I stared out across the deadlands. I had cleared our way through the very annoying teleporting striped meerkats. Now I was looking East across more deadlands, where there were summoner ants. A city was either in this direction or they were hiding in Truth.

Circling around and leaving from the East gate meant one of these two directions. I believed East was correct and not a misdirection based on the trap. That trap was meant to kill me and should have succeeded.

I advanced forward towards the first dirt mound and was ready. Acid Shot. I killed the ant before it could fully emerge. I checked and no more ants came out. The monster dropped a 50-point crystal. I could and would clear a path forward with my skill.

I could have come back her sooner, but it just wasn’t worth the hassle. It wasn’t a good grinding spot. The holes in the ground were worrying. I would have liked to dig one up and see what was in it, but now wasn’t the time.

It was later in the afternoon as we were approaching the center of the zone, I saw a large mound ahead with lots of ants crawling on it. That would be the dungeon if I had to guess.

Making a detour to the South, the brown ants turned to black ants, which didn’t make any difference to how I killed them. It was a tense night as clearing the area around the cart after the respawn was stressful. We continued to push to the East in the morning.

We crested another hill. That was when I let out a sigh of relief. I saw a field of flowers. A level 1 zone. A city had to be in the distance. I cleared the last few summoner ants in our path. The terrain quickly transitioned from deadlands to flowers.

While I had gotten used to the sudden transitions between landscapes it was always jarring. It was weird how the light source interacted with the sky and clouds. Go far away enough from a zone, then the clouds of that zone wouldn’t impact you. The same happened in the other direction. In the shadowlands, the cloud cover seemed to stretch much further than it actually did. While that transition was more gradual than the land-based transition, I couldn’t just look at the sky to scout out zones.

I observed white deer monsters and no people. As I got close to one it glared at me. I felt a headache forming. Acid Shot. The monster died. With no people out here, there might be a chance. A chance to upgrade Acid Shot.

We slowly made our way to the East looking for any defining terrain features. A bit after mid-day, we spotted several ragged looking men. They didn’t even bother run with how defeated they appeared. The best equipment they had were swords and out of the twelve of them, only seven had swords. The rest had clubs.

There was no armor, and their clothing was rags. Some of their clothing was earth clothing and not store clothing. They were also sporting several injuries and there was dried blood from under their noses. The chance they posed a threat was very low and the chance to get information was very high. “Hello,” I called out. They began to speak between each other.

It wasn’t English. “It’s Arabic, but I don’t speak it,” Naran said. Well, that was unfortunate. I looked at Aahan.

“My apologies Champion Michael. I don’t speak Arabic,” he said after I stared at him for a bit. I let out a small sigh.

“Do you any of you speak English?” I asked the other group. One older looking gentleman stepped forward.

“Small bit. Go slow,” he said.

“I am Champion Michael of the city of Purgatory.” I pointed at myself. The man frowned for a moment thinking over my words.

“I am Ali. Speaker for god.” The way he said god was full of distaste.

“The Ritualist?” I asked. He processed the word and then nodded.

“Yes god. Ritualist. That was name used by lady.”

“The lady? What was her name?”

He thought on that for a moment. “Nox. Lady Nox. Do you have any food or water?”

“Naran, our supplies?”

“We can give them one meal each and be good for a while. Any more than that and it will push our resources,” he said. I nodded.

“Sit, let us share a meal and information.” I gestured at the ground and took a seat. Naran and Aahan began to pull out food and flasks of water to share with the men. One broke into tears and began to praise both me and Allah.

Nope, I was starting my own Systemic Lands religion. Don’t compare me to other religious figures. But I will take thanks no problem. I couldn’t explain any of that, so I just kept quiet as the men ate.

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“What is happening in the city?” I asked Ali after he had an orange. He even ate the peel.

“Before, it was hard. But we slowly kill monsters. Get crystals. Figure things out. Bad, but not horrible. People work together for New Cairo.” So, from Egypt area of Earth then, good to know. If America got two cities, then I was waiting for the five plus that Chinese people were being sent to. Or India, those the two countries had a higher-than-average chance of forming a massive power block in my opinion. It was only a matter of time until we ran into it.

“Then woman Nox came. Made many promises to city leaders. Against Allah. Evil. Took young men out of city and then left. Men got many crystals.” So that was what you were doing Ruth. Forming a team, how interesting. I would be on the lookout for that in the future. Changing your name and running won’t be enough, you were going to get liquidated.

“Next time she came back. Brought god, Ritualist. Very evil man. Satan. Controls monsters. Turns people into monsters.” That last bit was surprising to hear. That was a new development.

“What do you mean turns people into monsters?” I asked.

