Making Game: CH 136 – Chaos (Patreon)

While the rest of the galaxy was happily losing their minds exploring the newly expanded regions of Johto and Hoenn, the man who had created the Pokémon expansion was currently in a state of agonizing turmoil.

Deep inside the private sanctum of his home studio, Dorian Kepler stared at his glowing blue System interface. His eye twitched.

The Pokémon Gacha banner had officially updated to coincide with the release of Generation 2 and Generation 3. But along with the massive influx of new legendary items, Held Items, and incredibly rare Pokémon variants, the System had quietly adjusted the cost of the banner.

It had gone from 10,000 Resonance Points per pull... to 30,000 Resonance Points per pull.

Three times the price.

Dorian slumped heavily into his ergonomic hover-chair, aggressively rubbing his face with both hands. "This can't be real! Another massive price gouge?! SYSTEM, WHAT THE HELL!"

The holographic interface remained completely, unfeelingly silent, bathing his face in a brilliant, uncaring blue light.

Dorian let out a long, suffering sigh. To do his standard, daily 100-pull routine on the Pokémon banner, he would now have to spend a staggering 3,000,000 Resonance Points in a single button press. 'This is completely fucked,' Dorian thought miserably. 'What makes the price jump this much?!'

But as he stared at the math, his logical brain reluctantly began to accept it. The addition of Gen 2 and Gen 3 wasn't just a minor patch. It added hundreds of new Pokémon, powerful Held Items, new mechanics, and potentially even weather-altering abilities. The sheer tactical value of the items inside that banner had exponentially skyrocketed. It mathematically made sense that the System would raise the toll.

"I can't even believe it," Dorian groaned, leaning his head all the way back to stare at the ceiling. "Aaaarrghhh."

"My, my, Prince D," a smooth, richly amused voice echoed through the studio. "Whatever is the matter?"

Dorian didn't even have to look to know who it was. Floating casually past his desk, lounging in mid-air as if resting on an invisible velvet couch, was Dionysus. The God of Wine was dressed in his usual extravagant, flowing purple robes, holding an elegant crystal goblet in one hand and a familiar, glowing purple bottle in the other.

Dorian narrowed his mismatched eyes. "Is that... Iridium-grade Starfruit Wine? Did you steal that from dad's special cabinet again?"

Dionysus chuckled lazily, taking a slow, deeply appreciative sip from his goblet. "Now, now, Dori. Good things are meant to be shared with family. And by the sound of your agonizing groans, it seems bad things are meant to be shared as well. What has gotten into you?"

Dorian sighed, gesturing to the glowing blue interface. He quickly explained the horrific inflation of his gacha system, and how the expansion of the Pokémon world had tripled his financial burden.

"Whoa," Dionysus hummed, swirling the sparkling wine. A playful, wicked glint entered the god's eyes. "Well, if you can expand their world to be so massive... does that mean you can finally expand ours, too?"

Dorian paused, blinking at the hologram. Hades II. The sequel. The expansion of the Underworld lore, the introduction of Melinoë, and the grand war against Chronos, the Titan of Time. He absolutely could make it.

"I do miss teasing Apollo," Dionysus sighed dramatically, looking up at the ceiling. "It gets so dreadfully quiet without him around to annoy."

Dorian kept his gaze on Dionysus, a fond smile slowly forming on his face. The relationship between Apollo and Dionysus was one of the most fascinating complementary dynamics in Greek mythology.

Apollo stood for absolute order, reason, logic, and law. Dionysus stood for absolute chaos, primal nature, raw emotion, ecstasy, and uninhibited freedom. They were polar opposites, yet they perfectly balanced each other. Apollo was the God of Music and Poetry, the structured art, while Dionysus was the God of Wine and Celebration, the chaotic art.

"I'll see what I can do, Dio," Dorian promised softly. "Just give me a little more time."

"Ah, speaking of time," Dionysus noted, pointing a lazy finger at Dorian. "You still haven't actually gone down to the Underworld yet, have you? Father was quite insistent."

Dorian grimaced. "I know, I know. I just haven't had the time to dive down there. Maybe next week. I still have to strictly monitor the server loads for the Pokémon expansion release, and I have a massive backlog of songs that need to be composed for Briane and the other artists."

