The three men strapped themselves back into their seats and sunk into the eager abyss of cultivation. They were jolted out of it sometime later by an abrupt movement of the ship. It twisted in the air, and if not for their straps, they would have been thrown into the air.
“What’s happening?” Sam shouted.
“Not now! Wait!” The ship controller responded.
The sound of a loud roar came from outside of the ship, and Sam felt the vibrations in his bones. Instead of panicking, Sam breathed steadily to center himself. Having heard the controller, Lao and Eduardo did not speak, riding out the rocking. The ship soon steadied, and Sam let out a breath that he had not been aware of holding.
“What was that?” He asked again, this time getting a response.
“A swarm of monsters came out of nowhere. As we’re getting near the coast, more and more of those volcanoes are appearing. I don’t understand…”
“Damn it. It seems like that volcano from earlier was not an isolated incident. The Titans are causing more trouble than I expected. We need to get our act together with our main quest,” Sam said.
By this point, they were less than an hour away from Paris, and Sam ordered the ship to open the metal part of the hatch, allowing them to see through the glass bottom. The sea underneath was churning as volcanoes erupted, sending loads of molten rock into the depths. Swarms of flying monsters orbited the volcanoes, luckily seeming to be averse to leaving them. As one of them went too near the water, Sam saw why. It stiffened and fell beneath the waves, never surfacing again. It seemed that they needed heat to survive.
Sam shuddered and started to prepare for landing. Everything was in its place and he made sure that the other two men knew how to use their grenades. There was no room for talking at this point, and the rest of the journey was spent in tense silence. As they passed over the coastline, the hatch opened up again, allowing them to see where they were. A vast beach stretched towards the horizon below them, made up of black sand. On it slithered all manner of beasts, most of them patterned after some aquatic image. There were massive jellyfish bobbing in the waters, and strange fish like beasts that walked the lands. As it had been before the System came, Earth’s oceans were filled with the largest creatures. It was because of the same reason too. It was far easier to grow when you were secluded inside a liquid medium rather than in the air. This allowed creatures like blue whales to evolve, but it also allowed monsters to place all of their levels into size without having to worry about durability.
The beach soon vanished out of sight, and they were traveling over swathes of ruined farmland. The remnants of a few small towns could be seen from afar, and strange lines of moving shapes traveled across the land. Sam was too far up to properly see what they were, but if he had to make a guess, they looked like skeletons. Each line transported large chunks of matter in the same way as an ant colony, heading back to wherever they called home.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Half an hour later, they arrived at the capital. The outskirts of Paris eased themselves into view, with piles of rubble suddenly replacing scorched fields of wheat. The city was in ruins, with not a single building standing as far as Sam could see. Thick clouds of smoke billowed up from fires across the city, and monsters roamed the streets with impunity. If any humans had lived here after the System came, they certainly were not living there now.
Ten minutes later, the scenery abruptly changed. A cordon of black separated the center of the city from the rest of it, and the buildings suddenly transitioned into a less ruined state. Sam was able to see a few Legion brutes wandering the streets, and his heart sank. This would be a lot harder to get out of than he expected. Tens of thousands of Legion soldiers surrounded the city center, with the largest concentration around their target, the Eiffel Tower. The ship began to drift downwards towards the only free spot of ground in this area which was a small opening amidst the monsters that Sam knew was constructed for this purpose. The ship touched down a moment later, shuddering lightly as it made contact. The hatch slid down, and Sam stared at it for a moment before unstrapping himself.
“Well, into the breach we go, gentlemen,” Sam said, before walking down the ramp.
The first thing that he noticed as he set foot on the ground was the silence. A normal army would have at least made some noise, no matter how disciplined the soldiers were, but this one was entirely still. Not a single noise carried to Sam’s ears, only the sight of thousands upon thousands of identical humanoids standing at attention.Lao and Eduardo clambered out a few seconds later, and they too went still, surprised by the sight ahead of them.
A minute later, the ranks parted like wheat in the wind, and a heavy tread could be heard making its way towards them. Sam almost preferred the silence to this. A single man walked down the sudden gap in the ranks, clad in an ornate military uniform. A crisp overcoat rustled in the wind as he walked, accentuating his features. He was a tall man, standing at a bit over six feet, and he was quite heavily built as well. Even without any conscious effort on his part, the man looked powerful. Other than this, he looked like a normal human in every sense of the word, with an amiable disposition and a faint smile on his mustachioed face. As soon as Sam looked into his eyes however, he knew that this man was truly evil. General Hugo Mar, for that was the only person it could be, stopped twenty feet away from Sam.
“Greetings. I wish that this city was in better condition, but your kind left it in ruins, choosing to flee in terror before the monster scourge. That is proof that we deserve this planet.”
“We have the items that you requested,” Sam said, choosing to ignore the strange statement.
Hugo narrowed his eyes at Sam before smiling. It looked somewhat like the smile of a snake.
“Let us not get to business immediately. Come, converse with me for a bit before we get down to the true purpose of our meeting. I wish to show you my purpose.”