Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Valiantly, Tekar jumped to the front of the party, blocking the fat demon's Explosion attack from the field team members of Minas Mar. Although he was behind in level, he still had the most outrageous defense in all of Minas Mar, apart from their Tower Master. The team members were lucky enough to hide behind Tekar.

Despite being momentarily blinded by the bright light, Tekar managed to deploy the blessings Alexiares and Aniketos to protect the city below. The explosion that could have eradicated a quarter of the district crashed into his blessed shield and was redirected upwards.

Still, the blessing was not almighty. Tekar was only able to mitigate the damage to the city directly below. The explosion still flattened the buildings in a radius of 100 meters and damaged many further away. A quarter of the district lost their windows, but not their lives.

When the light finally let off, they looked at the destruction below in trepidation. Nobody really expected Delta to become a battlefield today. There were still people in the area. Of course, collateral damage was the norm in a war, but all of them had hoped to take over Delta as peacefully and with as little damage as possible.

The worst resistance they had expected were the subordinates of Chrona that still manned the city gates and the council shaped by the Peddler of Ruin. That they would face a horde of demons wasn't planned...

Movement in the ruins caught their attention as more and more rubble started being pushed aside. Demons and People emerged from the ruins of the buildings. For a moment, they had forgotten, that players were much more resilient than people before the apocalypse. There was still a chance to rescue people even in the epicenter of the damage.

Monique growled when she saw the demons that managed to crawl from the debris attack the people who had just managed to survive a catastrophe. She didn't have to say anything, as the people around her already rushed to the ground, ending the demons.

The chosen of Athena stayed up on the roof and looked at the situation. Athena was a goddess of warfare and strategy, this was why Monique was given the command in the field. looking at the change in the situation, she frowned.

The demon army’s commander and their elite leaders were gone, but their burning desire couldn’t be quenched by the sudden loss of leadership. On the contrary, without a guiding hand, they turned even wilder and more dangerous, spreading out to hunt the survivors still present in Delta.

Monique clicked her tongue, there were simply too many small fries running around. The urban battlefield rendered large-scale skills that could end them all useless, unless they wanted to wipe out the remaining people in Delta, too. Lifting her hand, she shot a signal flare to the sky.

Despite being right below the city, the Tower of Minas Mar had never interfered with Delta, except during a crisis. A big reason for this was the security systems of Chrona, which wouldn’t have allowed any interference without the existence of the tower becoming known. It was time to reveal a fraction of what it could do.

Shortly after the signal was given, the noise of battle fell silent. All demons in range suddenly became sluggish, weaker ones outright falling asleep. The magic remote cast by the Tower Ego had its limits as remote casting was a terribly inefficient technique, however, demons across half of delta had instantly become less dangerous or were completely neutralized.

Originally, they made up this strategy to deal with the remnants of Chrona's army if they decided to abandon the city walls and attack. It could also be turned into an offensive attack if Spatia managed to invade the city area of Delta. After all, the enemy empire's troops were already preparing to come to Delta.

Of course, the danger wasn't over with this. Just because they were sleeping or drowsy for now, didn't mean they weren't dangerous. After the sleep magic was cast teams of golems appeared in the streets, teleported by the tower.

They were the ordinary merchandise, originally meant to be sold to Arget Nore. They now flooded the streets of Delta. Although they couldn't compare to the golem knights Seth besouled, they were enough to deal with the weakened demons. To allow for flexible decision-making, each team of merchandise was led by one of Seth's Golem Knights with a budding ego or a named golem.

She didn't dare use the Strategy “Sleepy Head” before, because of the demon elites possibly negating the magic or using large-scale attacks to destroy the golems. Unlike, them, the demons would have any qualms about destroying the city and killing many, to get rid of the enemy.

With the massive influx on their side and the already incurred losses for the demons, the numbers on the ground were now even, not counting Delta's civilians and adventurers not leaving without a fight. Some were another problem, for both sides.

Nobody liked demons, but it didn't mean they were okay with Minas Mar's objective either. those attacking or resisting in the middle of the chaotic battlefield were taken care of by the Oathguard, one way or the other. Luckily, people hostile toward Minas Mar were few and far between.

Despite smear campaigns against them in the past, Minas Mar's reputation had improved lately and became much better than the public opinions toward Chrona, or an invading demon army. Public opinion of either was horrible, the latter being slightly worse.

Their performance during the tournament incident had not just revealed that legends existed on Urth and could enter Urth, but also that Minas Mar was a force to be reckoned with, as they had actually managed to defeat said legend.

Across the whole of the Pathworks and the system worlds, it might not have been as big a deal, but on Urth, they were proven to be the strongest. In chaotic times, people wanted strong leaders they could rely on and who could protect them, and Minas Mar spared no expense to propagate this image to the people of Delta, ever since they decided to take over. As such, the reaction to Minas Mar's arrival was no surprise.

“Thank you so much!” the Oathguards were praised with cheer and gratitude by the people they saved from demons or pulled from the wreckage to evacuate to the safety of Minas Mar's shield. With the implementation of the Strategy “Sleepy Head”, the situation quickly turned for the better and the troops of Minas Mar were able to sort out the mess.

When Seth returned to the embassy after capturing the politicians and grounding them in the parliament, they were mostly busy with cleanup instead of fighting. The were only individual pockets of demons left, spread across the city outside their influence. Those were still heavily besieged by local powers and golems.

“Seth, there is someone who would like to meet you,” Evee approached Seth when he returned. The Chosen of Persephone had taken part in the battle until the demon commander self-detronated, but had not summoned any of her undead. They didn't want to scare the people of Delta. Instead, she had started helping with organizing the refugee camps and medical tents.

Behind her was a woman with a crooked smile and a smoldering cigar in the edge of her mouth. She wore a silver suit and a red coat with black fur was draped around her shoulders. Everything about her screamed shady underworld boss.

However, Seth actually recognized her. It wasn't just because he was able to feel their connection, but the aura of this woman was hard to forget. She was like a forged edge. Despite her appearance, she was straight and sharp, hard, but flexible enough.

“They are from the Riot Guild here in Delta. They joined our troops earlier on in the fight and have proven quite useful in battle,” Evee explained, but the blacksmith didn't actually need the introduction.

“I remember you,” he said before she could introduce herself. She was one of the 400 Faer he created from the ego souls of Tano'Mol's soul tank. To be precise, she was one of the 200, who decided to leave, instead of staying with Minas Mar.

“Bodeka, right?” Seth asked. Him remembering her name shocked her so much, that she even lost her smile, staring at him.

“Y-Yes! We have come to follow the oath,” she said when she found her tongue again and kneeled before him. In the back, the group of misfits, half of which were also Faer, followed her in the action. Evee was left looking confused at what was happening here.

The oath, was for the Faer that had left, to come to their aid in case of emergency. Seth never really expected any of the leavers to keep the oath, but it was a nice surprise.

“Then I will welcome you back with open arms. Follow Evee and see where you can help here.”