Apocalypse Architect: A Tower Defense LitRPG

Chapter 169: Departing for The Lost Cities

Three days later, the expeditionary force was locked and loaded.

Money talks, especially in the wasteland. By offering exorbitant wages and premium hazard pay, Jax had successfully recruited one thousand able-bodied miners in record time. The vast majority of them had never held a pickaxe in their lives, but Jax didn’t care. He needed raw manpower.

Gareth, Silas, and Kaleb stood at the staging grounds, organizing the massive, chaotic crowd of new recruits.

They split off a hundred men to handle the heavy logistics and supply trucks. The remaining nine hundred were divided into three massive companies, with Gareth, Silas, and Kaleb each taking command of one.

Jax had essentially appointed the trio as his chief mining instructors. With their combined wasteland experience, they could whip this mob of rookies into a functional extraction crew in no time. Jax was relieved; delegating the labor management meant he didn’t have to micromanage a thousand individual workers.

The staging ground was a hive of activity. Hundreds of heavy transports, armored escorts, and supply rigs idled, their massive diesel engines shaking the earth.

Director Quinn practically sprinted across the tarmac, a small entourage of city officials trailing behind him. He looked incredibly anxious.

“City Lord!” Quinn called out, catching his breath as he reached Jax. “Please, reconsider! You absolutely do not need to lead this expedition personally. We have capable commanders. Leave this dirty work to your subordinates!”

Jax adjusted the strap of his Soul Collector Rifle and shook his head. “Old Quinn, relax. I know what I’m doing.”

“But City Lord—”

“This isn’t a simple supply run,” Jax interrupted firmly. “I need to see Iron Mountain with my own eyes. I need to personally survey the veins and calculate the exact resource yields. Only then can I accurately plan the next phase of our Defense Tower upgrades. Sitting behind a desk reading reports won’t cut it. My decision is final.”

Seeing the unyielding look in Jax’s eyes, Director Quinn let out a heavy, defeated sigh.

In truth, Quinn’s anxiety was justified. The Sprawl was finally stabilizing. The administrative hierarchy was set, and the population was working together. Their only bottleneck was securing the raw materials to upgrade the thousand Defense Towers. But Jax had been City Lord for less than a week, and he was already abandoning the safety of the walls to march into the wasteland. If the convoy was ambushed, or if Jax was killed, the fragile alliance holding The Sprawl together would instantly collapse.

With the final checks completed, Jax keyed his radio. “All units. Roll out.”

The massive convoy lurched forward. Hundreds of heavy transports roared to life, kicking up a towering wall of dust as they rumbled out of The Sprawl’s gates and into the unforgiving wasteland.

Jax rode in the lead command vehicle, sitting in the passenger seat. He gazed out the reinforced window, watching the distant silhouette of Redrock Bastion fade into the dust. He knew the city was currently besieged by the very Insect Swarm he had lured to their doorstep.

Initially, Jax hadn’t cared much about Redrock Bastion one way or the other. But Governor Niu’s constant scheming, the rigged politics, and the relentless economic pressure had rapidly tanked Jax’s Favorability toward the city.

The embargo was Redrock’s silent retaliation. By cutting off The Sprawl’s food and Supplies, they hoped to starve the rebellion before it began.

Jax, however, wasn’t worried. The Sprawl had recently slaughtered a massive portion of the Insect Swarm. Mountains of insect carcasses were currently being processed in the city’s industrial sector. The meat was tough, foul-tasting, and mostly carapace and bone, but in an Apocalypse, calories were calories. It would serve as a grim but effective emergency food reserve.

His plan was simple: secure the Iron Mountain ores, max out The Sprawl’s defense grid, and then personally travel to North Port to petition the Federation for independent city status. Once they were legally recognized, Redrock’s embargo would be powerless, and The Sprawl could purchase bulk grain directly from the Federation.

For five grueling days, the convoy tore across the barren desert. Eventually, the rolling dunes gave way to jagged, treacherous mountain passes. The convoy’s speed dropped to a crawl as the heavy rigs navigated the rocky terrain.

