Apocalypse Redux - Chapter 151: The Usual Suspects

Chapter 151: The Usual Suspects

With the initial problem hopefully handled, or at the very least mitigated, Isaac could now turn to the standard program of an Event, namely, fighting new monsters. Bailey and Oberst Gram were already chasing everyone into the correct position and assigning monsters to certain people to summon.

But that was something that Isaac didn’t really need to deal with as his assignment had been known from the start. Find the strongest thing you can take on, and kick its ass. Because really, if he couldn’t defeat something, there were very few other people on the face of the planet able to beat it, if any. Anything beyond that, well, that would likely necessitate a tactical nuke in response, as would most of monsters he was going to go up against should they kill their summoner and run wild.

With Isaac being the one dealing with those things, there shouldn’t be a problem.

By the time the first monster burst out of the ground in front of him, most of the people were still being given their marching orders. Isaac might have become the number two of the research team in an official capacity, and he was the de-facto leader in combat situations, but Bailey was still in charge overall and would continue to be. That also meant that he could deal with the less vital bureaucratical crap, thank you very much. It didn’t take an expert to dole out monster hunting assignments when the monsters weren’t in a position to be a threat to them, just someone in charge.

As for the monster, well, it was surprisingly similar to a regular, non-Event monster.

An Ice Titan was a Tier 7, fifteen-meter-tall moving ice sculpture that could liquefy parts of its body without increasing its temperature, allowing it to shift mass from point to point with blinding speed, constantly regenerating and replacing hacked-away armor to keep its core safe.

Meanwhile, its even counterpart stood a bit taller at seventeen meters, with countless branches and bits of driftwood stuck within it, creating a rough facsimile of a titanic wicker man. At a minimum, that would provide a massive degree of protection against large chunks cracking and splintering from heavy impacts. Sure, the original’s regeneration abilities vastly already provided some degree of protection, but non-crystalline reinforcements to the icy body were vastly superior.

And that was if that was all that separated the Winter Lake Titan from its lesser brethren, Isaac would count himself lucky.

The monster’s body was human shaped, including a completely superfluous head, and a jagged shard of black ice sat in the core of the driftwood man, visible only through Isaac’s [Aura].

For a second, the pair of them stood there, gazing at each other, sizing up their opponent.

That was odd, most monsters usually attacked immediately if it was feasible. Was it charging up something nasty?

Isaac immediately opened up the distance as he scanned the monster with his [Aura], searching for any sign of energy buildup or other malfeasance. None there.

But the monster was just staring at him, its only movement being to shift so it was still ‘facing’ him head on.

What. The. Heck.

First the “not a typo” that implied that the infallible [System], in fact, was fallible, now a monster that tried to psych out its summoner?

Once again. What. The. Heck.

Isaac began to carefully circle the monster, sometimes moving further, sometimes getting closer but ensuring to keep the original distance at the time of summoning open.

It continued to face him, but that was it. No attacks, no energy buildup, no ranged abilities used. The damn thing was just staring at him.

Yep, that was definitely some psychological warfare nonsense, emphasis on nonsense, no need to keep playing this game.

Isaac exploded into motion, [Wave Charge] increasing his forward momentum as he lashed out with Balmung, cleanly hacking through one leg, the material failing to provide the slightest bit of resistance in the face of the legendary weapon.

The Titan tottered for a moment, then whirled, the ice on the removed limb having melted, then returned to its rightful place on the monster’s body, sans wood.

Recovering body parts sans internal reinforcement was definitely something the Ice Titan hadn’t been able to do.

A giant fist swished towards Isaac’s head, but he leaned casually out of the way, reached out and smacked the monster’s elbow with a palm that burned with hellfire.

Steam exploded away as the surface layer was vaporized, quickly followed by a wave of hellfire as the driftwood under the surface began to burn.

The body began to reconfigure, wood being relocated to the limb to lengthen it, ice reforming to put additional mass between the core and the encroaching flame. Seemingly, dropping limbs in their entirety wasn’t in its toolkit.

A wave of water engulfed the unnatural fire as almost all the ice on the body, everything save for a tiny bit to keep the torso together and the limbs properly attached, was used up in a last-ditch defensive move. It failed.

[Grand Hellflame] was a [Skill] drawn from the Aspect of a [Raid Boss], and could burn magic or life force instead of oxygen, mere cold water wasn’t going to be enough to extinguish it, not when it was actively burning the creature’s core body.

