Chapter 252: For A Long Trip

But that was not what caught Kalli’s eye.

No, further to the southeast, along the alternate route she had investigated in case they had to go by land, something was changing.

The City of Deriran, perpetually shrouded in clouds since the trials began, was now showing signs of life. Not because the clouds had faded, but because the undead that the people of Hamin had reported were moving away from the city, spreading in every direction.

The restrictions on the monsters had been lifted, and the siege of Deriran had begun to dissipate.

Not because they had won, the satellites were still showing energy fluctuations consistent with human habitation. But because they were no longer contained by the System, and the mindless horde had no reason to continue to stay in one place.

Unfortunately, they were far from the only monsters in the region, as the coastline had been littered with populated areas. So, while most of them were already gone, there had originally been survivors holding out, and monsters spawned by the trials.

And the undead were headed straight for them.

Kalli didn’t know what was going to happen when the two groups met, but adding undead Ogres and Goblins to the horde did not sound like a fun time to her.

The horde was still over eight hundred kilometres from them, a distant threat, but a newly emerged one that was worth watching.

She might have never seen an undead horde before, but Kalli had certainly watched enough horror movies to remember that eventually the zombie plague always takes over the majority of the world. She couldn’t think of a single movie from her past life where the zombie infection was actually eliminated. At best, it was just delayed for a while before a resurgence in the sequel.

Realistically, she knew that she didn’t have to worry about the undead horde for quite a while.

They simply didn’t move fast enough to be a short-term threat.

Holding the speeders at a steady 80 percent output fast cruise speed, where the mana consumption was manageable for just the pilots, was keeping the convoy’s progress at just over two hundred kilometres an hour, and they had reached the shore.

That was where they expected the most danger, as there were things in the ocean that dwarfed anything on land.

The next hour was a tense one, looking down into the windswept ocean, trying to spot any signs of massive shadows that might attack them from the depths. But they managed to reach shore without incident, and the group let out a collective sigh of relief at the fact that the ocean dwellers didn’t bother themselves with flying vehicles.

The shoreline of the Tehaquian Desert was littered with roaming monsters, far more than they had expected to see from the satellite feeds.

Of course, in the satellite feeds, it was challenging to pick out some of the camouflaged monsters, and others formed villages that made it unclear how many were actually still there. But seeing the numbers as they flew overhead, doing their best to avoid getting too close to villages and concentrated monster areas, it was clear that going overland on the way back would not be an easy option.

If this was where the convoy was headed, they had to be desperate.

Of course, they were already over halfway to Marimgar from where they had started, on a nearly straight course. So, it might have been that they heard transmissions from the city, or they had access to the satellite feeds and saw the city expanding, and not falling, over the past few weeks.

That alone might have convinced some of the more desperate to move on.

Yara’s question was: Where were they?

So much of the world had been destroyed and left in rubble that they had barely managed to confirm any human settlements. But a whole convoy just from her family, or using her family’s gear, was on the way across the continent from west to east.

"We’ve got Gargoyles," The lead pilot in the formation announced a few seconds later.

He was in the vanguard of the wedge formation with a Heavy Assault Speeder. A spot where the heavy plasma cannons could take advantage of his Class Skills to deal as much damage as possible.

"I see them. Let’s see if they close or avoid us when we get to five hundred metres," Sanchez replied, keeping track of threats around them from the copilot seat of the utility speeder.

That would give them more than enough time to wipe out the flight of grey skinned flying monsters, and not enough time for reinforcements from any reasonable distance to catch up to the convoy.

They had seen these things before, bat winged flying monsters, but neither of them was sure when the name "Gargoyles" had stuck to them.

It just seemed right.

Sure enough, the creatures saw the speeders as an invasive threat, and swarmed to defend their territory.

Pulse Cannons tore into dark grey bodies, and the gargoyles fell, while the speeders did not slow at all, or change their course. Sanchez couldn’t say if that was enough to deter the attackers, or if there simply weren’t any more close to them, but they hadn’t even needed to use the Plasma Cannons to blast their way through.

Speed was their friend today, with the Ark’s escape shuttle flying overhead.

It could fly much faster than they could, but the risk of having it ambushed was too high if they couldn’t defend it from the outside. So, they were taking this route for now, and if things got worse, Sanchez was willing to change to simply flying over everything at high altitude, and jettisoning the speeders to defend the larger vessel in case of attack.

It might not be elegant or safe, but it would likely work.

Fortunately, they weren’t seeing many flying creatures of any sort on their radar, and every hour that passed brought them closer to their goal.

Hopefully, those really were Yara’s people, or they were going to run right into a very awkward conversation.