Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

---Minas Mar, 5 days later---

Seth was looking at the assembled golem they had finished over the past two weeks. The number was impressive, but their presence was a little underwhelming because of their mostly mismatched-looking gear.

Apart from the ones that happened to wear actual armor sets, the crowd resembled the result of a child who got a bunch of action figures and started disassembling and reassembling them, but with the wrong parts. The blacksmith could only hope this would improve once they started unearthing the treasures of Y-City.

On the other hand, the over 3200 golems made from hobgoblins and orcs around lv.60 were looking much more uniform, with their skin of<Stainless Steel> scales. It was a shame that their looks did not translate to their strength. Since they had no actual gear at all, they were not much better than naked corpse golems with a high defense.

Lastly, at their front stood 82 golems in pristine Oathguard Armor. Seth had originally wanted to finish up within two weeks after the announcement of the Pythian Games, but he had taken slightly longer because he wanted to finish these guys properly.

They were the golems made of various bosses, mini-bosses, and elites that had dropped the 80 big and 2 massive souls during his trip to the Holy Land. The weakest of them had been lv.81 when they were alive.

Although Seth abstained from turning them into Faer, he turned them into proper golem knights. Forging their souls into shape and connecting them with the armor had taken a little longer than he had planned, making him 3 days overdue for them.

Despite already staying longer than expected, Seth was a little bummed that he would not see Mike for a little longer. Mike had already informed them, that he couldn't use home call, or his quest would fail. The beastman's hopes were also dashed upon his arrival at Thres, as Maahes also didn't allow him to use regular teleportation to return.

Since Seth decided to personally accompany the golems on their punitive expedition to Y-City they decided to connect the two objectives. Mike would make his way from Thres to Tree Station 12 at the borders of Minas Mar and meet Seth there. Since the spirit blacksmith had a mobile forge, he was able to work wherever.

That said, Seth was ready to set off. He had spent some time getting his inventory in order, leaving boxes of materials in the storage. The crates of gear that used to muddle his inventory had long been taken care of since they had to arm and ready the new golems.

His inventory was empty apart from the necessities one always needed such as stacks of potions for healing, mana, stamina, and some buffs, fresh Rations prepared by Link, and adventure gear like ropes, tents, a relic-rated pickaxe....And of course, his battle gear was pristine.

All that was left was packing up the golems. The 3200 scaled orcs were easily dealt with, taking up 33 inventory stacks. As for the others, Seth was able to stack the ones that wore mass-produced armor sets, which allowed him to store about half of them in 15 slots, leaving about 1200 golems wearing diverse equipment he couldn't stack.

This was the drawback when one didn't do stuff himself. He couldn't stack the golems that didn't at least look the same. This was a problem that had to be solved in the future. Seth kinda gambled on looting the stash of the Scene and getting his hands on more rare or higher-rated Polyarkanate armors.

But for now, he was left with only one option, they had to physically stack in Legion. It took a hot second, but when they were done, Legion's space had a stack of gaudy-looking armored golems as high as the tree apartment building. Of the new golems, only the 82 new elites entered the tree building. Now, Seth was ready to set off.

The journey was quick. After he told Mary and the others that he was off, he teleported to Minas Palan and from Minas Palan to the branch of the System Church in TS 12. In a matter of minutes, he had moved over 5000 mid- and high-level troops. This was the advantage of golems, that could be stored in the inventory.

"Seth, you arrived!" Mark Baker greeted the tower master with wide open arms. The man looked a lot better than the last time Seth saw him in person. It seemed that he properly recuperated from his time as a prisoner of the Scene.

"Mark, good to see you in good health," Seth greeted the key to his hopes. Of course. Seth didn't bet on randomly finding the armory. Mark Baker was the man in charge of managing players up until the Scene tried to get rid of him. He would know where things were produced and stored. It was not certain, but a good start, in his opinion.

Baker obviously knew their objective in coming to him, beyond a punitive mission to pacify Ypselon. After the greeting, he briefed Seth on everything he investigated and collected about the former and current situation in Y-City and the surrounding satellite cities.

It was safe to say that it was not good. Humanity had lost its footing in Ypselon. Nobody knew the exact number of people the Scene had sacrificed and killed in their last struggle for "godhood", but currently not many remained of the originally over one billion citizens that survived the invasion of the maritime Empire.

With Minas Mar's safety right at their border, people with the power to change something had already left, leaving only people who wanted to take advantage of the situation. Without anyone able to take the lead and most personnel either dead or gone, the city's infrastructure had quickly deteriorated.

The defenses fell and the city was quickly overrun by creatures from the Pathworks and the dungeons. The current Y-City and the surrounding satellite cities were the territory of monsters and some groups of scavengers.

"I tried sending people past Y-City, but none of them returned. I think the west of Ypselon has already fallen completely," Baker also mentioned solemnly.

Seth didn't have a good feeling concerning the west of Ypselon. West of the district were only forests. Forests that already swallowed two districts along the coast. Had they spread here? Or was it something else...again?

"Anyway, let's talk about nicer things..." he quickly changed the subject.

After getting a briefing on the overall situation, Baker began talking about what Seth was actually interested in. The former facilities were where the craftsmen under Baker used to work and where they usually stored most of their products.

He also shared the various dungeon locations and the monster territories his scouts were able to find out. Most importantly, Lezzekai, the massive field boss had returned back to slumber. However, after Seth had accidentally awakened it during the battle with the Scene, the amount of irregular monsters in Y-City had increased. Another reason their defenses fell so quickly.

Together they came up with a progress plan to raid the cityscape step by step, aiming for the former player association that Mark Baker used to lead. Since Mark was prepared, Seth was quickly ready to set off and release the golem into the ruined district.

"Are you really going right away?" Baker asked the blacksmith.

"Are you worried?" he asked amused.

Seth couldn't help but grin. He could have left this task to someone else. He could have made a trip to Thres to get Mike's materials and stay at Minas Mar to make his gear. But he was here. There were two reasons.

"I just teleported here and we just talked everything through. There is no need to waste any more time."

The first was that they were pressed for time, the stronger and better equipped this army got, the better it was for the future. The other reason was that Seth had decided to become a little more proactive, which meant that he stepped out into the field.

And if he was completely honest, he wanted to be there to see it, when his golems started flooding Y-City like a swarm of locusts. The sight was-

Hilarious.