Jyrean Alliance - Central Naval Base - City of Aethoria - Day 1232 - First Apocalypse.

Brendan Rivers was the current leader of the Central Naval Base of Aethoria. Since the beginning of the apocalypse, this fifty-year-old military veteran had defended the base with the help of many other veteran soldiers against attacks from zombies, sea monsters, and even many criminal groups who coveted the base, which was not only easily defensible and well-structured but also had the largest deep-water port in Jyera.

But with each attack, Brendan’s group of surviving soldiers grew weaker and weaker. When his group was close to collapse due to lack of manpower and resources, just before the terrible winter of the apocalypse began, Catherine Rivero appeared.

The leader of the Jyrean Alliance offered aid to the military led by Brendan in exchange for their joining her Alliance. She reinforced the base by providing crucial resources and newly reborn technologies for the Naval Base’s survival during the dangerous winter. She even delivered valuable information about all mutant types and their abilities.

The powerful mutant humans of the Jyrean Alliance further repaired and strengthened the Port’s defenses. And when winter ended and the seas thawed, surviving humans from all over the world arrived from all directions via the new safe sea routes.

The Naval Base had not only been saved from the dangerous winter by joining the Jyrean Alliance, but had now become one of the Alliance’s most important bases, responsible for numerous maritime operations, rescues, and recognized worldwide as a safe haven where humans were gathering again in an attempt to cure the terrible ZY virus, restore lost technologies, and re-establish human society.

It was also in this same location that Lorenzo and his son Lucien had arrived by ship a year ago and reunited with Catherine.

But unlike what this base should have been, and what it meant to humans, what Brendan saw now in front of him was a true disaster.

The entire Naval Base was collapsing due to an event considered impossible!

Sea monsters attacked from the sea, zombies attacked from the land, and military drones with high firepower attacked from the air.

In the midst of all this tragedy, someone inside the Base had betrayed the Alliance by opening the base’s robust gates, letting the zombies in, and lowering the tidal barriers, allowing the sea monsters to reach their ports, attacking the ships and civilians on board.

Not long after, the final blow was delivered by the unknown traitor who deactivated the entire base’s power system, causing a complete collapse of the defense system.

Brendan stood motionless in place. Even as a powerful Level 4 mutant human with devastating offensive power, he couldn’t undo such destruction...

The Central Naval Base, which he had worked so hard to defend and protect for the past 3-4 years, was being destroyed before his very eyes...

Then, amidst all this despair, something familiar happened: everything froze as if time itself had stopped. It wasn’t just inside the Central Naval Base; its surroundings had suffered the same effect. The zombies stopped attacking, the sea monsters seemed frozen within the sea, and the drones were motionless in the sky. The only ones who could still move within this strange environment were the survivors of the base who were still alive.

In the sky, Brendan saw a woman slowly descend from the heavens, floating like a Goddess answering the pleas for help from the humans at the base.

"CATHERINE!"

"Quick, Brendan, evacuate the humans from the base! I can’t keep such a large area paused for so long!"

Only then did Brendan emerge from his stupor and despair and begin a hurried evacuation...

***

Later that day.

Jyrean Alliance Central Base - Aethoria City Center - Laboratory for frozen victims of the ZY virus.

Catherine entered the laboratory and found Lorenzo in front of the tube where her son remained.

It had been almost a year since Lucien had been in this place, but it was the first time she had seen Lorenzo return here to visit him.

"You’re back! How was the rescue at the Central Naval Base?"

"We failed to defend it and lost the base. But I was lucky and managed to rescue most of the civilians and soldiers from the place with Brendan’s help..."

"Internal sabotage and unknown drones again?"

"Yes..."

This was a problem they began to face very frequently. Someone was preventing them from restoring any kind of society. At first, Catherine and Lorenzo thought it was the Mafia, but now no one had a concrete explanation...

"This is the third Base we’ve lost in less than a year, and this one had great strategic value for the Alliance... It’s like taking two steps forward and then being forced to take three steps back immediately..."

"We’re losing a war we don’t even know who we’re fighting... This time, someone forced one of the Leviathans to move in a way that sent the horde of sea monsters towards the Base, the zombies were controlled by a level 3 variant of that zombie you faced in the city of Gran Luz, and the Drones are the same ones again with unknown technology..."

"And the traitor this time, did you manage to capture anyone?"

"I only found a hacking device installed on the Base server... Everything was done remotely again..."

"..."

"Why are you here, Lorenzo? You never trusted that I could cure our son..."

Catherine asked her husband while looking at young Lucien, still frozen inside the tube with his injured shoulder...

"I still think you can’t."

"This time I agree with you too... Sorry for insisting so much..."

After managing to cure the victims of the airborne variant of the ZY virus and those bitten by Level 0 and Level 1 mutants, there were no further advances in the vaccine created. So Catherine didn’t know what she could do now, besides theorizing something crazy using her Universal Force of Time...

"I discovered and understood the name of my ability as a Level 4 Human Mutant... And not only that, thanks to it I now know the name of my Universal Force..."

"You discovered it? What is it?"

Catherine asked anxiously and with full expectation. After all, her husband’s power was enormous, even for a Level 3 mutant human, and it was a very mysterious Force, whether his next ability would be a duplication of this unknown Universal Force, or even a new Universal Force that amplified this power. This could change everything, from the survival of the human race in their current situation to the possible cure of their son.

"My power as a Level 4 Mutant Human... I called Quantify. It’s a power capable of quantifying everything to a level that surpasses our best supercomputers. This ability can gather all kinds of information from everything that exists allows me to perhaps even try to predict the future just by analyzing data and statistics..."

"That’s incredible..."

"But in the end, they’re just numbers, right?" Lorenzo smiles.

"NO! We can still use this to try and predict the next attack on the Alliance..."

"That’s secondary... Thanks to Quantify, I was finally able to name my Universal Force; it’s called Cause and Effect. Thanks to Cause and Effect, I can create something capable of giving life to Quantify, creating something in a rather crazy and dangerous way at first glance... I only had this idea because of our son; I still remember how much he enjoyed playing online games..."

"Cause and Effect..."

Catherine murmured the name of her husband’s Universal Force, and indeed, he could do anything his imagination allowed, as long as he paid the price for it, but he did it in a rather brutal way, always injuring his own body, being the perfect example of the name, living up to the phrase: "Every action generates a reaction."

"A System!" Lorenzo finished.

"System?" Catherine seemed confused.

"That’s what Lucien inspired in me, it’s hard to explain, maybe it’s better if I show you..."

Suddenly, with a wave of Lorenzo’s hand, digital numbers and letters appeared floating before Catherine’s eyes, surprising her. Soon, these numbers and letters formed two phrases:

[...]

[System Starting...]

[System Calibrating...]

[New User Detected: Catherine Rivero]

[Status: Human Mutant Level 4...]

[Universal Force: Time]

Jyera Apocalypse System...