Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

But they had been too reliant on the holy barrier. Having lost his home and children, he now came to this unfortunate realization. He could barely hold of one of those regenerating bastards, but now he was resisting a creature that could strike him down with its looks alone.

With a single swing, the beauty smacked away the old man\'s weapon and the man himself. He felt his old bones crack and the sharp debris cut through his skin. Still, the moment he came back to his senses, he did the only thing he could make his ragged body do.

"Run! You have to run!" he cried at his grandson.

Desperately he hugged the creature\'s slim waste, to give the boy a chance to get away and hide. In horror, he felt his life draining away from touching the ephemeral being but what broke his heart was a ragged human suddenly appearing ahead of the running boy. It was one of those regenerating monsters.

"ha!" the lady scoffed at him with a cruel smile. His life was draining away and in his darkening vision, he only saw the boy stopping and screaming in fright, as the ragged man cut off his way. The creature lifted his arm and-

Screams suddenly filled the city. The regenerator screamed, the boy, screamed, and even the cruel being cried out.

If he wasn\'t too weak, he would have also screamed. A sudden pressure, a sudden threat, suddenly he felt true fear. He thought he had known fear and despair before, but it all suddenly seemed void. He felt like an ant facing a wildfire, this was what it felt like to have your world crumble.

The old man fell to the ground, feeling like a hand had grabbed his mind and squeezed. His vision was dark and woozy, but he believed to see a knight in bright armor suddenly appearing on the street and beheading the immortal in a simple move right before losing his consciousness.

…

The city turned into pandemonium as a cacophony of screams filled the landscape. The whole city had fallen into a stasis of despair at the effects of the scorpion armor\'s <Dragon Might>. The only ones not affected were Seth\'s allies and creations.

But Seth couldn\'t keep up <Dragonmight> on this scale for long. Even with the legendary armor, covering the whole city with the skill was a lot and he had to supplement the skill with his own power. He endured just long enough to send the Field teams and golems to solve the most urgent situations while the rest of the Faer and Oathguard charged into the city to help.

As the blacksmith\'s mental power and mana drained away, the screams slowly fell silent. At least the situation had no chance to revert to the hopeless carnage it was before with Minas Mar\'s forces now bulking up the number of defenders.

The Chimeras and Faer in the city looked around in shock, as the battlefield around them had changed into a hellscape of despair. Their confusion only lessened when they saw Oathguards, Faer, and Golems charge into the city dismembering all enemies they came across.

Although they were glad reinforcements had finally arrived, seeing their reckless approach, the forces in Mount Agra, greeted them with warning shouts from far away.

"Cut off their tendons!" "Incapacitate them!" "Don\'t spill too much of their blood!" they screamed, afraid of the powers of the Tuatha De.

~Bow to me, immortals!~ the mighty cry echoed from the skies as an orbital cannon razed the battlefield. Anyone hit by the ray of concentrated sunlight was vaporized.

But the faces of the defenders did not light up in reassurance at the sudden display of might. Instead, they all became extremely cautious. Soon, the newcomers understood the reason. A gut-wrenching scene played out before them, as amorphous blobs of blood suddenly started to coagulate into flesh puppets that slowly took human shapes.

Their moans and screams were almost as haunting as the sight. Like bloody skeletons crawling out from a pool of blood, the soldiers of Y-City regenerated from the blood or cut of body parts that littered the battlefield.

It was an acute danger as destroyed enemies could regenerate from any place around them.

"Cut off their limbs and leave the torso intact! They only regenerate from the next biggest body part!" Cromwel shouted across the battlefield and ripped one of the soldiers to pieces. His words and actions immediately drew criticism.

"I don\'t know who you are old man, but don\'t you dare to spill too much of their blood!" Pardo scolded him who heard his instructions.

Before Cromwel could ask why a Tuatha De came by and caused him to die. Almost. The man drenched in blood by the superhuman feed of ripping someone\'s limbs out suddenly imploded as a glow person that had recovered from the <Dragonmight> rushed past him and chanted a few words in a melodic language.

While everyone was still looking in shock, the man started generated from the still-standing lower half of his body that had not been stained by too much blood.

"I see, they use human blood as a medium for magic..." he mumbled more interested in the magic, than the fact he should have died just now.

However, once they knew where the problem lay, the situation quickly turned. The Tuatha De became the prime target for the upper echelons of Minas Mar to hunt. The glow people that had been a thorn in the side of Agra\'s defenders, were now hard-pressed to save their lives.

It was a shame Evee and Edward were not present, as this would have been a chance for them to take a little revenge for Edward\'s original fate. Instead, Alison and Tekar were wreaking havoc. Aside from Seth, they were the only ones currently present, that had barely survived their encounter in the fog world.

With the glow people occupied with their own survival, the immortal soldiers could only keep smashing their eggheads on the rocks, which were the high-level troop of Minas Mar. These adventurers from Y-City had not just lost their weapons and equipment in previous fights. It was obvious that the immortal serum they were given was flawed.

It wasn\'t just that their regeneration slowed, but they seemed to have lost half their mind and grown more and more deformed with every iteration of their quasi-death. With the Tuatha De no further interfering, everyone followed the new plan based on Cromwel\'s information and collected the dismembered torsos of the immortals in one place.

Seeing that there was no danger present in the city, Seth stayed on the roof from where he cast <Dragonmight> and began recovering his strength. In addition, he kept an eye on the statue that was still lying in the middle of the city since he didn\'t trust it.

He also tried to sense for his golem advance troops. Although he had not used any souls on them, the materials were still nothing easy to come by with. It was a shame to find out, that only a few were left in the city.

There was still work to do, but the danger seemed to have settled with the appearance of Seth and Minas Mar. Once everything was done, the blacksmith would have to get an explanation of what exactly happened here.

…

"Looks like they took the bait."

A hidden figure mumbled grimly.

"Yeah, but the Tower Master is also among them. Did you see what happened the moment he arrived? What kind of skill is that? Scary!" a second one blabbered.

"It doesn\'t matter, without the divine barrier they can\'t resist us. We will continue as planned. Prepare everything for the next step," the first instructed crisply.

"Yes, of course," the other said choked off, and left.