toward their portal and left of their own accord. Within a minute, their rift sealed. That the two forces had been stopped did not surprise Adam. What did surprise him was when every single clone of his dropped out of contact and he watched the clones closest to him evaporate into chaos that was drawn toward the spatial rift. Adam watched as tendrils of chaos came together and formed rivers that disappeared into the spatial rift.
Suddenly a message came in from Thor indicating that there had been a pause in their link. It lasted less than picosecond but Thor picked up on it as he’d been handling things at an accelerated rate and noticed the…glitch.
Adam was about to open his prompts to find out what had happened when a force grabbed him and brought him to the location of the spatial rift that had just closed. He also noticed that every power he possessed was locked down as he tried desperately to activate any of his abilities. Nothing worked and his link to Chaos seemed to be blocked somehow. As he fought frantically to figure a way out of this predicament a human in a Fiori Di Lusso Navy Blue suit appeared before him. Bald, except for a white mustache, goatee, and eyes? His eyes were white. Not the white pearlescence of chaos but more a platinum white.
“Be at peace Johnathan Bennard. You are safe and the threat to this Domain is passed,” The man said with no issue at all even though they were both floating…no they were standing on an invisible surface in the vacuum of space.
“Thank You, may I ask who you are?” Adam said as he considered his options and decided being polite was probably the best choice of action at the moment.
“I may not tell you that, nor may I divulge why I have stopped the invasion that was taking place. Just know that I was once described as an “Absentee Landlord” by one of the characters in one of your human movies.
“Are you saying that you’re God? Like the big kahuna God?” Adam asked disbelievingly.
“No, I am not but I serve a purpose much like your God of mythology does,” the old man said as he pondered for a moment, “I may have already said too much. Things must continue naturally and every moment I remain there is a chance I upset the natural order. I will end this conversation by saying that the link outside this Domain that you found has been blocked. It is not severed as doing so might have unintended consequences but it is blocked. If you attempt to reestablish contact outside of the Domain you are within there are only two outcomes. The first is that you are removed from this Domain and may never see your family and friends again as you will never be able to return to it. The second way, the link will be severed and the chips will fall as they may.”
Adam looked inward for a moment and noticed that the link he’d drawn on was closed. As he brought his attention back to the old man he asked, “Why?”
“Some things you are not ready for yet. Also, the trick you pulled with the Primal Chaos when you created duplicates of yourself that had the exact same strengths and abilities as you…just no. That is no longer possible when drawing from the Chaos within this Domain, not that you would need that kind of advantage.”
Adam thought about what that meant for a moment but put those thoughts aside as he asked, “Is there anything else?”
“No, that should do. It was very good to meet you Johnathan Bennard, a.k.a. Adamantadine, a.k.a. Adam. It is always so interesting seeing what those of your ilk come up with to upset the natural order.”
“My ilk?” Adam asked.
“Yes, your ilk, ‘Embodiment of Chaos’,” the old man said as he vanished and Adam felt the artificial locks on his abilities disappear.
Adam: Thor, you there buddy?
Thor: I am, what happened, you were out of touch for a few moments?
Adam downloaded what happened through their link then put that to the periphery and pulled up his prompts.
Congratulations! You have reached Embodiment of Chaos level 5,000!
You have reached the Level maximum!
Adam quickly sorted his messages and focused on the ones that were pertinent to what the old man had just said. He didn’t even know who the old codger was, though he had a clue. Adam put those thoughts to the side…again and returned to the prompts concerning what the old man had said.
WARNING! Order has been Circumvented. All Abilities locked
WARNING! Fundamental Laws have been circumvented, Normal movement is not possible, nor are attribute bonuses present.
WARNING! You have been moved, direction and distance unknown. Current route does not conform to known parameters
There were a couple of other Warnings but they all said the same thing. The rules that everyone lived by had been altered when the old man had brought him before him. As ways to shut down his ability to resist and fight back went, Adam had to admit that was pretty ingenious, especially if, as he believed, the old man was a representation of the exact opposite of chaos, order. That he’d been locked down so easily meant that the old man had been at a power level far above what Adam was, and he was maxed out for this “Domain” as the old man had called it.
