Apocalypse Redux - Chapter 308: Storming the Beaches

Twenty S-Rankers stood ready to finish off the cult for good.

Davy Jones and Captain Nemo, nominally just independents with concerns about what might happen if the cult were allowed to remain.

The entire team, obviously.

All three of Camelot’s S-Rankers, and several lower-Level people.

They’d brought in Fenrir, of course, as the ever-reliable independent actor.

Dr. Han, and Yi Yushin had shown up from Korea, very much on the down low, traveling most of the way aboard the Nautilus.

Oberst Maria Schultz and Polizeioberwachtmeister Lukas Müller were also along for the ride, with a full three-quarters of Germany’s S-Rankers, including both military ones, but the latter ones had been easy to get. Isaac was good friends with one Franz Habicht, who was currently holding the post the German Minister of Defense had been promoted out of.

In addition, one Kade Benson was in charge of the Marine contingent aboard, and he’d recently gained S-Rank designation, as had one Mark Alter, [Archmage of the Tempest]. Being around those two had still been weird as hell, and Isaac had largely stayed out of their way to avoid making a fool of himself.

Jose Maria Sandoval, the mage with likely the highest offensive power in the world, had been brought on board on the sly as well, and would be arriving alongside Raul in a few hours.

And finally, there was one Captain Gabriel Stone of the Royal Navy, in command of their newest and shiniest warship, the HMS Dreadnought.

Battleships had been obsolete since the Second World War, and none had seen active service for over thirty years by the [System] had arrived.

When the world had changed, so had the warship design philosophies. Aircraft were a perfectly serviceable way of projecting force at range, well beyond where a battleship’s guns could reach, when physics and chemistry had been all that mattered.

But nowadays, an aircraft squadron going up against a battleship would be only backed up by the pilots’ [Skills] with maybe a slight boost from the CAG or carrier commanding officer, while running into the combined abilities of the captain, gunnery crews, engineers and every other sailor even remotely contributing to the defense of the ship.

As such, battleships could serve as ways for countless individuals to pool their power and lash out with incredible power.

They were also capable of utilizing a wide variety of alchemical and enchanted shells in a way that would require a lot of rearming when that ordinance needed to be delivered via an airplane.

The Dreadnought was brand-spankin’ new, with a full mithril hull, magitech that enabled it to literally fly for a few seconds before the capacitors were dry, as well as briefly dip under the waves when necessary. Not to mention the fact that it could throw up a magical shield, though that wouldn’t last long.

Six large gun turrets, each holding four separate 20-inch guns, every barrel capable of firing a round every four or five seconds. Gun turrets covered every single available surface, ready to tear apart even a fly if it looked at the ship funny.

A radar system that made liberal use of various [Skills] and enchantments, capable of simultaneously tracking close to a million grains of sand simultaneously, should that become necessary.

Of course, the vessel was largely designed according to the most modern design principles, taking into account how many people and even monsters could unleash serious havoc at long-range or powerful area attacks, burying as many components as possible inside the hull’s superstructure.

And so on, and so forth.

Throw in the fact that the ship’s captain was so capable he was deemed S-ranked, and the Dreadnought was a force that could solo bosses and conquer nations.

Of course, they weren’t doing this just with a few S-Rankers, a Frankenship, a legendary submarine, and a battleship.

Several elite units that could be deployed without it being obvious, including Seal Team Six and GSG-13 were present as well, and an entire carrier group the Americans had ponied up. Thankfully, it had been in the area already, as it changing course would likely have been super suspicious.

The USS Bunker Hill was a five-year-old carrier, making it practically outdated by [System] standards, but it had a fully modern air wing.

It was also the first carrier group in decades that had included a battleship as well, the USS Arizona being a mere year old, empowered with all the [Skills] engineers had gained across the years.

And there were a couple of submarines attached to the carrier group, which he strongly suspected held at least some nuclear weaponry.

The Dreadnought would be joining the group under the cover of certain while Isaac arrived on the Dutchman, making some more preparations.

Everyone else from Europe would be portal-chaining here in a bit. If so many prominent people vanished at once, it might arouse some suspicion.

Right now, the real issue was discussing the chain of command.

The highest officer overall was Read Admiral Johnathan Hayes, who flew his flag from the Bunker Hill.

