In a dark room, a young man and a middle-aged man watched the opening ceremony of the Fighter Anteriority through their smartwatches.
Both of them had something in common, they only had one arm attached to their body. They were the masterminds behind the attack on the Royal Kingdom.
The ceremony had reached the final speech by Leon Kline.
In the middle of watching the ceremony, the door opened. But the two paid no attention to who entered the room. They had their eyes glued to the smartwatch.
"Are you sure you don't want to use my creation?" A rough and cold voice questioned them.
"No!" The middle-aged man replied in a firm tone without looking at the voice.
The young man took a more aggressive stance. He slowly raised his head and looked at the voice with bloodshot eyes, "No! This is a reminder for me! It will remind me not to forget to rip this man's hand apart. After that, I will rip off the hands of his wives and his daughter, one by one, right in front of him! I will make him taste despair!"
The young man's voice was filled with malice. His tone was also sinister and chilling. Despite his human appearance, he had the aura of an enraged beast.
"Tsk, who's the unlucky one who angered these two lunatics?" The dwarf shook his head in pity. Of course, that man was Heero, he just did not know that the culprit was their main target of this operation.
The one who had just entered the room was a dwarf. But he looked different from the normal dwarf, it was a corrupted dwarf. That was what the people of Dramonia called them.
The dwarf had dark skin, almost charred black. Two small horns protruded from his forehead. Such a change was caused by the Dark Ki.
They were called Corrupted Dwarves because they lived in an area with thick Dark Ki, which caused some mutation in their appearance.
The Corrupted Dwarf offered them an artificial hand. But he was firmly rejected by the two madmen.
-Let the festival begin!
As these words were transmitted from the smartwatch, the two of them immediately stood up.
"It's time to hunt!" The young man said with an evil grin as he closed the smartwatch. Then the two of them walked out of the darkroom together. They did not glance at the corrupted dwarf.
*** ***
"It has begun!" In one of the tallest buildings in the core region, Butcher Wang watched everything from the beginning.
He saw blackish energy rising from the outer city wall. It was not very fast and eventually covered the whole city.
After the outermost wall, another black energy ballooned up from the wall separating the trade region and the outer city region. This continued until the blackish energy covered the outer region as well.
Three layers of black energy covered the core region in one minute. Such a phenomenon would cause mass panic.
Butcher Wang raised his wrist and said, "It's started, guys, focus on evacuating the people instead of killing the specters! Let's teach them a lesson!"
"Roger!"
Many voices replied to Butcher Wang through the smartwatch. It was the voice of the SES team's voices.
*** ***
On top of the outer city, Roman looked in the direction of the core region.
"You ruined my plan, and now it's my turn to ruin your life!" said Rodin, the man who had posed as Rodin and snuck into the White House.
"Heh, don't underestimate him or you'll regret it," reminded the same middle-aged man who accompanied Roman to Star City.
"First of all, we caught him off guard. Second, look at those three layers of barriers, his flame would never reach us.
"Third, Reaper, Shadow Bane, and Nightmare are working together this time. We are using our full power, do you think he can escape?" Roman asked the middle-aged man with a grin.
*** ***
The layout of Star City followed that of Sun City. The difference was that Star City was twice the size of Sun City.
On the outskirts of town, a group stood in front of an old house. The group was wearing all black with a gold SES badge on their left chest.
On top of the old building, another group wore purple leather armor with a longbow on their backs. The building was one of many SES outposts.
"This is the order, let's start the operation!" Ren Anqing turned around and said. He looked up and informed the purple mountain people in Dramonia as well.
He was an old member of the SES and also Heero's apprentice. He was a squad captain now and had been promoted after passing the re-evaluation test.
In Ren Anqing's words, the group spread out in order.
Ren Anqing did not stay behind either but headed in one direction. He was going to an orphanage.
When he arrived at the orphanage, he saw many children standing in front of the building. They were pointing their fingers at the dark sky, causing a commotion.
Ren Anqing scanned the crowd, looking for the orphanage's director. He soon spotted a white-haired lady coming out of the building.
"There you are..." He muttered as he ran up to the old lady.
"This... W-what is this? What happened?" The old lady's panicked voice rang out as her face paled.
"This is an attack! The specters have attacked the city," Ren Anqing appeared next to the old lady and whispered in a low voice, making sure that the surrounding people did not hear his words. He did not want to cause panic among the children.
