Chapter 421 - 357: plant monsters.
A woman was running through the land, monsters chasing behind her, a group of plant monsters, to be exact, with sharp mouths, jagged rows of teeth, and long, sharp tentacle-hands that destroyed and devoured everything in their path.
This all started two months ago, when those people attacked the planet. A woman appeared in the skies, her aura enshrouding several countries, causing everyone to tremble in fear.
She simply snapped her fingers and threw something onto the ground, and all of a sudden, plant monsters sprouted from the earth, devouring animals, humans, any race they came across. Plant-people races were spared, but instead enslaved by these new plants.
The more people these plant monsters devoured, the stronger they became. People could handle them at first, when they were in their initial stages, but the monsters bred faster and evolved to be stronger, and thus lives were lost to the new-gen monsters, especially during the World Conjoining Event, where many planets were merged together. The confused individuals caught in it were left as food for these monsters, unable to comprehend what was happening, struggling and doing their best to survive.
The woman kept running, her son in her arms, as they headed toward a fortress city ahead of them. Seeing the rows of monsters behind them, the fortress sounded its alarm bell, ringing so that nearby individuals would know a monster attack was coming. People scrambled about, packing their things as the horns sounded, rushing to the fortress city. The woman finally made it in time, rushing into the city before the gates closed with a loud bang.
Mages lined the fortress walls. So did warriors and adventurers, as well as individuals who had appeared from the World Conjoining Event and settled at this fortress, holding weapons to fight in case the monsters breached the walls. The mages raised their staffs, glowing, and unleashed a bombardment of magic blasts against the plant monsters. However, it wasn’t enough to kill the horde coming toward them, and the defense did not stop there, even as some of the plant monsters began to scale the walls, climbing in hopes of getting into the fortress city. Before they could, the warriors, seeing their tentacles on the walls, would chop them off and burn them.
This was how they dealt with the plant monsters in this region, fire, kerosene brought over from Earth, and burning magic. That was how they’d managed to hold out this long. The city then raised the bridge, revealing a massive gaping pit, not really a pit, but more like a river encircling the city, and lit it aflame. Any plant monsters that came into contact with it started burning. These monsters had no sense of danger, so they just kept rushing straight into it. This was what they’d discovered when they first fought these monsters two months ago, and it was how they’d dealt with them ever since.
After two full days of fighting, everyone panted with exhaustion. They had finally gotten rid of this wave of monsters, but who knew when the next wave would come. They had been taking in refugees, since there were more refugees, the better manpower to help fight these monsters.
Seeing people lose their lives weekly was a normal event now, it was even hard to tell how many people died ever since this started. These fortresses, all over the world, were being built by all the people whose worlds were merged together to help people defend themselves against these monsters.
Inside the city, a young man, short blond hair, blue eyes, sat sharpening his spear with the rest of his group.
"I heard Academy students will be coming to help us. Can students really help us?" another person asked.
"I’m not sure, but I heard they’ve learned how to handle situations like this, and they’re very strong. Only the best of the best can get into that school. I mean, it’s only been one year since their semester started, so I’m hoping they’ll send us a third or fourth year student to help with this." Blonde haired replied.
"Me too. The city’s been really happy hearing that we’ll be getting aid from them, so I hope they come sooner rather than later, before the monsters get here. We have to be able to defend this place until they finish building the teleportation tower." A brown haired man dated calmly.
"Even the teleportation towers, why do they take so long to build? I don’t understand." A black haired man said shaking his head.
"All teleportation towers require very intensive rune drawing and rune-making, so it’s mostly trial and error. No one gets it perfect the first time. Every teleportation tower has to be built differently, based on its position, to match wherever it’s meant to teleport to. That’s one flaw with teleportation towers, they can’t all be made the same way. At most, it takes about five months to build one." Blonde haired replied. "So it makes sense that it takes this long."
"Understandable." The others shook their head.
"I cannot stand these monsters. They’re so annoying." Black hair yelled in frustration.
"I mean, it’s not like we have much else to do anyway. So, what are your thoughts on the Outsiders?" Brown haired asked.
"Oh yeah, the Outsiders," black haired said staring at group of non humans and humans passing them on the busy streets.
"Apparently, from what the church has told us, these people come from planets where they were supposed to become heroes. However, due to the World Conjoining Event, most didn’t gain the hero benefits they were supposed to get. Only a few did, most are just normal people like us some having magic some having a race skill and others normal humans, most were from worlds that already had abilities to begin with. So the church says we shouldn’t show prejudice against them, and that we should all work together to get through this." Blonde said staring at at them.
"Yeah, but who knows when these heroes will go mad." Black hair snorted.
"Once again, stop referring to them as heroes. They are not heroes. They’re just displaced refugees from the World Conjoining Event." Blonde haired atwtd coldlynhis red eyes staring into black haired black eyes.
"Fine, fine. Well, it’s not like they’ve done anything bad to warrant your prejudice, so it’s better you just keep quiet on this. Most of them aren’t really bad, after all, we’re all just trying to survive."
"Yeah."