Thump. Thump. Thump. Liam felt his heart race as he inhaled a breath of the city air, except that it was now no longer the familiar stale, polluted air but instead a whole new type of air, the kind mixed with mana.
Mana levels had finally reached the same concentration as the ones in the tutorial, perhaps even higher.
However, the most noticeable change was still the dark violet vortex that appeared out of nowhere. From within it, all sorts of beasts started pouring out without any warning.
"First things first." Liam wanted to do something else at the moment, but he couldn't focus on that just yet. He had to pay attention to the current situation. His eyes locked onto the beasts emerging from the portal.
These beasts were, in fact, nothing to him. After all, this was just the first wave, and he was not the weak, helpless person he was in his previous life, but the same couldn't be said for others.
Behind him, there were about 50 men and women of all different ages. Among them, there were even five small children.
And unlike him, they were all standing at level 0. They needed some help to avoid mishaps. Moreover, the sooner everyone gained a level, the better it was.
When a person reached Level 1, the chances of them turning into a mana zombie became considerably lesser. With every level gained, this probability became lower and lower, and it helped the human body get assimilated to mana a lot easier.
However, once the mana rejection starts, it would be way too difficult to treat it. So Liam did not think about anything else and focussed only on the situation in front of him.
Just like how his family was precious to him, everyone who had come here trusting him had their own families, and they were all precious. This time around, he did not want a single casualty.
Liam coldly gazed at the beasts pouring out by dozens and gave out swift orders.
"Everyone with combat experience, step forward. Others step back. Everyone who can sense mana and is capable of executing a skill, take another step forward."
While the group prepared themselves to follow these orders, Liam went ahead with the next plan of action. With a wave of his hand, he summoned his army of soul minions.
One after the other, the various soul minions also started appearing. Weird-looking chickens and rabbits, werewolves, human beings, elves, barbarians and lastly, even the wyverns.
Every single soul minion that was there inside the game was now standing outside in the real world! These minions were far scarier than even the ones charging out of the portal.
Immediately everyone became shocked. "What the heck!" Someone gasped loudly. Others stared at the soul minions in terror as the presence of these outside the game was more shocking to them when compared to the apocalypse itself.
By now, most of the team had taken a look at their status screen and saw their level once again reset back to zero. It was a brutal nerf.
However… their guild leader… was somehow an exception? How was he able to bring out these soul minions? No one understood what was happening.
But the initial shock soon turned to joy as they thanked their lucky stars for making the right decision and joining Crimson Abyss right from the beginning.
And Liam also was by no means stingy with them. Once the soul minions assembled, he gave out the next order.
"Everyone play man to man with the soul minions. They will mortally injure the beasts for you, but you will be dealing the final blow. Let's get some fast levelling up and running."
"Those who have family, help your family members also deal with this and gain at least 5 levels. This is very important."
"Everyone, whether you have combat ability or not, whether you are afraid or not, whether you want to fight or not, has to do this and gain at least 5 levels!"
"This will be our territory from now on. We will claim this gate and use all the beasts coming out of this gate for our levelling. GO! NOW! Don't forget. Just like inside the game, this is also a race! Ready, get set, go!"
With Liam shouting orders one after the other calmly and steadily, and the soul minions taking out whatever came in their path, the initial chaos was quickly brought under control.
Every single beast that stepped out of the gate was also swiftly taken care of. As if athletes waiting for the balls from the automatic ball dispenser, the group of people now eagerly waited for the next beast to step out.
The beasts charging ahead were also not some weaklings. Though most of the beasts were around Level 5, there was plenty that was Level 10 to 20. To people who were just starting from Level 0, this was nothing but a death sentence.
In his last life, there had been several casualties before some sort of order finally began to form. However, this time around. There wasn't even a single casualty until now. With Liam present, everything had completely changed.
The soul minions treated this endless beast wave like a snack as they crushed each and every beast without much effort. And the others used this chance to level up fast and make themselves strong.
At the same time, with each level gained, everyone was slowly and steadily getting used to mana in the real world as well. Coincidentally after a few minutes, they didn't even find any difference between the game world and the real world.
They finally understood what Liam had been telling them about. Without any clear-cut skills to activate and no skill books dropping, they kind of had to rely on their muscle memory. But this was easier said than done.
It was difficult to understand the nuances of their class innately and cast the magic. For something like this, they needed to be well-versed in their class from A to Z.
However, just as many people were thinking about this, Alex stepped forward to the front of the group with a big leap.
A strong divine aura seeped out of her, and mana surrounded her slender figure from top to bottom, making her look extremely beautiful, like a goddess.
But the next second, this goddess directly punched a Level 20 spiked wolf that charged at her, smashing the poor beast into a pulp. The wolf lost all of its threateningly huge canines and groaned in pain before collapsing to its death.
Everyone who watched her gulped nervously. And Alex was not the only one. Right behind Alex, Shen Yue and Rey were also excelling equally.
But the most notable person was still Judah, one of the mages. It was relatively easier for the pure close-combat types to transfer their skills, but for a mage, it required a deeper understanding.
And Judah managed to achieve this feat. He was casting ice spears and ice bullets one after the other and taking out the beasts easily. This first line of fighters was awe-inspiring to others as they stood as an example for everyone to see.
This was the difference between normal players and true experts. Everyone else as well wanted to achieve this feat and slowly started pushing themselves.
The initial fear and panic by now were completely gone. There was a structure, and everyone had clear goals. The situation quickly became extremely stable.
Meanwhile, the civilians stared outside from the safety of their respective houses and gawked at this scene with their jaws on the ground. They felt as if they had gone completely crazy because they couldn't believe their eyes.
What they did not know was that they were able to observe everything peacefully and calmly only because of Liam. This scene might be playing out in their city, but the situation everywhere else was completely different.
Several purple vortexes had appeared all over the world, and beasts poured out endlessly from each and every single one of these vortexes. In just the first few minutes, casualties skyrocketed.
And things were only starting. There was worse yet to come.
Liam, on the other hand, calmly watched the group quickly learn to handle the beasts by themselves. Since everything was stabilised, for now, he finally had a chance to take a step back.
For others, today was about levelling, but for him, these beasts were pretty much useless.
He had something far more important to do. He needed to examine what exactly happened in the last 5 minutes of the game shut down as everything was a blur in his mind.
It would be accurate to say that he was in some sort of trance and did everything instinctively without thinking it through. Now finally, he had the chance to take a look at things carefully.
More importantly, it was also time to get the answer to something he had been dreading since the game shut down. Luna… what happened to her?
