Chapter 11
Minfor down
"So how do we get to Minfor anyway?" Silver asked.
"It's past the Deo Pass...we should be getting there soon," Tempo said.
"Deo pass?" Silver tilted her head as Tempo sighed.
"It is a pass near the northeastern part of the desert. It's one of three areas here that has any life in it. Once we make it past there we should reach Minfor," Tempo stated as Zoki tapped her lip.
"It's both a mining and fishing town correct," Silver stated as Tempo nodded.
"Yes, right now they are doing evacuations, but since it's a neutral party in current world standings it is technically a part of the church,"
Silver wouldn't deny that it was an interesting bit of information. She wondered if all neutral parties were under the church's protection.
The trio walked through the desert as patches of grass and robust stone slowly started to appear beneath them. It seemed that the shifting sands of the wilderness were turning into a thin winding trail.
"Not one person is on this trail, how dull," Katto sighed as Tempo nose twitched slightly as she took a deep breath.
"We should be there soon, we will probably have to help with the evacuation, but you guys are really strong if all of us help out," Tempo added as Silver groaned.
"Ugh, do we have to? It sounds like a lot of work for something lame," Silver frowned/
The group continued their uneventful trip through the pass; the pass slowly started to slope upward as thick trees started to appear. The lack of any creature or monster around was concerning as Zoki, Silver and Katto all glanced at one another.
"So you're here demon...show yourself," Zoki yelled toward the sky as the nearby trees started to shake as a man in what appeared to be a small hood emerged from the trees. He was wearing a small cloak covering half of his face.
Chains were covering his body as he laughed slightly before kicking the dirt. He grinned, his yellow eyes flashed before chuckling.
"Wait...you're," Zoki's eyes widened as the man winked
"Yep, Kage, it's a good thing you know about me. Saves me from having to make introductions," the man grinned as Tempo bit her lip
"You! You're the one that attacked the port near the research facility,"
"Oh, you...what's you name again?" Kage looked tapped his lip as Tempo grumbled.
"You here, of all places, I guess it's my luck considering how big the bounty on your head is," Katto smiled taking out his knife as Kage lifted his hand before before shrugging
"Hey now I will admit I probably can't beat all of you right now, but then again I'm just here to stall you, but you are probably too stupid to realize it!" Kage laughed.
"Okay no need to prove you're an asshole, now prove you're not a coward and face us." Silver smiled getting in a fighting position.
"Coward? Is that the thing you should be saying to the person who just saved you're life?" Kage shoved his hands into his pocket as Zoki tilted her head.
"Save our life what are yo-?" Zoki wasn't able to complete her sentence as the earth started to rumble. The sun that was shining overhead was slowly blocked out from what appeared to be a star. The wind slowly picked up as the winds violently blew.
The group was nearly knocked off of their feet; it was as if a sudden hurricane
"You all should get to the top of the hill; you should be able to see Minfor from there...or what's left of it," Kage smiled as he walked up the hill as Silver's group quickly followed.
From the top of the pass was Minfor, a large town that appeared to be sinking into the ocean. A larger than average town, most likely home to a couple of thousand people.
The ground continued to shake as the group fell to their knees, the wind was violently threatening to blow them away as Tempo slowly started to lose her grip on the ground before Silver grabbed one of the Beastkin's ears.
At that moment from the sky, it seemed to be a large bright star heading straight for the city.
"Wh-what's happening," Silver stuttered as Kage continued to laugh. Like a mallet a beam of light fell onto the city...followed by a massive explosion that ripped and tore through the town. Pieces of wood were thrown into the air as a wave blew all the onlookers away.
The wave swept the all away covering stone and trees over them. Nothing but darkness followed as the group was covered by rocks. There was a silence as the rocks slowly shifted as Silver removed hers with a cough.
"I-is everyone alright?" she winced as she brushed off the dust from her skirt. She looked around, to what appeared to be a newly formed wasteland. The trees and any grass that was near them were blown away or crushed by the stone.
Slowly more rocks started to shift as Katto and Zoki slowly crawled out of the rubble before Tempo popped her head out of a few pieces of wood.
"Hahaha, man and that was just using what was left of the previous charge," there Kage was, sitting on top of a hill of stone looking down at them.
"You bastard, what was that..." Zoki eyes narrowed as Kage smiled.
"One of the old super weapons Descijan created, it was pulled out of production once they realized that the cost of firing it once was far too high. It has since been reactivated and using the left over energy from when it was first created was able to fire what you just saw,"
"W-what? Why?" Tempo's bottom lip started to quiver, "there was nothing there! Nothing but church knights and the civilians, who would do that!"
