The city of God

'Is there no way to get in there?' Aiden did not want to believe that there was no place from which he could enter the city.

He even tried to force his way through the repulsion force one time, but it didn't help. At most, he could reach 5 meters from those trees before the blood came out of his nose.

[Zone] and [Blink] did not help either. It felt as if he had been slammed into an invisible barrier and had caused more damage to himself. 'Can this be the reason why the beast could not enter the place?'

'It's not like this is going to do a lot of damage to me if I can't get into the city right now. Let me just look for a little more.' Aiden sighed as he kept walking.

He had no idea how many kilometres he had travelled, but he could not find an opening. He was about to give up, then...

'It feels like I've broken the surface of the water. There's a lot less pressure here.' Aiden didn't dare to waste any more time, 'ESS, Mana concentration?'

[The mana concentration is 12% higher than normal.]

'So it's all about the mana? How can mana have such a powerful rejection effect? There ought to be something inside the city.'

Aiden somewhat understood the reason for the confidentiality of the mission. 'The secret has to be very valuable.' He was tempted.

He didn't dare to wait any longer and ran inside. There was resistance, but it wasn't strong enough to make it bleed again.

'Oh! It feels like the concentration of mana had returned to normal.' Aiden could feel that there was no pressure at all. 'ESS, what is the concentration of mana?'

But a chill ran down his spine before the system could respond. It was like thousands of beasts were waiting in the shadows to pounce on him.

He turned around, and there was only one. A small beast, no higher than 1 meter, clad in darkness, was walking out of the city. In the darkness, the red ruby eye flashed, and it vanished.

He ran to it by instinct, but he couldn't find it. There were paw marks on the ground. Three claws left a deep impression on the ground. 'But how could it vanish in a flash? Could it be the same thing as the devil?'

No matter how much he looked around, he could not find it. 'Can it be that this place was being used to sneak in?' He could not even see the red outline, no matter how much he gazed in the darkness.

'Was it too fast for the ESS to detect the beast?' Aiden wasn't sure, nor did he have the time. He had to raise his blade over his head to stop the weapon that had come down on his head.

The strength was too much for him to handle, and the blade almost escaped his hand even before he could see the attacker. Aiden circulated mana through his legs to make some distance, but the assailant was hot on his tails.

'He's fast. His attack is heavy. and he's a human being.' But Aiden didn't have much chance of thinking, he had to move his body to escape the incoming attacks.

Instead of taking the attack head-on, Aiden slanted his blade a little to divert the force that caused the assailant to stumble before Aiden punched his stomach. To his surprise, however, the man acted as if he had not felt any pain at all, and the attacks continued to come.

"Die, you beast. Do you dare to trespass on our holy land? I'm going to kill you." The man cried in a strange voice.

'Do I look like a beast.' As the blade was an inch away from his neck, Aiden vanished from the man's vision and appeared on his back.

"I am a human being. Stop fighting." Aiden took the gamble. Aiden's blade pulled a thin layer of blood out of his neck as he shouted. On the next moment, the man stopped like a broken machine with his hand still raised in the air.

Aiden took a look at his face for the first time, and he was amazed. 'There was no pupil in his eyes!' But it appeared the next moment.

'What was that? 'Aiden wasn't sure though, 'was I hallucinating? Or was it because of the mana?' Aiden did not dare to take his eyes off the man in front of him.

"Human?" The man tilted his head as if he had not understood the meaning of the words. "Are you from another planet?"

Aiden's heart had skipped a bit. 'How could he have known? Perhaps... that blade in his hand looks a little like ours.' But he did not dare to relax. Aiden tightened his grip on the blade in his hand as he was ready for the attack. He said, "UG93,"

The man looked at him with confused eyes, not knowing how to respond.

'Could it be that I have mistaken? He might find the blade from the dead body of an operative.' Aiden sighed in his heart.

"UG71" His words shocked Aiden very much, but he was happy.

