Doomsday Pillars

Alice Springs, Australia.

A small town right in the middle of the continent of Australia. Approximately 1,500 kilometers between the city on the northern side of Australia, Darwin, and the city on the southern side of Australia, Adelaide.

Located in the middle of the desert and rocky hills of Australia, this city was home to more than 20,000 residents. But when Alex arrived 100 days ago, this city had become an empty abandoned city. The bustling of the city was no more.

Alex and 500 special troops of his choice had settled in this city in the last 100 days. Since then, the city had been attacked by mutated beasts and critters several times.

Fortunately, the tall hills formed a natural refuge for the city. Because of this, Alex only needed to make a defensive wall on two sides, the north and west.

This afternoon, the guards saw a cloud of dust approaching and immediately sounded the warning bells.

Bong! Bong! Bong!

"The bell of the west gate is tolling!!"

"Yes, that's our vehicle! Open the gates!"

From a distance, two jeeps could be seen speeding toward this base.

"That's Jerry's group."

With the opening of the gate, a squad of twenty people was immediately assigned to guard the gate. This was because every time a convoy came, something would always be following it from the desert.

"Critters. At least a hundred of them. Do you need another squad's help?"

"No need!" confidently answered a young man who jumped down with the squad.

As soon as the two vehicles accelerated and entered the gate, the squad immediately advanced to attack with their weapons. Swords, spears, and shields.

All of a sudden, a stone wall 10 meters tall raised from the surface. The critters crashed onto the wall. The wall knocked them back and split the critter group of a hundred in half.

[Stone Wall]

A high-level skill from an earth elemental spirit. The skill was cast by the confident young man who was with the squad.

The assembled squad members numbering twenty fought close-hand against fifty critters. Each person fought against two to three critters at once. However, it didn't really matter to them because they were all special forces who had reached the peak of the Earth Realm.

The confident young man jumped over the wall he had made and attacked the critters behind the wall.

[Rock Shower]

Hundreds of rocks around the place then flew to attack the critters. He then took out a spear from his storage ring and began to carry out a spear attack among the rain of rocks.

[Long spear - Tier 2]

[2.1 meters long, weighs 13 kilograms]

The Tier 2 spear easily pierced the bodies of those critters. The round stab attack combined with the sweeping motion across the rocks rendered the critters unable to surround the young man.

It didn't take long for the twenty fighters next to join in to help. Overpowered, some of the critters started running away. With that, the battle was over fast.

"Ah, I'm not even sweating," the confident young man said, his voice containing a very slight hint of complaint and disappointment.

The young man then put an earphone in his ear and turned on some music. Soon after, he started rocking and singing his own self-made rap.

"Yo! Yo! Living in the desert, just like in a concert. Killing all the monsters, prepare for supper!"

"Ark! Stop rapping! start cleaning up these corpses" But the young man name Ark still carried away by his music.

[Ark]

[Male - 22 years old]

[Earth Realm level 30 - Peak stage]

[Spirit Energy - Earth - Peak stage]

[Spirit Talent - Level A]

Ark was one of the young spirit enhancers who joined Alex after moving from Surabaya to Bali. Today, he was in charge of guarding the base. An A aptitude spirit enhancer at the top earth realm stage, Those critters had no chance of winning against him.

Another group came out of the gate and began to clean up the critters' carcasses and looked for spirit stones. At least one of every two critters would drop a white spirit stone.

Jerry's group, who had just come back from hunting, immediately gathered in the equipment room and took out all the fruits of their labor.

After they hunted for a whole day, they managed to collect six rings full of mutated beast carcasses.

One special ring held the carcass of the Mutated Thorny Devil and the rest were a mixture of other mutated beasts' carcasses.

A plump man wearing an apron immediately examined the carcasses.

"Mutated dingos! A great catch of Tier 2 beasts! Let's see, next is... kangaroo... kangaroo... kangaroo meat again. Ah yes, the spikes of this thorny lizard will be quite useful... the meat is kinda tricky to cook… But nothing's impossible for Raufgar to cook!! How do lizard pancakes sound?"

"Really…? Lizard pancakes...?"

Dinda's face immediately looked pale.

"Hahaha, I'm just messing with you... Tonight, we're having barbecued meat... good Aussie-style barbecue."

"Hooray!"

[Raufgar]

[Male - 23 years old]

[Earth Realm level 30 - Peak stage]

[Spirit Energy - Plant - Peak stage]

[Spirit Talent - Level A]

Although Raufgar was a very talented spirit enhancer, he very much preferred cooking over fighting. After having reached the pinnacle level of the plant spirit element, he used his skills more to perfect food recipes.

"The meat of Mutated Thorny Devils is very smelly. Before we can start cooking it, it has to be wrapped in this leaf first. Then, we can add this cinnamon powder. Yes, I'm sure it'll be quite the delicacy when it's done." When cooking, Raufgar seemed to have entered a world of his own.

Alex always encouraged his team to consume the meat of mutated beasts. The higher their mutation levels, the greater the nutrition they contained. Leveling up this way was better than consuming spirit stones.

The position of Alice Springs was not only right in the middle of the Australian continent, but the position of this city was between three Doomsday Pillars, which were not more than 100 kilometers from one another.

Once a week, they would alternate between training and fighting in the pillars with those returning to rest and find food supplies. Currently, there were only about a hundred fighters in Alice Spring City. The rest of the fighters were currently in the nearby Doomsday Pillars.

That night, except for those who were on guard duty, those in the base gathered to have dinner together.

Although Alice Springs wasn't a very big city, the current city was too big for them. Empty buildings and houses, as well as the limited lighting, made the city quite depressing.

This July, it was also winter in Australia. During the day, the Australian wilderness was scorching hot and dry, but when the night fell, it was very cold. But that night, in the middle surrounding the bonfire, the atmosphere was warmer than usual.

"We've been in this city for more than 100 days, and it's been several weeks since we've reached the peak of the Earth Realm. I can't wait to start the second challenge."

"I wonder if we're strong enough though," Raufgar said honestly. In truth, even though he was quite confident in their power, he wasn't sure that they were strong enough to start the second challenge.

"If our team can't, no one can!" Cindy had always been the most excited one among them all when it came to the Doomsday Pillars.

"Theo, have Alex messaged you regarding when we're ready to start the second challenge?" asked Jerry to Theo. 

"Any day now. Colonel Arief's group should have finished the last 30th floor in a short while... so it should be soon," Theo answered according to what he knew.

The fighters here were fighters of the Deathsquad special force and other special forces hand-picked by Alex combined. After 200 days of surviving in the apocalypse and 100 days of battling together in this wilderness, they had become as close as family.

During the last 100 days, they had also not escaped danger. Of the 500 people who followed Alex, 20 had died. Their bodies were buried not far from this Alice Springs City... the graves were always a reminder for them to be more careful, as anything could happen anytime in this chaotic apocalypse.

Even though they could feel a rapid increase in their physical power, they knew that the challenges and obstacles ahead would only get heavier.

---------

Dear reader, it's been 50 days nonstop I have been writing daily because of the win win events. I have to say it started to give affect to my work and health. I apologize that some of the chapters are not ready to publish. And as my editor also needs more time for his main job. I hope you understand if the quality of editing would drop. I will slowly finish this all in the coming days. FInally please don't buy the privilege chapter until I have time to add more chapters. will finish all that i miss as soon as possible.