Chapter 140 Devastated



Sila City lies in ruins.

A once thriving city had been reduced to nothing but rubble and debris.

Buildings had crumbled and collapsed, destroyed from the impact of fighting monsters and the aftermath of the Arcane Apocalypse.

The only remnants of the battles were piles of twisted metal, broken glass, jagged concrete, burned corpses, and ash. The streets were covered with rubble and debris, with small streams of magma cutting into the ground.

Meanwhile, the air was thick, filled with dust, ash, and an intense smell of burned flesh.

Even for someone like Liam the devastation in front of him was a rare sight. Under normal circumstances, he fought in open fields, mountains, and other environmental areas. He didn't see too many cities fall to monsters.

'Well, it is not exactly weird to think that some cities fell to the power of mighty monsters. This seems to be the work of a lava-type monster. A strong outburst, releasing lava through its body…a 1st Circle Monster?'

No matter where Liam looked, there were hardly any signs of life remaining. Those who were not killed in the first few days of the Arcane Apocalypse either fled or were burned to a crisp.

Liam didn't really like this since Sila City was the city Jennie came from, but there were no hard feelings in his analyzation.

"I don't think anyone in the city survived. If they didn't leave the Sila…" He could only say until he saw the tears welling up in Jennie's eyes.

Liam shut his mouth and sighed deeply.

An awkward silence spread through their group. Jennie was trying not to cry, while Olivia, Felicia, and Hellen were taking care of her.

Derek, on the other hand, was shocked at the destruction that seemed to have been created by one type of monster.

Everything was burned, or molten down, seemingly from a series of attacks that possessed a similar destructive power.

The silence was only broken by the occasional sound of buildings collapsing, or the distance roars of monsters.

'Salamander?' Liam wondered, tilting his head in confusion.

There weren't too many lava-type monsters with the ability to spit out blobs of lava or release magma through their skin, and the evidence in front of them.

The entire city was a clear indicator of the monster type and its strength

The city's infrastructure was in shambles. Even the power lines were torn apart and lying in tangled masses on the ground. Water and sewage systems had been disrupted and the remaining fires were unchecked, consuming what little was left of the city.

It was a somber sight and a stark reminder of the fragility of the cities and the Natives' livelihood.

"Mom…Dad…"

Jennie was now crying bitterly.

She didn't have much hope left. There was no way that her parents would have survived the terror that lay in front of them. Their chances in the wilderness were not much better.

Olivia hugged Jennie, patting her back.

She looked at Felicia in the hope to receive a little bit more mental support for their poor friend, but Felicia's expression was grave.

The city was dead and everything was destroyed. However, that didn't mean Jennie's parents were dead.

In fact, they might as well be alive with a little bit of luck…well, lots of luck.

But Liam could tell what Felicia's expression said.

'Her Soultrait found out something about Jennie's family, and it's nothing good.'

Liam figured that Jennie's parents were dead just by looking at Felicia's grave expression.

There was no way that they were still alive.

Thus, Liam went over to Jennie to pat lightly on her head. She continued to bawl, while he turned his attention over to Hellen.

"Do you think that you can create traps capable of entrapping a 1st Circle Monster, or isolating a small place from the senses of certain monsters?" He asked Hellen, who looked up from Felicia.

She felt that Liam was a little insensitive since Felicia was crying right next to him, but it was not as if he seemed to care too much about that.

It was already a lot that he patted her head seemingly as a means to console her.

"I am not sure about entrapping 1st Circle Monsters, but I can use some traps with which you can easily notice that powerful monsters approach us. Is that enough?"

"..:That should be enough. Let's get moving."

Liam didn't want to stay at the same spot. They were in the wide open, surrounded by the destroyed landscape where monsters would detect them immediately.

He knew the location of a small hut in the forest nearby. Using this as their temporary hideout was the best choice. After all, even Liam was not confident in killing a 1st Circle Monster. His equipment and strength were not high enough to kill a 1st Circle Monster!

Without thinking too much about it, Liam pulled Jennie up from the ground. Liam looked at her to see if she would follow them just like that, or if they had to drag her over before he went his way. Olivia and Felicia held one of her hands each, gently pulling her while following Liam.

Jennie's eyes seemed empty, lifeless as if her soul left the body.

Liam tried to ignore that for the next hour until they reached their destination.

'There is nobody? No Natives hiding anywhere nearby?'

He actually expected some people to be hiding in the wooden hut, but there was nobody. It looked like the wooden hut had been abandoned a few weeks by now.

Liam was not sure if that was related to the 1st Circle Monster, which had destroyed the city, but it didn't really matter too much. There was nobody nearby and they could use the wooden hut. That was all that mattered.

Olivia and Felicia continued to take care of the devastated Jennie, while Derek sat down close to them, deep in thought.

Liam and Hellen, on the other hand, prepared a bunch of traps. Hellen had yet to get to know a wide variety of traps that she could assimilate, but that was not further problematic. The small bunch of traps she had gotten to know from dismantling the traps in the Cavern Village of the Silverheart Dwarves was already more than enough to turn the wooden hut invisible to most monsters and other existences.

That was more than enough, and it gave Liam the necessary time to focus on the creation of the Kikal Tonics. He removed two dozen Kikal Stalks from his batch and put them aside. If the others desired strength wholeheartedly, he would give them the Kikal stalks.

As long as they survived eating the Kikal Stalks without any side effects, Liam didn't have anything against the thought of providing them with a Kikal Tonic.

Of course, it was unlikely for this to happen. However, with the twist of fate and the death of Jennie's parents, he believed that the situation would change gradually.

It was not necessary to witness the destruction of a whole city to understand what happened to Sila City.

The City was destroyed, evidently by a small number of powerful monsters. That was enough knowledge to understand how fragile life and safety were in the world Haltan had turned.

Liam clearly recalled the Great Wars between the Nine Realms, the constant struggle to procure more resources and to stay on top of each other, and he knew that it was time to change things up a little.

During the last two weeks, he thought that it might have been best to prepare all kinds of resources and tools to be prepared for any type of situation. But…was that really the right thing to do?

Liam was not too sure about that anymore, and it didn't really matter either.

The past was just that, a memory of the past. It was something a bunch of people would recall if it was something important, while others would forget about the insignificance of their past.

They lived in the present, not the past. Their past actions might have influenced the present but that was already it.

Being alive was all that mattered, and Liam was ready to change his approach to the Arcane Apocalypse in order to change the future through his present actions!

After he took that into consideration, Liam bought a few ingredients. He went to the attic of the wooden hut, leaving behind his group as he began with the concoction process of the Kikal Tonic.

He had enough stalks to concoct a total of 16 ordinary Kikal Tonics. However, while it had been his first thought to do exactly that, and create ordinary Kikal Tonics in order to drink them one after another, Liam changed his attitude toward this real quickly.

The potency of every consecutive Kikal Tonic would decrease drastically the more he drank of them. Thus, he changed his plan, and merely created six ordinary Kikal Tonic, and one Blood Yokai el Rey Serum

The resources he required for the Blood Yokai el Rey Serum were a lot more, including ten times the Kikal Stalks the Tonic required. It was also a lot more complicated to brew the potion. Brewing the potion was already extremely dangerous, but that was not something Liam could be bothered about anymore.

He felt himself lacking in too many things that he actually forgot to make the most use of the things he had gotten on his hands.

It was very likely that he would die drinking the Blood Yokai el Rey Serum but as long as he survived, his strength would change drastically!