Chef in the Apocalypse

The Alliance army watched on in fear and trepidation as the Earth parted to reveal a ray of brilliant light which shot up to the sky like a rocket. It was as if someone had shone a powerful spotlight into the heavens.

A few moments later, a sharp sound similar to that of shattering glass rang out loudly, echoing throughout the surroundings. As Jayce stared up at the spectacle, the sight reminded him of when he had shattered the prison around half a year ago.

Yet this time it was on a much larger scale.

However unexpectedly, nothing else happened afterwards, causing everyone to look at each other with confusion. After such a display, they did not feel that anything had changed at all.

Jayce stared at the sky for a while in question, feeling his loudly beating heart start to calm down a little. Yet despite the lack of action, he still felt as if something was wrong.

He slowly drifted down to his army who was still looking up at the sky, wondering what had happened.

"What was that thing Leader?" Colin asked, not moving his sight from the heavens.

"I’m not sure... But I don’t have a good feeling about it." Jayce admitted, feeling a sense of uneasiness wash over him.

Yet he quickly composed himself and started barking out orders.

"Zane, send the signal. Have the other armies rendezvous with us here, I won’t feel at ease until we’re all here." Jayce said with a hint of urgency.

"Yes Leader."

His army was not the only one that had been sent to Russia to take on Amon and rescue Leah. Those other supporters who had lost their friends and family during the attack had also been deployed with their armies.

Originally, his army was meant to be the advanced party who would probe the strength of the opposition while the others lay in wait for his signal. However, things had gone a lot better than they had originally planned.

With Jayce’s breakthrough, he had almost single-handedly destroyed the traitors of humanity with a single sword slash and a Golden Buddha palm. Therefore it could be seen just how strong he was.

Around 10 minutes later, there were 3 other armies which descended onto their position, each holding around 500 people. Combining them with Jayce’s own, there was a little over 2,000 of the Human Alliances strongest combatants gathered in the plain as of this moment.

Victor, Agni, Tai and Cloud each approached Jayce and his Generals, their faces were a mixture of emotions.

"Jayce, what happened to the plan?" Victor asked, his face showing a hint of confusion.

"The traitors have been dealt with. However, I have a feeling that this is not over yet." He answered truthfully.

"What do you mean by that?" Agni frowned, brushing his red hair over his ear.

Jayce pointed at the fissure that was a few hundred meters away, "I’m not sure if you saw it from your positions, but the Earth just opened up and sent a light into the sky. It then sounded as if glass had shattered."

The four men’s eyes widened in response, "So that’s what that noise was." Tai nodded, looking serious.

"What do you think it means?" Cloud asked, his broadsword still strapped to his back.

Jayce looked around for a moment before motioning everyone including his Generals to get a little closer. They all complied, curious to know what his thoughts were.

"Don’t say this out loud, but I think that the barrier may have been shattered by that light." He said softly.

"What!?"

The four almost said in unison, horror forming on their faces.

The same could not be said for Colin and the others who seemed truly confused by what Jayce had said. What barrier? And why had those four reacted in such a way?

The four were also supporters and knew about the Barrier which was supposed to be protecting the Earth from the invaders which were scheduled to arrive 1 year later. Of course Jayce and the other supporters were not able to leak a lot of information with the threat of being killed by Rubick.

"H-How can this be?" Agni despaired, his eyes looking up to the sky with trepidation. He suddenly felt his stomach sink, making him want to throw up and soil himself all at once. Thankfully he managed to control himself.

"How sure are you?" Victor seemed the most calm out of the four, staring at Jayce intently. He was the closest to achieving a breakthrough to the Core Formation realm despite starting later than Jayce.

Of course he had had access to cultivation manuals and techniques since the beginning of his cultivation, yet it was still an impressive feat to gain such strength so quickly.

Perhaps it was because he was confident in his strength that he was able to keep his cool, or maybe that was just his personality. However, Jayce appreciated that he was able to remain calm in the face of this harrowing possibility.

"If I were to quantify it, I’d probably say 90% sure." Jayce admitted, feeling the others deflate at his words.

Victor’s face stiffened before he nodded seriously. "Then it seems like the war for Earth is imminent."

"What!?"

This time it was Colin and the others who cried out in surprise. They may have not understood the part about the Barrier being shattered, but they certainly could guess what the war for Earth was.

Everyone in the vicinity looked at Jayce with a mixture of emotions. Shock, fear, trepidation, confusion.

"What does that mean Leader? Did that ray of light trigger the invasion?" Colin asked, his face a picture of seriousness.

Jayce let out a sigh. Now that he had voiced his opinions, his intuition told him that he was not wrong. However, there may be light at the end of the tunnel if his theory was correct.

"I don’t think the entire barrier around the Earth has shattered." He said succinctly, moving his gaze around his Generals and the others.

"If we’re lucky then it is only a local breach of the Barrier."

The others were silent as they tried to grasp the meaning of his words.

"If this is the case, then even though the invasion will occur a whole year earlier, it might actually be our saving grace." Jayce said, a small smile forming on the side of his face.

The others nodded, seemingly understanding what he was implying. However that was except for Agni who was looking around in confusion.

"What the hell? How can it be our saving grace, we’re not anywhere near prepared." Agni stressed, feeling a sudden urge to pull out his fiery red hair.

Tai looked at the person who he had been forced to live near for the past 6 months and resisted the urge to enact violence upon his thick skull.

"Don’t you get it? Jayce is saying that it’s possible the Barrier is only breached right here. Meaning that instead of having to protect the whole Earth and spread our forces thin, we can have an all-out showdown right here."

Agni stood still for a moment taking in the words. One could almost see the cogs turning in his head as he began to process the information.

"I see. But are we ready for such a fight?" He said eventually.

Tai was almost surprised to hear an actual decent question come from his mouth. But in the next moment he looked around and saw the 2000 something members of the Human Alliance and smiled grimly.

"As ready as we’ll ever be I’d say."

Jayce nodded. "To be honest, I would have liked this scenario if we had more time. Victor has almost broken through to the Core Formation and Colin is also not far behind. Even if we had another month or two, we could have had a better shot."

"The problem is, I’m not entirely sure how strong these invaders are."

Everyone within the small circle frowned. They did not know if or when the invaders would descend upon them, nor did they know how strong they were, there were too many unknowns.

Just in case he had missed something, Jayce decided to bring up the system window and check on the World Quest. If something had changed, the quest should have updated to show the new time of invasion, or at least he hoped.

It had been a long time since he activated the system, mostly because it had become useless apart from holding some of his less personal items which did not fit in his new spatial ring.

Jayce willed the system screen to open, waiting expectantly for the familiar window to appear in front of him. However, nothing happened.

"Huh?" Jayce tilted his head in confusion.

He forced back the rising panic within him and turned towards the others.

"Try opening your system window." He said, trying to remain calm.

A few moments later...

"W-What!?"

"It won’t open?"