43 Fall Of Tyo

The fifty million players were arrayed in front of the city, waiting for the signal to start the assault.

In front of them, high upon the top of the city wall and manning their heavy chain-gun turrets, barely a hundred thousand Tyotting soldiers stood to defend their city.

Despite the speech they'd heard recently, the morale of the Tyottings was extremely low, and everyone among them was fully aware that they were totally under-equipped for the upcoming assault. Theirs was a pacifistic civilization, not accustomed to waging war on anyone. Nobody among them had ever fired the defensive guns upon a living target before.

The Tyottings knew in their hearts that they would likely die that day. At least they would have a chance to protect their families.

An eerie silence settled in across the city. One could hear the wind blowing between tall buildings as the two armies stared one another down.

But one particular player did not wait for the command to attack.

It was Apophis.

He stepped forward from the ranks of the Eternals, his body covered in black flames. Apophis raised both his hands up to the sky, and a spiral of that same black flame concentrated between his hands until it grew to a whole meter in diameter.

Apophis hurled this huge, dark fireball at the Tyotting fortifications, creating a gigantic explosion that razed most of the bunkers on the south side of the city!

Everyone stared at the result with amazement. "Who was that lunatic?!" people exclaimed. "What kind of power did he just use? Did he set off some kind of hidden bomb that was already inside the city?!"

Apophis wasted no time, but charged the fortifications alone.

Ceasar cursed at this lack of discipline and cohesiveness, but he had no choice except to order his guild forces to follow Apophis's lead.

Seeing thousands of players rushing forward, weapons drawn, everyone else quickly followed suit! They formed a human wave that rose to collapse and swallow the city of Tyo whole.

The defenders were surprised at this embarrassing lack of military strategy. They were still embedded with heavy chain-guns, after all, which they'd installed in all the improvised bunkers at the city's entrance in addition to the ones permanently installed on the city walls—two of which had just been blown to scrap.

The defenders immediately unleashed their heavy chain-guns, raining deadly bullets upon the countless charging players. A sound like a swarm of gigantic mechanical wasps filled the air as hundreds of thousands of rounds blasted the approaching army.

The carnage was indescribable, worse than any battle in the Second World War.

"Waaazaaa!" the Tyottings and players seemed to roar together, their voices distorted and suppressed by the inhuman buzz of bullets slamming into the Eternal ranks. Thousands of players fell every second.

The naivety of their unprotected charge became immediately apparent.

The Eternals were not soldiers, after all. They were ordinary people, teenagers and adults who played this game for fun and money.

Meanwhile, the Tyottings were fighting for their very lives.

Despite the staggering losses in the attackers' ranks, the players eventually reached the first wave of fortifications. The massacre of defending forces was brutal and quick. Many of the defenders were militia members, people not used to combat, while plenty of the attackers had already attained their classes at lvl 5.

The fortifications fell, one after the other. The streets ran red with blood as mutilated corpses filled the streets.

Once this information reached the government, the President made an announcement over the city's loudspeakers. "Dear citizens, our defenses have fallen! The enemy has entered the city! I proclaim the unconditional surrender of Tyo!"

The loudspeakers repeated the surrender message over and over, but hardly a single player cared.

They were here for two reasons: EXP and GC. What did they care about the surrender of computer programs?

So they continued their unimaginable massacre.

Apophis took advantage of the fact that everyone else just wanted to plunder the city. He was there to find the shipyard, after all. He wasted no time in heading to the city hall where he knew the President and the government of the Republic of Tyo could be found.

***

Antanria, who stood at the top of a hill outside the city, looked on in horror at the incomprehensible slaughter perpetrated by the people she only knew as Apophis's civilization.

Tears ran down her face without cease.

Why was such indiscriminate violence being used against these peaceful people? Antanria remembered all the Tyottings she had met during her walks with Apophis and in the hotel. They had been some of the kindest people she had ever met.

The image of the ice cream sellers came into her mind, and she imagined their gentle faces being turned to pulp by Eternal bullets or chopped into pieces by Eternal swords.

Even though she was very young, Antanria had seen men brutally slaughtered in the time before she met Apophis. She'd even experienced…

No. She wouldn't think about that event.

Even still, despite the horror of the memories she tried to ignore and which she could never tell Apophis, this destruction was somehow different. Antanria knew that the Fall of Tyo would haunt her memory for a very long time.

***

Unaware of Antanria's thoughts as she watched the events which followed his initial attack, Apophis finally arrived at the city hall, which was protected by the Republican Guard.

He massacred them without mercy, then penetrated through the city hall to reach Tyo's urban archives.

Ignoring the shouting and flames which raged outside, Apophis quickly located the original city planning maps, seeking anomalies that would allow him to find the Zetark shipyard.

Nothing immediately gave him the answers he sought, but he did find an ancient text which caught his attention. It mentioned that the city's initial construction site had been moved ten kilometers south of its first planned location. Apparently, an anthropological society had protested the people building directly on top of the ruins of ancient settlers, so the founders had moved from that location to where Tyo currently sat.

Well, that was clearly the answer! Apophis stopped for a moment to ponder the uniqueness of this civilization. They'd had such a mind for scholarship, even so early in their existence!

Well, that didn't matter much now. Nor did the city have any remaining value to Apophis. He had his true destination, and it was time to go find it!

"Ceasar," he said into the guild communication channel. "I quit." Then he used his menu to leave Renovatio Imperii and headed for the outer boundary of fallen Tyo.

Whatever Ceasar said in reply, Apophis was no longer in the channel to hear it.