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Rowan stepped through the portal and it closed behind him, a sadness that not even he expected overcame him as he realized that the year that he spent training and with Regius family was gone, but there were plenty of things for him to do here still and he would see them again. Rowan told himself that it was only to see you later and not goodbye.

He looked around himself and noticed despite the thin layer of dust that covered some of the things here; he was back in Azure's lab. His phone and Em's creation had both been destroyed, and the system did not come with a clock. Rowan was thinking that when in the top left corner of his vision he noticed a clock complete with the date he smiled to himself it had been a week and twelve hours since he left but thanks to the time difference while no time had truly passed here he had experienced an entire year of life some place else, something that his master had been sure to not fully tell him, he always said that it would have to be something he found out on his own.

Rowan then realized though that Emmily and Camille both had been waiting for him for over a week at this point in time and it would be highly likely that they assumed that he was dead by this point if not worse and that being the case it meant that he would have to wait to see the changes to the system until after he told the people waiting on him that he was safe. Rowan took a last glance at the room that he almost died in as he smiled and vanished without so much as kicking up the dust.

It took Rowan no time at all to get back to the main entrance. The underground compound was now completely deserted at this point. Rowan saw the clear sky once more as he walked through the front doors of the main building, while the first thing he noticed was that the streets were very, very quiet. He looked around and saw no one so he released his wings and with a single flap he shot towards Raid Tower a little more than a blur. There was no point in guessing. He could get his information from people that had been here and find out what happened to the city at that time.

Rowan stepped onto the roof while at the same time alarms blared throughout the building while on each corner of the rooftop machine guns with dragon heads came out and started spitting bullets at Rowan. He threw his hand up and a cloud burst forth from his body and gently caught all the bullets. They fired until they were out of ammo while at the same time armed soldiers surrounded the cloud and prepared to fire while behind them were what were clearly system users all preparing to attack at the same time. Rowan only saw a single familiar face and when Rowan looked in his direction, he looked in Rowan's and the tension in his face faded.

"Men, stand down. This isn't a zombie!" The men put guns down and the mana users behind them slid their swords back into sheathes. Neal walked forward and Rowan let the cloud he had summoned disperse. Neal sized him up for a moment and then froze; he instinctively felt fearful just standing before Rowan Raid. No one had seen him for more than a week, and it was assumed that he had perished in the battle with the Zodiac gang. The city had gone through massive changes in the past week.

Rowan did the same from his end but as he sized up Neal he asked the only thing that really actually mattered, "Neal, please do tell me why the fuck you and all of these people are in my home? I put in all that effort to get your mind back and yall repay me by taking my house. Are you kidding?" Neal hurriedly shook his head. "No Rowan, we wouldn't dare, we were asked to come here by Camille and Em after the stadium fell. Most of the city has been overrun by zombies. We have lost."

Neal looked downcast as he said the words but Rowan realized that the quest Cleansing was still active, the portion about human forces had gone gray and the part that was still lit up was regarding saving this world and evergreen city. Rowan nodded his head. "It's alright I'll handle the rest when I have time. I'm gonna go see Emily and Camille." Rowan waved him away and made his way down the steps. The building was teeming with life, a reminder that its previous inhabitants had all died at the turn of the apocalypse.

Neal stood behind him with his hands shaking slightly. He had realized the difference in pressure the moment that Rowan had stopped looking at him. One of the soldiers turned to him. "Sir, I thought that Rowan Raid had purple hair and mana , how did he change so much? I felt like the whole time I was a step away from the jaws of a predator." Neal could only nod his head because he had felt most of the same thing, and he was too scared to say that out loud. "He has certainly become more dangerous than he was before this. I don't know what has happened in the past month but it has led to great changes. I fear there is not a person left that could challenge him here." The soldiers silently assented and continued on.

Rowan made his way down the steps while taking his time, while it had been only a week since he had seen them last, it had been an entire year since he saw Emily or Camille and when he saw Camille last she was hardly even conscious. Rowan stopped his footsteps as he heard the clanging of a hammer on metal, a sound he had grown accustomed to, actually. His master was a blacksmith and liked to forge in the corner while Rowan was practicing something new or cultivating on his own during the past year.

Rowan walked down the hallway, I guess in the past week Emily had moved from his place to a new room in the building he had followed the sound of the hammer and since it carried him past the door to the penthouse, he would go see her first. Rowan stepped out of the stairway door and noticed that the temperature had risen considerably on the entire floor but more so all the second level of the building had been demolished to create one wide open room.

Rowan's eyes could see the leftover remnants of creation magic that had been used here to change the layout of the floor. There in the middle of the room with her back to the door, a little girl stood in the center of a forge hammering away at something. Rowan also noticed that there was more than one person here. There were two men in heat resistant uniforms helping her as well as a mana user standing guard in each corner of the room. They all saw Rowan enter the room and started to enter a battle ready stance but all of a sudden they touched a finger to their ears and relaxed.

The disturbance was enough for the young girl to notice, causing her to whip her head around. Her eyes flared, and she was turning around and on the move. She charged into Rowan and wrapped her tiny arms around his waist as she wailed. She tried to get words out but between sobs and tears she was not able to. It took five minutes of consoling for her to even speak in complete sentences. The other two men had taken up her task without missing a beat, which was when Rowan realized they weren't men at all but some type of animated construct.

Rowan looked back down at Em and she looked up and smiled before rubbing her head into his shirt. "I thought you were gone big bro, after big sister Cammy woke up a day later, and you still hadn't returned, we began to worry. Then another two days passed and sister Cammy and I returned there and you weren't there and the place was a wreck so we thought you had died and zombies had gotten your body. The next day the stadium fell, the zombie kings of the city have awakened intelligence and they have organized the rest of the zombies and the ones from the surroundings outside of the city, all the dungeons that weren't conquered released a swarm of zombies outward. A zombie army is forming on the Evergreen world and it seems like the people of Evergreen city are the last survivors." Rowan rubbed her back and listened to her story. A lot had changed in his brief absence. "I'm sorry I was gone little one I will be sure to handle this, how about we go see Cammy?" Emmily had gone from the fearsome forget that everyone here had relied on for equipment to a docile little girl who had been scared for her missing companion that was like a brother to her.

"The penthouse has been turned into a war room. Cammy should be there. The zombies have gathered outside of the city. They too are preparing for a confrontation. I had the help of everyone to build defenses for the building. I've turned this place into a fortress!" Rowan nodded as she raised her arms and he picked her up and began to walk out of the room when one of the guards coughed to clear his throat. "Excuse me, Mr. Raid, but the young lady needs to continue, the zombies could attack at any time." Rowan only shook his head as he walked out of the room. "She doesn't need to any longer, I've returned. I'll handle the rest."