As she said it, Holly's steps became quicker and she started running. The two noticed a liberated smile bloom on her face.

“Self-destruct? Since when can guild branches do that? How big is the radius?” Mike asked, as Lydia and he easily kept up with her.

“Pssht! It's top secret. All branches in far-away places have these as a last resort. That is why those assholes also didn't know. As for the radius... it should be enough to rip a hole through the walls of the th-third and fourth ring, and- and disrupt all the barriers except the center. I-I need a short break.”

She started panting in the latter half of the sentence. They had been barely running for 30 seconds, and he was sweating profusely. They had not even left the third ring yet.

“Shit, how long do we have to get out?” Lydia asked quickly. Holly, bent over to catch her breath, and looked up with an embarrassed smile. “I might have overestimated myself, I put it on a 5-minute coun-TER!”

She screamed the last part because Lydia decisively put her on her back. The couple had no need to voice their thought as they sprinted away alongside each other. Mike took the lead, in case a guard at the gate to the fourth ring would stop them, but nobody dared get in his way. People running from their problems was a common thing in Morranto. They were here to stop people from getting in not out.

Without obstruction, Lydia charged into the dirty, gunky slums of Morranto and out the gates, where Ray and a group of 28 people were waiting for them. At full speed, it had only taken then 3 minutes to get out of the city.

“Mike, Lydia, what is going on? Is someone chasing you?” Ray asked worried, when he saw them sprinting out of the city.

“No time to explain, run!” Mike roared at him, as they passed by. Ray was only baffled for a moment before he rallied his people to follow the three as quickly as possible. They had just reached the edge of the fields when a tremor shook the whole valley and surrounding mountain.

The explosion itself swallowed 1/10 of the city, ripping holes into the neat walls that separate the second from the third ring and the third from the fourth, just like Holly said. The shock wave of kinetic force and magic however hit the whole city.

They turned around in time to see the mushroom cloud of the explosion shattering the various layers of barriers like glass. The same happened to all the windows of the city. While the proper structures managed to withstand the explosion, most of the slums were flattened. Even at the distance they made, Mike, Lydia, Ray, and the others still felt the strong winds and heat of the detonation.

“Shit... Wasn't this a little over the top?” Ray exclaimed shocked, thinking it was Lydia's or Mike's doing.

“What do you know? They deserved this. No, they deserved worse, but this was the best I could do...” Holly reprimanded him bitterly. While Ray seemed unreconciled, he shut up. Lydia and Mike kept silent with a complicated expression.

Holly had lived and suffered here for a long time, so she knew better than them. The silent nods of the crowd behind Ray also showed that Holly probably was not wrong.

“If we are lucky they will notice it before the shields are back up,” and middle aged woman from the crowd commented with grim joy.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“What do you? Who will notice?” Ray asked surprised

“The birds of course. Did you think that shitty owl only snatched a bunch of farmers for fun? Before the new Lord majorly strengthen the barrier, they would attack in a group to break them and hunt in the city,” she revealed some of the past of the city.

Mike and Lydia stared at the older lady. Hearing that there was more than one of those birds and that it was a common occurrence for more than one to attack the city and kidnap people was quite shocking to them. The only person they knew who could build such abominations was Seth, but the Tower Master of Minas Mar had better taste when making his monsters of calamity.

“I really hope so,” Holly added with a sinister smile. She was truly holding a deep grudge against the whole town.

Mike and Lydia exchanged a glance. For a moment they thought about whether they should help the city, but they unanimously decided that it wasn’t their obligation. As Seth liked to point out, he wasn’t a hero. Although Mike was a much more obliging person, Morranto was really the last place he wanted to save anyone. Lydia had a similar opinion.

“Let’s hurry and get away from here. Our escape might have caught someone’s attention. We have to meet up with Ceres outside the valley,” Lydia commented. Nobody doubted her words, it was quite suspicious that the three had rushed out of the city mere minutes before the catastrophe.

They all got on their mounts, Ray had even thought of that, as he didn’t sit up on his Alpeka, but a massive lizard that resembled a crocodile with bloody pinkish skin. Down here, the Unclaimed Mountains were close to the desert with a dry and hot climate. Allegedly these crocodiles came from the vast desert past the perpetual storm.

This new mount he bought was a little slower but better accustomed to the climate here. The biggest reason for the purchase was that its broad rough back could hold his ragtag group of freed people. As such, the massive crocodilizard, led by two people on Alpekas quickly aimed to leave the valley, where Ceres was supposed to wait for them.

Surprisingly, the elemental was there despite Lydia and Mike half expecting it to have run off. What nobody expected and shocked especially the newcomers behind them, was that Ceres was not throning on Blotches, but the dismembered body of a hashing bird.

One of the great fears of these people, one could even call it a trauma, was presented to them, dead, with a massive mechanical bird with flesh that looked like materialized lightning. The place was littered with parts of the ripped-apart owl. Had a new predator entered these mountains? Was this their moment to die?

As they shrunk back in fear, they had barely any eyes for the exotic Questing beast, resting in front of the cadaver, feasting on the dried meaty parts with relish.

“C-Ceres, did you hunt this thing?” Ray asked, staring at the automaton in disbelief.

~Well, it came two days ago and dared to attack blotched in my very presence. It left me no choice but to fight it. ~ the elemental simply said, not disclosing whether it was a hard fight or not. Of course, it led Mike and the others to believe that it easily slew the beast.

“I see.. Are you ready to leave, Ceres? We will escort these guys to the next safe settlement before splitting up with them. Seth said you are supposed to accompany me.”

~I know, I didn’t intend to let you leave my sight. ~ it said, as it’s piercing avian eyes, filled with bright lighting, focused on the cat boy.

“Wait a moment, let me have a look at this,” Lydia stopped them and got off her mount.

“What are you doing Lydia?” Mike asked, as Lydia approached the lifeless owl Ceres was sitting on.

“This looks like technology, our technology, not magic. I may have adapted to this sword and magic apocalypse, but I did learn computer science for a job, you know?” she said as she was taking pictures with her phone. She drew one of her daggers when she approached the head.

“Are you trying to dismantle it? I didn’t you had that skill,” Mike commented.

“You also don’t know what computer sciences are, but now, I don’t have that kind of skill. I’m trying to see whether this thing has a data storage or something in its head or...well, in its head,” she hesitated to mention the body, which was a blackened mess of burned flesh, bones, and metal. She wasn’t going to touch that. The head was cracked, but it seemed that Ceres had left it alone, raising the chance to find something useful.