Chapter 1019 Nothing's Ever The Right Choice
'Did I really make the right choice?' Jin thought to himself as he observed more and more monsters entering the portal after one of them struck down Forneus, who then got revived right in front of them. As happy as he was about the increase of his own flying monster horde, the sight of the Southern Capital in shambles weighed heavily on his mind.
Although they might have evacuated most if not all of the civilians, there had been many innocents within the city, no matter how badly he tried to convince himself that they all deserved this punishment for their savage way.
And yet, this also taught Jin that with just one word he could kill as easily as he could protect. The dungeon supplier had once thought that he could protect everyone given the sheer limitless capabilities of his System, but in the end he had to acknowledge that their powers were finite. No matter how hard he tried, death and destruction would follow his trails.
However, he knew one thing.
He would do whatever he needed to do to protect his new family (of monsters). As long as they worked hard for him, Jin would do what he could to allow them to live life to the fullest. While the System had tried to make him embrace this dog-eat-dog world mentality rather early in their budding relationship, which had led to a deep feud between the two parties, he now felt like he could slightly understand the System's action, as it had done what it deemed necessary to ensure the survival of the declining Panda Clan for the next generation.
This System that he possessed had blood on it since the time of its inception. Therefore, all Jin could do was to minimise the bloodshed while climbing to the top. And if he analysed it logically, he had technically saved the Southern Region from a protracted war by annihilating the humans quickly. The death toll would have undoubtedly been way higher on both sides and the fight between the monsters and humans would still go on, even if he had sided and saved the humans. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter was that the greed of humans was neverending unlike monsters who mostly just rampaged when they did not have enough food or someone threatened their territory.
"Snap out of it, Jin. You did make the right choice. These monsters will serve you with more loyalty than these Southerners ever could." Jin told himself and slapped both of his cheeks to wake himself up. At that moment, he asked Forneus if he could do a fly by to the capital.
"Why? Searching for survivors? You've seen it yourself. Even if she held back unless it was someone like King Baal, nobody else could survive such an explosion." Forneus wondered, but he merely shrugged his shoulders and told Carbon, his Metal Devil Dragon, to move forth.
"No, I going to ask the System to take some pictures and make an analysis of this burnt area. It will provide a good reference if I ever want to feature a dungeon instance with a ruined capital. And if not, it could become its own area for the Virtual Network. We should be able to make it a big event and at the end of it the former capital would turn out like this. What do you think?"
"Wow, Boss. You can be pretty sick in your brain at times, don't you know that?" Forneus shook his head in disbelief. He never really looked back on any battlefields after he was done with them. This was the first time he heard someone wanting to revisit the war scene just because of some reference.
"The deed is already done, might as well make the most of it..." Jin shrugged his shoulders as he requested the System to analyse the area while he made Peppers prepare to do a Deep Scan of the area. His Mage Bellator agreed rather readily since she was also interested in looking at the ruins. However, her interest was more regarding finding ways to improve the quality of her explosions. Checking out the epicentre was not enough in her opinion.
Although she usually had the System to tell her how well she had done in the training room she had bought with her System points, there were discrepancies in this particular spell she had used. Not only would the current environment affected the explosion quality, Peppers had also borrowed lightning based mana via Keyrin and Ayse before mixing it with her own magical powers.
"Heh…if we someday visit a world filled with magical combat idiots like her, she would most likely become the queen of those combat idiots in a heartbeat," Forneus remarked and although Peppers did not turn around, only staring at the far end of the ruined capital.
"There are people with far more dangerous magic than me. Not just in my own world, but also the Gods and Demons that Jin has yet to encounter. Have you seen the images from the System, how arrogantly the Godly Representative held himself? With a flick of his wrist, he had conjured barriers that denied chi, mana and every other thing from the outside coming through." The Mage Bellator commented.
"To the naked eye, not everyone could notice it but the more astute in magic or chi will recognise that no simple fellow could break that barrier apart…well perhaps Zeru could if he gave it his all. Maybe Kraft as well if he really wanted to or Rex." Peppers added and started to mumble more names in her list of exceptions as she started to take notes on the irregularities of the mana in the atmosphere because of her explosion.
"You mean we should not go against them?" Jin asked, now interested in the conversation.
"If you were to put them in your game, they would unquestionably be end game content. And I am not talking about you being able to beat them on your own but those World Bosses where multiple guilds would have to unite to take them on. Still, right now you are not on their radar, yet fate flickers like the candle's light on a windy night. Who knows how things might change for you in the days to come. Maybe you'll have to mingle with them soon enough."l
"It sounds like you've clashed with them before." Forneus asked, continuing to feign ignorance even though he was a Demon from the Demon Plane, venturing out to the Dungeon World because of the prospects of a 'quieter' life.
"Let's just say I got a chance to see them in action first hand, so I can safely say, they are definitely stronger than you, Demon. You would not stand the chance as you are now. Despite the upgrade we've given you, it should be a far cry from your former form as one of the Greater Demon Nobles, Forneus." Peppers answered and her words stung him bad.
"Ouch. So you actually do know about me." Forneus but Jin was lost in the conversation and yet he did not wish to interrupt it.
"Of course, they don't call me the Fiery Demonic Queen Sage for nothing. I've acted as the encyclopaedia of the System for a reason. I even know quite a few things that the System does not know because of the Universal Mana Pool that I'm connected to. You may not know it but the worlds no matter how vastly different they are, are not much more than pieces of paper in a book. Well, one giant book." Peppers explained with pride.
"But didn't you admit that you're still not all-knowing." Jin interrupted and Peppers felt like throwing a fireball at her master.
"Because I could not be bothered to check. If I concentrate really hard, I could get to the bottom of things. And the System wanted me to do that for you initially, but that was just too boring. I only want to explode stuff!"
"Is that why the System gave you to me as a Bellator so quickly?" Jin tried to remember back the days when he first got the bellators.
"Maybe. Anyways, I am picking up a few heat signatures in the ruined capital. Do you wish to save them?" Peppers asked as she started to charge her magical staff as a way to kill them quickly as mercy.
"Your magic was not strong enough to kill every single one of them?" Forneus could not help but tease the Mage Bellator, who just harrumphed and looked away, as if could not give two hoots about his opinion.
"Go ahead. Let the System judge them and if they are worthy to be resurrected, the System would do as such." Jin believed that was the best way for these survivors who were stuck in the rubbles of this ruined capital.