Adam went back to looking at his prompts
Domain standards reapplied
That was it. There were no other messages or prompts concerning what the old man had said. Adam opened his Shadow Vault, floated inside to land on his entryway as his nanites kept the atmosphere of his Place of Power from exiting into the vacuum of space, and then walked over to the mantle. Adam placed his finger on the speck of nothing and felt his connection to Thor intensify and through him felt the entire other Universe that had come to exist on the other side of that speck. Then he delved further and followed the link to a point where it was blocked. It was almost like his link hooked into one Universe which hooked into another.
Again something he could worry about later. His thoughts turned to his class level. So level 5,000 even though by XP, if it hadn’t maxed out he’d have 346,450,000,000,000,000,000,000 XP. Adam did some quick math in his head. If the XP cost per level remained the same that would put him at level 4,653,291,845 with 9,651,261,276,160 XP to his next level. It was no wonder someone had put a limit on levels, those numbers were incredibly high. Someone would have to wipe out quadrillions of creatures of significant level to earn enough XP…oh wait he had.
As he considered the amount of XP required, it was a wonder that others within the Conglomerate hadn’t leveled quickly but then again the Angels had been taking on most of the invaders and the Conglomerate forces were spread out and engaging creatures en masse which meant that had to share XP with everyone and it was spread out. That also meant that the Angels were much higher level than even General Eris had previously believed.
Adam had a thought and dropped his focus to his Soul Core and noted that it was glowing, glowing quite brightly. Could the XP have been added to his Soul Core regardless? If so, why? Even though the Old man hadn’t said so the few comments he’d made suggested that something was being done in this “Domain.” If that was so, perhaps the rules here were different than those outside and his Soul Core? If so, could his Soul Core be holding onto that XP for some reason? How would that even work though? Was there one System in play here and another deeper one?
The more things changed, the more they seemed the same, or were they?
Adam pulled his focus out of his Soul Core and looked around. Now that his clones were all gone he couldn’t detect any other forces nearby but of course, his senses were more limited now that he only had two eyes and ears to detect movement in an interstellar area. Adam looked over the location of the two spatial rifts with Scan and True Sight which detected nothing and then shot off at warp 10 for a full minute before he came to a full stop and opened a Gate to General Eris’s office. Mold Chaos allowed him to make sure the Gate was airtight as he floated through to land behind the chair opposite the General who was looking up from the monitor on his desk.
Adam stepped around the chair and sat down as his Gate closed behind him and he reabsorbed his Chaotic Nanites that had been sealing the Gate.
“Adam, what happened?”
“Wars over,” Adam said
“What do you mean, our ships are still reporting that the Angels and Demons, for lack of a better word are fighting,” General Eris said.
“Didn’t you see the old man and me talking?” Adam asked.
“No, we did not. Every sensor and camera we have watching the battle is over a lightyear out. If something happened at the center we won’t know about it for at least another year,” The General said.
“Oh yeah, right. Send one of your ships in. All the Angels and Demons are gone. Something stepped in and closed the Spatial Rifts. The space is clear now,” Adam explained.
“You’re sure?” General Eris asked.
“Adam stood from the chair, opened a Gate to the location of the two spacial rifts, and waved for the General to come over and take a look. The General stood, walked over to the Gate, and peered through.
“Not that I’m trying to offend or anything but how do I know that this portal opens to the center of the incursion?” The General asked.
Adam looked thoughtful for a second before he said, “You know, that’s a very good point. As a 10-foot cube with neon yellow flashing lights and words started to take form in space as Adam utilized Mold Chaos to create the cube. The general looked at Adam incredulously.
“What?” Adam asked with mock innocence
“Seriously?”
“What’s wrong with it? It simply says ‘General Eris was Here!’ It’s unique and any ship you send into the center to check to see if it’s clear will see it easily. You’ll have your answer as soon as they get there. At warp 5 that’ll be about 20 minutes.” Adam said.
“Fine,” the general said as he went back behind his desk and sent off a command to three of the scouts in the area. “While we wait for the 20 minutes would you mind telling me what actually happened? I have multiple reports that all of your clones just fell apart and the stuff they were made of streaked toward the spatial rifts?” The General asked.
Adam smiled, sat back down in the chair, and said, “So I have a story to tell you!”