Except he hadn’t drawn up the plan for the operation, didn’t have the greatest amount of information out of everyone there, and overall, the only thing that put him ahead of everyone else was his rank.

Captain Stone would have caused a million different issues if he’d been in charge.

Isaac had the information needed, but not the skills to command the operation as a whole, not to mention that even trying would take him out of the line of battle.

And Arthur, capable as he was overall, he didn’t belong in charge of a military operation.

After a lot of internal arguing and external discussion, the chain of command ended up somewhat convoluted, with Hayes being in overall command but Isaac being able to exert a degree of control as well, largely setting the overall tone of operations, as well as directing the landing contingent.

Sharing authority like that made things messy as fuck, but honestly, just putting Hayes in charge wouldn’t necessarily be any better. Zambon had looked into him, the Admiral had earned his rank, was competent, and had adjusted to the weirdness of the [System], but Isaac could become practically omniscient in the local area and had a hell of a lot more experience in actual combat.

… He’d phrased that last part a lot nicer during the discussion, though.

In theory, there was a massive pool of power they could draw upon to find the ideal candidate.

In practice, they needed someone who would be acceptable to the military portion of the operation, which significantly narrowed the available pool all on its own, and considering they needed to pick someone whose absence or reassignment wouldn’t be apparent before the operation commenced, there weren’t many candidates left.

And of those remaining, several had, ahem, personality issues that made them ill-suited to the whole affair.

Isaac paced next to the Bunker Hill’s flight deck for almost half an hour, staying out of the way of flight operations while still being on the surface, instead of the cramped confines of the vessel’s innards.

The entire carrier group was under the aegis of Hayes’ anit-scrying [Skill], which might make it possible to locate it, but not get a peek at individual vessels.

The Dreadnought appeared in the distance, passing through his [Aura] but being practically invisible to the naked eye. What a difference a couple of years of development made.

Previously, a single technical breakthrough might be made in that timespan, requiring significant redesign of future vessels, but nowadays, those years represented another ten to fifteen Levels being gained by [Engineers] and [Shipbuilders], ever stronger [Skills] flowing into the creation of the vessel at the various stages of construction.

And with that ship’s arrival, the group was finally complete.

The Rear Admiral established his party, which, like Ardouins, was set up to account for military realities, with a whole lot of separate channels and slots with various permissions depending on the position one held inside the organization.

Most of the discussions, most of the planning, had been made ahead of time, with only a few last-minute questions needing to be clarified.

The entire fleet turned away from its original course, instead of traveling in the waters between Australia and Papua New Guinea, it diverted north towards a small island known as Bacan.

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At the same time, a series of ambassadors to Indonesia would be receiving instructions to, as one, go contact the Indonesian government and inform them of the fact that a certain doomsday cult had set up shop on one of their less-populated islands, and that the matter was being taken care of, so don’t throw a fit and everything will work out just fine.

It was absurdly heavy-handed, but gave the smallest possible amount of warning outside of just going ahead and not getting any permission at all.

However, if the remaining cultists were even remotely competent, they’d have already been tipped off by the carrier group diverting. And if they weren’t being alert, they’d likely also have missed the “diplomatic” part of the process.

***

After a mere hour of travel, the island came into view. The strike team had already transferred to the Dutchman, which would play landing craft, while the carrier group was already splitting up into three groups, two frigates accompanying each battleship, while the destroyers guarded with the carrier and support ships.

There were people on Bacan, but they were on the opposite side of the island and the people in command of the warships were capable of reliably not missing by over twenty kilometers. Isaac had taken part in plenty of operations with innocents far closer to the target than that.

The Bunker Hill and Arizona had already split off to circle around the island along the eastern and western sides of the island, and the Dreadnought was getting just a little bit closer before it would turn parallel to the shore so all six gun turrets could be brought to bear.

Also, a newly applied Anti-[Portal] [Skill] covered the whole area, ensuring that any attempt at fleeing would have to happen the old-fashioned way.

“Movement on the shore,” Jones warned from his position on the quarterdeck, beside the steering wheel, causing Arthur to go for the weapon that would decide the first phase of the battle. A megaphone.

“Is it them?” he asked.

“Four group members located,” Isaac confirmed after a long second, having thoroughly scanned the closest people.

