The day went by at a snail's pace, at least to Vuthe’s senses. Ever since she learned about the forbidden texts and the monster appearances something nagged at her, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was.

Normally she would involve herself with the defensive efforts of her soldiers, but she couldn’t focus properly. Every time her thoughts went back to these new discoveries. She was missing something, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was.

News weren’t good, either. It became pretty clear pretty quickly that the humans didn’t have the manpower to protect even a small portion of the population, which worsened Vuthe’s mood even more.

She owed the humans nothing. If anything, she should not get involved. But at the same time the reason she had built Thelvadore was to help those that couldn’t help themselves. So seeing innocent people fight and die and not intervene was something that went entirely against her own sense of duty. She knew, rationally, that Tizanta was right. They should not get involved. They should let the humans deal with this. They should not reveal themselves to the world at large, and she had no illusions people would not be looking at this situation.

From what she had heard from Chell Bertner, who was of course busy talking to both the government and the Thelvadore Council, news had already broken. Most people further away put it off as some kind of hoax or fake news, but there were always people who were not entirely daft.

And that left Vuthe pacing in her Throne room, restless and torn. She wanted to help. She so desperately wanted to go out there and kill those monsters. She knew she would be able to protect most if not all of the innocents currently trapped in the city.

But she also knew it would be better for her own people for her to remain here.

The worst part was that she had gotten a few petitiones, desperate pleas for help. Normally she would put her divine duties above politics, but this was such a delicate situation she wasn’t quite sure how to react. And it drove her nuts.

Lost in thoughts she missed Tizanta entering the room, until her girlfriend stood right next to her. Looking over she saw that Tizanta was similarly torn, but that mostly came from Vuthe’s distress in this situation. As much as Tizanta understood her and as much as she knew about Vuthe’s situation, nobody could ever truly and fully understand the rift in which Vuthe currently struggled. Not unless they had their own worshippers and petitioners.

To know it was happening far away was one thing. But Vuthe could hear, feel their pleas for help. She could feel the desperation, the soul crushing terror these people felt.

“I talked with the others”, Tizanta said, not entirely sure how to begin. There was a long pause in which she sorted her thoughts, and Vuthe let the silence hang. She didn’t trust her voice right this moment.

“The government stubbornly refuses any help from anyone, even including the Paranormal Council. They want to solve this on their own. The Paranormal Council actually asked for our help, but only to stem the tide, not to actually go out there and kill all the monsters. They want to remain as covert as they can. If the army kills those monsters nobody will question it, if we do? That’s an entirely different situation.”

Vuthe nodded, even though she didn’t like it. But it was better than nothing. At least she could do something.

“We have dispatched a few squads of those willing to help. But you gotta remain here.”

Vuthe blinked in disbelief. She had already gotten ready to leave at this moment. “What?!”

“Look, Vuth, I know how you feel. But we need you for something else. Apocalyptica has gone missing and nobody knows where he is.”

Silence settled over them as Vuthe digested this. They had made sure to always have someone to look after Apocalyptica. While he was loyal to her since she defeated him, that would only work up to the point where he thought he could beat her. In that sense he was a wild card.

Now that she thought about it, he had been suspiciously quiet ever since they returned. Normally he would ask to fight every so often or start some minor squabbles to revel in the chaos. But he had done nothing of the sort. At first she had thought it was simply because he had enough to do with his runearrays, but truth be told she had kinda forgotten about him with everything going on ever since they returned.

Apocalyptica Impedium was an Apocalypse Dragon, a Madness Dragon to be precise. Chaos and madness was his entire reason for being and he revelled in those.

The longer she thought about this possibility of him being involved, the more likely it got in her mind. It would explain the strange techniques used to prevent her from controlling the shadows around the complex, why Vixus couldn’t use their bodies there, why they couldn’t find what disabled them, and of course why the humans had forbidden magic. It was entirely possible that those books were supplied by Apocalyptica, which was why she knew them and it was also much more believable than Relos de Vector bringing them over.

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It would explain the monsters showing up, perhaps summoned or changed with his runearrays, it would explain why the sensory network failed in its entirety.

It all fell into place.

Vuthe had been naive. She had thought she could deal with whatever he could cook up. She had thought as long as she was present he would just stay put. She had been underestimating him heavily and now the people would pay the price.

Apocalyptica was very good with manipulating people. She would not be surprised if he worked with both the Government and the Church to sow chaos.

