Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

---Sigma, The Wards---

They were currently seated in a modern meeting room, together with Captain Hesing, some of his subordinates, and other leading members of the Wards. As a representative from Delta, she was a very important guest and this conversation was crucial, especially in the current emergency situation.

While they were waiting for someone to get Cade, Hesing explained their current situation since their leader and people were currently fighting another siege attack.

This was not a big worry on the captain's mind. The wards had already managed to resist these invaders for almost two months now. It was mostly thanks to their leader and his magic knowledge that far surpassed anyone's in Sigma. Their safety was not a problem, for now, a lot direr was their food and water situation.

Hesing explained about what happened in Sigma. How one day these creatures that came from "the beyond" appeared together with their weird structures that endlessly spawned beasts. Sigma had managed to deal with the waves at first, but it had been a losing battle.

No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't clear these "Towers of Trial" as the beasts called them.

They just kept losing their best players. Since they didn't even gain experience fighting these beasts, they could only grow weaker.

In the end, it was their current leader, a vampire called Vlad Pierce, who gave them a little hope for survival by erecting The wards, but things were not looking rosy now. Survival didn't mean victory.

The surrounding city was constantly getting more dangerous. Teams sent out to scavenge for food would more and more often return empty-handed or not at all. The few safe spots they had in the city also started being overrun lately. As they tried to survive they just kept losing people.

At the moment it looked like they had exchanged a quick death for a slow one.

Leana easily understood that being contacted by another district in this kind of situation was like sending charcoal in the snowy weather. But the princess had a suspicion that he didn't tell her everything.

"We saw signs of magic along the houses and street on our way here. Were those these safe houses?" she asked, fully knowing that they were not.

She wanted him to tell her the truth. Hesing made a complicated face before giving up with a sigh. This man was definitely not made for these kinds of talks.

"You are right. We didn't just lose safe houses. The Wards was once a lot bigger than it is now. The constant attacks over the past months have forced the Leader to shrink the safe zone constantly. We lack the energy supply to face the increasingly stronger attack over such a wide area." he explained.

They didn't just lack supplies, there was also no guarantee that their defenses would hold out. He had prepared for a possible situation like this and was musing on what exact actions to take when someone entered the room.

"Cade!" Leana called out when the rakshasa girl finally entered.

The princess actually felt a big weight fall off her back. She had known all the people she sent north to investigate and it had hit her hard to find out that they were all dead. Seeing at least one survive and being able to bring her back home was a huge relief, even if it didn't help with the guilt.

"Princess," Cade answered with a calm smile.

It was Cade's turn to speak about her experience when coming to Sigma and what happened to the others. During her story, Hesing's face lit up, darkened, and grimaced in confusion and surprise a few times.

Some details were even new to him. Such as the destruction of communication devices and the space lock that surrounded Sigma and made players unable to use Home Call to return to other districts.

His face darkened when he heard, that people even stronger than Cade couldn't resist the powers acting in their district and it became even darker when he heard about the girl she saved and the girl's story.

The monastery had been one of the last safe houses and one of the few places that researched the werewolf curse, as they called the most numerous hairy beasts that propagated by infecting others. Many of these monsters had once been citizens of Sigma. Now they were the bulk of the enemy forces.

"My Lady, I can feel spatial fissures being generated in the vicinity," the hooded figure that had been standing behind her suddenly leaned forward to whisper in her ears.

"What should we do?" the princess asked him alarmed.

"We have to evacuate as quickly as possible. We don't have much time if any."

Everyone was surprised by the hooded figure's sudden words, however, they quickly realized that his warning was true and it came a little too late. As if on cue, the sky outside the dome suddenly darkened. As if someone flipped the light switch, the dim daylight was gone and only the flickering electric lights fought off the darkness in the room.

"It's too late," the figure commented disappointed. He was audible that he blamed himself for noticing too late.

"We have been transported to a different plane," he explained.

Leana patted his shoulder to cheer him up.

"It's not your fault, don't feel down. We will need your help more than ever now,"

"You Highness, who is that person?" Cade asked the question everyone had on their mind.

At Leana's cue, the figure lowered his hood and exposed a wizened face framed by snow-white hair. A magnificent beard also fell out from his collar. The hooded figure exposed himself as the picture book example of a powerful old wizard.

"This is Idyllin Mo, a Master Enchanter and expert in spatial magic." Leana introduced him to them.

He was the trump card of the princess. She had learned from Seth's idea. After her last experience with arduously shepherding refugees across this vast continent, she had asked for one of Chrona's Spatial masters to accompany her in case they needed a quick extraction or to open a portal for a large number of people.

So what if someone phased them into another world? This was child's play to the Chrona Empire. They transported people and cities to other worlds on a daily basis. As one of the empire's experts, she was confident he would be able to solve the problem.

"Mr. Mo, can you explain what happened?" she asked him for an explanation, now that his identity was revealed.

"Of course. After a cursory observation of the energy signature and the change in spatial properties, the method that was used to bring us here was a rather crude and natural one. It seems to be reliant on the positioning and weak boundary of the caster's own dimension."

"This was a cursory observation?!" was what everyone's gaze, except Leana's, said when the enchanter finished.

"And that means?" the Princess asked for a simpler explanation.

"As long as we solve the issue of the space lock in this place, I could easily open a portal directly back to Delta. Thanks to this dimension's current properties it would take only a third of the energy than usual to maintain a connection," he explained.

"Then all we have to do is to get rid of this space lock," Hesing exclaimed hopefully.

"Easier said than done. We are now in enemy territory and I am afraid that the space lock depends on these Towers of Trial you mentioned. They are also the source of the spell that brought us here." the wizard shot down the captain's hopes.

It was clear from his story, that they had no hope of destroying the towers, even when they were still in Sigma. Now they were in the Beyond. There was no way things would become easier on enemy turf.

"Don't worry too much. I'm sure we can do this if we pool our forces. We have Cade, Yvette, Idyllin, and in the shuttle on the roof is another lv.70+ party waiting." Leana tried to cheer him up.

She was confident in the people she had brought along. Although she was asking them to get into life-threatening situations quite often lately, the princess was sure they would agree. There was no there way back home, after all.

Leana only hoped Seth wouldn't be too angry at her. She was clear about the fact, that they were only in this because of her urging to find Cade quickly. There was no telling whether they would have gotten into this situation if they waited for Seth, but even if they did end up here again...

The princess had to admit, that she would feel more secure if the blacksmith was with them now.

"You are underestimating Sigma. We even had several lv. 70+ parties try and raid the towers, but none of them came back." Hesing argued.

"Well, were they fully decked out in epic equipment?" Lena countered smugly.

"N-Not fully, no."

"And we have Idyllin. Who is... more than apt to deal with this situation."

She couldn't talk about what the space magicians power to them, but tried to frame it.

"I hope you understand, even if you are that confident in your team, we have to organize ourselves first before we can give you an answer."

Of course, Leana understood this. With how the situation had suddenly changed, Sigma would need some time to adapt. She also needed to talk with Yulecat's Fur and explain the situation. She doubted they would not work with her, as this seemed like their only chance to return home,