Chapter 93: Interlude Isaac

One particular prophecy had been a part of the [Book of Seven Seals] basically since the very start, since the time he’d gained the [Skill].

The prophecy which warned that there was dangerous shit out there in the universe, something that had been proven true several times over.

The first one had been unchanged no matter what followed.

Seal One:

A blue orb, lonely,

In a universe old, vast

Beings unknown live

Badly written haiku aside, that one was easy.

Earth was floating alone in space, and there were a lot of things out there that they didn’t know about because the universe was billions of years out.

Some of those were friendly aliens, others were wary aliens, and others still were lunatics who’d gotten themselves killed through sheer stupidity and recklessness. And some of that last group had left behind some genuine issues …

Yet all those things were distant, entirely hypothetical threats that were neither an immediate threat or something he even could go after.

Seal Two:

Returner’s chance,

Advantages from beyond,

Civilization

For a single heart-stopping moment, he’d assumed someone else had figured out the regression mechanic … then his mind caught up with reality.

First of all, someone overriding reality through time travel would not leave him in a position to think about it; overriding the present by changing the past would not leave anyone able to question the new reality unless the time traveler shared the information.

Second, the mechanic no longer worked. The cost of confirming that had been painful, but there were two good things to be said for Loki: he didn’t lie, and was usually willing to make a deal for entertainment.

Third … someone returning from somewhere with information had done something to make them a threat. Very informative … and still nothing to go on, except that there was something going on.

Seal Three:

Steel-forged hulls

Light, fire, and damnation,

Armada comes

At least it had confirmed they’d be dealing with a civilization and warships, and they might be looking at a fleet primarily using energy weapons, but nothing specific.

Which had let him believe, nay, delude himself that the apocalypse was still so far off that the [System] couldn’t offer anything more concrete.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

And then he’d gotten the fourth one.

Seal Four:

E unum pluribus

Latin for “out of one, many” … which made exactly zero sense without context. Context the [System] was stubbornly refusing to provide.

It was a clear inversion of the motto on the Great Seal of the United States, which read “e pluribus unum,” and that was at least partially “the joke,” the [System] having some fun at his expense. But that could hardly be the entirety of what there was to glean from that.

Just to recap: this was linked to something out there in outer space.

It was an at least potentially apocalyptic threat; otherwise, he wouldn’t be learning about it via this method.

It had given him three new Seals in as many months, so this wasn’t some far-off threat, at least in terms of time.

And it had something to do with a kind of multiplication that eventually led to starships.

Zombie plague?

Maybe, but there were far too many, far too good healers on Earth, one of whom had the [Class] [Heir to Louis Pasteur] and stopped even the embodiment of disease that was the Horseman of Pestilence short. Well, the “Horseman” had merely had the Aspirant version of the [Class], but the good doctor hadn’t been very high level either at the time. Unless a truly absurd number of starships were controlled by the zombies in question, and the ships were the issue …

Nanite-swarm?

Possible but unlikely. Any kind of self-replicating technology would quickly shed the boons granted by its creator as it advanced through the generations. Without direct sapient intervention, replicative decay kicked in something fierce.

Large political entity shattered, with dangerous remnants?

It was certainly possible; Earth’s history was littered with stories of empires breaking apart, leaving behind scores of warlords to prey upon the surrounding kingdoms, but at the same time … it’d have to be a damn big empire for one of its splinters to present the apocalyptic threat needed to trigger the warning.

Isaac finished the email he’d been typing up as he thought and sent it off to the relevant parties, then leaned back in his chair and continued playing through the various scenarios.

Maybe it was monsters again? Not that that was possible with any creature he knew to exist, but with every sapient species having its own summoning tables, that was hardly proof of anything.

Rogue monsters that had been left alone so long that they were autonomously summoning were perhaps the most likely issue to occur, but also the one least likely to actually be apocalyptic, at least of the ones he’d listed, because they were subject to the same glass ceiling everyone else was.

Well, it was more like a ceiling made of ballistic gel. They all inevitably hit it; they all were inevitably stopped by it, and then they’d have to fight harder than they’d ever had before to move even a single millimeter further.

And while he’d gotten quite a bit further than most, World Bosses were planted firmly ahead of him, in all their planet-wrecking, fleet-destroying, civilization-ending glory.

Those would be an issue, and had been oh so many times in the past, but they didn’t fit the hint. Mysterious as it was, there was no doubt in Isaac’s mind that it was also right.

It would take a mass of monsters to fit the “saying,” but it would take a World Boss to trigger the warning. Ergo, no monsters … unless there were a metric shit ton of monsters all fusing together into World Bosses at the same time, and they’d all spawned from one and the same original monster and disseminated across multiple planets. Or something.

Although, considering what was known about how long that took, this was highly unlikely in the first place.

Isaac pinched the bridge of his nose. So, it clearly wasn’t another monster problem, which barely narrowed things down.

He …

A [System]-window appeared before his eyes.

Message from Fleet Admiral Hunt

My office. Now. Direct teleport authorized.

That was direct. And fast. Also somewhat risky, if she really was letting him teleport straight into her office, considering all the defenses that would have to be lowered to make that happen.

Isaac drew upon [Continent Strider], the Level 30 [Skill] long since able to reach past the length of any “mere” continent as space tore, and he stepped through the resultant gash in reality, emerging just outside ´ the door to the admiral’s office, finding it open, and himself being greeted immediately.

“There are very few things that set more alarm bells ringing than someone who only predicts the end of the world having a new prophecy to share.”

“And I’m afraid those bells are going to have to keep on sounding the alert.” Isaac replied. “Here’s what’s about to come down the pipeline …”