Isaac leaped up and thrust Balmung forward and skewered the core with a single strike, then spent two hundred mana to extinguish the fire.

Winter Lake Titan (Lv. 64) has been slain. 1,500 XP gained

So, a big weak point that few people could exploit in exchange for heavy reinforcement against everything else, interesting tradeoff. It was also faster than the Ice Titan, though simple Stat superiority was pretty normal for Event monsters.

The psychological component, on the other hand, could be annoying, and was in line with the nasty prank played in the Event announcement. If this crap continued with everything else … that would not be good.

Isaac reached down and snatched his radio from his belt and dialed in the command-level frequency.

“This is Dr. Thoma, I just beat the first Tier 7 monster. It deliberately acted in such a way as to unnerve the summoner, please pass along to everyone else. There is a good chance the other monsters in this Event might also act in such a way as to unnerve people. Over.”

“This is Oberst Gram, what exactly did it do?”

“It just stared at me until I did something. It was like some kind of horror movie stalker. Over.”

“This is Arthur. Who’d freak out about that? … er, over.”

Aaaaaand of course Arthur was using his first name on the radio channel.

“It’s unnatural.” Isaac responded “Obviously, people’s reactions will vary, and not everyone will be creeped out, but it’s still something to be aware of. Over and out.”

The next monster was summoned a few moments later, another Winter Lake Titan. This time, Isaac was going to take it apart carefully, see what he’d missed the first time around. Because that thing was an Event monster, but hadn’t dropped any kind of special loot, the original most likely having been burned up in the hellfire.

Like the first one, the monster just stared at him until he made the first move. This time, Isaac didn’t get fancy, didn’t try to exploit weaknesses, he just leaped upwards, used [Wave Charge] to fling himself forwards and layered three [Power-Piercing Strikes] onto the blade. It went straight through the core, which promptly splintered.

Unfortunately, three more parts of its icy body, ones that had seemed slightly different before but not extraordinary, turned black and the Titan’s body lurched into motion, secondary cores taking over from the primary one. Annoying, but typical for a Tier 7, as that was where Elementals and other creatures with cores gained some degree of one-shot protection.

With normal monsters, the difference was much less stark as they just naturally became harder to kill in a single hit as their Fortitude grew, gaining increased resistance to things such as brain trauma, shock, blood loss while also getting a lesser version of Isaac’s [Redundant Organs].

Elementals, on the other hand, went from “break this one thing to kill” to “play whack a mole with vital organs”, which was annoying.

Isaac kicked off the chest and lightly landed on a floating blade he conjured a few meters up, then summoned his Zweihänder back into his hand.

Moving blindingly quick, the Titan scooped up a massive chunk of dirt and hurled it at him, but Isaac just leaped to another location, manifesting a new blade for him to stand on. As the monster bent down to pick up another projectile, Isaac dropped down, conjuring a copy of his Zweihänder into his left hand, letting a combination of gravity and [Wave Charge] provide the force needed to drive the blades deep into its back.

One core was hit dead on and broke, but the second one was missed by less than a millimeter.

Ah well, trying to accurately aim two weapons as long as he was while falling through the air was never particularly easy, nor something he’d practiced very much.

[Sundering Strike] to soften up the surrounding material, [Power Strike] to jerk the blade to the side and shatter the “lucky” core.

The monster under him spasmed as the sole remaining back up was suddenly forced to bear the full load of magic and processing required to move the body.

Isaac shifted his weapon back into Balmung and hacked off a large chunk of armor covering the final core, then thrust the sword clean into the monster’s remaining vital organ. He’d have normally pierced it with a single attack, but sadly, Balmung was just a little too short for that while there was still armor over his target.

As the kill notification flashed past his eyes, parts of the Winter Lake Titan’s body vanished, then reappeared in front of him.

Everfreeze Ice

A form of Ice that will absorb any the thermal energy from any object with a higher temperature than it, without growing warmer itself. It is an extremely useful crafting material.

And where did that energy go?

Ah well, they’d have to figure that out later.

Isaac tossed the ice into his spatial storage as it would otherwise start sucking up heat from all nearby objects.

“Hey, is it just me or is it getting a bit nippy?” a voice asked over the radio.

It took Isaac a moment to remember that was British slang for cold.

Now that he really looked for it, the place where the second Titan had died was slightly colder than the rest of the area, most likely, it had absorbed the heat from the ground as it, well, had a lower temperature than it. It wasn’t much, nor something different from what he’d expected when laying something on cold on a slightly less cold surface, but it had annoying implications.

