Outer Gods invade, stuff them all into your equipment inventory.

After passing through a long tunnel, Sean finally emerged from Settlement Thirteen for the first time in his life.

In this era, most ordinary people will never be able to step out of that thick wall in their entire lives.

Settlement Thirteen has four gates: east, south, west, and north. The east gate of Settlement Thirteen is where Sean's journey begins.

It's less of a "door" and more of an exit of a heavily armed steel fortress.

The complex city wall, which is over thirty meters high, extends to both sides. The surface of the wall is covered with marks left by the claws of monsters and subsequent metal patches for repair.

What is most chilling is the dense array of firearms deployed above the city gate and on the walls extending to both sides, resembling a steel jungle.

The thick, multi-barreled heavy machine gun's dark barrel protruded from its firing port.

The twin-mounted gun turret, equipped with automatic tracking capabilities, slowly rotated under the drive of a hydraulic system, scanning every inch of land beneath the city wall.

These firearms are different from those on Earth in my previous life; they were manufactured using materials collected from monsters on a large scale.

This is what gave ordinary people the ability to use these weapons to kill monsters.

The ground outside the city gate was covered with countless craters formed by bullets.

Countless tiny pits have made the ground unrecognizable, giving it a sickly, honeycomb-like texture.

"So this is what the view outside the city walls looks like."

"Luckily I don't have trypophobia, otherwise I would have gone crazy."

The bomb craters are densely packed, layer upon layer, with new ones covering old ones, and shallow craters nested within deep ones.

Some of the pits still had remnants of monster limbs that hadn't been cleaned in time, emitting a faint, fishy stench in the air.

Moreover, these craters were not only found near the city gates, but extended to all areas along the city wall as far as the eye could see.

"After all, city gates are just entrances for heroes to enter and exit; to monsters, city gates are no different from ordinary city walls."

"They have no concept of 'main attack direction,' only an instinctive rush and a desire to devour."

"Every section of the city wall is a target area for them to breach..."

It can be said that every inch of the city wall was bought with blood.

Every inch of the city wall could withstand the frenzied attacks of tens of millions of monsters in a single assault.

Therefore, the defensive firepower must cover every inch of the city wall surrounding the entire settlement.

The three-dimensional space surrounding the entire city wall is essentially a massive, three-dimensional killing field.

Sean suddenly felt that it was a miracle that the settlement had been able to hold out for so many years without being breached by monsters.

"It's impossible to defend such a long distance using only the strength of a hero."

"This is why the Federation spends a lot of resources developing modern thermal weapon systems as a defensive force."

These weapons may look similar to those on Earth, but they are actually fundamentally different.

"They are not fired using gunpowder, but rather employ a more advanced energy system. They are firearms made from monster materials, mimicking the energy attack methods of heroes."

Sean looked back at the weapons on the city wall.

These steel structures placed on the city walls represent another form of "guardian power" of the Gaia Federation civilization.

"The warriors of the Watchtower Legion, a branch of the Heroes' Guild, are using these weapons."

The Watchers are made up of ordinary people, and the total number of Watchers in Cluster Thirteen has reached more than one million.

"It is precisely because of this large number that they have perfectly fulfilled their duty of protecting the settlement."

In Sean's original career plan, joining the Overwatch Legion was his goal for a few years later.

"The heroes are responsible for pioneering and clearing, while the Watchers are responsible for defense and protection."

"For the settlement, this is the best spear and shield."

"Unfortunately, these weapons have obvious advantages, but also obvious disadvantages."

It consumes a great deal of energy and must rely on a stable energy network within the settlement area.

During battle, you must constantly replenish your 'ammunition', which is made from monster cores, special ores, or high-purity energy crystals.

Once the supply lines are cut, these seemingly powerful weapons become nothing more than piles of useless, expensive scrap metal. Furthermore, the users are mostly ordinary people with no means of self-defense.

Once the monsters get close, what awaits them is a one-sided massacre.

Only by relying on the high city walls could these weapons be put to good use.

But the most fatal thing is that the power of this weapon actually has an upper limit.

"It is said that there was a period when the Federation was in a frenzy of developing similar technological weapons."

"Several settlements have reduced the resource supply to the warriors, using the vast majority of resources to manufacture and research more powerful firearms."

"At first, everything seemed to be going well."

"Weapons with powerful firepower are constantly being developed, along with tanks with robust armor produced at any cost."

"Those settlements successfully wiped out one monster lair after another with the help of ordinary people."

"The entire Federation was shaken by this, and many people were singing that a new era was about to begin."

"However... just a single A-rank monster was enough to shut everyone up."

That was an A-rank monster, an armored dragon, a type of earth-dwelling monster with dragon blood.

A monster that maximizes its defensive attributes.

One of their strongholds had assembled their most powerful firearms legion in an attempt to hunt down this lone A-rank monster.

What they encountered instead was a one-sided massacre.

Firepower was ineffective, armor was like paper, and the entire team sent out was wiped out; not a single one survived.

They were even counterattacked by this A-rank monster, the Armored Dragon, which eventually led to the destruction of the entire settlement.

After this incident, the so-called "purely hot weapons approach" was no longer mentioned.

It reveals this cruel truth with its bloody reality:

In a high-magic world where individual power can reach its limit, no matter how advanced conventional firearms are, their marginal benefits will continuously decline, preventing their power from being further increased.

These firearms can be used to efficiently clear out mobs, defend against monsters, and protect positions.

But it is completely useless when facing truly extraordinary individuals who stand at the top of the food chain.

Only the brave can save this world.

"Some people believe that the truth behind this matter is not so simple..."

While researching last night, Sean read several conspiracy theory posts about this incident.

It is said that none of the heroes of C rank or above in that settlement were present when this incident occurred.

They either went out into the wild to raid monster lairs or visited friends in other settlements; everyone left without a trace.

Some say that starting three months before that incident, 30,000 brave men and their families had gradually evacuated the settlement.

Those posts implied that this was actually a precise strangulation of the "technological challengers" by the traditional forces of heroism.

After all, once this system is developed, it will seriously shake the privileges and resource allocation of the brave warriors.

So some people couldn't sit still anymore.

"That sounds reasonable."

"But that doesn't seem to make much sense."

Sean is completely uninterested in whether the so-called conspiracy theories are true or not.

He gleaned only this one truth from this incident—

"This is an era of heroes, and it can only be an era of heroes."

"Fortunately, I am also a hero."

In other words,

He faced the rising sun, took firm steps, and walked forward.

"This will be my era."