Let MapleStory experience the Fourth Calamity

Covered in sand and dust, the four strode back to the Warriors' Tribe camp.

Yu Wen stood in front of the martial arts coach, his gaze sweeping over the giant sword the coach was wiping in his hand, and immediately began to question him.

"Twenty years ago, gangsters kidnapped people like livestock right under your noses. All you guardians use those lumps of iron in your hands to scare starving civilians?"

The atmosphere in the camp immediately turned cold, and several veterans gripped their spears and took a half-step forward.

The martial arts instructor raised his hand, signaling his subordinates to step back.

Facing these players with menacing expressions, he didn't argue. After sheathing his greatsword, the coach uttered three words.

"Come with me."

Beyond the towering Warrior's Temple lies a heavily guarded semi-underground warehouse.

As you descend the narrow and steep stone steps behind the temple, the surrounding light is quickly swallowed up by darkness.

The steps here are carved from a single block of hard granite, but the surface is pitted and covered with old marks left by dragging heavy objects.

The further down you go, the more noticeably the temperature drops.

Pushing open the heavy wooden door, the musty air was mixed with the smell of rust.

This place is piled high with broken weapons and tattered heavy armor.

This underground warehouse is incredibly large, almost hollowing out half a small mountain.

The further you go in, the stronger the smell of blood and metal corrosion becomes.

Every ten meters or so, a dimly lit fluorescent stone was embedded in the wall. With this faint, cold light, the little snail was able to see what was inside.

This is hardly an armory.

Looking around, the space, spanning several thousand square meters, was filled with small mountains of broken equipment, piled up haphazardly like industrial waste.

The little snail's gaze swept over a metal mountain. He quickly walked to the outermost edge and reached out to grasp a broken spear stuck in the edge.

He was very familiar with the material of the spear; it was made of black iron from the Warrior Tribe. Even if it was laid flat and smashed with a hammer, it was difficult to leave a dent on the surface.

But now, this thick steel spear shaft has been twisted into a pretzel shape.

Ouch... That's scary.

Yu Wen tried to straighten the bent spear shaft a little, but even with the help of magic, the deformed spear remained motionless.

"Don't waste your energy."

The little snail stepped forward and looked at the deep indentations on the spear shaft.

"This was forcibly twisted into this shape. To be able to do this purely through brute force, this monster's power stats must be several versions higher than ours."

The goose's gaze was fixed on a heavy metal tower shield in the corner.

He crouched down to examine it, and the scorch marks on the shield's surface, which resembled tree branches and flaked outwards, were very noticeable.

As a player deeply involved in the chemical and metallurgical fields, his brows were furrowed into a tight knot.

"Isn't this the grain of lightning-struck wood?"

The goose lowered its voice and explained to the two people behind it, "The marks on this shield must have been left by an electric shock. The person who destroyed this shield back then had a high level of lightning power."

Immediately afterwards, the goose pushed aside the tower shield and pulled out a nearly completely destroyed metal breastplate from below.

At the location of the breastplate, there was an almost perfectly circular hole, and the material at the edge of the wound showed a strange semi-transparent crystalline appearance.

"Even explosives can't create a hole like this; it couldn't have been cut with a water jet, could it?"

The goose swallowed hard. "This is definitely magic. I'll ask Hans about it later."

The group looked around. In this dimly lit underground space, there were many shields scorched by lightning, armor melted by energy, and weapons twisted by immense force.

On the inside of many suits of armor, there are even black patches formed from the weathering of flesh and blood.

With the equipment so badly damaged, the person wearing it had no chance of surviving.

Every piece of scrap metal represents a human life. This spacious warehouse is a mass grave without tombstones.

The three players, who were already seething with anger because of Helena's tragic experience, felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over their heads.

They finally realized what a brutal, meat grinder-like war had broken out on this map, which the system had identified as the early stages of MapleStory.

"You have a very sharp eye."

The martial arts instructor stopped in front of a huge, obsidian-like broken corner that was more than half a meter high.

"The drastic environmental change twenty years ago not only cut off water and food on the surface, but also caused the seal on the cursed temple deep inside the ant cave to crack."