"Alrighty then," Dionysus smiled, kicking his feet back in the air and floating toward the door. "Good luck with those 'gachas', Prince D. And remember my golden rule: good gamblers only quit when they have absolutely nothing left! Hahaha!"

With a swirl of purple mist and the lingering scent of fermented starfruit, the god vanished.

Dorian just chuckled, shaking his head at Dionysus's terrible, enabling antics.

Looking back at his screen, Dorian decided he needed a minor dopamine hit to cure his depression over the Pokémon inflation. He swapped the interface over to the Hades banner. The price was still a comfortable 1,000 Points per pull.

He tapped the [100x Pull] button. 100,000 Points spent.

The golden light flared. The usual notifications scrolled rapidly down the screen; a mountain of Darkness, several bottles of Nectar, a few Chthonic Keys, and some familiar boons.

But then, at the very bottom of the pull list, the golden light violently shifted into a swirling, mesmerizing void of deep purple and pitch black.

[Boon of Chaos]

Dorian's eyes widened to the size of saucers. He physically launched himself forward, gripping the edges of his desk as he stared at the notification in pure, unadulterated shock.

A Chaos Boon.

In the game, the primordial entity known as Chaos offered some of the most insanely powerful, game-breaking buffs in existence, but they always came with a terrible, temporary curse. Dorian had pulled on this banner thousands of times over the last two years and had never seen a single trace of the primordial creator. He had honestly thought it would never come.

…

Meanwhile, far on the jagged, uncharted edge of the known universe, a massive shadow drifted silently through the cold void.

A fleet of impenetrable, hyper-advanced Accord warships, led by a colossal Judicator-class Flagship cut through the darkness. Inside the bridge of the flagship, bathed in the sterile, pale glow of tactical holograms, sat the absolute ruler of the galaxy.

The Celestarch.

He rested his chin on his knuckles, casually leaning on one arm of his grand command chair. He looked a bit more mature than he had a few months ago. A perfectly trimmed stubble of a beard and mustache now framed his sharp jawline. His immaculate blonde hair remained perfect, but it was his eyes that commanded the absolute submission of the entire fleet. They were a piercing, luminescent gold, glowing with an ancient, terrifying indifference to the mortal lives buzzing around him.

A high-ranking Fleet Commander approached the throne, offering a deep, deeply respectful salute. "We have arrived, my liege."

The Celestarch slowly opened his eyes, the golden irises reflecting the massive blue-and-green planet rotating on the primary viewscreen.

"Is this the Selenari system?" the Celestarch asked, his voice smooth, echoing with a strange, unnatural resonance. "The planet that harbors the possible Sol'ar?"

"It is, sir," the Fleet Commander confirmed, pulling up a secondary datapad to read the recent intelligence files transmitted by their deep-cover scouts. "The forward agents stationed on the surface have verified the anomaly. The native Selenari are currently on the absolute brink of a stellar civilization. However, our agents confirmed that their warriors are actively utilizing localized plasma energy, remarkably similar to our Solars. But they do not call it Solar Plasma. They refer to it as the 'Lunar Presence'."

The Celestarch's eyes narrowed slightly in interest. "Fascinating."

"They are completely oblivious to the existence of the Stellar Accord or the wider universe, my liege," the Commander continued reading. "They genuinely believe they are the first and only race to harness this power. The reason they have not yet achieved stellar-level spaceflight is that they are currently locked in a brutal, planet-wide civil war. The majority continent worships the planet's moons, while a much smaller, fractured region worships the sun. Based on our tactical projections, the sun worshipers will be completely conquered and eradicated within the month. Peace is not on the table."

The Fleet Commander continued to list off minor atmospheric reports and troop numbers, but the Celestarch had already stopped listening.

His golden eyes were entirely focused on the blue marble below. These 'Lunarians', their own isolated, parallel evolution of Solar warriors intrigued him. Ever since he had felt the strange, impossible ripples of energy originating outside of the core sectors several years ago, he had been personally hunting down any anomalous plasma signatures across the universe, searching for the source of the disruption.

He needed to see exactly how these primitive warriors utilized their plasma.

The Celestarch stood up from his throne. The ambient pressure in the bridge instantly spiked.

"Open the hatch," he commanded calmly.

