Blacksmith of the Apocalypse - Chapter 1272

----Delta----

Following her call with Seth earlier, Leana was now looking through the papers on her table, considering who to send to Spring City. She couldn't help but ponder the change of Minas Mar that happened after the last battle.

It felt like Minas Mar was moving now. Of course, it wasn't like they had been doing nothing in the past, however, up until recently their strategy had been like turtling. Minas Mar had always stayed in the back, building up their strength unless something happened they couldn't ignore.

When nothing was going on, the members were just training and leveling to become stronger. Where they had been primarily reactionary in the past, Minas Mar was now actively moving out, as shown by the various teams of Lords and Field Team members sent on various missions across Urth and even the abyss.

As so many were out on a mission, Leana had to put some thought into who to send to deal with cultivators. Even the princess had not expected cultivators to boldly settle on the territory of Minas Mar. They couldn't underestimate these powers, considering that the Oathguard stationed in Spring City also couldn't put an end to them.

The team needed firepower, but couldn't lack a way to scout. After the call, she demanded the reports of the local Oathguards who went to look for them, to gain a better understanding of the situation. The crux of the matter was, that even if they were able to defeat the cultivators that ambushed them, they never found the location of any of their bases.

Maybe it was a good idea to get some experts involved? Although Nam and Dowloon were on standby together with some other wandering martial artists they had recruited, Leana had someone more trustworthy in mind.

...

“You want me to go to Spring City?” Lydia asked surprised, when Leana revealed the new mission. The princess wanted her, Archer, Duhu, and a group of cultivators of the Soaring Eagle Sect to travel to TS7 and deal with the sects that had made bases in the surrounding mountains.

“Yes. You will meet the granddaughter of Xiong Peng and her group in Spring City. They will help you look for signs of cultivator formations to find their bases. The member of the Oathguard in TS7 will also join you,” the princess roughly explained the mission.

So much for her vacation. On the other hand, it wasn't much of a vacation if she couldn't spend the time with Mike, who went on an expedition to Thres. At least she was going to get to something constructive. Her hands had been itching since she couldn't take part in the battles in Delta.

She had pulled the short straw and had been stationed in TS11, in case a secondary force attacked from Y-City, which ultimately didn't really happen. Although Natina commanded an incomparable force, in the end, she was a less troublesome opponent than the scene, as her focus was on Delta alone.

“Alright, I'm going to contact the two and set off,” the team leader of Team 3 acknowledged the mission and finished her talk with Leana. Before she left, the princess handed her a stack of papers which was a summary of the situation in Spring City. She was sure the information of previous reported encounters would help narrow down the search area.

It wasn't hard to find the other two. Duhu was playing with the group of children made up of Tijaahk and the kids Karina and Pip took care of. When he wasn't out to level or train, he would usually spend his time in the Towers quarter with his family.

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Archer was silently training at one of the firing ranges just outside the entrance to Minas Mar, as always. At this point, they were forced to build one in the mountains outside for high-level archers like Archer and her.

Although they could shield interior rooms quite well to create training rooms, an indoor firing range lacked the distance to properly train their skills at this point. Even an ordinary archer player could accurately hit targets at several hundred meters distance, thanks to vision skills like <Eagle Eye>. Especially Archer needed enormous distances to raise his<Archery> and vision skills.

Having collected her two team members for the mission, she gave them a quick briefing before they left, just a few hours after Seth gave Leana the call. They arrived in Spring City in the evening of the same day.

...

---Y-City---

“Don't you dare commit- Uhh, fuck!” Bart threw aside the lifeless body of the spatian executive, who had taken his own life using a weird skill. The chosen had fought a grueling battle against the knight and finally managed to incapacitate him, only for him to flee to the afterlife, just like the others.

Bart and his men had spent the past days fighting and capturing the units of Spatia still remaining and guarding the teleport formation at the former System Church in Y-City. They had thoroughly entrenched themselves here and it was a real pain in the ass to pick them off.

Especially since they tried to capture them alive so they could extract information, but they simply kept killing themselves the moment things looked dire. How could someone throw away their life with such ease?

With a sigh, Bart entered the lobby of the System Church skyscraper. It was completely abandoned.

The man who has just taken his life and his subordinates had simply bought time for the rest to flee through the teleportation array. This had been their last chance to capture someone to extract information, but they failed.

Bart looked back at his comrades. They were an ensemble of former crooks, gangsters, refugees, and people who fled from false charges. Many may not have been the best people in the past but they had proven themselves trustworthy. So his heart bled seeing them in their current condition.

The units left behind here may not have been elites, but that didn't mean they were weak. In the past days, they had fought five squads with 30 soldiers around lv.85 each and led by a player above lv.100. There had also been smaller groups of guards they picked off.

They were not Minas Mar. Although they had managed to equip themselves with the leftovers of the Scene, their levels and skills were lacking, especially when fighting to capture instead of to kill. Many of them were now covered in severe wounds, some had even lost a limb in this last battle. It was only thanks to their numbers, that nobody had died yet.

After all the effort they had put in, it was a shame they couldn't capture even one, getting hurt for nothing. Well, it couldn't be helped.

“Well done everyone. I'm glad nobody died. Everyone share whatever potions you have left and get treated by the healers. Don't worry, I will make sure the guys who lost body parts get to meet a proper priest to regrow them once we are in TS12.” Bart promised the rough bunch.

They cheered, acknowledging the orders and praise. Even the badly wounded pressed out quiet “ooohh!”s. Seeing them treat each other, Bart entered the main control room for the teleport formation. It was a large panel, looking like the mystical version of a plane cockpit.

The former bandit captain /refugee leader had no idea what he was doing. He simply followed Simon's instructions. The priest had spent almost an hour minutely describing the process of what he had to do.

What he had to do was actually simple. Stick the token key into a specific slot, turn it, and press a specific button. If one ever saw a plane's cockpit, one would understand why the priest took an hour to describe exactly which slot where and what button how to press.

Stick. Turn. Press. Remove the token key.

A large weight fell off Bart's mind when he saw the dim light of the teleport formation go out. This was the sign that he managed to do everything correctly. Collecting the key in his inventory, Bart returned to his men.

“Mission Accomplished. Let's get ready to leave this hell hole.”