Apocalypse Redux

Apocrypha 2: Cipactli / Book 7 Release

Once more into the fucking breach.

Isaac had long since decided that any [World Boss] battles would have to be planned as though he weren’t involved, leaving him free to not attend. He would join, obviously, but he hardly felt like having to clean up after every bad decision humanity made.

If it would lead to the end of the world, he would hardly sit idle, but otherwise, he liked his peace. Peace and home.

In exchange for terraforming Mars using Ymir’s World Item, Isaac had been granted Olympus Mons in perpetuity, along with a tax exemption and countless other exemptions.

So a large chunk of the crater had become a training arena sitting underneath an academy built into the crater wall, while he’d built a palatial home.

But he had to admit, he was getting a bit bored by now, and he did want to see what Cipactli looked like.

It was a dangerous kind of curiosity, the kind that led to children touching hot stoves and adults winning Darwin awards, but Isaac was one of the few people who could handle the consequences of sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.

… Famous last words.

At least this time around, things were happening outside the solar system altogether. In Alpha Centauri, to be exact. A trinary star system, the closest one to Earth and utterly uninhabitable, no matter what you did. Or rather, almost impossible to permanently make habitable.

Simply put, the combination of three stars whirling around each other meant that any planet or other stellar body in that stellar system would have absurdly erratic orbits, flying way too close to stars, or going way too far for sufficient heat to reach them. Making any of the planets present life-bearing would have required a World Item, the Essence of Ymir, to be exact, to create a biosphere that could easily wind up destroyed in less than a decade.

Between the proximity to the solar system and the complete absence of anything humanity wanted to avoid wrecking (Pluto had never been quite the same after Ymir and later Ziz), Alpha Centauri was perfect for this kind of shenanigans.

And, best of all, the logistics were running completely without his input.

Therefore, he had zero paperwork. Or at least as close to zero as was humanly possible.

***

Humanity beware, a World Boss has been summoned! Bear witness to his name and tremble:

Cipactli, The First Beast, Monster of Endless Maws, The Hungering Earth

This is a monster meant to be an opponent for your entire species, and in your own words, “hang together or hang separately”.

Good luck!

Current location: Planet [name contested] (150 km straight down)

Isaac bit back a laugh at the unexpected sight of the planet’s name. It seemed like the incessant arguing about what to call this world had gotten so bad that even the System had gotten confused. Or at the very least, there was nothing anywhere near definitive enough for it to lock onto.

Yeesh. Some poor bureaucrat would get hit by a completely pointless shitstorm after this, but thankfully, that was very much a them problem.

Based on the grimaces of the others around him, several people had noticed that too and were trying to keep a straight face and not doing a particularly good job.

But most were like him, glaring down at the monster.

Cipactli was huge, as immense as the various other [World Bosses] had been, but unique otherwise.

The Leviathan had, to use his earlier description, an angry shoelace. Impossibly long yet thin, giving it the appearance of something akin to a weirdly blue spaghetti when viewed from far enough away.

Ymir had been a giant, full stop. A big-ass human with grey-ish skin, fire and ice swirling around him.

And Ziz had just been a big bird with horrifically effective aerokinesis.

But this thing … Even after all these years of fighting monsters, Isaac wasn’t quite sure how to describe it.

Cipactli shared the size with its other [World Bosses], four kilometers long, five if one included the head, and nine if you added the tail. Overall, it resembled a massive crocodile, an enormously thick one, with skin covered in nobs that were halfway between a crocodile’s “humps” and the warts of a toad. A fat tail that reminded Isaac of a thresher shark, made for smashing, hung from its rear, a deadly weapon for anyone attempting to attack from that side. The monster had a grand total of six weirdly long, multi-jointed legs whose ends disappeared underground, leaving Isaac unable to see how long they were.

All of that, however, was ignoring the biggest, most memorable and eye-catching bodypart of the beast.

The mouths.

Countless mouths, elliptical, black caverns filled with countless fangs, each completed with a lashing tongue, covered the beast, one on each joint, and a few more dotted around its body at any point that often moved, such as the neck and several spots along the tail.