The old lady was startled by Ren Anqing's voice and turned around to face Ren Anqing.
"You're the young man from the other day!" The old lady shouted in surprise.
"Yes, I am," Ren Anqing nodded and smiled at the old lady.
The SES had made their move earlier. They had tried to evacuate the people earlier, but some people did not believe them, such as the director of this orphanage.
Ren Anqing had tried to convince the old lady twice, but the old lady stubbornly refused to listen.
"Then what you said back then was true?" The old lady had an incredible expression on her face.
"Yes, I am a Hero and also a member of the Specter Extermination Squad of the Star City branch of the Hero League," Ren Anqing showed his Hero ID to the old lady.
"We predicted the movement of the Specters, and we predicted that they would attack the city at this time!" It was proven true with the blackish barrier in the sky.
"I wish your cooperation and follow me to the safe house we have prepared," Ren Anqing bowed his head politely to the old lady.
"And if I refuse?" To Ren Anqing's surprise, the old lady stubbornly refused. At a time like this, she still did not trust him.
"Then I am sorry, for the sake of the children, we will use force to evacuate all the children with us.
If you don't want to follow me, that's fine too, but I will take the children with me!" Ren Anqing replied firmly.
At this time, he had no time to argue with the stubborn old lady. He had to prioritize the safety of the children before the battle was over.
"All right, then take us to the safe house!" Finally, the old lady relented and nodded at his time.
"Children! Follow this big brother, we are going to a safer place!" The old lady shouted as she pointed her finger at Ren Anqing.
Ren Anqing had prepared the vehicle for the evacuation. As soon as he saw the old lady, he immediately led her to the vehicle. They went back to the original base, the old building.
When the old lady arrived, she looked at Ren Anqing suspiciously, "Are you sure this is the safe place?"
She started to doubt Ren Anqing again. Although she did not have complete information about the ghost, she had heard that the specter could disguise itself as a human. She was afraid that Ren Anqing was a Specter in disguise.
Ren Anqing smiled gently at the old lady, "Follow me, you will know once you are inside.
He opened the old steel door. There was a strange sound when the door opened.
After some hesitation, the old lady followed Ren Anqing. At this point, if Ren Anqing really was a Specter in disguise, they were already doomed.
She had no choice but to trust Ren Anqing. She and the children followed him to the old building.
Inside was a corridor, a ten-meter long corridor. Yes, a ten-meter-long hallway with no way out except a steel wall.
The old lady panicked when she saw two men in the same outfit as Ren Anqing. She thought she and the children were about to be slaughtered by them.
"Open the way!" Ren Anqing spoke.
The two guards nodded their heads. They turned and pulled the lever behind them.
The old lady did not see the lever as she panicked. When she saw the two men pulling the lever, the old lady stared as the ground vibrated. To her surprise, the steel wall was lifted and showed her away.
Behind the steel wall, she saw dozens of people dressed in white.
Ren Anqing turned around and smiled at the old lady, "You can follow them, my duty is to escort you here! They will lead you to the underground city."
An underground city was built to house the refugees. SES had prepared everything for this battle, they were ready to face the specters in full force.
The same thing happened in the other places, the SES Squad escorted the people to the underground city.
*** ***
"Yahoy! The hunt has begun, let the bloodbath begin, my friend!" Roman jumped off the hundred-meter wall as he aimed his spears at the city.
The middle-aged man accompanying him followed. Not only these two men but also countless beastmen suddenly appeared on the top of the wall.
The beastmen were half man and half beast. Thousands of them jumped off the wall at the same time as Roman and his companion.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
They landed on the building and instantly crushed many houses below the wall.
"Hahaha! Charge! Let's start the second blood feast!!"
Groarrhhh!!!
The beasts also roared with excitement. After landing on a house, they jumped to another house. The roar echoed through the outskirts of the city.
"Kukuku..." Roman also let out a sinister laugh as he charged at another house.
"Huh!?" The laughter stopped as Roman noticed something wrong. There was no one in the house, not a single life could be found in this house.
There was no one in the house before either. He heard no screams, the human screams he liked so much.
Confused, he rushed to another house. It was still the same, empty. He stormed into another house and another, but he still found nothing. It was as if the city was empty.
The same thing happened in the other places. The beastmen who were running amok were also confused because they could not find any prey. It was as if the city was empty of people.