Chapter 204: Run for Life

Apophis was running, followed by the more than 50 players on his team, who were running at full speed for almost two hours...

Terra's urban and civilized landscape was now nothing more than a field of ruins, the entire planet having suffered the two assaults between the imperious rebels and the Federation, infrastructure and buildings in a state of disrepair...

Civilian corpses fill the ruined streets, and despite the shelters, orbital bombardment and the appearance of the stellar dragon have turned the planet into a huge trap for civilians. Unfortunately, the E-ranks didn't have the same biological resistance as the Ascentionists....

And for the rare survivors sheltering in massive buildings or basements, they can count on the greed of players to "take care of them".

then Apophis and the eclipse players were crossing a large shopping avenue, he suddenly saw something that horrified everyone...

hundreds of players were chaining thousands of NPCs, in the center of the avenue you could see thousands or even tens of thousands of NPCs chained to the ground...

it was one of the great scourges of the galaxy: slavery

Players who wanted to make a quick buck could raid planets, loot and enslave the civilian population, which was very immoral, even in the gaming community who were beginning to feel the humanity of NPCs, but it was so profitable that many guilds practiced it.

Apophis murmured "Shit!" Apophis had no time at all to play hero slave liberator at the moment; he had to get back to their ships before it was too late and the planetary blockade was restored by the winner of the space battle taking place above them.

If the planetary blockade were restored, it would be very difficult for them to leave the planet's airspace.

Apophis said, "We'll go around to the west, hoping he'll concentrate his efforts in that sector alone.

Everyone nodded, after all, awareness of NPCs was still low, but Antanria replied "What!? You don't want to do anything!? But...if we leave them there, it'll be worse than death! We must intervene!"

Apophis replied "No! That's not why we're here! And we don't know the enemy's strength, and these people have explosive necklaces, so if we release them by force, their necklaces will explode!"

Apophis had a very bad feeling, it was still too early, slavery had to be practiced by players much later, most guilds had only just discovered the management and piloting of light coverte ships, so exploiting a black market trade mechanism was something too incredible to reassure him.

The Hulk, who was standing next to him, said "Are you sure? Do we go around to the west?"

Apophis said "Yes, prepare to sprint for at least ten minutes."

Suddenly, three players emerged from one of the buildings...

Everyone recognizes him... It's Joker! Accompanied by two other unknown players, except for Apophis who sensed the same cynical energy in them as in DungEater.

Apophis wondered whether Joker and his SuperGuild "BlackJack" had any connection with the Neo-Cartel and the Sun Cult. In its former life, BlackJack, apart from a membership of several million, typical of all SuperGuilds, had nothing exceptional, no notable achievements in PvE or PvP...

Even Joker among the star players was considered one of the weakest...

Apophis wondered if this action had again changed the course of time...

But what was certain was that if the Neo-Cartel was associated with a SuperGuild, it made them a real threat to the balance of power in the game...

FantasyDoctor, the sniper in Apophis's group, approached him and said, "Chief! I've been looking through my sights with my sniper, every building has a sniper covering every angle, so if we get within 900 meters we'll be detected for sure!"

Lotus replied, "What do we do? Go around to the west?"

Apophis, who was unsure of the situation, said "For the moment, we'll stay put and continue to observe the situation.

For ten minutes, the whole group of fifty players watched from a distance the malversation in the distance...

The situation didn't seem to be moving...

Suddenly, the Hulk approaches Apophis and says: "Why don't we just go for it and take them on? With you and the whole guild on our side, they won't be able to tell the difference, and we've got a score to settle with Joker."

Apophis replied, "That may be true, but our aim is to get everyone off this planet, and while it's true that we have a good chance of beating them, there's absolutely no guarantee that we'll survive all the fighting; if any of us die again, we're back to square one!"

After another ten minutes, the players start to get nervous; above them, strategic bombers continue to bombing the planet's surface, causing the ground to shake, many wondering how long it will take for a bomb to drop next to them...

Suddenly, a loud explosion shook all the buildings... This was what Apophis had been waiting for...

Apophis says "Sayez, here we are, absolute air superiority has just been achieved by the Federal forces! The space forces begin the orbital ramming of the planet!"

orbital ramming was commonplace before a massive ground assault, and was used to annihilate enemy ground forces entrenched in bunkers or buildings where simple bombers couldn't reach them...

the start of the shelling, caused the hostile forces to immediately fall back in front of them, too worried to see their merchandise injured.

Apophis says on the group's general chat: "Get ready, everyone, in thirty seconds, we'll be sprinting into the Western sector! We'll be ten minutes away from our corvettes by then!"

After thirty seconds, Apophis shouted "Now!"

Suddenly, the fifty players, running as fast as they could...Apophis at the head of the procession...

Above them, the bombers flew over the area, or were there, with increasing regularity...

Everyone knew what that meant...

the bombing began in earnest...

With only three killometers left before they reached their ships, they now had to simply enter one of the area's large shopping malls before they could reach them...which was actually only a few minutes' run for C-rank ascentionists like them...

They had hidden their corvettes in a huge underground parking lot precisely to avoid any possible damage in their absence...

After entering, the bombardment began! Sayez, it was time, the neighborhood was about to be razed to the ground!

the eclipse players rushed into the parking lot of the huge shopping mall, as the walls above shook, everyone wondering if the building above them would hold...