Despite their wish to quickly return home, they stayed at the system church for another day to help with the initial aftermath. The Immortals of the Scene were gone, and the demons Seth had brought with him had taken care of most of the monsters of the Tuatha De, but the situation in Y-City was not over yet.
The survivors of Y-City were still stuck in a desperate battle for survival. The problem in the matter was that most of the high-level players had already joined the Scene enticed by the class system they introduced and the promise of eternal life.
This left mostly civilians of lower levels in the city. They were not just people who did not want to fight, many were people who were barred from entering dungeons where they could have leveled up, because of the same class system.
They were left in a dysfunctional destroyed city, with most of their high-level players being gone. If this was not the recipe for misery and chaos, what was?
After organizing their remaining people at the system church, they started sending out groups to help and assemble the survivors. In case they met any remaining monsters, the groups of priests, staff or prisoners were accompanied by Seth's golems.
He “only” brought 200 aerial strikers. The rest of his artificial forces were deployed across the district of Minas Mar in advance to face possible attacks from the Scene, but it was enough for the start. He would have asked the demons to accompany them, but the demons he had brought to Y-City had vanished together with Mussa Pract'ish after taking care of all the monsters they could find.
The blacksmith was just glad, that he was able to leave all of this to Mark Baker who quickly found back to his role as the leader of the remaining members of the resistance. After a day of recovery and collecting survivors, they decided to set off to Tree Station 12 with the first batch.
Since space and communication were still blocked, they had to travel there by foot. Seth left the Golem behind, under the leadership to continue to collect and protect survivors, while he and the others would protect this batch on the way to TS12.
While Baker was a great leader and had quickly managed to not only organize the prisoners but also the many survivors, he was also among the first batch of people going to TS12. He seemed to have personal reasons, so Seth didn't press him for answers.
Although the monsters the Tuatha De had sent were mostly gone, with the city in shambles, their force fields to stop random Pathwork Portals from generating had broken down. Another problem apart from new monsters was raiders.
It was like the first days of the apocalypse, with the order of society crumbling, people got weird ideas. Especially, when they were indoctrinated with the weird idea of a class system based on the rating of their class. This was a whole nother problem, that Seth had no interest in dealing with.
If they tried to bring that shit with them to Minas Mar, he would kick them out. After all, this was not a democracy. All of Minas Mar was privately owned and Seth had no qualms evicting idiots and trash that only raised problems from his territory.
…
Pain radiated throughout his whole body. It was the first time he had been hurt this badly. When he was ambushed by three immortals at once, it was the hardest fight of his life. In the end, he lost, but he also kind of won, albeit with a cowardly method.
After being buried in debris, he had pretended to be dead. Not one of his proudest moments, but it was better to be stuck in debris and alive, than dying honorably. Living to fight another day was nothing shameful.
“We found him! Over here!” he heard someone call out. His throat was dry and sore but he did his best to call out.
This wasn't the people of the scene, right? He had heard the song and felt the shaking and the immense aura of evil that had swept over the city. If he wasn't wrong, then the blacksmith and his demonic means must have won. He simply couldn't imagine the scene winning, when facing that kind of entity.
“I-I'm here!” Ben Harker, the hero, miserably called out for help.
Then he heard something like the sound of a helicopter, as a massive piece of debris was lifted out of the way. In the sky, he saw a massive dragonfly with scythes carrying away the pile of debris that had covered him.
“Jo, you still alive?” a woman suddenly blocked out the sky and the view of the giant insect. He needed a moment to recognize her.
“Cade..?” he mumbled.
“Hey, looks like your brain is still working. We need a priest over here!” she called for the medics and soon.
Harker was able to feel a little better. Since there were many injured, even the hero only got the basic treatment, so he wouldn't die. The rest had to be left to potions and his health regeneration. After he was given a meal from the rations of Minas Mar, Cade explained to him what had happened so far and the current situation.
“I will also help,” he said, having barely recovered.
“Like a true hero.” she joked.
“At least there can't be anything wrong about helping people in people stuck under debris or being attacked by monsters,” he mumbled in self-irony.
…
--- 1 Day later--
They had been cutting through Y-City in the direction of TS12, making good distance, even with the tired survivors. They had not met many monsters, instead more and more survivors joined their little caravan as they moved on.
People who had lost everything grasped the first little thread of hope they could grasp. It generated some problems since they didn't have many healers with them and many of the people were hurt. Seth was just glad they didn't have to manage their food and water. It would take that long to reach TS12.
Chaos and arguments among the survivors were not a problem. They were able to rely on Mark Baker, that silver-tongued extrovert, to keep order among the people, even if they only joined recently.
Even with their slowed speed, they expected to reach the tree station in 2 days at most. However, their estimations were broken, when they suddenly faced a horde of undead. At their helm was a massive beast, a giant undead mammoth, a Necrophant, easily 15 meters tall.
On its head throned a figure clad in a suit of crystalline black armor, wielding a dark scepter. The aura was menacing and struck fear into the weakened survivors. Had they survived these days, only to find death at the hand of a new intruder?
They had heard stories of Gamma, where the undead had created their own empire. Had Arget Nore come to invade them? Would these people from Minas Mar be strong enough to take on such a horde?
To everyone's surprise, the man wearing the dark armor, the leader of Minas Mar, stepped forward with a welcoming gesture. Had they actually been sold?!
“Evee! Did you come to fetch us?”
Yes, it was Minas Mar's Underworld Fairy, wearing her squeaky clean, new suit of armor, completely made of <Necronite> from the crown of Eschok, the colossal Lich. Taking off her helmet, she revealed the youthful face of a beauty.
“Seth! Are you guys okay? What's with that crowd?” she called out. The image of the menacing fiend that had come to kill them, was quickly dispelled when he jumped down from the Necrophant and started to be happily hugging and being welcomed by the members of Minas Mar.
“You want to bring them to TS12? Let me give you a ride,” she offered pointing at the horde of undead.
Only a few of the survivors had mounts, but with Evee's undead, they could everyone a ride and quickly return to TS12 to decide on their next steps. Although slightly unwilling, the crowd of survivors mounted their decaying vehicles, cutting their remaining travel time to mere hours.
They soon reached Tree Station 12.
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