Kage leaned against a nearby rock, "that is a good question. After all, it's just a worthless mining and fishing town belonging to the church. Not even Descijan would risk provoking the wrath of the Church into doing something like that, unless someone didn't want the Church to remain neutral, having an entire town destroyed would be a pretty good start," Kage hummed to himself as Tempo eye twitched. It seemed like she was about the burst into tears.
"W-who.."
"Well now, if you must know it was Par-"
"Shut up!" Tempo let out a howl as she took a step forward, the stone beneath of feet started to crack as she walked towards Kage who just laughed.
"Okay, Okay, I'll take my leave, I was hired to see what the results of the weapon firing and I've done that...later," Kage smiled a pool of inky black slime appeared underneath him before a large mouth causing him to vanish.
Tempo looked at the ground, the rest of the group remained silent as they walked up the hill once again. They looked down; there was nothing but a crater where the city once stood, significant amounts of sea water started to pour into the hole as Tempo gaze down just stunned.
"W-we have to get down there and check if there are any survivors!"
Zoki frowned for a moment, "listen, Tempo I don't th-"
"We better hurry," Silver cut her friend off, "whatever is left is probably going to sink into the ocean soon,"
Without another word Tempo rushed towards the other end of the trail leaving the demons to talk among themselves,
"Silver you know there isn't going to be anyone left..." Katto eyes cut as Silver scratched the back of her head.
"Yeah, I know, but...she's been having a rough couple of days. Even if it's just a little bit, it's alright to give her hope,"
Zoki looked at her friend one more time and grumbled… "You really are a worthless demon,"
It didn't take them long to travel down what was left of the trail as the slowly walked through what appeared to be a desert, whatever wildlife and grass that was once growing had all but been erased as the looked down at the giant hole that was once Minfor.
"Well, what do we do now?" Silver asked staring into the large crater; it was just as Zoki had said. There was nothing left, not a person house or tree. It was as if everything in the area was turned into ash.
"We can jump down the hole, but I'm not sure it's safe," Zoki said as she picked up a nearby stone and let it fall into the large hole. There was no sound as if the pit was bottomless.
Zoki then sighed before looked at Tempo who was on the ground sobbing.
"Hey, don't cry...I mean you're are a part of the church right?" Silver grinned before continuing, "if we hurry back there you can tell everyone what's happening. Right now we need to stop anyone there from making any stupid choices,"
Zoki glared at her friend, "that is a rather calm decision, at least for you..." Zoki then looked back over to Tempo. "Silver is right, as one of the Six warriors you probably have far more sway than most people there,"
Tempo had frowned before she nodded, "y-you're right, I have to head to Qine and talk to Master Bib, if this keeps up, more people will die," Tempo said as Katto sighed.
"As much fun as that is, we currently don't have a boat, and I doubt the ones in Hamma are usable right now,"
There was a moment of silence as the group thought. They were prepared to travel through the old factory again, but that might take even longer.
"Wow, you guys really are having fun!" Silver flinched as she heard a familiar voice before she turned around to be greeted by her sister.
"Oh great, it's Shan," Silver sighed as Shan placed her hands on her hips.
"Hello, little sister! It's been a while hasn't!" Shan smiled with her eye's as blue as the sea.
"Well, I didn't expect to see you here Shan?" Zoki said.
"I can tell you were having such an amazing conversation, but I noticed that you lack a boat," Shan rubbed her chin before looking down at Tempo. "I can fix that problem if you want,"
Tempo shot up, "you can?! Can you please hurry and take us to Qine?!"
"Calm down little miss; I was on my way there anyway. Plus I want to talk about Descijan and Slouque," Shan eye's sparkled with excitement as Zoki eyes narrowed.
It was strange that Shan just happened to be there right after the town was just destroyed. She was tempted to question her, but just put the thought in the back of her mind. After all, if she was going to take her to Qine, then it was best not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Don't worry, it won't take too much time as long as we get back to Hamma before people start to notice this and close off everything," Shan replied walking back up the trail.
"Fine I guess we don't have much of a choice since we're kind of out of leads, and places to go," Silver said as the rest of the group only shrugged.
They back up the broken trail as Shan finally started her explanation. "As most of you know, Descijan and Slouque are currently in an arms race to create a super weapon, despite what most higher ups want you to believe they finished them awhile ago..."
"Seems logical," Katto pointed out, "something as dangerous as super weapons you would want to keep the civilians in the dark about it...chances are that Verm guy from before knew about them too,"
"Yeah, from what Verm said before we got separated back at the ruins he was most likely working with Par- er I mean Kage to get the weapons activated again," Zoki had to fix her sentence as Tempo glared at her causing Silver to groan.
"Man, what a jerk, I guess it is to be expected by someone as shady as him..." Silver cracked her knuckles as Shan sighed.