Isaac grimaced. He’d read about those in the various mythological treatises, but it was an entirely different thing seeing them in person.

And yet, even they were nothing compared to the beast’s true maw, sitting in the “normal” spot of Cipactli’s crocodilian head. It hung open, fangs the size of destroyers ringing a black void that seemed to stretch into infinity, showing more space inside the beast than ever should have been possible, all the way down to a single crimson point miles and miles from the “entrance”, yet even that seemed to be infinite, a sea of blood sitting at the heart of the likewise endless space within the primordial crocodile.

Cipactli roared up at them, countless maws sending out waves of energy in place of sound, a red wave of force that would likely have been utterly lethal to anyone within a few dozen kilometers.

At the distance the humans were hanging out at, it would likely be merely unpleasant, but the people with the relevant [Skills] nevertheless threw up multilayered shields while the offensive portion of the combined armies of humanity returned fire.

Miniature meteors, hurled blades, complex curses and spellformations that had taken hours or even days to set up spat death itself, while an entire fleet of the most advanced starships ever built unleashed a technological arsenal never seen until this point.

Lasers struck first, rays of coherent light as intense as the sun burning skin and boiling away the flesh beneath. Particle beams were the next to impact, slower by a fraction of time so short that even people with Isaac’s Perception only knew they were slower by logic alone, ripping into the monster more directly, injecting energy deep into the monster.

Missiles and railgun rounds were slower, but even more hard-hitting. Demon-blood catalyzed fusion warheads, enchanted Saggitarius-Steel penetrators that weighed almost as much as the ships that launched them, and more exotic and experimental weaponry that was ill-suited for standardization in some way.

All the while, Isaac just watched. Observed. Planned.

He was still using his [Assassin of the Logos Blade] [Class] for maximum analysis power, [Knowledge Seeker] vacuuming up every scrap of information that presented itself and folding it into the massive Leviathan-bone sword in his hands, which began glowing steadily brighter. He’d already learned everything he could about fish, crocodiles and toads, the animals that comprised the [World Boss], and now, he was drawing on his target for that final push, to create the perfect weapon.

Opposing sides of the battle unleashed twin waves of annihilation washed towards each other and for the most part, both were disappointed by the outcome.

Cipactli’s energy wave was about to crash into the wall of shields when it was brought up short, its center growing black and being sucked into a singular point, and the rest followed shortly, the massive but now-diffuse blastwave completely vanishing into a spatial pocket.

Isaac wasn’t entirely sure where it’s creator was, but he knew who’d done that.

Rashid Boateng, the Undying Flame, one of the few space-aligned combat S-Rankers had sucked up the entirety of the initial attack but that wasn’t the end of things.

Then, the void began to boil, black nothingness becoming stained red before shifting into something in between, Cipactli’s crimson energy first intermingling then merging with something wholly different, the power of the void itself.

Utter. Nothingness.

A red-black ray of power lanced back down at the planet, straight towards Cipactli … who was already in the process of burrowing underground, merging with the planet, having left any attack that wasn’t functionally lightspeed to detonate futility against the surface.

That was when the reflected attack struck, blasting apart the immense dust cloud that had been launched upwards by the initial impact, revealing Cipactli just beneath the new surface moments before it struck, leaving the [World Boss] to retreat into the planet with an angry red burn on its back, vanishing from view in short order.

Isaac could still tell where it was with his Aura, but trying to reach it down there with his available weapons would do negligible damage.

Their opening salvo had been fired and largely dodged, while the monster’s initial attack had been fired straight back into its face. But that was all that had happened, and they were now reduced to this weird standoff.

“Now what?” Amy asked. “Do we try cracking open the planet?”

That question prompted a few hushed comments and shocked titters, but after a few minutes, the consensus was that it was a bad idea. It’d waste a ton of energy, and Cipactli could doubtlessly burrow deeper.

“There has to be a way to hit that thing without breaking a planet,” Patrick finally said. “Monsters can be weird and unique, but they never retreat and dig in completely. Not like that.”

