After the mercenary party of Khaos Chapter from The Guild, consisting of Samiel Zentaur, Yvraine Nesser Silvermoon and Dharzug, departed from the rubble of the City of Torlen, in the course of the next five hours, the flames enveloped the entirety of the city and burned it to the ground.
Before they left, Yvraine cast countless flame spells together with Samiel's Undeads onto the flaming city to cause as much destruction, while Samiel used several Void Bombs across the city to destroy some more sturdy buildings, including the City Lord's Mansion.
Six hours after their departure, from the horizon, one could see an army marching towards the direction of the City of Torlen. There were tens of thousands of them; most commonly, they were infantry clad in heavy armors, with some of that were cavalry and no small number of various Magic-related Class Bearers could be seen in the huge army.
The reinforcements from the Human Brotherhood have finally arrived at their destination, though, unfortunately for them; they came late... too late at that. From the nearby hills, the Commander of the Army, Commander Strickland, saw thick some rising to the sky, and at that moment, he knew that the city was either under siege or had already fallen.
Though his thoughts were proven false because when they arrived close enough to see the state of the City of Torlen, it was razed to the ground, the walls were destroyed, all high buildings were torn down and the entire place was turned into a huge inferno of flames and fire. The fire, which was burning everything to the ground, as the Casters he brought with them reported it was fire with magical properties, meaning somebody conjured it, and that meant that somebody was faster than them.
"Immediately send the cavalry to scout the area; maybe we can track those who destroyed the city. Army march! Hurry!"
Commander Strickland barked a few orders as they all hurried towards the remains of the City of Torlen. He hoped to save at least survivors who were still alive, because they were invaluable to the Human Brotherhood's war efforts. Citizens of Torlen were all artisans or workers, basically, people whom they needed the most right now after the combative force.
After ten minutes, Commander Strickland arrived at the ruins of Torlen with his entourage while the rest of the infantry was still a bit lagging behind them, but they also soon arrived at the flaming ruins of the industrial city of Torlen.
Commander Strickland looked at the burning city with rage because right now, just before he could arrive the reinforce the city, it was razed to the ground, with the majority of the population being slaughtered. His mission of securing the foothold here and creating another fortress city here was considered a failure.
Destruction of the City of Torlen would have catastrophic consequences for the Human Brotherhood as a whole, not only for the city's industrial purpose but also to create a fortress here and defensive points against the invasion of the Demon Tribes.
With the fall of Torlen, the Demons would be able to push once again deeper into their territory within the span of a few weeks, significantly turning the tables towards their favor, something which he and other higher-ups of the Human Brotherhood didn't wish to see.
"Start casting Water Elemental Spells to put out the fire. We need to search through the city."
Commander Strickland ordered as the casters he brought with them started conjuring various Water Elemental Spells to counter the magical fire that was burning down the Torlen or what had remained from it.
"Commander, we didn't find anyone... only some footsteps towards to the Demon territories."
Reported one of the cavalrymen that he sent to scout the area, and as expected, it was futile, as the culprits were already long gone. That was not that surprising because he suspected that the culprits behind the attack knew that some reinforcements were coming to the Torlen and after carrying out the attack, they immediately escaped.
It took several hours for the casters that Commander Strickland brought with him to quell down the fire that was destroying the Torlen, and when it was done, only a few things remained from the once great city.
After the fire was quelled and they let the ruins of the city cool down because the heat was so high and intense that it was impossible for even Steel-Tier Professionals or those who were strengthened by the Genetical Strengthening Synergies to enter the place. Due to that, they were forced to wait for another several hours before the city ruins called enough so they could enter.
Unfortunately, when they entered the ruins of the city, it confirmed Commander Strickland's worse fears because they didn't find any survivors from the city; not even bones remained. Everything was turned to ash by the flames that burned the city to the ground.
"Immediately head towards the Industrial District of the City and City Lord's Mansion. Look for the warehouses and places where the manufactories were located. Search if somebody survived or hid in some underground shelter."
Commander Strickland ordered, as those were the most important parts of the city before he personally departed to the place near the City Lord's Mansion, where the laboratory was located.
He was aware that the City Lord was someone from the Avalon Kingdom who was sent here to carry out some experiments of the Genetic Enhancement Synergies, and the Human Brotherhood had cooperated with the Jaspar de'Charetier for decades already as he had lived on the 8th Floor for a very long time.
After he arrived at his destination, he noticed that the place where the laboratory should be standing was turned into a pile of ash, similar to the other parts of the city. It was clear that the attackers were throughout in their attack and destroyed everything of importance in the Torlen.
"Damm, damm, damm."
He cursed seeing this because this was a clear sign that the attackers were aware of the experiments of the Jaspar de'Charetier and the fact that the Human Brotherhood was experimenting here with genetically strengthening under the orders of the Avalon Kingdom.
It was highly possible that Torlen was attacked partially because of its strategic location and fundamental nature of the city but also because of the nature of experiments and clearly, after the Demon Tribes have noticed the existence of the Synergie, they became far more aggressive in their attacks.
While it was not the first time since something like that was invested, but it was one of the rare attempts to mass-produce them and create some variant that could be used on the wider population.
"My Lord, the City Lord's Mansion is completely destroyed, with all valuables are missing; practically nothing remained as we searched through the rubbles and ruins of the estate."
Stated one of the adjutants of Commander Strickland, who frowned hearing this, because he knew that how much wealth had the Jaspar de'Charetier amassed, it was an astronomical amount for someone like him, thus he wanted to get his hands on some part of the treasure.
Possibly use it to bribe one of the smugglers to smuggle him out from the 8th Floor or bribe some merchants that traded across the Tower. He was one of the smarter ones, and saw that the Demon Tribes were not taking them seriously but rather living training targets for their younger generation and nothing more, nothing less.
