Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

The Center of Y-City was more dangerous in general. Not many of Baker's scouts returned from this place. The ones that did had barely anything out of the ordinary to report, except for the presence of powerful beasts.

From their reports, it was clear, that there was a mix of powerful beasts and creatures that got the other scouts, despite their great stealth skills. This led to the conclusion that the number of beasts spawning because of the slumbering realm's awakening was much higher here, closer to Lezzekai.

For the raid, Seth and Baker had chosen several of the former stations of the Player Association, where spare weaponry and armor were supposed to be stored. The final destination was the main branch close to the city center, but still some distance away from the field boss.

Seth would have also wanted to have a look at the former base of the scene, but especially with the golem army, they judged it too dangerous to get close to Lezzekai. He was still thinking about using the Helm of Hades to take a look, but because he would still have to physically move around the place, it was still dangerous. If he caused the beast to wake up because the wrong door creaked right above its head... well, nobody wanted that.

Looting the surrounding streets, Seth and the golem traveled further west. Here and there sets of Polyarkanate Armor kept popping up, either without owner or on the bodies of scavengers. Back then, most of the men of the Scene had been “baptized” with the immortal serum, or a version of it. When their souls were whisked away, it seemed that their bodies had turned to dust, leaving the undamaged items up for grabs.

Seth would have been satisfied once they had enough Polyarkanate Armors, preferably epic ones. Only then would they be able to truly take advantage of the nature of the golems. This was why they were currently bee-lining for the storage places.

The moment they had procured enough for the golems, the true purge would start and the golems would spread out to take care of all the monsters, dungeons, and other hostiles in the city. One may misunderstand that they were trying to reclaim Y-City, but Seth had no such illusions.

With Lezzekai in the center and barely any people left, the cityscape was doomed to stay empty and slowly fall into disrepair. However, it was also a constant source of danger, since that meant there would be nobody to regularly raid the dungeons or fight the invaders.

Although Seth's current goal was the growth of the golems, there was a high chance this would become a regular event in the future, to make sure the tree stations 9 to 12 would not face the danger of being overrun by a stampede. Though it would probably be the business of the people that decided to live there.

Seth felt confident in their protective measures and he doubted a stampede would get through the defense of the Guardian Tree and the guardians that took up the duty to protect the stations. However, Seth doubted people would feel happy living in a bubble surrounded by danger.

Some of them would, he didn't doubt that. But many would not be able to accept that the world outside spelled death if the creatures from Y-City were allowed to spread. Worst case, the plague in the north, would spread all the way down here if the beasts from Y-City kept overflowing and filling the mountains.

There were a lot of idle thoughts, but they were matters of the far future. When they pacified it once, it would be silent for some time. Maybe they would have already solved most of their problems once that time came.

The bard was left to such idle thoughts, as it was the golems that took care of the fighting. As he watched the fights ensuing, he also realized what the people meant when they said that the creatures

were...bizarre.

Seth observed instances where the creatures neither followed the laws of physics, nor the rules of the system. The laws of physics were one thing since the power of magic could bend them, but the rules of the system?

At one point he saw a beautiful creature the system named an Erlgoyle lv.105 manipulate water to attack the golems. It was similar to Seth's previous skill of <Fire Manipulation>, however, it didn't seem like it came at any cost. The elf-like being kept slinging water against the armored golems that surrounded it without tiring until it was finally subdued by numbers.

Another occurrence was a creature called a Tapatorc lv.93. Since there was some level difference, Seth was able to see most of its status, which included its attributes. With 250 points, its agility was not low, but the speed it showed was wicked. Even comparable to how Dragos had moved at the holy land with over 600 agility. At the same time, there were no signs that it had, or used a skill to achieve this speed.

The thought of evading the rules, also reminded him of Donnchadh, whose soul had no interest in leaving his body, even when it was objectively, certainly dead. However, if there was one thing Seth knew, then that nobody could escape the rules of the system, this meant there was something he didn't see.

Was this a peculiarity of their world? Seth had heard about it in Ora, oftentimes worlds hat their own system of magic or style of mana usage. The materials at the tower of Willis were a good example.

For the most part, it matched how things worked under the system since the rules of magic usually never changed. But in some points, there were clear differences in the understanding of how things worked. At least that was what Alison had told him at some point in the past.

If this was a peculiarity of Urth, it meant that there was something in the status, he was unable to see but was most likely the cause of these discrepancies. Maybe he was not supposed to be able to see it with a skill like <Observation>. Although it had risen to lv.7 in the holy land, it was still the most rudimentary skill to check the status of a target. Higher-grade skills may have done the trick.

Seth was glad they didn't run into too many of them when he realized that the magical creatures of Urth, which was what they actually were, could be very unpredictable. Not that the need to make a great strategy when advancing with an army of golem and himself in the middle, but he felt some respect for the fact that they could technically do something similar to someone on the Path of Legends.

Walking for roughly three hours since leaving the rendezvous point, they reached the first destination. The building was not as high as the others, maybe 20 floors at best. The traditional-looking facade identified it as a former police station.

The path up to here was neither hard nor easy. The creatures they faced invaders, as well as natives, were very powerful, but in the face of over 5000 golems, nothing was able to hinder their journey. Searching and looting the houses was the time-intensive part, even when they concentrated on the ones on their path and those in the vicinity of it.

As many creatures as they had met on the way, the former police station was virtually empty. Except for some corpses that had turned into undead but quickly started to rest in peace, when the station was flooded.

“We found the storage,” one of the orcish golem knights reported back to him after the golems were done cleaning. He led Seth to a typical modern armory. The reinforced door was ripped out of the frame, and behind it was a room with a concrete floor, filled with black crates.

There were also a bunch of empty armor racks, that didn't quite fit in, but showed that people had taken the prepared armor sets that would have hung there. Some of the black crates were filled with rare weapons of various shapes, others had pieces of Polyarkanate Armor.

The armor pieces were not stored in complete sets but with large numbers of the same parts. A crate with 20 leg guards here, another one with 25 gauntlets there. Seth was pleasantly surprised to find that all of the armors were already enchanted with circuits that could be separately powered. The armors were set with precious stones, that could be charged with magic power beforehand.

It was a workaround to create a semi-permanent enchantment. The enchantments themselves were okay-ish improvements to basic attributes, raising the overall physical attributes by 50 each when the whole set was worn. It was 75 for the epic sets.

Seth frowned a little when he summed up everything they had found. With the Polyarkanate armors, they got on their way here, they now possessed 123 complete epic sets and 412 rare ones. This was barely enough for a fifth of the golems he definitely wanted to armor.

But he still had hope. If the other places were like this, they would barely have enough.