The planet down below was slowly changing as they spoke, the churned-up rock, beginning to bleed.

“Mr. Lerch is right,” Professor Kim threw in. “Monsters have their quirks, but their core purpose of providing a challenge to their summoner or summoners is always present. That a beast would retreat until its autonomous summoning triggered or the like runs contrary to the very core of the System.

“Therefore, there has to be an end to this process. If not a time limit, then one we can bring about. Dr. Thoma, does your mythological knowledge give you any ideas?”

It would seem like that statement made quite a few assumptions but she was one of the few people who knew the whole story concerning the System’s origins and restrictions, making her explanation far more accurate than most people realized.

“A god sacrificed his foot to lure Cipactli to the surface of the primordial ocean, where the other gods killed it,” Isaac explained.

“Hey, does that thing prevent regeneration or something?”

Isaac rotated himself to face the speaker, a strange proposition in zero-g.

“Not to my knowledge,” he said.

“Then I’ll do it.”

Lau Kant was an enormous celestial humanoid with ashen white skin and pitch-black hair that looked like strands of the void itself, blending in with the surroundings so perfectly it sometimes appeared as though pieces of his head weren’t there.

He’d been floating in space up until now, somehow giving off the impression that he was lounging in a comfortable chair even though he was, well, floating in the middle of nowhere with the nearest solid surface several kilometers away.

But now that he was taking action, he was starting to exude a dangerous air, of razor-sharp focus and deadly intent.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Kant had already moved past Isaac when he stopped and turned around.

“Do you need some time to prepare, or should I do it right now?”

Isaac sent that up the chain, then passed along the message he got in return.

“We need an hour.”

***

In the end, it had taken a couple of hours to set things up fully, but this should be a truly wonderful one-two punch to get the damn murder-croc out of the blood ocean it was creating on the surface of the planet.

Kant would lure the monster and try to keep it on the surface long enough for a concerted effort to catapult it into space.

The man known as the Shining Guardian didn’t hesitate in the slightest as he lowered himself towards the bloody ocean, moving with slow deliberateness as he came closer and closer … until Cipactli exploded from beneath the waves, jaws open to swallow him whole. And bit down.

… It didn’t get anywhere.

Instead, its jaws were held open by a shining citadel that had appeared there, rings of teeth surrounding the radiant building, even unable to withdraw and let go.

And then, Kant triggered his second [Skill], one that added some variety of hard-to-shift momentum to him, making the citadel yerk skywards, pulling the monster maybe a hundred meters upwards, exposing part of it.

That alone was nowhere near enough to do much of anything, getting the monster to the surface was an entirely different achievement than truly exposing it to everyone else, something that had, of course, been planned for.

Lan Mercer was an Australian S-Ranked Pugilist whose [Class] was based around demonic magic and power, though the things that were the most important at the moment were his fists. Where logic and common sense went to die.

In an instant, Mercer transformed from his regular, slightly demonic humanoid form into a new shape that would have made Demon Lords green with envy. Eighty meters tall, two immense ram’s horns crowning his head, heavy scales covering every inch of his body. Then, he punched the ground, and the ocean exploded, the force echoing into the surface of the water before bouncing back up, hammering into the [World Boss’] stomach and catapulting it skywards, flinging Kant off into the void almost by accident.

But even as the monster was hurled almost fifty meters upwards, Mercer collapsed down onto one knee, blood running from between his scales. The flip side of his ability. Isaac didn’t know the specifics, but was aware of the fact that it wasn’t a standard cooldown Skill. Instead, it was something akin to hysterical strength, but well beyond it, capable of letting him massively enhance his Strength Stat to dish out immense damage while putting similarly immense strain on his body, while letting him direct the force in ways that would otherwise have been impossible.

And what he’d just done had to be on the absolute top end of what his [Skill] allowed. He was in no position to keep fighting right this moment, but thankfully, he wasn’t required to stare down the boss.

Because that was when Aiden Larsen attacked. The tall Norweigian Dryad slipped into the tiny gap between the monster and the surface, triggering his biggest cooldown [Skill].

