Chapter 370: War Room
Marcus was peppered with individual updates regarding the most distant holdings of the Lighthouse as he journeyed down the main street of Ghost Reef. Warsaw was already under heavy siege, caught by surprise by a glut of enemy spawns. Can Gio was investigating the state of the Abundant Grasp with none from the Lighthouse having word on their status as a result of all faction personnel, including spies, reporting to safe territory when the voice shook the world. The Tempest Fleet third armada was retreating back to Honolulu after a surprise battle on the ocean near Midway, the twelfth and fifteenth combined armada was requesting emergency aid in the Galapagos, and the 41st, 106th, and 302nd were coming back to Ghost Reef for repairs. The Jaguar Sun Elites were continuing to probe the Amazon, the last evacuation ships were disembarking from Shinjuku Gardens, and key figures were engaging with the enemy in São Paulo, Sheffield, Arusha, Hobart, Winnipeg, and dozens of other places.
It was a lot to judge purely through oration, but Marcus did his best to paint the picture in his mind. He wanted to be cognizant of the situation on the ground before he joined the rest of the leadership in taking a broader perspective.
For the most part, the responses to problems were essentially automatic. Assignments had been distributed hundreds of days in advance. Reinforcements were simply waiting to be called rather than being unaware that they would be needed, and literally everyone knew where to evacuate to. Like most good plans, once it was put into action, it needed minimal oversight. That was one of his personal philosophies, though the real game was in anticipating unforeseen eventualities.
They had spent more than a year including as many contingencies as were humanly possible, imagining all worst case scenarios with local leaders from every corner of the world. Together, they brainstormed ideas for how to overcome anything that came at them and developed a sweeping plan to defend the planet and the future of humanity.
By the sounds of things, they were mostly still on the rails even though the event had begun earlier than predicted. Marcus had to feel positive about all of the work they had put in. They had already weathered the first big hurdle of the Eradication Protocol, trading one closely acquainted apocalypse for the start of another less understood calamity.
Marcus had a whole flock of wraiths taking turns sharing their information, but they easily kept up with his hurried pace, recognizing the urgency of the situation. Otherwise, without the typical shoppers strolling down the different lanes, the familiar fort was unusually quiet.
Most of the buildings were boarded up, not open for business, as if anticipating a hurricane. The few people present were hurrying to specific destinations with prior arrangements, patrolling on high alert for monster spawns like the adventurer parties outside the walls, or were simply passing through before embarking on one of the many ships coming and going from the port.
Maeve and Desmond silently greeted Marcus from outside the front door of their tavern, the rest of its walls already barricaded by their layered defenses. They knew better than to interrupt the gaggle that followed in his wake. Marcus could see through the doorway that only a handful of patrons occupied tables on the inside of the tavern. The normally warm ambience was filled with unease, tarnished by the tainted atmosphere seeping in from the outside.
The coffee shop and all the other restaurants and venues abutting the southern interior courtyard were uncharacteristically closed, boarded up, with the usual attendants mostly engaged in more dangerous work abroad. Ghost Reef had lended many of its human forces to their allies across the planet, leaving the island primarily in the hands of the phantoms and millions of newer residents. Only a few that had defended the fort during the Siege Event should be present, with Marcus an obvious example.
Sojjah, the slime-based alchemist was seated on the roof of the citadel, kicking her partially transparent legs over one of the entrances as she leaned back on her hands and angled her head to stare at the crimson coated sky. Judging by her expression, she was completely mesmerized. It was as if she sought to study the consistency of the shield, perhaps in the hope of drawing some inspiration for future chemistry projects.
A series of phantoms were stationed within the bunker, watching from the pillbox windows through the leaves of the lush garden vegetation that decorated the stone construction. The civilization shard had been lowered into a new chamber, cut beneath the citadel. It was effectively suspended within an earthen vault beneath the surface, capped off by the protective structure that had been designed by Balor.
Even dug in, the shard couldn’t really be left alone, given that the nature of mana meant it could just as easily be attacked from below, but it was now protected by even more layers. Should it be assaulted from the surface or from underground, it had a dedicated guard standing by.