"And what of the industrial district?"
He asked, irritated by the fact that nothing seemed good.
"We managed to save a few workers in the factory who were lucky enough to close themselves in the underground warehouse, which was at that time empty. They were pretty lucky to survive; if we came a few hours later, then they would die too."
The adjutant answered swiftly; at least something good came from it, as they managed to save a few workers and interrogate them about what had happened. They were very fortunate because the manufactory where they were working was located on the outskirts of the industrial district, so when that extremely destructive magic hit it, the building was only partially destroyed.
Afterward, they closed themselves in the empty warehouse under the manufactory, where they waited and essentially safely lived through the siege and destruction. Of course, due to the fire, if they remained longer in that place, they would get suffocated.
"And?"
Commander Strickland asked impatiently as the adjutant started explaining the situation.
"Apparently, the entire industrial district was attacked by some kind of extremely destructive magic and in a split of several seconds, the entire district was destroyed. Afterward, probably half an hour and fierce fights erupted in the city as the Undead Tide attacked the entire city."
Undead Tide... meant that a very powerful necromancer was fighting on behalf of the Demon Tribes, which was very bad for the Human Brotherhood. If the Necromancer was moving across the human territory unhindered, then they had one man army threat that could attack at their most vulnerable spots.
This was very bad, and he didn't like it, but there was nothing else he could do about that, aside from sending some people to search for the Necromancer but that was all. The Demon Tribes had money to employ some powerful Professionals to do dirty work for them, which would greatly speed up the conquest of the human territory, aside from lowering their losses, not like they cared about it.
"Shithe... report back to the HQ and request for the next orders... Torlen is lost, and this means that we would need to slowly withdraw our forces from the entire eastern area of the continent and regroup at other defensive lines."
Commander Strickland stated, as things really weren't going according to what he wanted. After he dealt with that, he went to personally take a look at the City Lord's Mansion as he inspected the rubbles and ruins of the glorious estate, which it was during its peak.
"Nothing..."
He muttered as he searched through the ruins until he arrived at the part of the ruins which was in way better state than other parts of the ruined estate, as he noticed something metallic in the construction of the floor.
"Vault."
He stated in surprise as he took out his sword and, with several slashes and hacks at the Vault, he managed to open it, to see tens of Gold Ingots, one Dimensional Ring, and even a Credit Card from the Vaultbank, an unmarked one. This meant that this was one of the emergency hideouts for the City Lord that either the City Lord didn't manage to empty or the attacker didn't find.
Either way, Commander Strickland emptied the content of the Vault before he took out his Holo-Brain, which he was very lucky to acquire because he managed to kill one of the interdimensional smugglers once and took the Holo-Brain from him.
Even though it was several decades ago, and this model was old more than 200 years, it was still working as he called specific numbers through his Holo-Brain. After several seconds, a hologram of a person appeared clearly signifying his race as Mind Flyer.
"Welcome to the Salbidam's Smuggling Company, oh... it's a human. What do you wish?"
Stated the Mind Flyer with his arrogance open, not even bothering to hide his clear distaste for humankind, but nevertheless, he put on some polite front. Of course, in his place, the thing which was speaking was some mechanical device because the Mind Flyers lacked vocal cords and couldn't communicate normally.
Salbidam was a weird Mind Flyer, as he flew his ship through the Void and basically smuggled goods and engaged in criminal activity, but because he didn't belong to any Mind Flyer Fleet and die to that, most ignored him and wouldn't actively pursue him.
"I need transport from the 8th Floor of the Tower to some random Middle World, preferably one with a high human population, lower over strength if possible advanced Technological Level or Magetech Level."
Commander Strickland hurriedly reported as the Mind Flyer Salbidam searched for something and calculated the price.
"Hmm... that would be pricier than a normal trip... the 8th Floor is watched by several Legendary Level Demons and some of them are monitoring space and exits... the overall price would be 400,000 Credits or equivalent to that."
Stated the Mind Flyer Salbidam as Commander Strickland frowned hearing this because he personally amassed wealth comparable to around 20,000 Credits, which in truth, was a lot for his situation.
Right now, he obtained 200 kilograms of Gold, together with 10,000,000 Gold Coins; with the standard exchange rate of 1:100, those Gold Coins would be worth another 100,000 Credits, and on the Credits Card from the Vaultbant, there were 250,000 Credits.
With some other Valuables and he was barely able to scrape the 400,000 Credits that the Mind Flyer wanted for the service, but in the end, he was forced to agree because there would not be many smugglers who would right now dare to smuggle someone from the 8th Floor.
As Salbidam stated, the place was closely monitored by a whole bunch of Legendaries, so the risk was extremely high, and he didn't really want to die here, and he knew that using Dimensional Pathway was impossible because those were all monitored since the start of the war.
"Half before and a half after you have delivered me to the destination."
Strickland stated to the Mind Flyer Salbidam, as the Mind Flyer smuggled typed something on the Holo-Brain and sent him coordination of location, where he would pick him up. It was a very remote place in the human continent, which was of absolutely insignificant and even the forces of the Human Brotherhood didn't bother themselves to go there.
After the call ended, Commander Harry Strickland, or just rather former Commander Harry Strickland, ran away and disappeared from the ruins of the Torlen. Only several hours later, the other officers in the army realized that their commander had gone rogue after they found an emptied vault in the floor, which was opened only now and thus they came to the conclusion that he had deserted.
Not like occurrences like these were rare because many of the Human Brotherhood, those who were not as fanatical and were rich, attempted to run away because they realized that they never stood a chance to win this helpless battle.
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