Entering Apocalypse in Easy-Mode
Chapter 420: The Error

Chapter 420: The Error

The atmosphere within the Bureau shifted from exhaustion to full-blown chaos the moment Clyde’s identity was confirmed.

The face that had haunted their records, the ghost behind the escalating chaos across countless higher realms, had a name now. They finally found hiss face and his history.

The anomaly had a name. it was Clyde.

The same man who had cut a bloody path through numerous monsters undergoing the Selection Stage—a process that was supposed to test, judge, and elevate worthy individuals during the apocalyptic collapse of their native realities.

Countless Earths, countless realms, all monitored by the Bureau.

For so long he had been like smoke, they can see him in glimpses but impossible to hold.

But now they had him.

And the Bureau, once calm and clinical in its detachment because nothing can touch them, had become frantic.

Within hours, Morvius and his high ranking staffer launched a full investigation into Clyde’s origins. They pulled records from his home world, traced timelines, rewound footage of his earliest days within the Selection Stage.

He had been eighteen when it began. Just a normal high school student. His grades are pretty good, he have average life with no parents, but beside that nothing remotely special. No magic bloodline, no ancient heritage, no blessings from any higher entities.

And yet, from the moment his world descended into madness, Clyde moved with certainty. He showed no hesitation or panic. As if he had expected it and prepared it somehow.

"It was like he knew," Morvius muttered, watching early footage of Clyde weaving through collapsing city ruins, fighting off monsters, killing looters and monsters alike with terrifying efficiency. "He knew exactly what to do."

The more they observed, the stranger it became. Clyde’s strength skyrocketed abnormally fast.

He slaughtered monsters that should have been far beyond his level. Fought enemies with powerful skills and walked away stronger every time. While most survivors clung to life, Clyde carved a kingdom of power from blood and ash.

And it also looks like that he enjoyed it. He didn’t flinch at the horror. He thrived in it.

"He’s not afraid," said one of the senior analysts, pale-faced after reviewing battle footage. "It looks like he’s excited."

That’s what disturbed them the most.

Not just the power or the speed of his growth. But the way he embraced the apocalypse with open arms like a child let loose in a playground made of fire and ruin.

It wasn’t just exceptional. It was wrong.

Yes, every Selection Stage produced some outstanding individuals—survivors who defied the odds and emerged as heroes or tyrants. But never like this. Not at that stage and not with such consistency and brutality. Clyde was something else entirely.

Something unnatural. Like he is now.

Morvius stood at the center of the command platform, cold eyes fixed on the projection of Clyde slamming his weapon through a monster twice his size.

"Record everything," he ordered. "I want every battle, every choice, every anomaly logged and categorized."

His voice was sharp as steel.

"We don’t move until we understand what he is. Because whatever happened in his Selection Stage and whatever made him like this."

He narrowed his eyes. "It definitely didn’t come from us."

And that terrified them more than anything else. Who else his power come from?

If even they—the World Master Bureau—couldn’t identify the source of Clyde’s power, then the question became more dangerous than anything else:

Where did it come from? Morvius was sure that his strength is not normal and definitely not just coming from his dilignt in killing monsters and gaining Exp.

The Bureau was the supreme authority behind the Selection Stages. The system was their technology. They created the Systems that were installed into chosen worlds so that they can understand magic and skill that were meant to help lower-world inhabitants understand power, to give them tools to grow and be tested.

It was a controlled environment. The Bureau had full jurisdiction over the data, the rules, and the progression paths of every participant.

So how could someone like Clyde exist?

How could someone not just survive, but evolve beyond what should be possible?

Morvius stood in silence as he watched a team of technomancers work feverishly at their consoles, trying to access Clyde’s System Interface.

"Run a full dive. Pull up his data string. I want a breakdown of his System permissions," Morvius said.

"We’re trying, sir," one of the lead operators replied, his tone shaken. "But the scan returns nothing. Or rather, it returns error codes. We can’t see into it. It’s like it doesn’t belong to our network at all."

