“Clarissa.” I felt relieved at seeing her alive. Some of the tension left my body.

“Michael, it is bad. I am glad you are here,” she said, which I knew meant it was really bad. She wasn’t one to overhype things in the slightest.

“What are we looking at?” I asked, hoping she had more information to go on.

“That is best explained by Jacob. He has taken the lead on the research. I have been preparing evacuation plans,” she replied, and I frowned at that.

“Wait, its spreading?” I asked.

“Slowly, but yes. In 100 days, this city will be over run along with Nanjing. The losses have been catastrophic so far. An actual calamity would be easier to deal with. One sudden burst and done. This is a lot worse, since it is spreading everywhere. Come, Jacob can explain better than me,” she replied. I followed her out of her office to the situation room that had been set up.

I noted several nerdy looking people crunching numbers and looking at the maps of the Systemic Land. Jacob, Doctor Katz, and Michelle were all there. Captain Francis was still docking the airship. Everyone grew quiet as I entered. I made my way to the head of the main conference table and sat down.

“I would like to understand exactly what is happening. I have my opinions, but I want to here from you Jacob,” I said, and he let out a tired sigh.

“We are looking at what can only be called Calamity Two Point Zero. I have compiled several readings and times. As you can see, the shards located at positional coordinates (-2,1) have begun releasing tremendous amounts of non-System energy,” he said. That last part caught my attention.

“The non-System energy after its initial burst phase, has entered a continuous expansion phase, based on area. I suspect that this is due to a flat ceiling and floor on the Systemic Lands. Imagine this place like a hallow rectangle with high pressure gas. You pump in another gas. It goes up to the top and then spreads out.” I nodded at this. The metaphor wasn’t perfect, but it made sense.

“There are two main side effects from this non-System energy that is hostile to human life. The first is energy overwrite. Tests have shown that the non-System energy begins breaking down stats, enchantments, and most forms of System derived energy, I will cover the exceptions in a bit.” Good, he was looking for weaknesses.

“The second issue is molecular destabilization. Or gooification. That was mentioned in the reports of the area before the System intervened the previous time. Whatever is causing this is an external entity. Or an outside context problem in relation to the Systemic Lands. This is shown, by the fact that the ambient energy is being overwritten.” Which was very bad.

“Energy testing, shows that denser concentration of energy are more resistant, with possible immunity at a million stat points in a single stat. The most resistant energy type has been nature, which is opposite construct, but even that difference, we are only looking at around ten percent. Not an immunity or true counter. We are working on testing other types of energy combinations, but so far we haven’t made much progress due to time and material constraints,” Jacob explained.

“Do you expect this to stop?” I asked. That was the big question. Would the problem go away on its own.

“Impossible to say, but most likely no. Whatever is doing this has definitely crossed the Goldberg limit of self-awareness. Whatever that threshold is. My current working theory is that those shards are the remnants of something else and were only damaged not killed. Now they are healed enough. It would also explain the first Calamity,” he said and I thought about this explanation.

“But the Almighty System hasn’t intervened. Any idea why?” I asked.

“Impossible to say. There is no good answer. The trigger for the last response was you and the Astrologer reaching the System Store. I have tried that myself, but nothing has happened. Whatever is going on, we should assume that the System is not able or willing to intervene,” he explained.

Everyone listening in was silent was Jacob and I went back and forth in this discussion. “You mentioned a million stats, could I survive with less, and the symptoms? Is there a warning?” I asked.

“Yes, you could survive at least initially, but I can’t say if there would be permanent effects. In the central area, maybe. If you survived a level 7 zone, then I would be more confident.”

“I have,” I replied.

“As for a warning, intense head pains. But you are more likely to notice damage to your stats. This isn’t like regular curse damage either. This would be stat or soul damage.”

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“Like losing humanity with hybridization?” I asked.

“Similar to that. Curse damage, damages the shape of your energy pattern, which matches your body. Putting them out of sync. This soul damage, is changing your energy pattern to something different.” That was bad, very, very bad.

“Which means the more stabilized one’s energy, or denser, the easier it is to resist,” I said with a frown. That meant I was the only one with the ability to head to the source, if I even could. That was the bad part about being the strongest person. I had to deal with stuff like this. There was no government or other group I could ask for help. I was the government everyone was depending on.

“Indeed. However, even if you can survive, the issue is what can you do? Right now, there are a couple of options. The first option is to develop a bomb. With base level 7 crafting crystals, we can upscale them to level 8, and construct a bomb to end all bombs. The hard part would be the outer casing, but it could be done.” Bombs always felt like a good idea.