Yggdrasil manifested around him, the world tree itself projecting itself into reality and unleashing the power of all nine realms into the guts of the beast, launching it several kilometers higher but even as that was happening, Larsen’s entire demeanor shifted, and so did the power washing off him.

Another dual [Class] user?

Larsen unsheathed his sword and launched himself at the monster, a spectral flood of water manifesting around him, wiping away the bloody ocean that Cipactli was trying to use to drag itself back down to the surface. The monster lashed out with its claws, the maws on the joints attempting to gobble the dryad up but failing utterly as the man dodged with perfect accuracy, betraying a Level of foresight that surpassed even Isaac in the supernatural cognition department.

That was when he started cutting, a lash of water following every strike and carving the monsters stomach while imparting more and more energy skywards. Not much, but enough to get the process started.

And that was when the next stage hit. Thalia Pathstrider was someone without a clear and defined powerset, someone who could borrow power subsets from countless paths. And in this situation, well, she’d managed to whip up some brand-new orbital weapons systems boosted with more [Skills] than any single person should have been able to tack on. Her flexible path lacked the various threshold bonuses regular [Skills] got, and her experience with any given powerset was lesser than that of someone who specialized, but very few people would have been able to pull something like that off on the spot.

Though the heart of her setup was her precognition, her having fine-tuned the entire thing to the point of utter perfection, one salvo following the next, hammering right into the monster in the location the previous salvo had flung it, each and every strike carrying the monster higher and higher.

Cipactli briefly became the fourth Sun in the sky as it was lit up from every side and hurled too deeply into space to easily recover.

Finally. A way to go after it properly.

Isaac launched himself at the monster, half a dozen fireballs appearing above his palm while [Speed of Hati] carried him through space, then flung the energy orbs at the titanic monster.

These weren’t normal fireballs, though. This was the version of [Divine Fire] he’d figured while fighting the Leviathan, the compressed fireballs he’d created and registered with the [Skill] so he could whip them out at a moment’s notice.

The Promethean Nova.

Each fireball flashed into an open mouth and detonated withing, banishing the darkness within and scorching its insides. As threatening as those mouths were to anyone who got too close, they were also gigantic targets.

Then, Isaac triggered [I Am The Sword], finishing his charge with deadly intent, leading with the massively enchanted sword built specifically to annihilate the enemy before him.

The largest weapon Old Reliable could transform into was a Leviathan-bone greatsword that carved through the hide of the monster as though it were less than even butter, flesh boiling away as energy that was fundamentally antithetical to the struck beast.

But that had only been the opening salvo, hundreds of humanity’s strongest followed suit, carving into the monster until it looked like it had gone three round with an alley cat and lost.

Unfortunately, that was when something weird happened. Cipactli began to fall. Sure, obviously that was happening, they hadn’t managed to get it anywhere close to escape velocity, but simple instinct told Isaac that it was falling too fast, not to mention all the knowledge [Skills] that confirmed it and the clamor of his allies that had noticed the same thing.

Falling faster, no flight ability otherwise … ergo, gravity fuckery. Ymir had had the same ability, though to a greater degree. Yet neither of them had any mythological connection to that particular enemy. So … did all [World Bosses] that couldn’t fly have this ability to somewhat be able to navigate.

Did the Leviathan? If the Devil Snake had lived more than an hour after being launched into the sky, would it have fallen down onto the Earth as the meteor that had annihilated the dinosaurs had?

Isaac shivered. That was a scary thought. The world of the System was like that. It loved to let slip how close you had come to utter, apocalyptic, disaster, after the fact, just to see you squirm.

Though there was one man who came in out of nowhere, having clearly seen this as an opportunity.

Ärden, just Ärden, the second Argentinian S-Ranker and one of the strongest skill-based fighters in the world. Perfected combat skills, elegant strikes, at least half a dozen absurdly powerful [Skills] boosting his blade as the man launched himself off the surface of the planet, straight at the beast, glowing sword meeting impossibly sharp skin and parting it with casual ease.

And then, it was already over, the [World Boss] continuing its descent while blood sprayed from a long diagonal gash that ran across its side while Ärden kept going until he was in space with everyone else.