The mercenary outfit the cult had hired was simple, basic, not even having a proper name. Just thoroughly muddy ownership, sufficient reputation to get jobs, and enough decently leveled people to do jobs. Of course, there was no guarantee that everyone on the beach was a mercenary, it was highly likely that most were.

“Good afternoon, folks,” Arthur shouted, sadly lacking the volume-enhancing [Skills] a lot of commanders had. But between a heavily enchanted megaphone and the fact that the people over there likely had at least a few points in Perception, someone would still hear him.

“I realize that you’re here for the money, not conviction, so I’m going to give you a chance to get out of this without bloodshed.

“You’re working for an organization that seeks to end the world, either because the money was too much, or because no one did their due diligence, but you’re still working for them, actively helping to end the world.

“Therefore, I declare you outlaws.”

Isaac could see the effect it had, [Mythical Action: Royal Decree: Outlaw] hitting like a meteor. People began to drop their guns, to madly swipe at the air as though dismissing or punching the notification would make the whole thing go away. There was even one unfortunate soul who fell out of a tree while pulling out their phone, likely to check if their assets were still frozen.

Instead of jumping right back into cover, they stayed out in the open to check their phone until eventually casting a startled look at the advancing fleet and scrambling back behind a tree.

While that little byplay was going on, another person charged out into the open, without a gun and all other weaponry clearly hastily having been removed and dropped somewhere.

He clearly had a voice amplification ability, as they could clearly hear him from several kilometers across the water.

“Hey, can you undo that?” he called out.

“Surrender, get the hell out of dodge, and if any single member of your group so much as leaves a banana peel for us to trip over, you’ll be hunted to the ends of the Earth,” Arthur shouted back, “[Skill]-enforced surrender, that is, you can’t seriously believe I’m stupid enough you can’t do that.”

“Fine, [Absolute Surrender, Full Company],” the commander just shrugged, and the jungle began to clear. Mercenaries were just in it for money, and while there would still be hell to pay for their minor involvement in this mess, not to mention that there’d be eyes on their funds for a long while, they’d be getting out of this as cleanly as humanly possible.

But even though rolling over them would have been possible, that would have cost time and potentially even lives.

And then, Isaac noticed the mana field around the island. Specifically, four spots around the landing area. A summoning blocker.

… Oh, shit.

He immediately sent a message to Read Admiral Hayes while ordering Jones to stop getting closer to the shore, “There are multiple summoning blockers active, and while I’m too far away to get thorough scans of the particulars, there are active circles underneath, keep the capital ships together until we know what they’ll summon.”

The frigates would still be sent out, they were the fastest ships in the fleet, and someone needed to watch the various escape routes, but they needed their firepower in one place in case the monsters that showed up were anything close to as dangerous as he feared.

And now, it made sense why they were so far in the middle of nowhere. Most big cities and anywhere even remotely important scanned for unregistered summoning blockers as there could have been the gods only knew what was buried underneath, just waiting to pop out the instant the blockers failed.

A location that was too isolated, like the Cook Islands, perhaps, might have seen them tracked down via material shipments.

And one that was too populated, well, the apparent trap would have been a dead giveaway.

What Isaac would have done, given the chance, was try using the Dreadnought’s guns to break the suppressors to make the monsters appear, and then, they could make plans based on that.

But whoever controlled the array beat him to the punch.

The natural energy of the world came out of its unnatural state of stillness, rousing slowly as if it were a hibernating bear, then roared to life as the buried summoning circles disgorged their payload after who knew how long of waiting.

And then, the messages began to appear.

General of Cocytus (Tier 10) has been summoned near your location.

Summon Location: Island of Bacan (4.1 km away, direction N)

Rath (Tier 9) has been summoned near your location.

Summon Location: Island of Bacan (4.2 km away, direction N)

Furfur (Tier 9) has been summoned near your location.

Summon Location: Island of Bacan (4.2 km away, direction N)

Iammax (Tier 10) has been summoned near your location.

Summon Location: Island of Bacan (4 km away, direction N)

Four [Raid Bosses] would take a while to chew through, time they could not afford to waste.

But they couldn’t allow these things to run amuck out here either.

A well-constructed and crewed battleship might be able to fight a single [Raid Boss], and the Dreadnought was the battleship, but the other two capital ships were older and overall, there were four bosses to three ships.