Given the Level of his monsters, there was a delay in between summonings due to the amount of time it took to regenerate the required mana, not to mention that he needed to fix the summoning circle each and every time because a seventeen-meter-tall monster wasn’t exactly gentle on little scribbles on the ground.

But the others would have been summoning weaker monsters, and with a vastly higher number of summoners, they’d have ended up killing a lot more monsters than him, likely by a few orders of magnitude. All those bodies pilling up, slowly draining the heat from their surroundings … even if the Everfreeze Ice or lesser equivalent was placed in thermally insulated storage containers, it would get frightfully cold, frightfully fast.

And given how an increase in Fortitude also granted a decent degree of protection against extreme temperatures, no one was wearing proper winter clothing, or even had brought any in the first place.

The only person who wore something even remotely warm was Arthur, but there was no way in hell he’d chosen the massive, overdesigned, fur-lined-and-decorated plate mail for its thermal properties.

“Are you currently near a pile of frost monster bodies?” Isaac asked

“This is Professor Bailey, I’m putting an immediate stop to all summoning operations. Everyone, melt any dead ice monsters that can’t be stored in extradimensional spaces. Please head towards the control center right now so we can discuss our plans going forward.”

Ah, the joy of working together with people who were not only intelligent, but also knew you well enough to understand what you meant with barely any words being needed.

***

“So basically, we aren’t allowed to summon any more cold monsters because it gets colder whenever one appears, until we all freeze to death?” Oberst Gram asked, rubbing at his temples as though trying to banish a headache “I was under the impression that monsters didn’t leave behind dangerous residues?”

“For the most part, that is true, but there are exceptions, such as the Taztelwyrm’s toxic, well, everything.” Bailey explained “What has proven true is that no monster leaves behind subtle or hidden danger. For example, a Tatzelwyrm’s toxicity is well documented in mythology and any reasonable person would assume that a thing with ‘fire’ in its name burns, and winter themed monsters are obviously going to be cold. The issue at hand is that we’re summoning a lot of ice monsters in a small area and that said ice monsters are a few degrees cooler than we’re used to, and that’s had a compounding effect on our environment.”

“That’s it then? We pack up and stay on call in case a problem kicks off somewhere else?” Arthur asked.

“Not really. All we have to do is space out the summoning circles and limit how many ice monsters we summon.” Elena suggested “Right?”

“Pretty much. Instead of repeatedly summoning monsters until we’re sure we’ve seen everything they can drop, we’ll summon one of every monster, figure out which ones are problematic and focus on those that aren’t.” Bailey suggested. When no one spoke out against it, they got down to the nitty-gritty of revising the entire bloody summoning plan, though first, they shared the issue on the website to ensure this issue wasn’t repeated.

Another issue dealt with, and the damage done had been limited to, well, a few plants. All they’d done was kill some grass. And to inflict true damage would have required a truly insane number of monsters, for this issue to have been overlooked for several hours.

In essence, it was just like that typo. Once the issue was resolved, everyone was left facepalming and lamenting how they hadn’t figured it out sooner.

These were problems that weren’t really problems, in the end. They caused a fuss and played holy havoc on their plans, but they weren’t things that would make people distrust the [System] in the long run. All they did was fuck with the intellectuals researching the [System].

It would have been great if this interference meant they had another boon to look forward to from the divine beings on the side of humanity, but Isaac doubted it. More likely, this had been a part of the Events from the beginning, and the Events had been added to the [System] as a new function instead of being manually activated. And they’d already gotten the nerfed autonomous summoning in exchange for that.

Something to remember: one side might do something and the other could respond immediately but said response could take the form of Rube-Goldberg level scheme which only became noticeable years or decades later.

Hell, Isaac’s own situation was a prime example. The “dark” gods had meddled, and the response to that had been the creation of the contingency that had allowed him to take another crack at saving humanity.

Isaac just grumbled internally and left, heading over to his summoning circle. There was work to do.

***

The monster in front of Isaac was “only” three meters tall, but that didn’t make it any less dangerous or intimidating.

Black fur so dark it seemed to swallow the light covered its body.

Four hours jutted from a goat-like skull, one pair curling at the side of its head like a ram’s while other two jutted backwards as seem on more typical goats.

But what set it apart from being just another basic humanoid monster was the basked tied to its back by large chains and the bundle of switches held in one hand, ready to beat unruly children into the ground because for some reason, a single tree branch would not have sufficed.