“Had half man, half wolf. Satan.” The Ritualist was turning people into monsters. “Controls food, supplies. Hundreds of monsters. We go to gate, give crystals, monsters give food. Very little supplies. Staving, dying slowly. Help?” Ali asked.

“The Ritualist did a great evil to my city. My people. I wish to kill him. Do you know where he is in the city?”

“No. We give crystals at gate. No one allowed in city, even at night. Sleep near gate.” I noted they had no cart and only three packs between them. They were trapped. Well, if I had the powers of the Ritualist, it was the most logical move to take. Secure the four city entrances, secure the entire city.

“Anymore groups besides yours giving him crystals?” I asked.

“Maybe at other gates. No idea. We have to work at this gate.”

“How does he speak to you, give you orders, communicate?”

“Through his monsters.” Dammit. There was no easy way to lure him out and kill him. In fact, the best option would be to try and starve him out. But people would be constantly teleporting in with the arrival every 10 days, and he had stolen a lot of crystals.

“Nox, where is she?”

“After the first day. We no see her. Gone.” Ran away Ruth. How like you. Always running away after you create a shitstorm. At least I had the decency to try and clean up the messes I made. I was going to clean you up.

“Pits in the ground. Interesting places near the city. Do you know where?” I asked.

“Yes. Pit that way. Very dangerous, no one comes back. Other place in forest. Other side of city.” Perfect, I had the general direction of each dungeon.

“We will check the dungeons first. Aahan can hold a torch. Naran you can watch the cart.”

“No.” I looked at Aahan. “Please Champion Michael. No.” I frowned, but it was his choice to just pull the cart. I couldn’t send him into the dungeon if he refused. But it was annoying.

“Alright, Naran can come with me. You can watch the cart. No one touches anything in it.” I said that last part to the group who nodded. “After both dungeons, I need to check the entrances into New Cairo.”

“Satan change name,” man said.

“What name did he change it to?” Any insight into the Ritualist’s mind could only help.

“Heaven,” Ali said. I was stunned. I couldn’t tell if it was meant as a joke, a jab at my name of Purgatory, or he truly thought he was God in Heaven. The fact he thought himself a God with a capital G, meant that his sense of superiority was off the charts. I knew I had an ego, but I wasn’t God or any type of messianic figure.

That was the worst possible insight to receive. If the Ritualist had that mindset, which appeared to be so, then maybe I could exploit his hubris in some way. His body was his weakness, which he negated by using his monsters as proxies.

A war of attrition would be frustrating. Even if I won, he could just hide and reemerge at a later date. I would need to grind his forces down and secure the store, secure all entrances, and remove people from the city when they arrived to starve him of resources.

It was possible but was a massive headache. It made me think about ancient conquerors. Did they ever see a city wall and just sigh in frustration at how much headache taking a city would be? This time it was killing one man.

Did that make me the US to the Ritualist’s Osama Bin Laden? What were summons but suicide bombers, especially the slimes. If he had multiple teams working out of each gate of the city, then that could only spell trouble. Instead of caves, there were the buildings in the city he could hide within.

I would need an overwhelming force and even then, it would be impossible to prevent a breakout. Starving and killing monsters of the Ritualist would take forever. Wait, I had an idea of how to track him down.

“When he turned people into monsters, did he bring the people to him?” Ali thought on that for a bit.

“I am not sure. But the people were taken alive and brought somewhere. I don’t know where.” That was enough confirmation for me. I would clear the dungeons, then I would sneak into the city. Wait for the next arrival and then observe where the people were taken and where the monsters were coming from.

The hardest part would be sneaking into the city. The walls around the city were quite tall. They were around 4 stories tall and completely smooth. No staircases to get up. A jump plus an Air Burst directly up would do it.

But the problem with sneaking in, was that I would no escape route. If the assassination attempt failed or I was found, I could easily be overwhelmed. It would devolve into a cat and mouse battle through the city. With monsters homing in on me and creating encirclements.

But an assassination and tracking down the Ritualist was possible. If I really wanted to cripple him, I should kill these people off. No matter how helpful or nice, they were funneling crystals to him. There were clearly limitations since he wasn’t sending monsters out.

They could also reveal that they met me for extra rewards. I could find the dungeons myself since I had a general direction where to look. It felt weird to feel guilty about what I was going to have to do, especially since I had killed other people without hesitation. The only difference, those people had been assholes and not completely depressing like this group. Regardless, I had no tears left to shed.

Taking them back to Purgatory wasn’t an option either, that would just waste time. Their lives compared to my time. My time came out ahead. There was nowhere else they could go either. I couldn’t let them to continue to support the Ritualist. We were in a state of total war. Well, I would make it quick. No need for them to suffer.