The martial arts instructor's voice echoed in the dimly lit warehouse, "The bat monster, leading an army of countless bull demon kings, surged upwards along the mine tunnel."

"Can you imagine the commotion of hundreds of wild beasts, each the size of a small mountain, charging through an underground cavern only a few dozen meters wide?"

The martial arts coach looked somber, as if those voices were echoing in his mind again.

The ground was shaking, and the rock walls were cracking. The torches had long since gone out, and there was no light anymore.

The warriors could only determine the enemy's location by the sound of flesh being torn apart and the sparks from giant axes striking metal shields.

"Those minotaur monsters practically filled the entire passage."

The martial arts coach's fingers slowly traced the massive broken corner, as if recalling some fragments of memory.

"The first to charge up were the Bull Demon Kings with long spears. They were carrying spears taller than a door and crashed directly into our front line of defense."

With each impact, the first few brothers at the front of the defensive line would be smashed into a bloody pulp, shield and all. Those behind would push aside the corpses, wading through the blood to continue pushing forward.

The coach remained calm, as if he weren't telling his own story.

"Then there was the Crescent Moon Bull Demon King, who could summon lightning. In the narrow, enclosed underground space, the lightning kept bouncing wildly between the damp rock walls, the blood on the ground, and our metal armor."

He turned to the players and said,

"We originally thought that as long as we withstood the fiercest first few waves of attack and stabilized the front line, reinforcements from the plateau troops on the ground would arrive."

But we waited a whole day and night, and all we got was a soldier who came to deliver the message.

Can you imagine that feeling?

The martial arts coach looked at Yu Wen and asked a soul-searching question: "Your wife and daughter are just a few hundred meters above you, being whipped and herded like livestock by a group of lowlifes."

And you hold the sharpest spear in your hand, yet you can only stare at the endless darkness before you.

"Some young soldiers broke down; they cried as they dropped their shields, wanting to rush back to the ground to save their families."

A breach appeared in the defenses, and lightning poured in through it, turning the entire squad into charred remains before they could even utter a cry of pain.

The coach ripped open his coarse cloth shirt, revealing a gruesome scar across his entire back that seemed to split his body in two.

"I personally cut down the young man who was trying to escape, then took up his shield and stood at the front of the breach in his place."

"At that time, there were two other brave warriors fighting alongside us."

The coach pulled up his shirt. "We're all forced to stay down there. If the main force retreats to the surface to rescue their families, the monsters from the abyss will burst forth."

Treasure Island wouldn't last even three days before turning into a living hell.

That dark and hopeless battle lasted for days and nights.

When we ran out of the dry rations we carried with us, we started eating the glowing mushrooms growing on the rock walls of the mine tunnels.

When the water ran out, they drank the muddy water that seeped from the cracks in the rocks.

If it weren't for the final decision made by those two warriors, we would all be dead in the underworld.

The coach's gaze fell on a sword in the corner. "One of them used all his strength to cut through the three core load-bearing rock pillars of the main passage with his sword energy, causing a collapse and slowing down the advance of the Bull Demon King's army."

"Another person, single-handedly, broke through the Bull Demon King's battle formation and rushed into the center of the Bat Monster's energy array."

At this point, the martial arts coach's towering frame hunched slightly.

"That's why we were able to walk out of that mine tunnel alive."

When I returned to the ground, the former warrior tribe was empty.

We preserved the foundations of Treasure Island, but we lost everything we wanted to protect.

After hearing this, the little snails and their friends completely lost their temper.

The arrogant mentality of blaming NPCs for inaction is also unsolvable in the face of the trolley problem.

The martial arts instructor patted the huge broken horn and turned to look at the three players.

"The lord of the ruined capital sent you to the Warriors' Tribe, surely not just to inquire about these old grievances."

He walked to the iron gate, his gaze fixed on the entrance to the anthill, which was sealed off by chains in the distance.

"Go find Sind and Smith. If the furnaces in your ruined city can still burn, tell them to hurry up and make the most of them."

The things underground have started knocking on the door again these past few days.