This was the Krampus, known to some as evil Santa, while others saw him as merely being the other side of the coin to Saint Nicholas’ generosity for good kid, the dark punisher who gave coal to the bad children, beat the worse and abducted the worst in his basket to later eat them.

The beast stared at Isaac, and cocked its head to the side.

“You … you reek.”

“Rude.” Isaac scoffed while slamming [Hundred Faces] into place to cover up his shock. Sure, there were monsters that could talk and used that to mess with people, but those were usually at a higher Tier, which made this whole thing more than a little concerning.

“You reek of blood. It stains your hands, your every step leaves behind crimson footprints, and even your very soul is drenched in the lifeblood of those you have slain. How much is your power worth, are you happy with the price you have paid …”

Isaac rolled his eyes, metaphorically speaking, and attacked. For a moment, he’d feared that thing had some kind of deep personal insight and was able to target deep seated insecurities, so he’d listened to see if that was actually the case. But no, just a generic “you killed some things for your powers, doesn’t that make you a bad person?” speech. Bah, boring and unless the target was incredibly insecure, pointless.

But wasn’t that the entire point of this bloody Event, being annoying?

Isaac swung Balmung around in a devastating arc, a [Power-Piercing Strike] applied threefold to the blade, aiming to split the monster in twain.

Krampus interposed merely interposed his bundle of branches and it was as if Isaac had hit a [Siege Shield]. It impacted the bundle and sliced clean through the first couple of whip-thin bits of wood and then stopped. Just stopped.

Isaac could have tried to keep a hold of his sword if he’d put it a lot of effort into it, but he didn’t. He let Balmung leap out of his hands yet before it bounced into him it vanished into the ether, instantly replaced by a trio of floating Kabars and Kriegsmessers, each as he leaped backwards to open up the range.

All of the flying blades suddenly became sheathed in a bright neon green halo as both [Sundering Strike] and [Piercing Strike] were applied to all of them.

And then, the piece de resistance, [Compounded Impact]. It wasn’t a [Skill] that saw much use as it was rather situational, but this was a foe that called for it. Normally, Isaac could beat his foes without having to resort to this mana hog, so he didn’t. Meanwhile, extremely strong foes, like [Raid Bosses] wouldn’t be brought down even if Isaac threw his entire mana pool into the combo attack, so he was better served applying “debuffs” with [Crippling Blow] and inflicting a death by a thousand cuts than trying to go for the big finisher.

This though, this was a exact situation he’d gotten [Compounded Impact] for. A foe that could actually be taken down by the [Skill] but was too strong to be brought low by anything less. It also served to compensate for the fact that he could only put an extremely limited amount of force behind weapons directed by [Blade Control]. Coupled with the effect the [Skill] had gained at Level 10, namely, the ability that it could treat the initial hit as if he was already well into the attack series, it would let him tear this thing appart.

Either of his active cooldown [Skills] might also have worked, but he was saving those in case an emergency happened.

The Krampus reacted instantly, likewise leaping back while lashing out with its branch bundle even though Isaac was too far away by … nope, it’s size had just increased tenfold, dozens of incredibly long and flexible branches aiming to take his head off.

Isaac phased and dropped into the ground, causing the branches to hammer into the ground hard enough to shake nearby trees instead of beating him to a pulp.

Through his [Aura], he could see the outcome of his own attack. Sadly, it was nearly futile as that of the monster. The first few blades were intercepted by switches, each of which was apparently separate enough from the others that [Compounded Impact] affected them individually. This also meant each instance of the [Skill] only cost as much as the initial hit would, saving Isaac from having to pay a truly ludicrous mana cost, but it was still a huge waste of an opportunity.

Only a single Kabar made it through, leaving a shallow cut along the beast’s flank, the [Sundering Strike] applied to it weakening its hide there.

The Krampus roared with fury, drew back its arms, and brought the bundle back down though this time, the branches bent unnaturally and pierced the ground like spears, aiming to run Isaac through.

Isaac simply let himself fall deeper into the earth to avoid the attack, but that was hardly a tactic he could use forever. His mana was constantly being drained by the phasing [Skill] and if he kept heading deeper, he’d be too far to control the floating weapons.

