Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 144: Ch142. [World Quest] (2) - Rumbling

Chapter 144: Ch142. [World Quest] (2) - Rumbling

The first few weeks were hectic. Chaotic, even, with players showing up day and night at the Union Guild’s doorstep, either to join Sarissa’s ranks or to tell the administrative branch that they had created their own guilds and to leave their information with the Union’s administrative staff.

Little by little, even though it was too fast for Sarissa to follow, the Union Guild became the centerpiece around which the other, smaller guilds revolved.

After a month, most of the players in the city were already affiliated with a guild, with very few choosing to remain independent.

Even though independence came with a cost, which Sarissa could not care about, because her hands were already full with everything that was happening both in the surface, and in the Black Market.

But she only came to know the turmoil underneath when the first attack came.

They thought it was just another incursion. Another wave of monsters, which had increased in the last few days. They were even prepared.

The defending guilds had protocols in place, zones mapped, and evacuation paths memorized.

But then the sky changed.

No warning, no sirens, just the sheer absence of light.

No system messages telling them about a quest or anything of the sort. The world simply seemed to go still as night fell.

The Safe Zones failed first.

One by one, throughout the city, the signs blinked out, like the world had forgotten how to protect its people.

Places that had once repelled monsters with invisible barriers stood defenseless, and when the monsters came, they crumbled.

And with them, the illusion of control.

Communications lit up like wildfire.

Fragmented voices bled into each other through the open channels of their voice message channels. Panic, orders, and confused reports shouted over one another.

"Zone Three’s Safe Marker is down. Repeat, it’s down! We’re pulling back, they’re pouring in from the breach near Westbridge-"

"-signal’s gone dark here too- Tower Guild reporting three casualties-"

"-is it a Glitch crash? A patch? What the hell is this?!"

"-someone get me Sarissa, now-"

The Union Guild’s main communications hub, hurriedly established after the first five guilds were formed, was buried in a reinforced chamber beneath the Union’s headquarters, struggling to filter through the chaos.

Operators worked in shifts, hands flying across boards as the cacophony of panic flooded in from across the city.

In the span of minutes, order dissolved.

Sarissa was already moving. She had been in a meeting with one of the logistics officers about supply routes to the southern city watch when the alerts began to flash. Now, she stood at the edge of the central plaza, what had once been a calm, open square where guilds posted recruitment offers and held meetings...

Now it was a war room out in the open.

Other guild leaders were arriving too, some armored and bloodied from skirmishes, others in civilian gear, caught off guard but no less grim. From the east came Halden of the Iron Roar Guild, his axe slung across his back, flanked by two lieutenants.

To her right, she caught sight of Wei-Ling, the mute strategist behind the Dawnshade Syndicate, already issuing hand signals to her scouts scattered across rooftops.

A moment later, a lean man in white, Doctor Vyle, from the support-focused guild Ethercore, slid in beside them, his coat stained with ash and soot.

The tension was thick. No one needed to speak to understand what was happening.

"We’ve lost Safe Zones in six out of twelve districts." Halden growled. "They’re not flickering. They blinked once and then were just... gone."

"No pattern either." Wei-Ling added in sign-language, which was translated by the system itself into verbal words. "We thought it was a surge, but it’s not. It’s systemic. It’s like something is turning them off."

Sarissa stared up at the sky. It had not shifted back. The night still hung over the city like a suffocating dome. No stars. No moon. Nothing to light their path towards victory.

And then, the earth shook.

It started as a low thrum, like distant thunder. People stilled. A single shudder rolled through the plaza, causing lanterns to sway and banners to ripple as if in warning.

A moment later, a sound followed. Deep, wrong. Not quite a roar, not quite a scream.

From the northern thoroughfare, something huge moved.

The first wave came as shadows.

Crawling over walls, peeling from alleyways, tearing through the husks of what should have been Safe Zones like a tide of black and bone.

The monsters were different this time. Not just corrupted beasts or glitch-spawned aberrations. These ones were organized. Hungry, their eyes glowing in a sickly tone of red.

Sarissa drew her weapon without a word.

Beside her, the other guild leaders did the same, drawing sheathed weapons, and summoning gear that had been dormant in their inventory just a second before.

"Formation Echo. Hold the line."

And then the square burned.

The first clash was brutal—but clean.

As the monsters charged into the plaza, the combined might of the guild leaders and some of its members surged to meet them. Iron Roar’s vanguard broke the front lines with a thunderous charge, their heavy armor and war cries rippling through the air like a shockwave.

Halden spun his axe in a wide arc, cleaving through a beast’s spine with ease, the creature’s body folding in on itself like paper.

"Push forward! Don’t let them gain ground!" Sarissa shouted, her voice amplified through the communications channel. Her blade danced in her hands, cutting arcs of silver through the tide, and the blood-red flames on her soles propelled her like a firebolt forward.

She fought like someone born for the battlefield, each strike surgical, each step measured.

Ethercore’s medics moved like ghosts behind the fighters, catching the wounded before they fell and dragging them back to quickly-assembled healing circles. Dawnshade archers rained enchanted bolts from rooftops, their aim unerring, their cover suppressing anything that broke through.

It was working.

Within minutes, the plaza was littered with twitching husks. Black ichor pooled in cracks of stone, steaming and bubbling as it met reality. The guilds held firm, even confident. For the first time in what felt like hours, people were catching their breath.

"Is that it?" someone asked over the comms.

"No. There’s no way it’s this easy." Sarissa’s gaze swept the horizon.

Immediately after, as if only to confirm her words, another wave appeared before them, but this time...

"W-what are these?" Halden asked, his voice cracking with pure shock and disbelief.

The monsters’ eyes were hollow and dark, some only skin and bones, others heavily wounded but still charging forward like their wounds meant nothing.

Sarissa’s jaw fell open.

"Undead..."