Infernal Apocalypse

“Attention!”

A man wearing an all-black uniform, adorned with one singular black badge in the shape of a flame resting upon his chest, spoke aloud as he stared out at the men and women standing before him.

“You are standing before Patriarch Blaach, Ancestor to the Blaach Family and Leader of the 7th Conflagration!”

The man who he introduced was of course sitting calmly upon a simple black throne erected for the purpose of this event.

“Only the thousand of you who stand here today have been chosen from a long list of applicants for this final test. The Patriarch has decreed only 100 of you will be chosen, and of that only 10 will welcome the Flame.

“Let the final test commence!”

After saying that, no one moved as he paused and imbued his voice power before continuing.

“Let your flames burn Eternally, and your spear be ever swift!”

-The Forming of the Blaach Night Legion Eons Ago…

The night passed without issue, and training went as expected. After everyone freshened up, we met up in my house this time. Well, it was just Richard and Brandon, everyone else was going around the Outpost talking to the rest of the folks about the upgrade and the things it will entail. Richard initially arrived at the Outpost with over a hundred people and by now around 60 of them have broken through to the 1st Cycle and Richard believes maybe another 10 or so will break through as well. The rest were essentially noncombatants.

Between the elderly, small children, and a few who couldn’t handle the pain. They usually spent their days lounging about the Outpost or helping out where they could. Well, that would usually be the case until Richard gave me a bit of a surprise just now.

“The Alchemist accepted an apprentice!”

It was literally the first thing he blurted out when I went to open the door. He didn’t even let me interject as he continued.

“It was an old woman by the name of Beverly. She was just making a potion run for us, but apparently, the Alchemist said she had some talent for making potions and offered her an apprenticeship for at least the remainder of the Tutorial!

“Isn’t that amazing? He even said he’ll help her with Cultivating! A few other people went to visit to see if they could be accepted as well, but he turned them all down. A little disappointing but the fact that even one of us got accepted was still amazing.”

Although I think he was way too excited, that doesn’t mean I don’t understand where it's coming from. This is huge news for everyone, especially Beverly. I hadn’t met her yet, but her importance to the group just shot up significantly.

I’m still not 100% certain people will be able to travel back to Earth together after the Tutorial, but if that was the case, and the group stayed together, we would have someone who could make potions for us. That was massive. Even now we don’t really know what type of Earth we will be returning to, so any added benefit like someone who could make potions was extremely valuable.

“Yeah, that really is amazing. Hopefully, she’ll enjoy it and become a really good alchemist. I’m sure she’ll become even more valuable after the Tutorial. Did anyone try the Blacksmith? I believe he had an option in his shop regarding that.”

“Huh…now that I think about it, I don’t think anyone did. I’ll bring it up, it would be nice if someone could become a blacksmith too, I’d give it a shot, but I don’t know if that’s something I’m cut out for. What about you Brandon? Feel like becoming a Blacksmith?”

“Not really.”

“Figures, but yeah things are looking up for Miss Beverly. Ready to talk?”

“Yeah so, I had some ideas. I think we have more than enough people now that we can tackle both Dungeon and still protect the Outpost at the same time. Well at least until we see what this next stage entails, but for now I think we can split our forces a bit.

“You and 5-10 others can most likely handle the Green Den without me. You’re a good commander and we have done it enough times to know how it works by now.

“While at the same time, I can take around 15 others to the other Dungeon. They can’t really fight the big ones, but I have an idea of how to deal with that. After completing the Dungeon, I walked around the Outpost and checked a lot of things. The back gate wasn’t touched due to how much commotion I caused at the front.

“I will essentially do the same thing again but instead of joining me at the front, the rest will enter through the back gate and attack them from behind. They would still have to fight around 60 total Goblins, with different types mixed in, but I think they can do it. What do you guys think?”

“Honestly Raizen I don’t like it, I’m confident I can take care of the first Dungeon with a small team, but if someone messes up, I don’t think I’m strong enough to reach them in time while fighting off Goblins of my own. Though that’s a small worry, the team that goes with you, I think it would be a lot better if there was a 2nd Cycle Cultivator with them too, but I’m the only one we have as of right now. Wouldn’t it be better to start splitting our forces after we have more than one 2nd Cycle Cultivator? Maybe not even to come with you but just to stay here while everyone is gone.”

Hmm, he wasn’t wrong per se, but I think some calculated risk is needed to improve. Am I taking too much risk here?

“I will break through to the 2nd Cycle after this talk, and I’ll be ready to try the new Dungeon tomorrow.”

Both me and Richard snapped out of our thoughts and looked towards Brandon. I didn’t doubt he could break through, but they didn’t heal like I did. I don’t think a potion will be enough to get him back to full strength in time for a Dungeon run tomorrow.

“Even if you broke through this morning, there's no way you’d be ready to fight, let alone enter a whole new Dungeon.”

It seemed Richard agreed with me.

“I’ll be ready.”

“You say that but your bo-..”

“I’ll be ready.”

“Brandon, I understand you are eager but isn’t this too rash?”

“Richard. I don’t want to be a burden forever. Raizen is literally holding our hands in the Dungeon and making sure we don’t die, but he said it yesterday. What if he wasn’t here? When that first big attack happened and hundreds of Goblins attacked when only a few of us were 1st Cycle, He killed most of them by himself and we still lost two people. What if he wasn’t there then? How many more of us would die? You? Me?

“We can’t keep living like this. We need to get stronger; we need to try harder; we need to put our own lives at risk more often. I’ve seen the change in some of the others over the last couple of days, people went from being scared of Raizen, to tolerating him, to now depending on him. Only a couple of days passed for that to happen. What would happen after a month? A year after the Tutorial?

“Would everyone else just stop getting stronger altogether and just hope Raizen takes care of everything? I don’t know how you feel about that Richard, but I don’t like it. And I don’t know if you consider us burdens Raizen, but I don’t want to fit that description any longer. Even if it’s not all of us who want to keep getting stronger, a few of us should be working even harder to help shoulder the burden.

“So..I’ll be ready.

“You guys can finish without me; I’ll be breaking through shortly.”

After saying that last line, Brandon simply turned and calmly walked out of the house. I was really at a loss for words here. Of course, I’ve only known Brandon for a short time, but he has always been a man of few words.

Looking over at Richard, he seemed even more shocked than I did. Based on what I’ve found out the last couple of days, quite a few of them knew each other before the Tutorial started so he would’ve known the ‘normal’ Brandon.

And based on his reaction I’m guessing what we just witnessed is unlike the ‘normal’ Brandon.

“…I’ll check on him after this. We can keep going.”

“Alright…well with Brandon potentially in the picture. Are you okay with the plan?”

“Well based on what he’s saying I don’t think I have much of a choice, of course, the people making up the team will need to agree, but if your confident, Brandon somehow becomes ready, and everyone agrees, then we’ll make it happen.”

“Good, we’ll go over the plan in detail when the team gets made. Now let’s talk about this upgrade because that’s also happening tomorrow.”