After a slight peck, Lee and An went downstairs and greeted July. They talked to her for a couple of minutes and then parted from the inn. Their destination was the Army headquarters to meet Ian. The streets were warmly reflecting the bright starlights. The crumbled buildings and fractured walls were clearly visible in the daylight. The transport on the streets were sparse. Rubbles were scattered all over the place.
Each step brought them closer to the Army headquarters. Slowly and steadily, they advanced towards the heavily cracked building. It was shaken to the core. It is evident from the widespread crevices that the building was comparatively stable than other buildings. The wall around the headquarters was quite in bad shape. As they noticed the pathetic situation of the building, their eyes scanned across to find Ian drenched in sweat pushing a large boulder from the front path to the door. 3 or 4 recruits were accompanying him to move the block. It was evident that the building did suffer some major damages.
Upon seeing him struggling to move the irregular stone mass, Lee quickly approached him and gave a hand. The block was rather easily moved out of the path. Ian was relieved to see Lee and An in the morning. The smile on his face was replaced by a serious frown as he shouted at the hard-working recruits-
"I want this place clean as before and these stones moved out in 2 hours. The team which completes this feat gets a day off of training!"
The recruits who had already become sluggish from the tiresome job sprang up on their feet. Their eyes were filled with energy as they scanned at the nearby stones. The next second, a full swing cleaning process began. Seeing the surprise rise in morale, Ian signalled Lee and An to follow him to the office.
As he reached his office, he made them sit for a minute while he quickly cleaned himself off the sweat and wore his uniform. He quickly came and sat in his chair and peered at Lee and An sitting on the other side of the table.
"Our spies have found their temporary hideout in the Black Desert Plains. Fortunately, the quake made them retreat abruptly and has not seen them since yesterday. We have reasons to believe that the quake hit all indiscriminately."
Ian continued to speak about the Illians. He also mentioned that the Illians use a special technique to communicate between them. After a short and precise briefing came to an end, the hourly notification showed up.
=====
9 A.M.
1700 Essence harvested.
=====
The notification gave Lee the sense of time. He quickly glanced at An through the corner of his eyes. A mixed expression was visible on her face. Lee did not ask anything about it, and turned to Ian for doubts.
"If that's the case, can we utilise this time to attack the Illians before they do?!"
"That would be suicidal. The Illians have settled and have about 3 to 4 villages under them. The villagers are all brainwashed using sweet words and cultivation offers. The common villagers are enough to alert the whole Illian community."
Ian shook his head as he responded to Lee. He was praying for their retreat to be for a long time. His disturbed face caught Lee's sight as he keenly observed. Lee knew that he had to change the topic.
"The earthquake last night, do you have any information about it?!"
The question made Ian raise his head and look into Lee's eyes. The slight frown faded away as he shook his head again.
"Earthquakes have been extremely rare in our kingdom. Our investigation team suspects that the whole continent might have been affected by the quake. What's more is sudden large scale migration occurring among beasts. A long fissure had also been spotted north-west to the city. Our archives seem to have nothing on such an incident in history."
The lack of information and magnitude of mystery regarding the quake was vivid in Ian's response. Hearing this, An bit her lower lips as she turned to Lee. His calm and collected exposure with an unalarmed face reminded her of his words earlier today.
[As I expected, the kingdoms have no idea of what is about to happen. Their forefathers either hid the information about this catastrophic event or they were not informed of it.]
Lee turned his sight to outside through the window as he contemplated on D's words. He was thankful of D since he is the Sovereign of this dimension, and was also intrigued by the fact that not even D could hold back the horror of these continents.
*BOOM*
An ear shattering boom came from a distance and the building began to tremble. Minute cracks crept up the walls as fast as visible to eyes. The wood and stone structure vibrated like a high frequency fork. At its first glance, Ian shouted at Lee and An to escape!
*chaotic noises*
Lee and An came out running with Ian behind them. As they ran out of the door, dust was kicked up by a big stone block that fell right behind them.
*THUD*
The shockwave of the impact scattered An, Ian and Lee in different directions. As Lee tried to stand up on his feet with a dizzy head, he saw recruits getting crushed by the falling stone blocks. The sounds of crushing bones and screams of agony vellicated Lee as he quickly scanned around for An and Ian. He dashed at her as he saw An trying to get up from the rubble. With a single swoop, Lee took her in his arms. The moment, Ian shouted as he sprang up on his feet.