But he’d given Isaac an idea.

Getting under the monster was simple enough, as was a weird balancing act that had him brace as many swords as possible against his body, and then, having come to a complete stop relative to the planet below right in the monster’s path, activated [I Am The Sword].

The [World Boss], weighing hundreds of thousands of tons, landed on a free-floating ball of blades that was, for a split-second, utterly immovable.

When he’d been thirteen or fourteen, Isaac had once stepped on a particularly pointy piece of lego and screamed so loudly that he’d woken up the entire house, completely unable to stop himself. What Cipactli had to be feeling right now was doubtlessly a million times worse. The only question that remained was whether or not the monster would tip to the side and fall off before his [Skill] ended.

And it did.

The initial impact had placed Isaac almost a hundred meters deep in its body and when the monster slid off him in less than a second, he carved a bloody path of destruction and fire through it.

Then, he had to leg it, because it seemed like most people had taken this as their opportunity to get in the last few blows before the monster vanished beneath the waves again.

The [World Boss’] body was wreathed in explosions, flesh cratering and rippling away from the sight of railgun rounds impacting, further ripping apart a badly abused body until it reached the planet’s surface.

Cipactli hit the ground like a meteor, the bloody ocean that had dripped back down into the crater by now erupting back into the air, where the droplets transformed into crimson javelins that tore through, everything. Anything that was close enough to get hit got a nice big hole torn through it, starships included.

“I don’t think it liked that,” Arthur commented. “So we fish it back out again and keep wailing on it until it goes back to hiding?”

“I think that might have been how the fight is intended to go,” Dr. Han suggested. “The monster attacks, retreats back into the ground to prepare the battlefield, then attacks again, over and over until it has either won or dies. I might be able to mess with its retreat somewhat, delay it, but can’t stop it.”

“What if we worked together?” Raul asked. “I can stabilize the surface, you weaken Cipactli’s ability to meld into the planet, and Patrick can ward the ground.”

That became the core of the plan, but it grew from there.

Kant had returned by now, Mercer had recovered, and several mages took the place of the rest of those that had launched Cipactli the last time.

Things went smoothly from there, launching the beast skywards while the ground below transformed in its entirety. Red waves became grey rock while the red aura that surrounded Cipactli began to die, and shining runes covered the surface of the planet like an arcane spiderweb.

With a tremendous crash no one could hear due to an absence of air to carry the sound, the [World Boss] hammered into the ground, and the battle began in earnest.

The beast’s countless maws had chomped apart countless people and starships, energy waves had smashed even more, and the spears of crimson bloody water had done even more damage.

But now, it was finally in a place where they could fight it, kill it, annihilate it. And annihilate they did.

Down below, the combination of Dr. Han weakening the monster’s effect upon the environment and Raul’s domain of nature was preventing it form pulling any funny business while vines and shifting earth slowed the monster.

And up above, immense combination spells were being woven.

Amy was, as per usual, wreathed in energy that no normal mage would be willing to touch with a ten lightyear pole, an unstructured mess turned lethal implement under the force of her will, and there were dozens just like her.

Though the currently largest and most eye-catching display was courtesy of the other S-ranked New Zeelander.

Kofi Boakye, the Luminous Archmage, had taken charge of several hundred light based casters and was fusing the entirety of their power into a massive spinning drill-head formed from hardlight, charging it to the point where it glowed like the sun.

And then, it was blasted at the planet, ripping clean through Cipactli’s head, into the brain and continuing onwards into several kilometers of rock, the rotation of the projectile sending blood and brain matter flying.

Cipactli roared, rearing up onto its hind legs while crimson energy swelled up from the bloody star that lay at the heart of its bottomless maw … only for it to start choking on the half a dozen nuclear warheads that General Ardouin had directed there, portals opening inside its wide-open throat to deposit the devastating bombs directly.

They continued to pour on the attacks until eventually, the [World Boss] finally fell, ripped into a thousand pieces.

