The mass evacuation didn’t go as simply as Philip ordered. Many of those people started protesting and the people from the other four cities that came here also started doing the same.
Philip only had one thing to do for that.
He made the city lord give an announcement.
“By tomorrow afternoon, this whole city is going to be destroyed and everyone in this city, that includes me, will turn into corpses.
If you do not get out of here by then, things will not be good for you. You will be responsible for your own deaths.”
The whole city was stunned by that statement. Some of them immediately left. To Philip’s surprise, more than half of them didn’t choose the space gates. They just left the city and picked a route to the Northwest or Southwest.
Those are the directions that have cities big enough to accommodate them and they don’t belong to Mari Clan either.
Philip didn’t care much, all he wanted was for them to leave and they are leaving. By night, the city is almost empty.
Now, he is just waiting for some high-level people from the Mari clan to come.
“You are in for deep trouble. Do you know that?”
All of a sudden, the city lord spoke up. After he was forcefully made to sign a contract, this is the first time he spoke out of his turn.
“What? Is it the usual threat? The Mari clan is going to kill all of us?”
“Not just that. I don’t know who you are, but judging from the fact, that your pictures came to us all over the place means, you are someone that is really hated by Sivan.
Currently, Sivan has an extremely high position within the clan. His authority is almost as same as a Grand elder.
He is currently a leader in the war against the Gaja clan.
Generally, he shouldn’t have time to deal with guys like you. But he took some time out just to capture you guys.
That means, he either really hates you or you are a variable in the war.
Either way, the clan would try its best to eliminate you. If my guess is right, then the superior you sent a message to might have actually gone to his superior and informed the whole matter to Sivan and other Grand elders.
They will not just send a few more middle-stage Astral Plane Consummate cultivators. A Grand elder will be visiting.
Even if it is a bit late, you are going to die and the chances of that happening only increase with every second you stay here.”
“Thanks for the wisdom.”
Philip said casually as he sat down to think of the next steps of the plan.
He started thinking about what they originally planned to do and what the city lord said. He knew that he miscalculated things.
He thought the superior would be the first one to make the move and he will be okay with the current set of plans. But now, he understood how wrong he is.
After some thinking, he immediately went to meet Watt and Jack.
He expressed the things the city lord said and they are also in a bit of a pickle.
“What if he is just bullshitting?”
“He might be, but there is a possibility that he is not. If a grand elder really comes, I am pretty sure, that we wouldn’t be able to stop them with the four carriers that we have. At least not in their current state.”
“So, you want to set up the carrier formation?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? Once that comes out, we will lose our first surprise attack on the clan’s headquarters. Then we can directly use the towers there. It is not big deal.”
“Alright then, let’s just go with it. We don’t need to worry about things too much then. Are we pumping vitality then?”
“Let’s check. We can take the combined energy if there is any in the land.”
As soon as they decided on that, they went to order the carrier operators. The carriers that were floating since morning landed for the first time.
They landed on four different spots in different directions of the city.
A bunch of puppets that are structured like wild cats came out of the carriers as they moved around. They started jumping and hopping around as they sniffed in different places.
Along with that, a vent opened on the bottom surface of the carriers. Flexible pipes came out of it and drilled themselves into the ground.
While that is happening on top of the carrier a bunch of new protrusions appeared as they acted as nodes and created massive formations around the city.
Philip is holding a crystal tablet as he observed the movements of the puppets and the movements of the carrier.
After some time, he finally marketed some locations and sent the message to the operators of the carriers.
They acted immediately and the pipes that drilled themselves into the ground started operating. Doing their task.
“So, what do we have in the land?”
“There are some faint deposits of various elemental energies here and there. They are going to be useful, for the rest, we are going to use a vitality pump.”
“Are you okay with using it?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You are the one that was hesitant to make it. I was honestly surprised when you said you wanted to attach them to carriers and towers that we made. I didn’t expect that from you.”
“Why do you think I evacuated every one else from the city? I know things might go wrong and we might need to use it. Since we already made it, there is no point in holding it back.”
“That is true.”
As they are speaking, the carriers already started sucking the energy out of the surroundings.
At this moment, one of the carrier operators contacted Philip and said.
“Sir, there is an unexplored mine vein to the south a bit.”
“Unexplored? This close to the city?”
“Yes, sir. But it is way too deep and from the scanning records, the mine appears to be spread vertically instead of horizontally.
It is going to be a tough thing to me.
The Mari clan seemed to have understood this and built a small cultivation chamber there. They are using the energy of the vein for breakthrough assistance and stuff.”
“Okay then, just send a puppet there and suck its energy as much as you guys can.”
“Yes, sir.”
After those orders, a humanoid puppet came out of one of the carriers. It went straight for the spot where the vein reading was noted.
After reaching the spot, it turned its body into some kind of pile driver and slammed itself into the ground.
A visible stream of energy started flowing into it.
On the back of the pile driver, a transparent crystal bottle could be seen and it is rapidly being filled with liquid energy after it was full, it disappeared and got replaced by another empty bottle.
“Now, all we have to do is wait.”
Philip muttered as he heard the reports.
While Philip is waiting for the people to come at them, in the Mari clan’s headquarters, Sivan is almost breathing fire.
“I want to capture those bastards. They will have a massive stash of resources and equipment. Some might even be on par with what I made in the past few months.
We need them alive to acquire them.”
“No, we don’t need them alive for that. As long as they are dead and we got their memories, we can find their location and take them.”
One of the grand elders disputed.
“Like hell, you can. Do you even know how the dusk organization operates?”
“How else? Like any other organization.”
“No, it doesn’t. The moment these three are dead, no one other than Sam himself would be able to take that equipment from the organization.
They would rather die in self-destruction than hand them over to an enemy.”
“Hmph, like hell they would do that. Who doesn’t feel their life is important. I don’t believe someone would sacrifice their life just to save some equipment from enemies’ hands.
Particularly, after their bosses died.”
“Not everyone is a sick bastard that is born in a high-end clan. Not everyone is a piece of garbage that does anything for their benefit. There are some organizations that still operate on trust and loyalty and dusk is one of them.
The organization is built on maximizing everyone’s potential. The methods gave the people a gift. A fucking gift of realizing and manifesting themselves to what they could really be. I am sure, you will sacrifice the rest of your life span for a chance like that.
There are thousands of people who got a chance like that in that organization. They will all kill for Sam and they will die for him.
Even if you manage to find a few sick bastards just like you, there will be one crazy loyal person who will die trying to kill him and you along with destroying the equipment that you so desperately want.”
