Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Chapter 699. Retreat for now

The horde of monsters rushed through the long shaft to the surface, ready to ambush the defenders from behind and bring them despair. Only to face despair themselves, as a giant maw swallowed the light above them and came barreling down.

Subject XXXX69S#, leading at the front of his horde, was swallowed first. It only saw rows of massive teeth rush by before entering a long, dark tunnel. There was only darkness and pain as its sturdy body was constantly hit all over by hundreds of attacks.

As it was tumbling around it also heard its subordinated and felt crashing into them. In a matter of seconds, it was bruised all over, and its body felt like being ground to a paste between its comrades, rocks, and boulders.

…

”Itʼs a good thing you noticed the fortifications were being broken through, Evee,” Seth praised the immortal witchʼs as they watched Python vanish into the hole.

”Sure, but was it necessary to leave it to Python? I could have made a lot of undead if their bodies were intact,” she said with a pout. It seemed like she had gotten a taste of building up a huge undead army and wasnʼt ready to stop yet.

”What am I to say? They were also a bunch of materials, but we shouldnʼt be greedy. Let Python have this one. She said she is close to a breakthrough, ” he soothed the witch with a shrug.

Seth didnʼt quite know how things worked past level 100, he still couldnʼt appraise anything at that level even with Sight of Theia. The only thing he already knew was that there would be a change to how things would be done. It was a shame his level had been too low before, or AlʼZalsar could have explained it to him.

He trusted Python with what she said, so the two corpse processors could only watch the giant snake grind the enemy into a paste inside its belly. Knowing that Python could turn her insides into a giant rock tumbler that could grind even high-level beasts to dust made everyone slightly apprehensive of ever using her as a vehicle again.

The fight on the surface had already ended for the most part, by the time Evee noticed her wards underground being broken through. They could have waited at the stop and slaughtered them as they came up, but at that time the massive snake asked for a favor for the first time.

Taking into account that even the member of the Oathguard had hit lv.90 while many of the Faer had reached their max-level in the late 80s, there was no reason why Python shouldnʼt be allowed to monopolize the experience for once. After all, their initial goal was achieved.

All that was left was to pack up and go home. Seth had already collected the souls, which were only 1200 souls of various, less than he expected. Probably because many souls were bound to the undead Evee created.

If he harvested them, before they returned, he would have roughly 2000 more souls of various. There were also no souls with any great specialties. The only ones that were slightly out of the ordinary were the three Seth managed to pull out of the siege beast bosses.

The three that were left barely alive when he arrived looked like a distorted crocodile or lizard and the soul Seth had managed to harvest from it was called . Aside from being massive and rare, it had a trait called Iron Skin which could raise the ownerʼs base defense. This was the only reason they managed to survive until the blacksmith arrived.

The only other soul that was dropped was the soul of a beast vaguely resembling a giant stag. The trait of this soul was rather special, even though the size had suffered from the soul being a drop. The trait was called Mana Horn and allowed the user to crystallize surplus mana and store it in the shape of crystal antlers.

Two of the siege beast were currently undead servants of Evee, so he may get his hands on their souls, but he didnʼt know what their souls would be like if he took them. Said undead stayed outside guarding the fortress, while the people of Minas Mar returned to their quarters.

People needed rest and the place needed some maintenance. In the end, their fortress was just a makeshift construction without any great materials. It had taken quite a lot of damage during the

siege, especially after the shield was broken.

It was a day later when Minas Mar, the Boulder Guild, and the remnants of the guilds of delta finally sat together to talk about what to do from here on out. Originally Seth had wanted to wait things out and slowly use the hive and the orc kingdom to level the Faer.

This was of course before the Maestro decided to throw a heap of experience at them for some reason. They heard a little about it from Viggu, but past the hints of connections among the three factions, they were still in the dark as to why they suddenly decided to work together on this.

The result was that Minas Mar didnʼt really need to wipe out Kozdam, nor clean up the rest of the dungeon for the experience. Even if they stayed, with how much experience was needed past level 90, they would have to stay for ages, just to gain a few levels.

Seeing how the primary objective was achieved and the situation was convoluted and unpredictable, Sethʼs introvert instincts kicked in. he really just wanted to get home and relax at this point. Since the situation was a little more tragic for the guilds from Delta, they were of the same opinion. They just wanted to return home and had been in favor of this from the very beginning.

It was undeniable that the ”Holy Land” had a lot of potential, but the dangers in this place equaled the potential. They knew too little about the current situation to confidently stay. Not just the reason for the orcs, the demons, and the bugs to work together, but also who had blocked the Home Call and whether the Adventurer Guild was part of this scheme or just another pawn.

Simply leaving, was the objectively best choice.

…

”Alright then, everyone get in here.”

They had been resting for two days, but Brock still didnʼt feel quite back in shape. Fighting under the influence of the beat had taken a lot out of him and it was obvious he wasnʼt the only one.

Seth had called everyone from the guild to the meeting hall where he greeted them with a massive black gate in the background. The guild master of the boulder guild had seen this before. It was the place where the Faer had come out when Seth reassured them of their power.

Now that he thought about it, he also had not seen any of the chimeras or Oathguard today. There were only the executive members of Minas Mar with them in the meeting hall.

”I-is it really okay for us to enter this? Is it safe?” Gin asked unsurely.

Everyone had seen the gate once or twice over the past weeks whenever the Faer would be deployed. Still, being told to simply walk into a weird black void would make anyone hesitate for their first time.

”Donʼt worry about it. The nurturing space of Legion is totally hospital to human life. Now get in, it is for your own safety,.” Seth assured with a smile.

Brock was still uncertain, too, but took the lead and stepped inside. When he opened his eyes after the nausea of space travel he found himself standing on a green meadow seemingly floating in a black void.

Before him was a wide path leading up to a house tree, one of the sky-scraper-sized plants Minas Mar grew at their Tree Stations. Far above his head, he could see the canopy of the tree spanning over the whole meadow.

Magic lanterns, like stars, hung in the branches of the tree and illuminated this small world. His other guild members soon followed. They also stared at the scene in wonder. Soon later, the bunch from the other guild suddenly fell in.

From the sound of it, they kept on stalling and Seth simply threw them in here. So he didnʼt even need their consent to store them...

”Come this way, please. We prepared a place to stay for you.”

A member of the Oathguard led them into the house tree where they were shown their temporary rooms.