The Fleet Commander completely froze, her eyes widening in sheer panic. "M-My liege? Are we not sending our diplomatic representatives down first?"

She had fully assumed the Celestarch's presence on this deep-space voyage was merely a standard military inspection. She knew absolutely nothing of his obsessive search for the so-called 'Sol'ar' anomalies.

The Celestarch stopped walking. He slowly turned his head, his golden eyes locking onto the Commander with a gaze so heavy it practically crushed the breath from her lungs.

"I am the representative," he stated flatly.

"Y-Yes, my liege! Forgive me!" the Commander stammered, frantically bowing before hurrying forward to lead him toward the deployment bays.

As the Celestarch walked through the pristine corridors, heavy, synchronized metallic footsteps echoed behind him. The Golden Legion fell into perfect formation behind him, their ornate golden armor gleaming under the corridor lights.

"Where should we aim the descent, my liege?" the Fleet Commander asked as they reached the primary deployment hangar.

"The sun worshipers," the Celestarch answered.

The massive Judicator-class Flagship smoothly adjusted its orbit, aligning its deployment bays directly over the besieged, burning continent below.

The Celestarch stepped inside the primary airlock. Behind him, the Golden Legion marched wordlessly into a row of sleek, heavily armored orbital drop pods.

With a heavy, mechanical groan, the massive blast doors of the airlock slid open, revealing the breathtaking, terrifying drop into the void of space. The Celestarch didn't even flinch as the artificial gravity was severed. He simply took a step forward, floating weightlessly out of the ship.

Suddenly, a brilliant, blinding aura of golden Plasm ignited directly beneath his boots. Using the sheer, raw output of his energy, he violently propelled himself downward, shooting toward the planet's atmosphere like a falling star.

A split second later, the Golden Legion's drop pods launched from the ship's underbelly, igniting their thrusters to flawlessly follow his trajectory.

High above them, the massive Accord fleet moved silently into position. Activating their advanced cloaking technology, the fleet completely blockaded the entire planetary system. Unbeknownst to the warring Selenari below, their skies were now filled with an invisible armada, their unimaginably destructive weapons aimed directly at the surface, silently waiting for the command of a god they didn't even know existed.

…

Later that evening, Dorian stood in front of a massive, foreboding stone archway. It was a jagged, closed-off cave entrance of Hades that had materialized at the very base of Mount Olympus's projection on the Kepler farm. No sunlight seemed to reach this specific patch of rock. The air around it was unnaturally cold, thick with the smell of turned earth and ancient dust.

A sudden crackle of ozone and the heavy scent of sea salt announced his company.

Dorian glanced over his shoulder. Zeus and Poseidon stood beside him, both of them staring intently at the sealed cave.

"You've finally arrived," Dorian noted, crossing his arms.

Zeus let out a low, rumbling hum, his electric-blue eyes fixed on the darkness. "I am the one who should have said that, young man."

Poseidon shifted his trident, his usually boisterous and jovial demeanor entirely absent. He looked at Dorian with a heavy, uncharacteristic seriousness. "Nephew. There is something we should tell you."

Dorian's posture straightened. "What happened?"

"The universe is changing," Zeus said simply.

Dorian raised a skeptical brow, slightly confused. "Well, yeah. The Mid-Rim sectors are constantly broadening whenever the Stellar Accord connects more planets out in the Outer Rim. The transport guilds–"

"We are not talking about mortal politics, Dorian," Poseidon interrupted gently.

Dorian saw the intense, profound weight in the two gods' eyes. His confusion morphed into genuine concern. "What is it, then?"

Zeus slowly lifted his hands, staring at his own palms as small, golden sparks of lightning danced across his fingertips. "We are not gods... not in this universe."

Dorian's forehead furrowed deeply. "Where is this going? You literally control the heavens and the sea. I've seen it."

"We wield authority, yes," Zeus explained, his voice thick with a strange, existential awe. "But ever since we manifested into this physical plane, our authority... it feels derived from something else. Something older. Something greater than us."

Poseidon nodded grimly. "When we commanded the elements in our old world, the world simply obeyed because it belonged to us. But here... it is different."

"What is it?" Dorian asked, leaning in.

"We don't know," both gods answered simultaneously.

Zeus looked up at the sky, his eyes piercing through the clouds. "When I summon a storm here, the sky heeds my command... but it feels as though it does so out of pity."

