Apocalypse with my SSS Harem Beauties-Chapter 184: The City

Fear spread quickly among the armored soldiers. They had heard the screams from the battlements and now they had seen the result with their own eyes. Their commanders and the mages who guided them had been swallowed by that terrifying black energy. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

The men who had stood above them with authority and confidence were now nothing more than collapsing bodies on the wall.

Despair crept into the soldiers’ hearts. For a moment many of them hesitated. Their spears no longer moved with the same power as before. Their steps lost the perfect rhythm that had once defined their formation.

Several soldiers even took a step backward.

The realization settled heavily inside them.

There was no point in stopping this group of nine.

They had faced countless enemies before. Monsters, warriors from another nation, and magic beasts.

But this... this felt different.

These nine attackers moved through the battlefield like unstoppable forces of nature.

And above them hovered a being capable of destroying entire groups of mages with a single attack.

The soldiers’ courage shattered.

That moment of hesitation was all Myles and his companions needed. They immediately seized the upper hand.

The battlefield changed in an instant.

Where the soldiers had once maintained disciplined formation, chaos now dominated their ranks. Their shield wall loosened. Their spear thrusts became slower and uncertain.

Myles surged forward without hesitation. His Fangblade flashed through the air again. The blade slipped through a soldier’s guard and slashed across his chest. Before the man could even fall Myles stepped forward again and stabbed another soldier through the throat with his curved dagger.

Beside him Victor roared with savage excitement now. His cleaver swung through the battlefield with terrifying force in all directions. One soldier tried to raise his shield to block the attack but the cleaver smashed straight through it. The impact split the shield apart and sent the soldier crashing to the ground with a severed arm and a deep wound on its chest.

George’s hammer continued to dominate the battlefield like a falling mountain. His every swing crushed their armor and shattered bones. Soldiers were thrown backward as if struck by a charging beast.

Kade pushed forward with wild aggression. His ember-coated fists exploded against armor again and again, releasing bursts of fire that blasted soldiers off their feet.

Daniel moved like a shadow weaving through the chaos. His twin daggers flashed again and again. He slipped behind soldiers and stabbed into the gaps in their armor before they could even react.

Clara advanced behind the front fighters. Her frost spear stabbed forward repeatedly, piercing their armor while freezing frost spread across the metal surfaces and on the ground they stepped on.

Meanwhile Ethan and Samantha continued firing from behind. Arrows and bullets flew through the battlefield. Soldiers who tried to retreat were struck down before they could escape.

The remaining soldiers barely fought back anymore. Many of them tried to step away from the terrifying attackers. Some of them even turned and attempted to run but the battlefield offered them no escape.

Every direction they turned held another attacker waiting to cut them down.

The fight quickly turned into a massacre. One by one the armored soldiers fell.

Steel armor crashed against the ground as bodies collapsed across the battlefield. Blood soaked the dirt in front of the towering city wall.

Not long after, the last soldier fell beneath Myles’ blade.

Silence slowly settled over the battlefield. The nine companions stood in the middle of the carnage.

Corpses littered the ground in every direction. Broken shields and shattered spears lay scattered among the dead bodies.

For a few seconds none of them said anything and just simply looked around and confirmed that no enemies remained.

Myles wiped the blood from his Fangblade and glanced toward the city wall.

"Okay. We can move to the gate now," he said calmly.

The others nodded.

The group quickly walked toward the massive gate at the base of the wall. The huge doors remained tightly closed, towering above them.

Up close, the gate looked even more imposing. Thick metal reinforcements ran across the heavy wooden doors. The structure looked sturdy enough to withstand a powerful assault.

Myles tilted his head upward as he examined it. Then he glanced at the others.

"I think we need to destroy this door by attacking it with everything we got."

No one argued. They all stepped forward immediately.

Then the bombardment began.

Weapons slammed against the gate again and again. Blades carved deep cuts into the thick iron while heavy blows cracked the reinforced structure.

Kade’s burning fists exploded against the surface. George’s hammer shook the entire gate with every impact.

The massive doors trembled under the relentless assault.

CRACK!

Large fractures spread across the structure. One final series of strikes slammed into the weakened gate.

