Chapter 15: Invitations to the Ark

Julius set his crystal glass on the polished marble coaster with a dull, quiet click.

On the screen of his black smartphone, the words were still flying by so quickly that the system chat looked like a runaway waterfall of raw hatred. Hundreds of combatants—men and women who could summon firestorms, shatter concrete with a punch, or move faster than sound—were completely losing their minds over a plate of grilled beef and buttered potatoes.

They wanted to hunt him down. They wanted to rip his throat out. They were forming alliances, making pacts, and swearing blood oaths to tear his shelter apart with their bare hands.

Julius leaned back into the soft leather of his chair and laughed. It was a quiet, genuine chuckle that echoed lightly off the warm wood-paneled walls of his private living room.

Did they really think they were terrifying?

A starving lion with a broken leg wasn’t a threat; it was just a loud animal about to die. These "monarchs" and "champions" had spent two whole months being battered by the rain. Their boots were falling apart. Their clothes were soaked in muddy, foul-smelling floodwater. Their fingers were stiff from the bitter cold, and half of them were fighting off infections because they had never learned how to disinfect a scratch without modern clinics.

They were angry because they were terrified. They were angry because they had realized, deep in their bones, that all their flashy divine abilities couldn’t brew a single cup of clean drinking water.

Julius picked up his phone again.

He didn’t open the chat right away. Instead, he swiped over to the hidden partition on his device, bringing up the master console for [Project Sirens].

A three-dimensional digital globe spun slowly on the dark screen. Across its surface, eight distinct emerald markers pulsed with steady, rhythmic energy.

Site 1: Canadian Shield, North America.

Site 2: Patagonian Andes, South America.

Site 3: Swiss Alps, Europe.

Site 4: Ahaggar Massif, North Africa.

Site 5: Central Siberian Bedrock, Northern Asia.

Site 6: Inland Karsts, East Asia.

Site 7: Western Outback, Oceania.

Site 8: Queen Maud Land, Antarctica.

Each bunker had cost Julius fifty billion dollars to hollow out, reinforce, and fully automate. They were built deep into high-altitude basalt plateaus and ancient mountain shields, safely resting hundreds of meters above any possible ocean surge.

Inside those eight vaults, the air was warm, dry, and scrubbed clean. Massive hydroponic bays stood ready under purple lights. Industrial freezers were packed to the ceiling with vacuum-sealed meats, butter, cheeses, and grains. The small modular nuclear reactors buried in their bedrock were humming smoothly at idle, ready to pump unlimited electricity through the living quarters for the next thirty years.

To anyone looking from the outside, each vault was a literal paradise—a modern, warm, golden palace carved into living stone, capable of shielding humanity from the apocalypse.

Julius tapped a series of commands into the screen.

[SYSTEM QUERY: BROADCAST BEACONS ENGAGED?] > CONFIRM: DEPLOY RADIO / SYSTEM LOCATION BEACONS. [STATUS: 8 REGIONAL SITES INITIALIZING BROADCAST ARRAYS.]

Deep in the howling wind and rain of the Swiss Alps, an armored hatch on a snowy cliffside ground open, extending a high-frequency communications mast into the dark sky. In the Canadian wilderness, far above the swollen rivers, another beacon flashed green, sending its coordinates out into the atmosphere. In the deserts of Africa, the highlands of South America, and the frozen wastes of Siberia, the eight silent giants woke up at the exact same moment.

Julius switched back to the [World Chat].

The anger was still bubbling, though a few people had started to sound completely defeated.

— [Titan_01]: "You guys hear me?! Anyone in North America, we gather at the highest point in the Appalachians! We make rafts, we find his island, and we gut him like a fish!"

— [GaleForce]: "Be realistic, Titan! We don’t even have clean water! How are we going to cross an ocean in a storm that never ends?!"

— [Bloodhound]: "He has to come out eventually. No one can stay underground forever."

— [Viper]: "He has hydroponics, you moron. Didn’t you look at the photo? He never has to come out. While we starve, he’ll just watch us die on his monitors."

— [ShadowStep]: "Is anyone near Chicago? Please... my fever is 104. I can’t teleport anymore. I just want a dry blanket..."

Julius smiled faintly. The timing was perfect.

If you offer a drowning man a lifeline while he’s still swimming, he might ignore it or try to argue with you. But if you wait until his head slips beneath the surface for the third time, he will sell his own soul just to grab a splinter of wood.

Julius placed his fingers on the keyboard and began typing.

[Julius (Rank 456)]: "Everyone, calm down. Why are you all so angry? I told you before, I didn’t pick combat abilities because I have no interest in fighting. I chose Infinite Wealth because I wanted to survive. And unlike you guys, I actually thought about what surviving an apocalypse meant."

The chat paused for a split second, then a barrage of angry curses started to fly again:

— [ThunderG]: "Shut your mouth, Vance! Stop talking down to us from your cozy little hole!"

— [IronHide]: "You’re gloating while people are dying! You deserve to be ripped apart!"

Julius didn’t care. He sent his next message without hesitation:

[Julius (Rank 456)]: "I’m not gloating. In fact, I’m feeling generous today. You all keep saying I hoarded everything for myself. That I’m a selfish monster who locked the world out. But the truth is... I didn’t build just one shelter. I built nine."

The chat stopped dead.

Not a single message appeared. For five full seconds, the global channel was frozen in pure, breathless shock.

[Julius (Rank 456)]: "I knew two years ago that an apocalypse was coming. I didn’t know what kind of calamity it would be, so I spent several hundred billion dollars preparing for everything. I hired the best engineering firms on Earth and built eight secondary survival citadels across every continent. North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and even Antarctica."

Julius tapped the screen, attaching a packet of data directly to the chat interface.

It wasn’t just text; it was full architectural schematics and exterior satellite photos of the eight massive, iron-and-concrete entrance gates built into the mountain ranges. The pictures showed the blast-proof titanium doors, the glowing status displays on the outer control consoles, and the automated distress towers flashing green against the storm clouds.

Along with the photos came exact GPS coordinates, elevation maps, and access frequencies.

— [Titan_01]: "...What the hell is this?"

— [GaleForce]: "Wait... wait, are those real coordinates?! The Canadian Shield site is only two hundred miles north of where I am!"

— [NightCrawler]: "The Swiss Alps location... it’s real. I can pick up the radio beacon on my receiver right now! It’s broadcasting an emergency ping on civilian channels!"

— [FlameLord]: "Is this a joke? Are you playing with us?!"

— [Viper]: "Why would you give us the locations of your bunkers?! You just told us where to go!"

Julius took another sip of his wine, watching the panic turn into wild, desperate hope.

He was ready to set the board.