"And when I summon the tides," Poseidon added, his grip tightening on his trident, "the waves heed my call... but they do so out of rage. The energy of this universe is already spoken for. We are merely borrowing it."

Dorian's mind violently reeled. Were they talking about the localized Solar energy? The Plasm Network? Or something vastly more ancient? "Okay... but what does any of this have to do with me going to the Underworld?"

"Because you must look into it," Zeus commanded softly, gesturing to the sealed cave. "Whenever we stand near this entrance, we feel faint traces of the dead. The souls of many, lingering in the dark. Perhaps... perhaps there is something you could have done to bring our brother here. If something akin to my brother Hades is down there, they might understand the nature of this universe's souls better than we do."

Dorian sighed, looking away from the imposing cave and pulling up his glowing, entirely unhelpful System interface. "Oh, speaking of which... I just got a Chaos boon from the Gacha, by the way."

Both gods instantly froze. Their eyes widened to comical, terrifying proportions.

"WHAT?!" Zeus bellowed, the sky above them instantly rumbling with panicked thunder. "Did you summon Them?!"

Dorian was completely taken aback by the sudden 180-degree change in their demeanor. "Well, I was trying to! I wanted the stat buff. But it says I don't meet the level requirement yet."

To prove his point, Dorian pulled up his inventory, selected the swirling, pitch-black Boon of Chaos, and casually tapped [Materialize].

[Error: Insufficient Cosmic Level.]

The interface flashed red with a harsh Bzzzt.

Still annoyed, Dorian rapidly tapped the button over and over again. Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzt. "Whoa! Whoa! Stop it!" Poseidon yelled frantically, physically grabbing Dorian's wrist to pull his finger away from the holographic button.

"It is best that They cannot be called yet!" Poseidon breathed heavily, wiping actual sweat from his brow. "By the Fates, boy, do not play with that!"

"What's the big deal?" Dorian asked, rubbing his wrist. "Chaos can't be that bad."

Zeus and Poseidon just stared at him incredulously, utterly flabbergasted by the mortal teenager's sheer audacity to treat the primordial creator of existence like a stubborn vending machine.

"Well..." Dorian coughed awkwardly, pointing his thumb back at the cave. "Should I see what happened in Hades, then?"

"Wait," Zeus said, holding up a hand to stop him, his breathing slowly returning to normal. "Maybe not now. This entire situation must be connected to your 'Cosmic Level'. Whatever that metric is, perhaps it unlocks features of your power you never even knew existed."

Dorian frowned, looking at the blue screen. "Well, I don't know about that. This System is notoriously useless at communicating its features. It barely tells me anything." Dorian paused, a memory clicking into place. "Wait... actually, after the last milestone, it began asking me where I wanted the profile rewards materialized. It has started to communicate."

Zeus nodded sagely, adjusting his grand robes. "Then stay the course, Dorian. Keep doing what you are doing. Amass your 'Resonance'. Hermes has reported that Charon's boat is currently moored at the entrance of the river inside that cave. Just let us know when you are truly ready."

Zeus placed a heavy, reassuring hand on Dorian's shoulder. "The journey to the Underworld is a perilous one."

…

Meanwhile, back in the highly civilized, heavily fortified sectors of the Core Worlds, another operation was drawing to a quiet, lethal close.

Senior Lieutenant Verza Zal stood perfectly still in the shadow of a massive, heavily armored transport vehicle. It had been nearly an entire year. One full year of agonizing, relentless searching and interrogating ever since the Neman revolutionary named Ula had mysteriously vanished during the transport to maximum security, the convoy strangely "attacked" and supposedly wiped out by untraceable Outer Rim pirates.

But Verza had never let it go. She had aggressively pulled the thread, and every single piece of evidence had finally led her back to this exact moment. To a rot festering deep inside their own ranks.

Directly in front of her was the opulent, heavily secured private estate of Rear Admiral Ganea Rallizas.

The entire perimeter of the massive property had been completely locked down. Every single physical street and hyper-lane route had been blocked off by elite squads of Accord Legionnaires.

Major Kalzor Darvek, The Gunnossian BSO superior, stood beside her on the perimeter line. Because this treason operation involved a target as high-ranking as a Rear Admiral, it required the absolute senior level of the Bureau of Stellar Order to be present.