"Lee, above you!"
Lee didn't look up as he was able to tell that danger was coming from above. He leaped forward instantly and avoided the downcoming doom by a hair's breadth.
Ian took off and distanced himself from the collapsing building as recruits and soldiers followed him. The rookies were pale from the sudden events turning in unanticipated directions. In front of their eyes, the army headquarters no more had its pride.
*CRACK*
The ground crackled and trembled as the terrain deformed. Massive fissures that were long and wide began to sprout out of the ground. At a visible pace, they spread out through the ground and sank a half of the headquarters. As the terrified armyfolk turned their heads after hearing loud screams behind them, the city of Lorin was at the verge of disappearing.
The fissure that swallowed army headquarters began to widen up. The quicker widening exposed depths immeasurable to the city dwellers. As the city was struggling to keep themselves together from last night's event, the next day greeted the whole planet with grand scale tectonic movements.
Somewhere in the city, a fire started. The natural gas unfortunately bellowed out by the widening terrain ignited a catastrophic event. With a deafening bang, the ground opened its mouth wide and fiery holocaust came forth. Many blocks of buildings crumbled in the heat. People were burned like flashpaper. It only took seconds for things to escalate to levels unreturnable!
Lee and An can be seen running through the streets frantically. The fissures had separated them from Ian. Under the navigation of D, Lee guided An towards the eastern gate. They avoided fatal situations all the way with a hair's breadth. The gate was damaged and the wall was significantly destroyed. The wailing and screeching surrounded them like a layer of discomfort. An and Lee skillfully glided through the falling and fallen buildings as they neared the gate.
*BADHUM*
The shockwave swept across the fleeing residents as they froze in their tracks to look around. Lee felt the shockwave like an invisible sword behind his neck. He increased his pace as he took An in his arms. His dash became accompanied with leaps as every cell in his body yelled 'Danger'. With a face painted with terror and cold sweat, he looked over his shoulder with wide eyes and saw a pale green gas rising and spreading all over the surroundings from the breach.
*crack*
A hardly audible crack fell in his ears and the large cloud instantly transformed into a large fiery cloud. A large area was engulfed by the infernal heat as buildings and structures began to crackle. Many people fell into their demise in those fires. The explosion accelerated the pace of rupture as it elongated in an almost linear path and extended to north-east and south-west.
The gate was so congested that many fell and were trampled to death. The carriages were overloaded to the extent that some had it's wheels broken and grounded. Many tried to scale the walls, but only a very few crossed alive. The notion 'Survival of the fittest' was unconsciously powering up the minds and hearts of those that escaped their deaths.
------------------------------------------
==========
Name: Lee
Age: 20
Title: Grim-reaper, Soul Liberator
Fame: 2015
Essence: 36160 (10 AM)
Money: 953 Gold, 0 Silver, 31 Copper
----------
Partner: An
----------
Health: 320
Strength: 320
Vitality: 320
Agility: 320
Defense: 320
Endurance: 320
Sense: 320
Intelligence: 320
Resolve: 320
----------
Immunity:-
• Greater Poison Immunity (191/1000000)
• Medium Lightning Immunity (3229/10000)
• Medium Air Immunity (200/10000)
Affinity:-
• Greater Poison Affinity (11884/1000000)
• Greater Lightning Affinity (12385/1000000)
• Lesser Fire Affinity (0/100)
• Lesser Water Affinity (0/100)
• Lesser Ice Affinity (0/100)
• Greater Rock Affinity (11975/1000000)
• Greater Metal Affinity (11974/1000000)
• Lesser Sand Affinity (0/100)
• Greater Nature Affinity (11984/1000000)
• Medium Air Affinity (1045/10000)
• Greater Sound Affinity (11985/1000000)
• Greater Dark Affinity (11797/1000000)
• Lesser Light Affinity (0/100)
----------
Mastery:-
• Absolute Blade Mastery
• Absolute Nunchuck Mastery
• Medium Bow Mastery (778/10000)
----------
Cultivation: Peak stage Core Formation realm
Qi: 0/1100
Mana: 0
----------
Innate Skills:-
• View
• Foresight
• EsGen
• EsConv
• Curse Remover
• Flight
----------
INVENTORY:-
QUESTS:-
MAP:-
SHOP:-
RE-MODEL:-
==========