The Rewards Levels are listed below, however, there are some specifics that need to be shared ahead of time:

1. Body Pieces may be either a tooth, scale, tooth-sized piece of bone, 50 Cipactli steaks, 1 liter of any bodily fluid, or 50 m^2 of leather

2. World Boss Aspects must be stacked atop a compatible Aspect, but can override previous Skills if so desired, allowing their recipients to customize how they use their rewards.

3. Regardless of how many people hold each rank of reward, only a maximum of 15 Aspects will be handed out.

4. Level Boosts are not immediate, their recipients will receive them and trigger them whenever they choose to (they will trigger automatically if doing so would push their recipient to the maximum Level of 200).

Infinitesimal: Those who participated but failed to reach any reward higher tiers will receive 100,000 XP

Minor: Those who participated in the battle and contributed will receive 200,000 XP

Small: Those who participated in a way that would be noted as being above average in reports will receive 500,000 XP, half a body piece (own choice), and have a 0.1% chance at receiving an Aspect

Sufficient: Those who have done enough that a million like them together would have been able to beat the World Boss will receive 1,000,000 XP, 1 body piece, and have a 1% chance of receiving an Aspect

Significant: This tier requires one to single-handedly affect the battle in some way, be it by briefly restraining the foe so others may land a solid hit, or landing a significant hit on their own. As such, they will be boosted by 1 Level or 2,000,000 XP, whichever is more, gain 3 body pieces, and have a 10% chance of getting an Aspect.

Massive: Those who will go down in the history books as having helped slay Cipactli are going to be boosted by a full five Levels, receive an Aspect of Cipactli and 5 body pieces.

Decisive: This is a rank that can only be held by a single person per battle.

In this battle, this person was one Raul Mina, who exposed the beast and prevented it from returning to the earth.

As such, he will receive a boost of 10 Levels, an Aspect of Cipactli, 25 body pieces (24 by his choice, 1 Cipactli Heartblood), and the World Item [Cipactli’s Distilled Fury].

This is an item that can affect the world as a whole, altering the entirety of the Earth’s waterways, in ways that may be humanity’s boon or bane.

Raul had gotten first place. Good on him, he’d earned it, though Isaac just hoped he’d get the chance to see the World Item before it was used.

***

Isaac glared down at the crimson marble in his palm.

Cipactli’s World Item was a weird one, one that might even be enough to safeguard the planet from most casual attacks. But the method was … concerning.

Cipactli’s Distilled Fury (World Item)

The Boon given to the slayer of Cipactli, holding the undying fury of the primordial beast, a hate that destroyed even the gods’ creations before the beast was bound.

This anger and fighting spirit can be placed within a planetary body, which then gains the ability to defend itself from any external threat by warping its gravity/magnetic fields, hurling lighting, etc.

In extreme cases, well, large threats might find themselves punched by a planet. (Stasis fields will protect the inhabitants and buildings, there will be no damage beyond what is caused by the attackers directly)

By default, the collective consciousness of the planet’s inhabitants are what guides the monster, destroying the enemies that threaten the world if so desired.

(This desire needs to go beyond someone wanting potential targets to go away or die, true visceral hatred and a willingness to attack given half a chance are what is needed.)

This is a set-and-forget item, the user will need to set all parameters prior to activation, at which point the item will be destroyed.

As a World Item, Cipcatli’s Distilled Fury cannot be stored in any manner of spatial device.

Well, well, well, this was … uh … ever so slightly nuts. Crazy, insane, batshit … oh, there were about a billion ways to describe that across the roughly five-thousand languages Isaac spoke.

The risk of getting punched by a planet should at least deter quite a few potential alien invasions, assuming aliens existed, or if one of humanity’s colonies decided to go mad with power.

Though someone could still incessantly throw rocks until the planet was nothing but molten slag, and a World Boss summoned on the planet’s surface would not automatically get yeeted into space by the now-living planet.

This thing would get slapped onto Earth in all likelihood, to keep it safe for the rest of eternity, and if someone wanted to protect the rest of humanity’s planets, well, they could damn well kill Cipacti again in ten years, without him. That fight had been insane.

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