“Fuck…”, Vuthe cursed, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples, “Great. Absolutely fucking great… It would explain so much if he is behind all of this. Keep us on our toes, don’t give us time to rest, make sure we can’t double check things. Whenever things went quiet something came up, why? Because of him, he knows us well, so he knows that if he can keep us busy we wouldn’t look inwards. We trust our people. And he used that against us.”

“At the same time there are things he couldn’t be connected with, even if he is with the rest. Scythe and her friends, for example. Vixus revealing your divine title.”, Tizanta said, trying to reason with Vuthe.

“It doesn’t matter. Vixus could have been manipulated. They are good with what they do but they aren’t infallible. I agree on Scythe, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t use that to his own advantage. A lot of the things that happened fit very well into his motives and talents, if we consider him pulling the strings.”

“Are you sure? We shouldn’t jump to conclusions too quickly.”

“He doesn’t even need to do much. Supply the forbidden texts, make sure they work against us, and é viola. Everything that has happened ever since we started building up New Thelvadore would make so much more sense. Actually, now that I think about it, it would explain why Vixus thought that revealing my divine title would be a good idea. Implant doubt in their mind, make sure that is the only option left in their eyes. You know he can do that. True, my reaction to that was a bit over the top, but by this point I can’t even rule out that he managed to get some influence over me. We all let our guard down here, thinking us safe. It would explain why I was in such a bad mood for so long. If he was able to subtly agitate me then my reaction to the news of Jessy’s situation was all but predictable. We have no proof, sure, but at this point the evidence is all but clear. It honestly is the only explanation that makes any kind of sense. And now he is gone. He knows we would come after him, making sure he doesn’t do anything. The only thing to prevent that was to present us with a situation that basically left us no option than to ignore him. And would you look at that, the city my family lives in is currently overrun by monsters that are impossible on earth, they basically have zero defences, and they have no information network. He knows I am duty bound and he knows that I care about family. It would be more surprising if he wasn’t involved somehow.”

Vuthe cursed again, before continuing to pace around the room. “What I haven’t told you yet, since we didn’t exactly had the time, was that the complex I found the forbidden texts in was protected in a way I have never seen before. It could prevent me, me, from using shadow magic if I didn’t tap into my divine power. It could block all my senses including my aura, leaving me with only my sight even when I did use divine power. And the books I found were from Satien, Tiz. I knew them. These weren’t some forbidden texts they put together themselves. They were from Satien. At first I thought it was Relos who brought them over, but honestly Apocalyptica makes much more sense.”

She looked at her lover, determination in her eyes, “Tell me I am wrong. Tell me that all that is possible without Apocalyptica and his unique magic that nobody but him knows. If it wasn’t for the petition I got and finding the complex, I wouldn’t even consider this an option. I’m pretty sure I tripped him up somehow. I had to use divine power to get in there, and I know you don’t know much about that. But it leaves traces. If he spotted them it would make sense for him to distract us. Send monsters here, however he created them, make sure we can’t act. Actually I could see that being the reason he left. Maybe he thought we were suspecting him because of the defences, or maybe he felt it was time to continue whatever plan he is cooking up. Either way we can’t afford to go after him. If I do so personally he can use my absence to squash New Thelvadore. Your defences are strong but there is no way you could last against his continuous assault. And that is ignoring Essen, who would be child's play for him to flatten. I need to remain close by, if only to make sure I can kill him when he reveals himself.”

Silence settled onto the room once she finished her explanation and she knew that Tizanta shared her opinion. On principle her girlfriend was more sceptical than Vuthe, she was always the person to play devil's advocate to make sure they didn’t do something rash or wrong or fell for wrong pretences. But even she couldn’t argue against this. In a way Apocalyptica being responsible was the only logical explanation left. There simply were too many things that seemed entirely unreasonable without someone of his strength being involved.

“Okay… I’m gonna inform the Council and the Para Council. It would be best not to tell the government I think, but I think we can trust the Para Council at least.”, Tizanta said, sighing and rubbing her face.

“I agree. For the moment I will head over to Essen and make sure that he doesn’t have more surprises ready for us or them. If I am wrong, no biggie. The worst I will do is annoy some people by personally killing a few beasties. If I am right, though, I want to make sure the amount of destruction is limited. I will remain close by, but this is important. Oh, and tell Cal and Cas to mobilise the army. I want them to be ready for whatever he might come up with.”

Tizanta nodded and turned to leave, but stopped. “Be careful, Vuth. Even you can’t simply beat him into submission.”

“I know, Tiz.”, Vuthe said with a smile that was only partially forced before she vanished into the shadows.

Despite the situation she already felt much calmer. Knowing, or at least having a good hypothesis, of what’s going on did wonders for her mood. Now they could plan.