The two figures, a beast and a human, barrelled at incredible speeds straight towards the city.
Before the siren even started, they had already crashed straight into the wall surrounding the city.
Thankfully for the residents though, the emergency defence mechanisms prevented the wall from collapsing just from the impact alone. But the wall standing in their way didn't seem to stop the two figures at all, in fact it seemed like they didn't even notice they had been stopped by something.
When the dust cleared and the two figures came into view, Alex felt a mixture of shock and confusion.
The human he didn't recognise at all, but he was wearing common clothes awakened working for the Federation wear, so he knew he was an outsider.
However, the beast he recognised all too much.
The trauma he received from it would likely stick with him for his whole life.
It was the same Galephant that was supposed to have been killed by the B rank the city lord had requested help from when Alex first entered the Primordial Expanse.
'What the fuck!?? Isn't that thing supposed to be dead…'
When he thought back to it, nobody but the B rank human were present when the Galephant was 'killed', and nobody had caught sight of the body either when he left, but that was just put down to the B rank taking it with him due to how valuable Higher life form corpses are.
But no, it seems all of that was just a ruse for that B rank human to make some easy change without actually doing the work he was paid for.
The city lord had paid him the equivalent of 50% of all the taxes gathered over the past 10 years to rid the threat the Galephant posed to the city. Now that was all for nothing.
'I need to get out of here!'
But his thoughts quickly subsided when he realised just how much danger he was in, being so close to the fight between two higher life forms.
Immediately, he ran straight towards the city gates. With him now being at F+ rank, his speed nearly reached 25 metres/s. If he were to do a 100 metre sprint, he would finish in 4 seconds. This is the difference between awakened and regular humans.
Even at F- rank, the average awakened person could reach the strength and speed peak athletes were able to achieve back in the days of ancient Earth.
Of course, his speed was still nothing compared to the two higher life forms fighting, who probably reached well over thousands of metres a second at the bare minimum.
And there were still more levels above them too!
Just thinking about the level of strength people could reach hurt Alex's brain.
Just as he was about to enter the city through the gates, he was stopped by some sort of invisible wall that prevented him from even coming within 10 metres of the gate.
Many others just like him shared in the confusion and fear when they were blocked from the city.
A guard on the other side noticed this and spoke up to the crowd of people shouting and banging on the invisible wall, wanting to enter.
"I'm afraid you'll all have to wait outside until the barrier surrounding the city deactivates. There is nothing we can do for you if you are outside when it activates. There is no way for you to enter unless you are a B+ rank higher life form. I doubt there would be someone that strong among you so please, remain calm and wait for the two beings to leave the area."
The guard spoke in an orderly tone but the words he conveyed only caused more panic among the people.
They had heard the siren blaring across the city the whole time, as well as the distant booms and bangs coming from the fight but they didn't realise until now that there were such powerful beings fighting in such close proximity to them.
Just one stray attack from them could wipe their entire group out, which was terrifying to think about.
'Shit, I'm stuck out here!'
Alex was in no way going to stick around after he saw what happened to Raymond.
Of all the deaths and traumatic events he had witnessed during his time in the Primordial Expanse, Raymond's death was by far the most terrifying way to go.
One second he was ecstatic, thinking he was finally about to kill an enemy of his.
Then a second later he was nothing but a red mist.
Alex moved away from the crowd of people gathering outside the city gates, filled with unawakened with the occasional adventurer dotted about.
He was moving in the opposite direction of where the fight was going on, and many others followed in his steps.
He followed along the city walls on the barren earth where the Wilderness met the city. He continued walking for hours upon hours until the sight of more people gathering met his eyes.
'Another city entrance?'
Alex facepalmed at his stupid question immediately after he raised it.
Of course there's another city entrance! It would probably be the worst designed city in history if visitors and merchants had to travel for days on the outside of the city just to travel to the one entrance the city had.
Suddenly, just as Alex slowed his approach towards this new group of people, a commotion came out from the rear of the group and many shouts and screams filled the surroundings.
Confusion ensued as many people had no idea what was going on, which included Alex until he caught sight of something he didn't like the look of one bit.
A panther-like beast attacked a vulnerable merchant at the back of the group out of nowhere, unprovoked and tore the poor fellow to shreds.
"Is this beast suicidal? Why would it attack a ground of thousands of merchants and adventurers out of nowhere?" Many people asked this same question, and they would get their answer when a cacophony of howls and growls came from the forest behind them.
Soon, all types of beasts of many shapes, sizes and ranks stepped out of the forest until there were thousands of them in sight.
"A beast tide, run!" Someone shouted and chaos ensued.