Kalzor checked the perimeter, turning to look at Verza. "Are you ready?"

Verza instinctively opened her mouth to say yes, but she abruptly stopped herself. She blinked, looking at the Major in surprise. "Me? Sir?"

Kalzor looked down at her, his expression softening just a fraction into one of genuine, professional respect. "I deeply doubted your judgment when you first proposed that the Neman had high-level help from the inside, Zal. But you proved me wrong. You tracked the rot to the very top. Go catch her."

Verza's eyes widened significantly. It was an undeniable sign that she was officially being folded back into the high-ranking command structure. A profound sense of relief and vindication washed over her.

Kalzor stepped back, raising his voice so the surrounding Legionnaires could hear. "From this moment forward, tactical command of this operation is officially transferred to Captain Verza Zal."

A field promotion.

Verza's chest swelled with pride. A sharp, triumphant smile spread across her face as she snapped a flawless salute. "Obey and prosper, Major."

Kalzor returned the salute crisply. "Obey and prosper, Captain."

The local Legion Commander quickly jogged over, saluting Verza. "Awaiting your command, Ma'am."

Verza's mind raced, perfectly calculating the tactical approach. "Maintain absolute silence on the perimeter," she ordered. "Rear Admiral Ganea is currently off-duty. I will go inside alone under the guise of a routine Stellar Messenger check. If she suspects an assault, she might attempt to wipe her personal data servers."

"Understood," the Legion Commander saluted. "Obey and prosper."

Verza nodded, turning her back to the troops and walking toward the estate's grand entrance.

In her mind, she absolutely loved this. For almost a year, all of her peers in the BSO had whispered behind her back. They had laughed at her, claiming her career had entered a permanent decline the day she let that Neman slip through her fingers.

'Aaahhh,' Verza thought, savoring the sweet, intoxicating scent of revenge. 'Thank you, Ganea. Without your little treasonous stunt, my promotion to Captain would have been delayed for several more years. I should make sure to give you a proper 'thank you' before I lock you in a dark cell for the rest of your natural life.'

She approached the massive, gilded front door and rang the chime.

According to the intel reports, Ganea's family should be inside the house right now. Well, Verza reasoned coldly, the Legion could easily take care of the collateral damage. She just needed to say her piece directly to the traitor herself.

A moment later, the doors hissed open. A sleek, high-end household Compadre hovered in the doorway, its optical sensor scanning her.

Verza held up her digital BSO badge. "Bureau of Stellar Order. Routine perimeter security check for the Rear Admiral."

"Identity verified. Please come in," the Compadre chirped politely, hovering backward to let her pass.

Verza stepped inside. The house was absolutely immaculate. It was a massive, sprawling mansion filled to the brim with top-of-the-line Accord technology, priceless art, and expensive planetary imports.

As she walked down the grand hallway, a wave of profound, absolute disgust washed over her. To think that someone would gladly accept the incredible luxury, power, and state-of-the-art facilities that the Stellar Accord had provided them, only to turn around and actively betray that very order to a bunch of primitive apes... it was sickening.

She turned the corner, arriving at the entrance to the sprawling living room.

Verza braced herself. She fully expected the famously family-oriented Rear Admiral to be sitting on the floor, playing with her children on her day off, completely oblivious to the doom waiting at her door.

Instead, the living room was entirely empty, save for a single figure.

Ganea Rallizas was sitting perfectly still on a plush velvet sofa. She was calmly watching a silent news broadcast on the massive holo-screen, casually swirling a cup of steaming, incredibly expensive Teebu in her hand.

Without even turning her head to look at the door, Ganea spoke.

"Good afternoon, Officer," Ganea said, her voice entirely devoid of panic or surprise. "Is there something you need?"

The faint, heavily sterilized audio of the news broadcast became the only source of sound in the massive, opulent living room.

On the glowing screen, a cheerful Stellarcaster was currently reporting on the "thriving, liberated colony" of Yustea Prime. The heavily edited footage showcased the drastic improvements to the Yustean living standards, specifically highlighting a group of native Yustean children, dressed in pristine Accord-issued school uniforms, eagerly learning the Accord Basic language.