Not to mention the fact that two of those things were Tier 10, which was yet another step up in terms of power.

And those four in particular would be dangerous as hell.

Unless Isaac was far off the mark, the only reason there weren’t four of those was that that would have broken the summoning blockers.

Normally, you only got named demons in Tier 10 only, but the demon Event a few years ago had provided objects called “upgrade charges” that could turn standard Demon Lord into a named version at the same Tier.

The Tier 9 Demon Lord alone might have been annoying, sure, but the two they were facing now were really bad news.

Rath was an orange-furred lion the size of a truck, though Isaac knew that fucker could spread a weakening disease, and it would likely be a hell of a lot stronger coming from a Tier 9 monster. It would make extended combat dangerous.

The General of Cocytus was a cryomancer of incredible power, and Isaac knew it would freeze the ocean so the others could get at the ships. A sixty-meter-tall armored warrior wielding a glaive, wrapped in crystalline plate armor, with various plates alternating between black, yellow, and red, a hundred similarly armored minions scuttling around it.

But Iammax was the real problem. Iammax, a forty-meter-high knight in heavy red plate armor. Iammax, supreme ruler of all the spirits of Mars, the demonic king of warfare. An entire legion was manifesting around him, with more pouring out of the portal behind him. He’d be able to direct those with not insignificant skill, combined with his personal power, this made him dangerous as all get out. In fact, as far as Isaac knew, he’d never been killed in the other timeline despite several of him having been summoned.

And Furfur was just the cherry atop this shit pie. He was another truck-sized beast, a mutated deer, almost completely covered in black fur, but his skin beneath burned a deep orange, making him appear like an embering campfire.

A massive pair of jet-black bat’s wings sprouted from his back, and his forelimbs were grotesquely elongated, ending in human-like hands with obsidian chips for claws.

His face was somewhat fur-free, making the glow more prominent, bone-white antlers sprouted from his head and shining orbs topped each end, and from his other end, sprouted a long tail of pure flame.

All that would make him bad enough, but the real issue was the fact that his mere presence would summon a storm, one potentially even strong enough to keep some of the carrier’s planes out of the air.

Weakness and a hostile environment, a general with an army and one that would enable said army to march across the ocean.

The only good thing here was that apparently, the “uplifted” Tier nines hadn’t brought any minions to the party.

Alright, new plan.

“Rear Admiral Hayes, the Tier 10s can resurrect twice and come with a portal that constantly supplies demons, and will only close a few minutes after the boss is dead. Iammax is …”

Isaac rapidly relayed the information he had about the various monsters, very glad that his “prophetic” abilities were known to Hayes. It made things easier, and he could say “I saw it in a potential future” and be completely truthful, though everyone would clearly misunderstand what he meant.

Then, he reshuffled the group. Jones was needed out here, he should probably leave Patrick and Yi on the Arizona with Sandoval to provide more firepower. Elena, meanwhile, was supposed to be out here but the General of Cocytus hard-countered all kinds of water mages, she’d be useless where she’d been intended to be, so she’d be added to the group going for the base.

Mark was meant to be on the Arizona and that was where he would best be located even now, and Dr. Han’s ability to fight against [Raid Bosses] was so great that he was put to better use here as well.

But even with those adjustments, four [Raid Bosses] were still too much. When the world learned of the bosses on the loose, reinforcements would likely arrive, however, even surviving until then would be tough.

Four was just too much, especially with how they boosted each other.

The instant Isaac and Hayes were done adjusting the plan, [Rapid Reasigment] grabbed a hold of the people in the wrong place and dragged them into place.

“New plan,” Isaac announced to the people who remained on the Dutchman, and the newly-arrived Elena, “We’re rushing past them, the navy will deal with the bosses, but we need to take down Furfur on the way. Use as few cooldown [Skills] as possible.”

He took to the air first, drawing a full suite of cursed daggers from his inventory and the instant he approached his unfortunate target, unleashed absolute hell on the fucker.

… Within reason. He’d decided to limit himself to just one cooldown [Skill], so he’d decided to go with [Form of Horror]. It was powerful, but not the only Stat-boosting cooldown [Skill] he had.

He was going to find the last remnants of the idiots who’d decided to end the world for their own gain, and Fufur, he was just … in the way.