"Anyway, the weapons that Descijan created is known as the Final Tower; it is the largest structure on this planet almost entirely devoted to destruction. It is vast and cumbersome, but as you saw, even a fraction of its power is deadly. Not only that, it's hard to reach without some plane, so it most likely won't be shut down for awhile,"
"What about Slouque weapon?" Zoki asked as Shan grumbled.
"I was getting to that, that weapon from what I heard it is a biological weapon. I don't know much about it other than some shady testing was done on it, Verm was probably the lead researcher on it," it was pretty obvious that Shan didn't have a lot of info on it.
After a short trip, the group headed back to Hamma. The town was buzzing with people are it was apparent that the city guards was about to shut down the ports leading into of the desert city. They all groaned, but it was to be expected, after all, it was hard to miss a city destroying explosion after all.
"I wonder if they are going to start making moves to evacuate the town?" Zoki looked around, and there was an unsettling air around the town. It was apparent that they were worried that they were the next target, and with most of the ships destroyed no one could leave the town.
"Come on, let's hurry. I want to be out to sea before it gets dark, and we're kind of far from Qine as it is," Shan lead the group through the port. It seemed the town at least took the time to remove the floating debris from the pier.
In the corner was a small ship, probably could fit about ten people before getting crowded. There were odd symbols plastered all over it; it had a gold and silver tint to it.
"Huh? This is a Church ship, how did you get it?"
"Don't worry about that so much, hurry up and hop on!" Shan hummed as she jumped onto the little steel ship. The rest just followed her, the ship itself probably only had two floors to it.
Shan slowly opened the door leading into what appeared to be the area where steering the ship was possible as she pressed a few buttons, the ship slowly started to float as if it was no longer anchored as it moved forward.
"Next stop, Qine!"
With those words, the ship sped ahead as if a motor was attached to the back of it. Silver smiled as she held onto the railing on the deck allowing the sea water to splash her in the face. The sun was setting as the crossed the open sea towards their next destination.
As they traveled the moon shined overhead as Zoki, Silver, Katto and sat on the deck as they noticed the boat slowing down slightly.
"Hey, I'm going to put this in cruise control until morning, we won't arrive at the city until then so you might want to rest below deck," Shan mentioned as she slowly went down the stairs as Katto scoffed.
"Well that is to be expected, I'm going to bed early. After all, a killer like me needs his rest," Katto waved as he followed Shan as Zoki looked over to Tempo and Silver.
"Don't stay up too late you two, we got a lot of things that need to get done and we can't do them if you're half asleep Tempo,"
"Yeah, yeah, go to bed, you need your rest considering you're acting like an old lady," Silver said as Zoki rolled her eyes and followed the rest downstairs.
This only left Silver and Tempo on the deck of the ship; Silver leaned back as she stared at the moon as Tempo looked at the silver haired demon before frowning slightly.
"You guys...you guys aren't normal," Tempo said causing Silver to jump nearly up before she coughed.
"W-what are you talking about, we are totally normal humans, that do normal human things and lead normal human lives!" Silver smiled, but Tempo's stare was simply too much for her as Silver sighed.
"Okay, I'll tell you what's up...but you have to promise not to tell anyone alright!"
Tempo nodded as Silver looked around before letting out a sigh, "me, Zoki, Katto and Shan aren't humans, we are um...demons,"
"What..." Tempo simply tilted her head as Silver cursed to herself.
"I won't go into anymore detail than that, just now that for some reason a lot of demons have taken an interest in this world for some reason. So just keep a look out, and don't try to piss any of them off," Silver said as Tempo tapped her lip.
"Ah, I don't get it, but I will try to keep that in mind…" Silver didn't know that Tempo believed her or not as the small bunny girl jumped up and stretched ever so slightly before walking towards the stairs and waving to Silver.
Silver sighed, it wasn't the reaction she thought she would get. Maybe Tempo was waiting to see more before jumping to the conclusion of demons. Still, there was an enormous weight lifted off of Silver's chest as she looked at the moon.
"Man, I sure do love the night..."
She closed her eyes and drifted to sleep right on the deck of the ship.
…
…
"Wake up!" A voice screamed into Silver's ear as quickly jumped up,
"W-what are you..." she looked around to see Tempo glaring at her. The sun was high in the sky as she could hear Zoki sighing in the distance.
"We're here," Tempo pointed out as Silver rubbed her eyes and stood up.594Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAMJwU2D168
The city of Qine was built on a landmass looking towards the sea with high cliffs on each side. IT worked wonders to match the backdrop of the gentle mountains that had helped shape the city. The vast majority of buildings mimicked broad slopes and the steep peaks of the hills.
The skyline was dotted with giant skyscrapers, and it was rather apparent that technology was thriving considering it appeared to be the most advanced city that Silver had seen. At the center was a larger cathedral lined with gold and silver. This was most likely the church that Tempo continually referenced.
It seemed that they had reached their destination.
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