Verza kept her professional act up. After a moment of heavy silence, she forced a polite smile. "I am simply performing a standard routine perimeter check, Rear Admiral. Strict BSO guidelines for high-ranking officers, you understand."

Ganea smiled back. It was a warm, completely disarming smile. "My. Well, since you are here, let us enjoy some Teebu then."

"I cannot, ma'am," Verza replied, stepping further into the room. "Would you prefer to conduct the routine survey now, or after I have completed my sweep of the premises?"

Ganea took another slow sip from her delicate porcelain cup. "Let us do it now. I would love to just stay right here and finish my Teebu."

Verza's eyes hardened. She reached into her uniform pocket, pulling out a sleek, metallic holo-puck. She placed it firmly onto the glass coffee table and tapped the top.

Vzzzt! A high-definition, three-dimensional projection violently flared to life. It was a rotating, deeply detailed facial scan of Ula, the gruff, heavily scarred Neman revolutionary.

Verza crossed her arms. "Mind introducing him to us?"

The warm, polite smile instantly vanished from Ganea's face. The Rear Admiral lowered her cup, locking eyes with Verza. Her gaze was suddenly so intense, so heavily burdened with silent authority, that Verza actually felt a brief, involuntary shiver run down her spine.

But Verza quickly crushed the feeling. 'It's just the last, desperate struggle of cornered prey,' she thought arrogantly.

Verza smiled, tapping her comms earpiece. "Begin the search."

Almost immediately, a heavy commotion echoed from the front of the estate. The fact that the stomping boots and shouting voices didn't sound overwhelmingly loud was a stark testament to just how massive the mansion truly was.

With a wide, victorious smile, Verza pointed at the hologram. "He is a highly dangerous, known suspect of an Outer Rim terrorist group. But I reckon you are already intimately familiar with him, Rear Admiral. Seeing as you specifically went out of your way to disguise your own loyal Legionnaires as pirates just to stage a breakout and save him."

Ganea didn't answer. She simply looked back at the news broadcast, calmly bringing the Teebu to her lips.

Verza's triumphant smile twisted into a harsh, deeply bitter scowl. "I have fantasized about this exact moment for an entire year. During all my investigations, I genuinely thought the rot would lead back to a new, terrifying enemy that the Navy and the Army would need to proudly annihilate."

Verza leaned forward, her face contorting in sheer disgust. "And yet... here you are. An Accord Rear Admiral. Hiding like a coward and enjoying an incredibly luxurious life under the protective shelter of the Stellar Accord's peace."

Ganea let out a low, quiet chuckle.

"Peace," the Rear Admiral echoed softly, her dark eyes reflecting the flickering light of the hologram. "Is that truly what you have fantasized about, Lieutenant?"

"Captain." Verza corrected her. The commotion of the Legionnaires breaching the inner doors and tearing the mansion apart was slowly growing louder.

"Everything you have built," Verza stated coldly, her hand slowly dropping to rest on the grip of her holstered sidearm. "It all ends here. Today. Including your family."

Ganea gently placed her empty teacup back onto its saucer with her right hand. She didn't look angry. She didn't look panicked. She just looked incredibly tired.

"How confident you are, Captain Zal," Ganea murmured, finally turning her full attention back to the younger woman. "You stand there, so arrogant... so completely confident. And yet, beneath that uniform, you are terrified."

The heavy mahogany doors to the living room burst open. The Legion Commander rushed in, flanked by heavily armed troopers who immediately began to ruthlessly ransack the expensive bookshelves and art displays.

"Terrified?" Verza scoffed, drawing her Accord Helios Pistol and aiming it directly at the Rear Admiral's chest. "I am not the one sitting at the wrong end of a weapon."

Ganea slowly stood up from the sofa. She simply looked deep into Verza's eyes, her expression filled with a profound, terrifying certainty.

"Freedom," Ganea whispered, her voice carrying the absolute weight of a martyr. "True, unchained freedom... it scares you, doesn't it?"

It was then that the Legion Commander suddenly froze. His helmet sensors rapidly scanned the room, instantly locking onto the small, seemingly innocuous object clutched tightly in Ganea's left hand. It was a dead-man's switch.

"GET DOWN!" the Legion Commander roared, violently diving forward and tackling Verza to the floor.

He threw his armored body over hers just as Ganea released her grip.

BOOM!!