Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Mina had separated from the others, earlier and headed west. As the night fully descended, she abandoned the Alpeka and prowled the city on her own, traveling through the all-encompassing shadow of the night. The main battle happened in the distance, with the explosions and noise of battle only serving as a dampened background noise.

Luf had told her that the Saintess of Gatris was creating trouble in the northwestern outskirts of the Pythian Village. The city in this place was eerily quiet. Seeing the usually busy street absolutely quiet was the best sign that something was not right.

Other places were still brimming with combat on the streets, but the northwest had turned into a ghost town, devoid of people. All the people staying in the Pythian village are either adventurers or cultivators who came to make a living by running inns and restaurants.

Although players could use to flee, the average level of these people was quite high, and she doubted they would have just evacuated because they faced some attacks. This situation was a little different from what she heard from Luf. At least she couldn’t remember her mentioning any mass disappearances.

Could this really be the work of the saintess? She was pondering about it when the sky suddenly turned darker. Surprised she realized that the barrier had vanished. She was about to call Luf when her ears twitched.

For the first time, she heard a foreign sound since she entered the silent city. It was a suppressed curse followed by a small repeating sound. She came to the conclusion that it had to be steps. Following the soft sounds of steps, the beastman found a lone adventurer sneaking through the back alley behind a restaurant.

She couldn’t see his face, but he was clearly trembling. Despite being in a state of fear or panic, he was moving slowly with measured steps. He was probably a thief or assassin class, to sneak like that despite the situation and his mental state.

Passing him, swimming through the shadows, she slowly emerged right in front of him. The adventurer froze in fear, but he didn’t scream, or make any sounds. Suspecting there was a reason for his silence, she spoke as softly as possible.

“I’m Mina, a Lord of Minas Mar. What happened here?”

She spoke barely any louder than the man beathed, but her words were clearly audible in the quiet night air. The man swallowed hard, hesitating whether he should believe her and talk, or whether this was just another nightmare, and it was finally time for him to die.

“I want to help, but I have to know what happened,” the cat girl insisted.

“I- I don’t know. I was still fighting those crazies not too long ago, but when the night fell, more and more people... vanished? No. no, that’s not the right word, or maybe it is? They were simply gone from one moment to the other,“ He breathed the words more than he spoke them. His ragged breath made it hard to follow.

“I think it has something to do with noise. At first, there was too much going on, but later I realized. Whenever there was a scream or a loud shout, it suddenly cut off.”

“How long has it been since it started?” Mina asked concerned.

It had barely been 20 minutes since Luf told her to come here. Had the situation changed this rapidly? It was hard to believe that this many people vanished this such a short amount of time. The Saintess she had seen in the tournament didn’t seem to be capable of that.

“I don’t know when it started, but it’s been five minutes since I heard another person for the last time…” he answered, shaking his head. The lady from Mians Mar realized, that he didn’t have any more answers than this. At least he was able to provide her with some clues.

“Why didn’t you use Home Call?” Mina finally asked. was the ultimate skill for players to save their lives. Even if he registered the Pythian Village as a return spot, that would have probably been better than sneaking around here. Things were dire if the perpetrator actually managed to block the skill.

The formation needed to block teleportation needed a lot of time and preparation. Pulling that off right under their noses was concerning and slightly embarrassing. To the point that she would even suspect that the perpetrator hand inside help.

“Urgh, I would have if I could. My is on cooldown. I used it to get back here to see the final. I bet a lot of the guys that vanished just dipped out…” he pressed out, frustrated. Mina nodded; glad that her original conjecture was true, and it wasn’t the worst-case scenario. This would lower the estimated number of victims.

Unless the system skill was on cooldown, nobody unwilling to fight had to stay. Of course, people from the Voracious Cloud Continent didn’t have that option. That begged the question of what happened to those guys.

“You can get out of this place alone. Aim for the stadium at the center,” she told him after a moment of thought.

“The stadium? Are you crazy? Th fights there are the worst!” he hissed agitated.

“Yeah, and the stadium is the safest and most chaotic place in the Village. Nobody will notice some guy sneaking by toward it. Here, they will at least let you stay within the barrier bound with this,” she said and handed him a card made of . He hesitated but finally took it with a look of surprise.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Now go,” she said, sending the man on his way, while she turned back to her original direction. With some clues now, she knew what she was looking for.

She had the hunch that those people were still alive. A noise-triggered method to have people vanish without a trace seemed to elaborate if the goal was simply to collect corpses. It made no sense to her. If they were this powerful, they could have just killed everyone present directly and collected the bodies. That would have eliminated the chance for people to use , too.

“Luf, what is going on with the barrier?” she quietly contacted the command center before she continued.

“Don't worry, things are back on track now,” was the only answer she got. Weirdly enough, it was enough for her to stop worrying. She gave a quick update on what she found out before she continued on the journey.

Following her hunch, she knew what she was looking for. Thanks to Master Mountain she knew, whether it was a cultivator or a player, there was next to no way to just let a crowd of living people vanish. This meant she had to look out for a place full of people. That shouldn’t be that hard, with how empty the rest of the city was.

Ultimately, this still meant that she was simply prowling around the city, just with little more direction, paying attention to places where they could collect bodies or hold people captive. She felt really stupid for this when she finally came across what she was looking for.

At the northwestern edge of the Pythian Village, someone created a field of ruins. Magical symbols covered the cleared arena, glowing an ominous dark orange color in the night. The people she had been looking for were limply levitating in the air above this area.

They didn’t even try to hide this shit! It was even lit up. Swallowing her indignation and frustration about the time she had spent searching, she focused on the situation at hand. The people seemed unconscious.

Except for the rings of energy that looked like black crowns of thorns surrounding their heads and the thorns piercing into their skulls, they seemed fine. At least her hunch was right and they were still alive.

Contrary to her doubts, she actually saw the Saintess of Gatris standing in the center of this place, which looked unlike any magic formation she knew. Kneeling in front of the three-meter-tall statue of a blindfolded demon witch, she seemed immersed in prayer.

A ritual. This was the only explanation Mina was able to come up with. Then… was the kidnapping of these people also part of her power she didn’t show the tournament or was it maybe the effect of an item. The statue, for example, seemed quite peculiar. Was this the true face of Gatris?

“When are you finally done, woman?” a scruff, dissonant voice suddenly broke the silence of the night, making Mina jolt in surprise. Appearing from the darkness, as if stepping through the thick, black smoke, was a demon. Surprised she realized that he was also among the tournament participants.

Stepping out of the shadow, Mina released a few golem eyes from her inventory. Since they had lost contact with the ones originally in this area, she had to bring new ones herself. The fight wouldn’t be broadcast live, but an edited version was planned to be released later.

She threw her hair around and smiled at the camera. Show time.