"What do you mean Mudilona is gone?" David asked in shock.
"There was an attack and Mudilona had sent out for help. When forces got there, they reported that Mudilona was gone. Nothing but rubble," Casper said.
"Is it the skeletons?"
"There were no signs that indicated it was them, but..." Casper was reading from the papers but he suddenly stopped when his eyes caught the next few words.
"But what?"
"Rainfall."
Kel'arun gestured at Casper and he handed the papers over. The former glanced through it quickly and released a sigh before handing the papers to David who read through them too.
"All the signs point to it being Porter's handwork," Kel'arun said.
"But that's impossible, lord Porter would never destroy Mudilona. Especially when his family is—" David suddenly stopped talking as his eyes widened. "Do you think something happened?"
"I don't know. But from the looks of it, the investigation team was wiped out so they're issuing a red alert and sending out a mission notification to all the guilds and adventurers. I have to get back to the capital and deal with this," Kel'arun said.
"What do you want us to do?" David asked.
"There's nothing you can do. You have to remain here to protect this place," Kel'arun responded.
"If it turns out to be Lord Porter, a kill-on-sight notice might be the next thing being issued," David said.
Porter was powerful. Very powerful. It was only likely that they would give up on trying to capture him and order his death instead.
"There's no way they would do that. At least not immediately. The Maji family has too much of a standing in Beltimus for that to happen. They'll at least give us an opportunity to capture him ourselves," Kel'arun said. "I have to leave now. Once all this blows over I'll let you know."
With that, Kel'arun walked out with Casper and David giving a salute.
"Your orders commander?" Casper said.
"Use an airship and go to Mudilona. Confirm if it's Lord Porter, and if it is, report back to me," David ordered and Casper saluted before walking out.
'First, a colossus attack, and now this? What's going on?'
*****
"Well, well, what do we have here?" Jasper laughed as he sat on the hill looking down at what was once Mudilona.
"What we have here is a mission, we should complete it and get it over with," Felix said as he walked over to Jasper.
They were in the pink desert when they suddenly got a mission notification. Felix being who he was accepted it and began to make his way here.
Jasper seeing this had no choice but to follow Felix since they were both in a team and accepting that mission meant he had also accepted it.
They had to walk for hours, but they made it here at last.
"I never knew it could rain this close to the pink desert," Jasper commented on the heavy rain.
"It doesn't," Felix said. "Enough wasting time, let's go, you've rested enou—"
Suddenly, Felix felt a bit disoriented and then he found himself in a foreign place. It took a few moments for him to realize that he was inside Mudilona!
How did he go from being on the hill to being here surrounded by rubble and what was once complete buildings?
He began to hear muttering and he turned to see a man drenched in rain holding... a transparent sword? His head was down so Felix couldn't see his face.
Felix was cautious. He didn't want to perform any sudden movement since he currently had no way to defend himself.
He needed to be in an environment for a while before he could use his technique.
[Mission updated!]
[Take down the one responsible for Mudilona's destruction!
Rewards: ....]
The sudden mission update confirmed Felix's thoughts. But why would a human be destroying human strongholds? What exactly was going on here?
"I'll kill them all," the man suddenly said.
"What?"
Suddenly, the transparent sword in the man's grasp was inches away from taking off Felix's head!
There was no time to react! His opponent was too fast and something told Felix that this single attack could take his HP to zero!
'Fuck!'
Just as Felix's mind raced to save his life, he spotted an arrow approaching the man. The man quickly turned and sliced the arrow apart and Felix used this chance to jump away, retreating to a safe distance.
Jasper quickly pulled on his bowstring and an arrow appeared before he muttered, "A thousand versus one."
With those words, phantoms of Jasper began to appear. It started with ten and then those ten multiplied until they became a thousand.
Simultaneously they let go of their bowstrings and thousands of arrows rained down on the man!
The man stood unmoving as the arrows approached him. Just as they were about to reach him, they suddenly disappeared and appeared above Felix!
"Shit!" Felix stretched both hands out and dragged out two swords from thin air. Quickly, he moved and parried the arrows that came at him!
Even with his hands full, he couldn't take a break! The man was already in front of him swinging his sword uncaring of any damage from the arrows!
"BREAK!" Felix shouted and large blades came out from the ground and covered him completely. Forcing the man to retreat!
The arrows landed on the blades but did no damage.
Inside the dome of blades, Felix looked at his palm and saw a single stroke on it. He could only use this technique again one more time before he would have to wait a whole week just for one of the three strokes to recharge.
When the man had attacked, Felix had taken a glance at his NPC information.
'It's fucking Porter Maji! Why the hell would be the one attacking this place?'
BANG! BANG!
Porter kept striking at the dome of blades to bring it down but it was holding steady on the outside, but Felix could tell it was about to break down!
Dragging out a great sword from the ground, Felix took a stance and deactivated the dome. Before the blades retracted into the ground, Felix had already swung the sword and the timing was impeccable.
The moment he had a clear view of Porter, the sword was ready to cut him down.
'I've got you!'
Just at that moment, everything seemed to slow down. Jasper and Felix watched as the water droplets gathered and took the shape of a wingless dragon with piercing blue eyes.
With a roar, it crashed down on Felix!
BOOM!