A chill settled over the room.

Morvius frowned, eyes narrowing as the runes across the data-screen flickered with corrupted lines.

"That’s not possible. All Systems are linked to our Central Core. No individual can be outside that link unless..."

Unless someone—or something—had interfered.

The System, as far as Morvius knew, had been created eons ago by one of his long-gone predecessors. A scaffolding of progression designed for mortals. Simple, efficient, and manipulable. It was never meant to evolve or diverge. It was a tool, not a force of its own.

Morvius had never once questioned its origin. He didn’t need to.

But now...

Now he was staring at something unthinkable: a System that didn’t respond to their commands and returned no data, and rejected their authority.

Which could only mean one thing.

"Something else has tampered with his System," Morvius muttered, more to himself than to the others. "Clyde’s system is not ours anymore."

And whatever had taken control of it... had gifted Clyde with something far beyond what the Bureau could ever permit.

That’s why he was so powerful. Why his growth defied all logic. Why he could fight beings leagues beyond his level and win.

It wasn’t just the System. It was the thing behind it.

Morvius stared at the corrupted feed once more, a knot forming in his chest, a rare sensation for someone like him.

"This isn’t a mistake," he said, voice low. "This is intentional. And if it’s intentional..."

He looked toward the holographic projection of Clyde standing amidst the burning ruins of another collapsed Selection World.

"...then someone, or something, is using him."

After that, Morvius stood still, his tall frame rigid, eyes narrowed in deep and unblinking focus.

The command deck had gone silent as well. Every analyst, technomancer, and officer in the chamber had turned to him, waiting for instructions.

Because for the first time in countless cycles, they were facing something that defied their logic their understanding.

Morvius exhaled slowly. He replayed it all again, Clyde’s entrance into the Selection Stage, his rapid rise, the victories that no one should’ve been capable of.

"It started the moment he entered the apocalypse," Morvius said.

The staffers stiffened.

"The moment he received his System," he continued, "he became the anomaly. No delay. His path was fixed from the beginning."

A ripple of anxiety spread among the analysts. One of them swallowed hard. Another shifted away from their console, unnerved.

Morvius turned back toward the central holographic array.

"Trace his journey again," he ordered. "Every scenarios and even every kill. Especially the points where he was alone. I want to see what the System showed him when no one else was looking."

The room came back to life with quiet urgency as the staffers obeyed. Technomancers began rewinding footage from fractured realms. Golden light, flickering data-screens, and translucent timelines filled the space.

They scrubbed through days, weeks, months of recordings. Thousands of engagements. Dozens of different scenarios.

And then they found it. One of the junior data-seers gasped. "Sir... here."

Morvius moved toward the feed.

It was from an early scenarios. The footage showed Clyde entering the husk of a ruined street alone. Nothing unusual, until they slowed the video frame by frame.

There, in the shadows between two seconds of motion, it happened.

They see a glitch.

The image warped just for the briefest moment. A flicker in the air behind Clyde that almost imperceptible. Not like normal data corruption. Like something had actively rewritten the image just long enough to avoid notice.

"What is that?" Morvius muttered.

The feed technician looked pale. "It’s not from our system, sir. We checked. This isn’t a natural glitch."

Another tech piped up. "We found more, sir. Tiny distortions in multiple recordings. All during moments when Clyde was alone. Never when others were present."

Morvius leaned in, his eyes locked on the anomaly. "Show me the pattern."

As the staff overlaid each instance across a unified timeline, the pattern became clear. The glitches weren’t random, they aligned perfectly with points of major growth. New powers. Skill upgrades. Sudden, inexplicable leaps in strength.

Every time Clyde gained something beyond the expected path the distortion appeared.

"Something’s intervening," Morvius said quietly. "Something outside our reach. It’s giving him those strength."

Morvius straightened, his voice hardening. "Begin a new file. Label it Anomaly X. I want every instance of distortion tracked."

He turned to the room, his gaze sweeping across the faces of his subordinates, some pale, trembling, they all looked unsettled.

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