The main hall of the District One Guild Association was huge, but it felt incredibly small right now.
Hundreds of hunters were packed inside.
They wore neat armour and carried long weapons.
So had high artefacts wrapped tightly around their arms and legs.
Everyone looked totally fresh, like they had just woken up from a dream and were forced to stand in the hall.
Gina stood on the raised platform at the front of the room.
She looked over the crowd with a strict expression and tapped the microphone on the podium.
The sharp noise made people stop talking and pay attention.
"Listen up," Gina said.
Her voice carried clearly across the quiet room.
"Twenty of you are going to District Five. Right now. They need our help."
A loud wave of angry complaints broke out imdiately.
A guy with a shield on his back stepped forward.
He pointed a finger at the stage.
"Why should we do that? We need to keep our focus on this district. The nearby areas are barely standing. We should strengthen our own defences."
Other hunters started yelling in agreent.
They pointed at their own non-existent injuries while raiding blue gates, and how they should focus on keeping the place safe.
But here is the problem.
Monsters do not care about borders or tired people.
Damon stepped up next to Gina.
He rubbed his face, already dark circles ford under his eyes and looked like he was running on three hours of sleep.
"No," Damon said.
His voice was not loud, but it was very firm.
"We need to save as much as we can. If District Five falls, the beasts will not just stop there and will roll right over the ruins and co straight for us. Even if we cannot save District Five, we need to contain the threat right away. We have to buy ti."
The crowd of hunters still looked angry.
Nobody wanted to go on a suicide mission.
Then a woman spoke from the back of the platform.
She sat in a chair right behind Gina and had bright purple hair with green eyes.
Her face was completely relaxed, which was strange given the panic in the room.
"You heard her," the purple-haired woman said.
She did not yell.
But her tone carried a very clear threat.
"Now move."
The hunters shifted uncomfortably.
They exchanged nervous looks, but they started walking toward the big doors anyway.
The Association controlled every single guild in the districts.
They handled the pay, the ranks, and the gear. So if the Association told you to march into a bad situation, you did so with no questions asked.
It took a few minutes for the hall to empty.
The huge room was quiet now.
Just Gina, Damon, and the purple-haired woman remained.
A few seconds later, the side door opened, and a figure walked in.
Gina did not turn around.
She kept looking out the broken window at the city.
"You abandoned your mission, Maya. I had hopes for you."
Maya stopped in the middle of the room.
She looked the sa as always.
Her silver eyes were totally blank.
"I have already done enough. Now I need the location." Maya did not blink.
She kept her eyes glued to Gina’s back.
"Where is the green gate?"
The purple-haired woman let out a scoff.
She stood up from her chair and walked down the steps.
"Just because you cleared the weak red gate does not an you can walk all over us."
She stopped a few feet from Maya and tilted her head.
"Did you really think your father was still alive?"
Maya reacted instantly.
Her silver eyes went wide, and the temperature in the room dropped fast.
Her dark hair turned white in a split second.
The purple-haired woman smiled and flared her own mana.
The two auras crashed into each other.
Damon groaned.
He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes as his face looked too tired to stop a fight.
Gina sighed.
She turned around and stepped right between them and held out her hands.
"Enough."
The pressure vanished.
Both won pulled their mana back.
But Maya kept staring at Gina and waited for an answer.
"The last green gate I knew about was in the Republican camp," Gina told her.
"It keeps disappearing. But I heard it was there."
Maya looked at her for a long minute, then she turned around to leave.
"Are you really going there?" Gina asked.
Her tone was sharp.
"When you could help these people? What about that rchant? You want him to die?"
Maya stopped at the door and looked over her shoulder.
"It does not matter," Maya said as she walked out and let the door slam shut.
Damon pushed off the wall.
"So I will go to District Four now. That bastard Kane will be there for sure."
Gina just nodded slowly.
She kept staring at the door Maya just walked through.
The purple-haired woman sat back down and crossed her legs.
"I do not think District Five is going to hold."
Gina didn’t reply, but thought she was probably right.
District Five was completely falling apart.
*******
Julien was moving faster than he ever had in his life.
He jumped from the roof of a crushed bank to a half-broken apartnt building.
His spider legs gripped the concrete easily.
Three giant boss monsters were tearing up the streets below.
They crushed cars flat and knocked over buildings like they were made of paper.
The other hunters were screaming and running for cover while Chris and Alice were down there sowhere.
Julien had to keep the big guys distracted.
He ran along the side of a tall glass tower and shot thick ropes of white web at everything he passed.
He caught big chunks of broken wall, an abandoned city bus and wrapped them all up tight.
Then he used his montum to swing the heavy garbage right at the monsters.
The flying debris slamd into the giant beasts.
It sounded like a bomb going off.
But the monsters just shook it off.
They were too big.
Julien landed on a flat rooftop.
He was panting.
His insect lungs were working overti.
He watched one of the giant eyes turn to look at him.
A massive concrete block was thrown towards the roof.
Julien pulled up his system interface.
He frantically tapped the glowing prompt for his new inventor tier.
Julien needed to open his inventory and grab whatever new items the system just gave him.
He hit the button.
A red warning box flashed right in the middle of his vision.
[Error!]
[Error!]
[Host cannot access the inventory when contracted with monsters.]
Julien froze.
He read the text twice.
The system was locking his inventory because he was bound with a monster.
Fuck, Jullien thought in his mind.
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