Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"The messenger of Arget Nore has arrived." the subordinate reported to the Princess.

Leana had set off from Delta about 2 months ago to investigate and eradicate the Followers of Zarkon. These Zarkists had recently encroached on the empire's authority and attacked citizens.

In their preliminary research, they found that Arget Nore, the Empire of undead led by their immortal Godking, had already been waging war with the Zarkists for a while now and had managed to push them out of Gamma.

Unfortunately, they did the same with living people.

The Chrona Empire had met the undead on many worlds. Sometimes they fought and sometimes they would make a deal. The Princess hoped to achieve the latter. Leana wanted to work with them to bring the refugees under the protection of the Chrona empire.

The people fleeing from the undead were easy picking for the expanding Zarkists. Arget Nore also had a vested interest in not strengthening this almost banished enemy.

Soon her subordinate came back with the messenger of Arget Nore. It was a burly Darkelf with one milky-white eye. His face and visible skin were covered in dark ugly scars.

According to their information, this was the only general that managed to return from the empire's northern expedition to Urth. He had gained a high position among the forces of Arget Nore on Urth. It was a positive sign that they sent someone like this.

"Greeting, Princess Leana." the general said seriously and bowed to her.

"Greetings, General. Please relax. We are far from any courtrooms here."

The elf nodded and they started their negotiations. The Empire guaranteed not to get involved in whatever Arget Nore was doing in Gamma. In exchange, the undead would grant the living people that did not want to stay safe-conduct from Gamma.

The Chrona Empire would shelter the refugees and protect them.

Leana sighed once she was alone in her tent. She missed Fin and Delta. There was nothing here she could use to distract herself from her work. It was especially hard as the situation was so depressing.

The people left in Gamma were desperate. The rise of the Zarkists had destroyed whatever structure they had managed to build. Since then they were plagued by Invaders, Undead, Zarkists, and dungeon breaks.

These people were at their wit's end, low level and starving. They even opted to summon a Starta Village to this place to facilitate their efforts.

As for the followers of Zarkon... they were a hard nut to crack. They only needed to infect someone to increase their numbers and they somehow managed to act decentralized. It was as if they were led by a hive mind.

On top of that, they were hard to kill. High-ranking Priests needed to seal their souls or they would simply regenerate even if they were turned to dust. At least they were rather weak overall.

Another agreement was to forge a united front Against the Zarkists. With Arget Nore's necromancers to bolster their ranks, it would become easier to ensure their enemy's death and hinder their resurrection.

It was surprisingly easy to persuade the dark elf of this plan. He immediately agreed when they said that they would take down the Zarkists and the undead only needed to make sure they stayed dead. The princess suspect that there was something to gain for these Necromancers, but it was impossible for her to understand these nutcases.

She also didn't care. Both sides got what they wanted. That was all that mattered. Once they set up a starter village here, they could simply teleport these people to Delta.

The Princess was sure that there would be more Ori Humas joining the empire in this way. They just needed to get them to safety.

--------------------------------No Man's Land

She had finally managed to return. The ruins of old once again laid before her. She had used the time in Y-City well.

The city had slightly changed after the last time she had visited. The level of the adventurers had made a jump. It seemed that there were more and better weapons on the market. They were expensive, but it seemed like a steady improvement.

Although being among people made her uncomfortable because of her inherent... needs, she was able to grow a lot in the almost untouched high-level dungeons. She also got the chance to choose a second class, but there was none among those she could choose that she liked.

Most of them went in a quite unsavory direction like "Corpse Eater" that would allow her to gain skills and proficiency from players she ate. Others were not much better. It was mostly about eating people, drinking blood, feasting on fear or souls.

She would prefer something that got rid of the need to eat human flesh...

All she could do was pull herself together and hide in the dungeons. At first, she had only concentrated on the close quarter abilities of her class and she fared well with them in the wilderness.

She had become very proficient with transforming different parts of her body to increase her damage or defense. Turning her hand into claws or her skin into scales already came to her on instinct.

It was harder in the dungeons when big groups of monsters sieged her. The circumstances forced her to become better with her other skills.

At first, it was the smaller magics like heat aura or camouflage she could easily integrate into her original strategy. After weeks she also got used to mixing illusion into her fighting style.

When her skills grew and she could ensnare mobs on her own level, raiding dungeons became easy. She could dive among monster hordes completely unnoticed and slaughter them from within while they fought each other or simply didn't defend themself.

Even monsters above her level could be influenced by her illusions and ease the harder fights. She died several times but it didn't stop her. The Rakshasa continued until she got the hang of this fighting style.

Why did she try so hard to gain strength? For a long while, her mind was clouded. Zarkon had not just killed her family. The god caused her to kill her family with her own hands.

She wanted revenge, but also to help people so they could help her. When the people she protected betrayed her... It would be a lie to say she didn't want to kill them all. Kill everyone and everything. All those vermin that had kicked her good will. That had mocked her efforts and took everything from her.

It was a cold, smoldering rage.

This had changed.

The beating she had received cleared her head. What was the point in ridding the world of these people, when she herself could be squashed like an ant on someone else's whim?

She needed strength. Strength was freedom. Once she was strong enough nobody would be able to take anything from her. And could do whatever she wanted.

When she reached level 60 she unlocked another skill tree. Conjuration. She could summon familiars and subordinates at the later stages.

Her conjuring was different from the familiar summoning of Evee. She summoned a random creature and could make it obey her commands. She could also make a familiar contract with intelligent ones.

But what came out was too weak for her taste. These creatures would not be a help if they died too easily.

In the end, she contracted a Djinn. It could face her in melee combat and had several kinds of mysterious magic powers. It was also intelligent like a human being. It helped to lessen her loneliness.

With this companion, she felt ready to return to this place and try to find out who this person even was.

Before that, she decided to suit up. Y-City had changed a lot during her stay. The most obvious change was the introduction of a public transportation system based on busses running with magic .

The average level of the people had increased and dungeon breaks had become more uncommon. The biggest breakthrough was that technicians had managed to create a field generator that stopped gates from being formed.

She only noticed these things in passing but was not really interested in them. What caught her eyes was the new kind of equipment that had flooded the market.

Superalloy Weapons and Polyarkanet Armors. They could be bought with system gold which saved her the hassle of exchanging it for credits.

They looked quite generic like science fiction plastic armors and lacked options like the dungeon items, but their performance was over the top. The stats were far above the uncommon stuff found on the market and comparable to rare equipment.

She had collected A LOT of gold, so they seemed cheap to her. She decked herself in this new gear and set off.

----------------------

"Have the preparations been finished?"

"Yes, Lord Chansler."

"Good. These heretics are at least good for something. Even if it is just menial labor."

"Yes, Mylord."