Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

When Seth could finally see again there was a blue sky above his head. It was tinged in a slight violet hue as the evening sun was sinking. He, and the part of Sigma District, were back on Urth.

Even though the city was empty and worse for the wear, they had managed to bring it back.

The blacksmith summoned Puffles and got on the Ivicer's back.

~Are we not returning to Delta?~ he asked as Seth steered him towards what was left of the Wards.

~We will take a look at the situation first. We can return to Delta at any time now, ~ he answered.

Now that the space locks were dissolved, Seth felt that he could use Home Call at any time to return to Delta. Before he returned, he wanted to look at how the vampires were faring. Aside from the flood of monsters that were dropped into the Wards, the vampires were the only ones present now.

Seth's fires had stopped burning a while ago and as he flew over the city he finally got a look at the aftermath. Most of the city was charred black and burned out. Although the spirit flame had mostly gorged on the masses of monsters, structural damage to the nearby buildings couldn't be avoided.

Anything below the 5thfloor, glass, stone, concrete, and steel reinforcements, had molten into a homogeneous slag that made the buildings look as if they grew from the ground or were hewn from natural stone spires.

The many fallen behemoths of architecture were more than enough evidence to Seth that the city was not structurally sound anymore. It was questionable whether the wish of Sigma's people to return was feasible.

The only parts of Sigma District not struck were the outskirts that had not been transported to the Beyond and the Wards that had been protected by their barrier.

By the time Seth arrived, the group of bloodsuckers had already carved a bloody path for themselves. He found them running through the empty, dilapidated city, outside of the wards.

Even with 500 of them, they fell in quite the peril when they were suddenly drowned in beasts. Especially since not all of them were fighters. The bard couldn't tell whether they had lost people, but all of them were injured to some degree and they were running for their lives.

Thanks to his soul armaments like Tisiphone's and Megaira's rings that improved his regeneration of mental energy and mana, the blacksmith was able to summon a small wall of fire to cut off the path of the monster horde.

Puffles and Tatzel who were not allowed to help before, jammed in and used the Chance to bombard the beasts from the sky. There was nothing to gain from them, but Seth understood that they needed a chance to vent.

The flood of monsters didn't stop and they had no idea how many there actually were, but it didn't matter for now. Once the pets were satisfied and the Vampires had ample time to leave the city, Seth caught up with them using the shuttle.

It had become night, but it was no problem since the dark mist that obstructed night vision skills beforehand had lifted. Seth found the group of Vampires camping in the forests outside Sigma.

Despite being hurt and some looking outright miserable, their faces were all smiles and positive. Some were slightly melancholic, maybe because they lost someone in the flood, but even they had slight smiles on their faces as they looked at the vibrant plant life around them.

Seth was unable to truly comprehend how it would have been to live in a dying stretch of land, surrounded by a bizarre and dead world. However, he could imagine that all of them were quite happy t enter a more or less healthy world.

Even when Urth was a melting pot of chaos and danger, with the vampires' strength it was a lot better than that hopeless hell hole.

In the beginning, Seth still held some hope to rope in the vampires, even without Vlad present. They were a huge force and Seth wasn't quite sure whether they were the bloodsucking kind of Vampire and what kind of harm they could add on top of Urth's already existing calamities.

He would have liked to know them in his hands for his own and the world's sake, but he dropped this notion quickly.

As he approached the group he was overwhelmed with their gratitude and appreciation. All of them blabbered about the great chance he had given them and how they would stay here to rebuild their home and guard the area.

The blacksmith had no chance to bring up anything about bringing them along with him and could only smile wryly as he listened to the crowd that dreamed of an almost peaceful life. There was no way he could persuade them.

Well, there was, but he would have felt bad about it. After what they went through thanks to their incapable leader, these guys really deserved to pursue their own happiness. They didn't seem like they would turn into a big threat unless provoked by someone.

In Seth's book, whoever dared to offend such a mighty race deserved to be wiped out. In the end, he only decided to give them a few Rings of Minas Mar and told them to come looking for him in Delta, if they really needed to heal at some point.

Seth was tired and just wanted to go home, he really didn't care to manage the aftermath, so this seemed like more than enough. The blacksmith gave his farewells and used Home Call to return to Delta's System Church.

Nobody noticed his arrival at the church was in chaos. A result of the huge numbers of refugees from Sigma. Seth had no idea why there were so many people when the plan was to send them to a Starta Village close to Delta, but he also lacked the energy to care.

Ignoring the bustle he walked to the general teleportation hub that was empty at this point.

"Seth?!" he heard Simon call out from behind.

The priest had noticed him because he was the only one entering the teleport formation.

However, Seth didn't answer. He really just wanted to go home to his friends. He gave the priest a wave before he vanished from the hub area and appeared in Minas Mar's entrance hall.

"Tower, where is everyone?" he asked out loud.

As an answer a comprehensive holographic map of Minas Mar appeared in front of him, showing the locations of everyone as small named dots. Most people were in their rooms sleeping. The blacksmith remembered that is was already late.

Only people like Alison and Mary were still working. Seeing that Mina and the others were not in the Tower, he decided to give Mary a visit while he waited for them.

"Seth!" she exclaimed when the blacksmith appeared in front of her.

"You are back," she said with a relieved sigh after calming down.

"Yeah, I am, but where are the others?" he asked.

"They are and part of the Oathguard are helping the princess and officials to transfer people from Starta Village to Delta," Mary told him.

"Why?

Seeing his puzzled look, the scribe started to explain. She explained that after the people of Sigma arrived at the village, it was quite obvious that they couldn't stay there for long. Leana had quickly organized an evacuation to Delta in cooperation with the current Leadership of Delta.

Aside from the District's forces, Adventurers and Guilds were also asked to participate with manpower to safely transfer the people from the village to Delta City, across the mountains.

"Wait, wait, wait... When did all that happen?" he asked more than confused.

The others had left sigma maybe a few hours before him, but what Mary talked of would have taken days.

"Ah, Idyllin already suspected something like this," she mumbled and revealed to Seth that there was a time difference between the Beyond and Urth.

Against Seth's expectations, he had not been away for just a week, but two weeks. The difference between his arrival, and everyone else was in fact several days.

Seth could only sigh. It meant he had lost a whole week when there was already little time for whatever the Age of gods would bring them.

"Any other bad news? Since I can't wait for them to return, I would like to go and rest," he said tiredly.

When Mary assured him that there was nothing that needed his immediate attention, he used the tower function to teleport to his quarters. With a which his armor vanished and he wore pajamas instead.

The moment his body touched the soft bed, he fell asleep.