"The first officer, UG93"

"Captain, UG71"

Aiden's smile was greeted with another, "You are an operative?" The man nodded.

"When did you come to earth? Why didn't you return? Are…" There were many questions Aiden wanted to ask, but the man only smiled at him.

"You will soon know about it." The man said with a smile, "I am Enric."

Still, Aiden didn't dare to relax, "Is this place safe? Beasts were fighting, won't they be able to breach the city?"

"As long as we have our God with us, you don't have to worry about anything," Enric said with a smile on his face.

His attitude was a little confusing to Aiden, but he followed Enric. The more he moved forward in the city, the more astonished he was. A lot of people were living here or doing the things they were supposed to do.

The houses were not intact, though. There have been signs of times all over them. Some of the houses had trees growing out of them. Yet the people were still living inside.

The more they moved inside the city, the more chaotic it had become. Whether it's an old man, a woman or a child, they've been dragging dead beasts along the road.

Some even stopped by the side of the road to butcher the dead and deformed beasts that Aiden could not even recognize.

"The battle isn't over yet?" Aiden couldn't help but ask.

Enric shook his head, "The quota isn't completed yet."

"The quota? The quota of what?"

"Food." Enric precise answer surprised him more

"Do you eat the flesh of a mutated beast?" Aiden frowned, but he felt it made sense when he thought about it. 'Other than eating the meat of the beast, there would be no way they could survive deep within the forest.'

"There is no way that anything could happen to us with the protection of the god. Everything within the city is under the protection of God." Enric spoke like a perfect devotee.

'Oh, God? 'Aiden knitted his brow, looking at the expression of Enric's yield no result. 'Can it be some kind of Mana King who has bestowed a totem on him?'

Aiden was keen to observe all that was going on around him. A child not even ten years old used a knife with such precision that even Aiden was put in shame.

He drained the blood of the beast in the vessel before peeling the skin of its body. He cut the stomach open and took the organ from the inside out. Then...

'There's something wrong with the atmosphere here. Although people were fighting the beast outside, the people here didn't show any tension.' No matter how much Aiden tried, he couldn't explain this kind of behaviour, 'It's like they're under some sort of spell.'

"Come with me, the high god wanted to see you?" Enric's words broke his trance.

"High God? Is it different from normal God?" To his question, Enric just nodded and led the way.

'What is this God?' Aiden was curious to know that. There were a lot of questions in his mind, but all he could do for the time being was follow Enric.

The more he walked through the city, the more crowded he got. There were more dead beasts around the centre, but more wounded humans were here too.

All the injured one were laid around a tree. A tree with a long trunk with an umbrella-shaped crown on the top. 'Long' is the right term, it was huge. Although it wasn't the size of the tree that Adi had shown him, it was still huge.

'Umbrella-shaped cecropia? But is that Chaos Ore?' The root of the giant tree was wrapped around a big chunk of giant chaos crystal. 'Isn't that a chaos ore?'

Aiden waited for an answer from the system but it was Enric who had answered him.

"That is our high god. The god that protected us all. You should bow to him." As he said those words, Enric went on his knees while his forehead was touching the dirt.

'That is a tree. How the hell could that thing be a god?' Aiden was not sure that there was anybody who could answer his question.

He looked up at the top of the tree, and a pair of eyes shone at him. Slowly, he kneeled and followed Enric's movement. 'What was it? 'It was the question that he wanted to ask, but...

'Why?' Aiden yelled in his heart. No matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't control his body. His struggles were all in vain. It was like he was in a human suit that he couldn't control.

'What the hell are they doing here? Is that part of their plan, too? 'As he kneeled, he could see that Lyla and the other were also present, touching their head on the ground.

Even if he struggled, his body movement was smooth. No one was able to see his inner resistance.

As his head closed, he could see something coming out of the ground. The thing that wiggled out of the ground looked like a tree root. As soon as his forehead touched the roots, his mind had gone blank.