“The option, would be a more targeted portable beam weapon. To attack at a distance. That’s it on the technical side of options,” Jacob said.

“What are you looking in terms of time frame?” I asked.

“If I had enough crafting crystals to make a level 8 weapon with the help of Doctor Katz, we are looking at five to ten days. But the bottleneck is the supply.” I was the only one who could get level 7 crafting crystals.

“There are other options we are considering,” Clarissa jumped in and I looked over to her. “The second option is to wipe out all the cities to the West and begin grinding crystals, with the goal of creating a fleet of airships to evacuate the Systemic Lands.”

“We don’t even know what is out there and the cost,” I pointed out.

“It isn’t a good option, but it is an option. We can’t do anything Michael. For all the research, math, and preparation, no one can reach your level of stats. There is also the fact of the Sword to consider. It might be able to fight against whatever this is. We fall back to the West, and let this energy wave hit the Indian Sultanate,” she said.

“Correct me if I am wrong, but would this energy wave, spread faster to the West, once it fills up the East?” I asked Jacob.

“Most likely. It is spreading it void zones too. We would be looking at the non-System energy reaching the western most city by day 5,500 at the latest. But there is a lot of intelligent guesswork and assumptions,” Jacob said.

There was silence at this. I couldn’t even describe the feeling that was coursing through me. It was knowing an asteroid was coming to destroy the world, but nothing could be done. There was just this helpless feeling and I could tell everyone was looking at me for a solution. It appeared Clarissa had given up.

This was an out of context problem. The Divine Empress, despite her insanity and dangerousness, was still a human being. There were certain expectations that came with that. This problem was more akin to a natural disaster. Looking at the number of zones lost made my soul hurt. All those points were no longer being collected. All that investment into cities was lost.

“Purgatory?” I asked.

“It might still stand. They have enough shield to last until day 5,060 at least. But the question then becomes, if the shields can handle the opposing energy pressure and their interaction. I suspect they should be able to hold on,” Jacob said. Well that was good news.

“The rest of the cities, well their defense abilities are lacking. They most likely have succumbed. Since the energy is lower in these areas, the non-system energy will flow towards them faster. And without stats, you know people can’t go hide out in a level 6 zone, even if they were habitable. So, retreating to higher level zones is impossible,” Clarissa explained. That was the strategy against the Divine Empress. But this was an area effect.

“If we could get the Avatar, we might get some answers,” I said with a sigh. Might have to head to Purgatory to get her. There was silence at this statement.

“Actually, I took her when we evacuated,” Clarissa said. I turned to look at her fully and she shook her head slightly. “She won’t respond intelligently. That is the other option, throwing her at the problem and seeing what happens. But the risk, is a lot.”

“Bring her here,” I ordered. Two soldiers rushed off. I was glad they didn’t look at Clarissa first for confirmation. It was a small thing, but it showed that the people still believed and followed me over her. It was stupid to think about popularity at the moment. I guess when the foundation is shifting, I was looking for others to blame.

It would be easy to yell and blame other people, but not productive. At the end of the day, I wasn’t a useless politician that just had to get elected. I actually had to solve problems. With great power, came too much actual responsibility I couldn’t fork over to anyone else.

The Avatar, who was a human nugget, was wheeled into the conference room, strapped into a hand cargo pusher. A wheelchair would have been more comfortable than whatever strap contraption was keeping her in place, but I didn’t say anything about that.

Her eyeless head was occasionally twitching. I spun my chair to face her. “Avatar.”

“Noooo….” I heard her moan out mentally. That was not a good sign. Time to try extreme measures. I reached out with both of my hands and put them on either side of her head. I then pushed out a lot of energy into the air around her head. It jerked under my hands.

“What…who is there?” she asked.

“It is Michael. What is going on? Why hasn’t the System intervened?”

“I…nooo!” “AHHHHHH!” While her tounge was removed, she let out a horrible scream and began to shake violently. Doctor Katz rushed over.

“Michael, keep her head stable, Imbue Life. Imbue Life.” I quickly got up and moved around beyond her, while holding her head steady. The good doctor activated his skills. I knew he didn’t need to say them, but clearly, he wanted the extra control to handle whatever was currently happening. The A

“Doctor, what is happening?” I asked.

“I can’t tell. Whatever is happening isn’t physical. If the Almighty System is under attack, then it stands to reason, she is as well,” he replied.