Fire raged throughout the monastery, burning the wooden animal sheds next to the stone walls and sending large plumes of smoke up into the air, blocking everyone’s vision. The farm animals that had not been sliced and cut to pieces by the demigods were all burned to death.
The wooden shacks of the refugees that were built next to the animal sheds were the next to catch fire forcing the refugees that were hiding inside them to dash out and run through the narrow smokey streets looking for a new hiding spot.
Swish! A dark red light pierced the smokey fog as a sword skill shot out and severed a fleeing woman’s body in half.
“Weak,” said Snarl with a scornful snarl as he looked at the bloody pool forming on the ground.
“Snarl! I found a vault in the main monastery building!” shouted one of Snarl’s underlings.
“That’s where the goods stuff is probably hiding! We can finally make up for all the losses we have suffered recently!”
Snarl rushed to the main building and walked down several sets of steps reaching a large stone door that only had a large keyhole with no other handle or any other way to open it.
“What’s inside? It has to be mountains of gold!”
“Do we have the key?” asked Snarl.
“No need. I can open it with my wind skills!” said Weindy as she activated a skill, sending a green windy attack into the large keyhole.
After several seconds of waiting a loud click was heard and slowly… ever so slowly… the stone door started to open.
“What the hell is this?”
“Where’s all the gold?”
The demigods were all confused and irritated as they searched the vault for any gold or expensive paintings and trinkets.
Inside, there were only rows upon rows of round glass bottles filled with water.
“Whatever… Just take everything in here. We still have several other places to scout out and loot. There must be some reason this stuff is in here, which means it can be sold for gold!”
Snarl looked at one of the labels and scoffed after reading it.
“Holy water? Yeah right! These monks are a bunch of scammers.”
***
Throughout the outskirts of the human countries, kingdoms, and the nomadic grasslands and swamps is where the fringe demigod groups not part of any of the larger guilds set their bases. They were far from any major hub, so news was slow to reach them, but even they started to hear rumors of the many [Treasures] that the monasteries had hidden in their vaults, leading to a massive treasure hunt between the many groups of demigods trying to get rich quickly.
Horror stories spread out from the areas that the demigod groups passed through like a plague of locusts. Stories of entire monasteries being wiped out and demolished.
Such stories were causing panic among the peasants and refugees who were looking for a haven from the plague and crop failures. Their small villages were no longer safe to live in due to the harassment of the demigods and the devastation to wildlife, and now, many of the monasteries they could turn to in hard times were being burnt to the ground and looted by the same harassers that chased them out of their villages and small towns!
The demigods paid no attention to the problems they were causing by their actions as they took great satisfaction in looting every resource they could get their hands on.
Many of these guilds took a liking to the monasteries, and instead of razing them to the ground, they took them over as their fiefs after they killed or tortured the monks and all those who defied them.
The only justification they gave for their actions was that the monks and peasants worshiped God and not them.
With such problems popping up in the area, many caravans of poor refugees and peasants gathered what they could and abandoned their villages in the outskirts and started making their way to the larger cities of their kingdoms and countries.
This was the last thing the struggling large cities needed!
They were already struggling with the famine and all the other issues! Now, the problem was being multiplied due to the thoughtless actions the Demigods were taking.
***
With all the conflict rising in every human territory egged on by demigods for fun, the situation was only made worse by the death of the human leaders.
Infighting broke out between the different children of the dead rulers. The cities that each of them ruled over became their own smaller kingdom as they took control and declared themselves the true heir to power causing even more chaos and mayhem.
“We demand you take your rabble and leave our kingdom and citizens alone!” said a middle aged man who was sitting on a new stone throne in a full set of shiny armor.
Several dozen fully armored guards were standing in front of him blocking the path of the six guests that had been called to the throne room.
“Who are you calling rabble? We are the six largest guilds in your kingdom!” shouted a skinny demigod wearing green silk cloth armor.
“Stupid! You just made us all lose reputation points with the kingdom!” hissed a female demigod guild leader.
“Who cares about reputation? It won’t mean anything in the future when our plans have been put in place,” whispered the skinny demigod.
The two argued for a few seconds before coming to an agreement and turning back to the king.
“Look here, your kingliness… If you pay us a fee every month, we can make sure to protect you and your people from any mischief caused by other guilds,” said the female demigod guild leader.
“…and if I refuse?” asked the king with gritted teeth.
“Then we will be unable to stop others from doing as they please,” said the skinny man with a blank face.
“What is the price to get you out of my Territory?”
The skinny man in green silk armor took out a piece of paper and handed it over to the nearest guard, who then handed it to the king.
“This…is highway robbery!”
“That is a reasonable price that we decided you should pay to each of our guilds.”
“Each guild?! We do not even make this in half a year, let alone one month!” shouted the king as he stood up in anger.
“Whether you pay us now or later does not matter. We will just wait for you to come to your senses and will gladly accept your tribute.”
With that said, the six guild leaders turned and left the throne room.
Similar situations of blackmail were happening in each of the Human capitals. The kings and government rulers were verbally sparring with the demigods only to end up in a stalemate, leading them to denounce the demigods’ barbaric terrorist actions demanding that they leave.
Their leaders were either met with silence as the demigods ignored them or were instead threatened by the demigods and extorted for even more money.
The rulers of each country were in a true bind as there were too many guilds that were demanding payment from them. If they paid off one of the guilds then the others would all flock to that ruler’s territory and demand a tribute as well.
None of the new human rulers could afford to pay the tribute one time, let alone to every guild that popped up and demanded more tributes.
Because the ruler refused to pay the tribute, the demigods continued their terror and harassment tactics against the civilians and traveling merchants, which worsened the country’s economy even more than the coming famine.
***
“We lost another shipment of food from the last merchant caravan,” said a scribe reading off a report to the young king who sat on a new makeshift throne.
“Send messengers to the other kingdoms. I humbly ask them to join me for an important meeting on what to do with these demigods!” said King Yung.
“Even your brothers and sisters?” asked the guard who stood next to the young prince who was crowned king now king of the city by his royal mother.
“They should be in the same situation as me!” said King Yung as he looked over to his mother, who nodded her head.
“We should be working together right now. Even if they do not want to admit it, I am sure that the other countries will surely join in on this discussion since the demigods are becoming more and more a scourge that must be eradicated!”
“We will send the swiftest messenger birds to the other cities!”
“While you’re at it, make sure to send out the orders to mobilize the army. We must root out the bandits that keep ambushing our merchants!”