BOOM!

The heavy doors finally shattered and collapsed inward, creating a big hole with a thunderous crash. Dust and broken fragments scattered across the ground as the entrance to the city opened before them.

Without hesitation, Myles stepped forward and the others followed behind him as they entered the city.

Their weapons remained ready. Their eyes scanned the surroundings carefully. They were prepared for another fight.

But the city was completely silent.

No soldiers waited in the streets. No civilians ran through the alleys. No enemies appeared from the buildings.

The entire place stood empty.

Rows of buildings lined the streets. Stone structures stretched across the silent city.

Yet there was no movement anywhere.

Then suddenly a notification appeared in front of them.

[Objective Complete]

[You have successfully entered the city.]

For a brief moment nothing else happened. Then the world began to glitch. The buildings flickered.

Walls shimmered like unstable reflections. Streets distorted as if reality was breaking apart. The entire city started dissolving.

Stone structures fragmented into countless pieces of fading light. The walls crumbled into transparent shards before vanishing into the air.

The illusion shattered.

When the distortion finally settled, the city was gone.

In its place stood nothing but ancient ruins.

Broken walls and crumbling stone structures filled the area. The ground was covered with debris that looked as if it had been abandoned for centuries.

It was as if the magnificent city they had just entered had never existed at all. Only ruins remained.

Dust drifted slowly through the silent air. The echoes of the collapsing scene had already faded, leaving behind only the quiet ruin that stretched in every direction.

They could see now broken walls stood like the bones of a dead civilization. Crumbling towers leaned. Ancient stone blocks lay scattered across the ground.

Myles slowly turned his head and looked around the desolate landscape. His brows slowly furrowed.

Then he looked up.

"Lilian," he called.

The dark-winged woman still hovered above the group. Her black wings moved slowly as she floated in the air, watching the silent ruins beneath her.

She descended without hesitation. The powerful wings folded neatly behind her back as her feet touched the ground beside Myles.

Myles gestured around them and asked, "Is this the real condition of the city now?"

Lilian glanced around the ancient ruins with little interest. Broken pillars and shattered walls surrounded them. The place looked abandoned for countless years.

She shrugged slightly.

"It might be," she said calmly. "This civilization is probably already lost a long time ago. The trial may have recreated the city just for the sake of the challenge. You fought soldiers, mages, and defended structures that likely existed in the past."

She paused for a moment before adding with an indifferent tone, "I don’t know. I’m not very interested in this kind of thing."

Her wings shifted slightly as she finished speaking.

Meanwhile the others had begun walking through the ruins, looking around carefully.

Victor kicked aside a piece of broken stone while scanning the area.

"Hey... look at this," he said.

George stepped closer. His massive hammer rested on his shoulder as he studied one of the broken walls.

"Yeah... this structure..."

Clara walked toward a nearby ruin and ran her fingers across the rough surface of the ancient stone. The design carved into the wall looked strangely familiar.

"This looks exactly like the buildings from the city," she said quietly.

Daniel crouched near a collapsed archway and examined the stonework more closely.

"These ruins have the same layout and same architecture," he muttered.

Ethan slowly looked down the ruined street ahead of them. The path followed the exact direction the city street had taken earlier.

Samantha crossed her arms.

"So I think the city really was already destroyed a long time ago," she said. "And the trial just recreated it."

Kade scratched the back of his head while looking around. "So we just... fought through a fake city?"

Victor snorted.

"Not just fake." He pointed his cleaver toward the ruins. "It’s more like we just replayed its destruction."

The words hung in the air for a moment.

George let out a low whistle.

"So basically..." he said slowly, "the city already died long ago."

Clara looked around the silent ruins again.

"We were just acting inside that moment," she said.

"A recreation," Daniel concluded. "The trial showed us the city’s condition when it stood before."

Ethan glanced at the collapsed stones around them. He said, "And we were the force that destroyed it."

"So in this story we’re acting as the villains who destroyed the city," Victor said.

The quiet ruins stretched endlessly around them as the meaning of the trial slowly settled in their minds.

"Let’s check this city," Myles said. And they all scattered.

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