At his instruction, his blades aboveground continued to dance. [Compounded Impact] was only ever being applied at the last possible second, and eventually, it began to have an effect. One branch shattered completely after a quadruple stack of the escalating damage [Skill], then a second one. There were enough branches left to keep up the attack, but the string binding them together hadn’t tightened due to holding fewer sticks. As such, the whole assemblage began to rattle around a little, making it harder to control.

Where he couldn’t stack enough [Compounded Impacts] onto a single branch, Isaac had used [Sundering Strike] to weaken it for follow up attacks.

Meanwhile, Isaac put himself almost directly under the Krampus and erupted upwards, Balmung glowing eye-searingly bright from all the [Skills] affecting it, forcing the Krampus to leap to the side, covering almost a hundred meters in a single hop.

Gotcha.

Isaac had deliberately put himself slightly off to the side, allowing him to predict the direction his opponent would jump and had been maneuvering his blades so most of them were in a position to intercept.

Four weapons connected, the first only leaving a bloody furrow, the second sinking into the monster’s flesh up to the hilt, the third leaving a gaping wound.

The fourth … the fourth hit the Krampus in the shoulder blade, tearing clean through the bone and exploding out of the front of the beast, removing the left arm and a large chunk of the chest.

The impact also knocked the monster off balance, causing it hit the ground in a tangle of limbs, digging a furrow into the frozen dirt. Still alive, sadly, but injured.

Isaac took off after it, Balmung still glowing, only for the bundle to come screaming back around, far faster than he’d expected. He could teleport to dodge, he could phase into the ground, he could expend the power invested into his sword to obliterate a branch to clear his way but his mana was getting too low for big tricks.

The Krampus had swept the branches out to wide for anything less than a vast mana expenditure would let him avoid all of them, but this also meant that he would, at most, only be hit by one or two.

With that kind of setup, Isaac took the path most people would have considered stupid. He took the impact on the chin.

With his left arm somehow both broken and dislocated from a single impact, Isaac stood in front of the Krampus as it tried to pull its weapon back for another blow.

Too slow. Way too bloody slow. Big weapons could be great, but they were far from perfect.

Balmung flashed and Krampus’ head was separated from its head.

Krampus (Lv. 81) has been slain. 3,000 XP gained

Sheesh. Level 81, one more than him.

Isaac lifted the radio to his lips.

“This is Dr. Thoma, I just fought the Krampus. That thing is damn tough, from here on out, no one is fighting it without two other people of Level seventy plus present and ready to assist in case of emergency. Also, it gave a creepy ‘you’re a terrible person’ speech, if someone decides to fight that thing with the proper precautions, please record it as I’d like to compare the various version, at least if there are differences. Over and out.”

He then switched over to the command channel.

“I’m heading over to the command area so we can discuss further actions.”

As he began walking, he wrenched his arm back into position, the bone having already long since healed. Then he began to study the small bundle of switches the Krampus had dropped.

Krampus’ Beatsticks for Punishing the Naughty

Once again. What. The. Fuck.

Isaac had take a moment to just let sink in how ridiculous the name was before he continued reading.

Krampus’ Beatsticks for Punishing the Naughty

This is a bundle of birch rods meant for beating on those who are deserving of punishment.

By infusing them with mana (100 points max.), the size of this weapon can be increased up to a maximum of ten times its original dimensions.

This is a weapon of punishment, but it will only strike the deserving if there is a way of determining guilt. In the hands of a person in possession of a truth-detecting or law enforcement Class, it will automatically draw on their Skills to determine who is guilty of breaking laws (misdemeanors don’t count) and then only strike those people.

Ah yes, that was going to cause trouble. On the surface, it sounded great, perfect for a hostage situation and other circumstances where criminals who needed to be stopped were intermingled with innocents. Just put enough force into the blow to turn the bad guys into paste and watch all your problems vanish.

But what if one of the innocents had broken a law, one that exceeded the level of a misdemeanor yet was far from bad enough to deserve the death penalty?

Someone would inevitably think it was a good idea to use the weapon and then tragedy would ensue.

As Isaac reached the command area, which had been set up in a temporary housing facility provided by the Bundesewehr’s combat engineers, he was greeted with some concerning stares.

“What is it?” he asked.

Gazes wandered, Arthur looking at the floor, Oberst Gram meeting his eyes but looking uncomfortable, and Bailey threw a dark look at the pair.

Götz just sighed, shook her head, and told him what was going on.

“They want to summon the Wendigo. It’s Tier 7, so it should be within our capabilities to defeat, especially if we get everyone above Level 70 involved.”

… oh, for fuck’s sake.