Divine Heritage: Only I Can Judge The gods-Chapter 123: Fighting the undead

The slums had taken on a morbid look, normally, even without the city being plunged into chaos the slums was remarkably horrible.

Who would have ever thought it could look even worse?

Multiple houses had been shattered, some even ground to dust. The road was completely destroyed and glass shards dotted the collapsed structures.

But that was the least concerning part.

All around them were the bodies of countless slain beasts, a very unreasonable amount of bodies.

Thalia could still feel the faint essese of the gate that had dissapered so she was sure that this was where the gate had opened— the gate for the second wave...

"What about the boss?"

A single glance across the destroyed neighbourhood was all she needed in order to locate the beast, after all, even while laying flat on the floor, its body still towered above the rest.

Once Thalia’s eyes landed on the beast she could sense the faint remenants of its aura. She hurried over to where the colossal beast lay just in time to see the light leave its eyes.

A Malovalent ranked beast, a Giant had been reduced into a bleeding corpse along with its entire army.

[Congratulations!]

[Second wave had been cleared Successfully!]

The soldiers began to whisper amongst themselves, none of them had even stepped into the area for fear of the unknown.

"Don’t tell me this is what is left of the second wave?"

"Isn’t the second wave meant to be stronger than the first?"

"Who could have done this?"

"Maybe one of the other squads?"

"No you fool! Even Vice-Commander Thalia would have difficulty with clearing all these beasts!"

Meanwhile, Thalia was having her own internal musings.

’Is there anyone powerful enough to do this?’

The only person that crossed her mind were the squad captains, but that wasn’t possible since none of them were currently in Lorsine.

Who could it be then?

There was no one strong enough to do this in such a short time that wasn’t well known. The guild masters, squad captains and a few other independent figures were all that came to mind.

It was not that this development was unwelcomed, with the second wave cleared they could move on to the third withouth having to break a sweat, and yet—

’Someone as dangerous as this... who is to say if he is friend or foe?’

The destruction of the second wave could be seen as a friendly gesture but if they wanted to help them, why didn’t they join up with them?

Why was the person in hiding?

Powerful people often had a strange way they behaved. A lot of the squad heads were weirdos and Thalia had even seen stranger people in the second realm.

To them, something like this could very well be a warm up session.

’There’s no reason to waste time on this.’

Thalia turned to where the venators gathered.

"Let’s move!"

She could already sense it.

The third gate had opened.

***

Ark stood at atop the adamatine walls of the third shelter staring out into the city. A few kilometers away from the shelter a couple of vehicles were swiftly approaching the shelter, the lights of their vans bringtening the area around them.

Emma had returned from her little excursion with Thalia.

After the shocking news he had recieved from her, Ark had gone atop the walls to watch area around him.

He hated bad surprises and the last thing he wanted was for a portal to appear right within the shelter.

They last wave was to be their final stand against the apocalypse. Once they cleared it, the world would finally return back to its fairly peaceful state.

Those who had died would of course never return, a very visible scar that would remind them of their failures, while those that survived would be the medals crowning their success.

Ark sighed when his mind went back to those who had died in the shelter. Somehow it stung more than the death of the soldiers did.

They were civilians who had been manipulated mentally into killing themselves.

A terrible way to die.

Thalia and every member of the fourth squad had already had a meeting over a live video call concerning the final wave.

Their situation was a rather precarious one. In just a few hours, the situation had turned on its head and that was because of one simple reason— the boss was a stationary type.

Meaning they would have to enter its territory to defeat it, it would not approach the shelters and it would only unleash some of the beasts while the others were to be left to guide the home base.

But that was not the only problem.

Kiera had to return to her shelter to defend it from a portal that had opened a few kilometres away from them.

The third wave gate had opened somewhere between the second and the fourth shelters. Thalia, Vivian and Emma were meant to engage the boss at a distance but there was a tiny little problem with that arrangement.

Luck didn’t seem to be on their side today because south of the fourth shelter, another portal had opened and hundreds of beasts were currently charging towards the shelter.

"So what do you think? You said you wanted to see them right?"

Beside Ark stood a girl that had been silent all through, quietly observing the marching beasts.

It would take a few minutes before they got here, but once they did, the final battle would begin.

Faye let out a long sigh, a worried expression on her face as she turned to look at him.

"Be careful."

Ark rose a brow.

"Won’t be my first defence."

Faye frowned.

"Okay okay, sure. But as for you..."

Ark handed her a backpack that was heavy, but not too heavy that she could not lift it.

"Take this with you and lock yourself in your room."

There was a small chance that the shelter would be infiltrated, two beasts had made it into the shelter last time.

This time, there might be more.

Plus there were still a few unscrupulous characters Ark was still wary of so he assigned two soldiers to guard hee door.

**

The gates of the fourth shelter were swiftly opened and closed for Emma and her group of soldiers.

Without wasting any time, Emma was already climbing up the battlements, her bow appearing in her hand.

She made her way past the multiple soldiers atop the fence and walked up to where Ark was.

Seated at the very edge of the battlement with his eyes closed, was Ark. He had even gone through the effort of bringing a chair up the battlement.

Seating in solitude with a completely serene expression on his face gave him the appearance of a venerated sword master.

’Pfft.’

Emma creeped up to him and grabbed by the shoulders and shoved him right off the edge— but in the last moment she held him in place, leaving his feet dangling in the air while the chair plummeted down, shattering into pieces on contact with the ground.

To Emma’s surprise, Ark barely gave a reaction, he just opened his eyes and smiled.

"You’ve gotten a lot stronger."

Emma smiled as well, the apocalypse had ended up being a catalyst for their growth. Because of it, progress that was meant to take place in months happened within weeks.

Experience that was meant to take time to achieve was being accumulated at a fast pace. All because they were thrust into the harsh world of the apocalypse.

"I’ve always been strong," Emma replied while placing Ark back on the wall.

"So what do you think about them?" Ark asked, nodding towards the approaching beasts.

"Well, Not the prettiest beasts I’ve seen."

"You haven’t seen any beasts..."

Emma placed her finger on her lips.

"Oh that’s true. Not the prettiest beasts I’ve felt? Nah that sounds odd."

Even for beasts, this group was rather dreadful.

That was why Thalia had hurried her return. The beasts attacking the fourth shelter were the undead.

Multiple walking corpses of different types. Some were of dead beasts Emma could recognize from the vibrations their body gave off, while some were completely new.

A wave of golden sparks appeared around Ark like a cloud and then his black leather armour surrounded his body.

His golden axe appeared in the same manner seconds later, followed by the crimson dagger that was strapped to his waist.

Emma frowned and turned south, she lifted her bow and pulled the string backward, a dark arrow appeared in her fingers and she aimed it at the horde.

**

The torrents roared to life, shattering the approaching hordes of the beast from a distance.

Emma was unloading arrow after arrow into their midst as well, turning the walking corpses into shattered pieces of bone and flesh.

Once in a while the dead beasts would somehow manage to rise again just before it was brought back down. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Even with their bombardments, it didn’t take long for the beasts to get to the gate. Some easily began to scale the wall before they were quickly brought down but the majority of them just clawed at the gate and wall, either too badly damaged to climb or not just structurally adapted to it.

The soldiers celebrated their advantage on the enemy as they shot with even more vigour.

’It can’t be this easy right?’

Somehow, Ark felt like they were cheating but he welcomed the change.

As a small smile appeared on his face, someone walked up the battlement and walked staring by to Ark.

Damian leaned closer to Ark in order to whisper into his ear.

"We have a problem."