Suddenly, the lead scout vehicle hit its brakes, blaring its horn. The entire column ground to a halt.

Jax grabbed his rifle and hopped out of the cab, walking to the front of the convoy.

The chief navigator, a grizzled wasteland veteran, was standing by the scout vehicle, pointing a trembling finger toward a massive, grayish expanse blocking the valley ahead.

“City Lord,” the navigator said, his voice tight. “That’s The Lost Cities ahead. It’s designated as a Level 1 hazard zone. It is incredibly dangerous. With a convoy this massive, moving quietly is impossible. We either need to take a massive detour, or break the column down and try to slip through in small batches.”

Jax squinted into the haze. Through the swirling gray dust, he could just make out the skeletal remains of towering skyscrapers and collapsed highway overpasses.

It was a pre-Apocalypse metropolis, swallowed by the wasteland. A creeping sense of familiarity washed over Jax. He wondered what had happened here to leave such a massive city completely abandoned.

“Just how dangerous is it?” Jax asked, resting his hands on his hips. “Why is this entire sector a dead zone? There’s enough housing in there for millions.”

The navigator let out a bitter laugh. “City Lord… are you really not familiar with the history of the Fall?”

Jax shook his head. “I know the basics. Early in the Apocalypse, the military tried to wipe out the initial Insect Swarms by dropping tactical nukes on major population centers. The radioactive fallout destroyed the cities. But looking at it from here, the dust clouds don’t look thick enough to be lethal.”

“The ambient radiation is only half the problem,” the navigator said grimly. “The nukes didn’t wipe out the Swarm. The radiation actually mutated them. It made them stronger, faster, and infinitely more aggressive.”

The veteran shuddered, a look of genuine terror flashing in his eyes. “I ran a salvage crew through here a few years ago. The mutated bugs in there… there aren’t many of them, but they are apex predators. I lost half my men in ten minutes. City Lord, I strongly advise we take the detour.”

Jax crossed his arms, doing the mental math. “If we detour around the city limits, how much time does it add?”

“Two weeks. Minimum.”

“And if we punch straight through the ruins?”

“Three days, if the roads aren’t completely blocked.”

Jax shook his head. “We don’t have an extra two weeks. We’re hauling a thousand men. The daily burn rate for our food and water reserves is massive. If we take the long way around, we’ll eat through half our supplies before we even reach Iron Mountain.”

“But… the mutated Swarm…” the navigator pleaded.

“You said it yourself, that was years ago,” Jax countered smoothly. “The wasteland ecosystem shifts constantly. What was a death trap five years ago might be empty today. We push forward. We’ll take the most direct route and burn through as fast as possible.”

The navigator sighed in defeat, turning back to his maps to plot a course through the urban ruins.

Half an hour later, the convoy’s engines roared back to life, rolling slowly toward the suffocating gray haze of The Lost Cities.

As they approached the crumbling city limits, the navigator’s face grew pale. Jax, however, felt a strange surge of curiosity. He wondered if he would find any recognizable brands, signs, or artifacts from the world he had left behind before his transmigration.

The convoy stopped at the very edge of the city. Faded, pre-war military barricades and rusted warning signs blocked the highway.

The navigator jumped out, physically blocking Jax from walking any closer.

“City Lord, stop! This is the quarantine line. The ambient radiation spikes the second you cross this threshold!”

The man unclipped a heavy, military-grade Geiger counter from his belt and thrust the sensor wand over the barricade. He braced himself for the frantic, screaming static of lethal radiation.

Instead, the machine let out a slow, rhythmic click… click… click.

The navigator froze, staring at the digital readout in utter disbelief. “What? That’s impossible.”

He frantically slapped the side of the Geiger counter, assuming it was broken. He ran back to the scout vehicle, grabbed a backup scanner, and held it over the line again.

The result was exactly the same. The ambient radiation levels were well under 100 millisieverts—perfectly within the safe, naturally occurring baseline for the wasteland.

“The radiation… it’s gone,” the navigator whispered, looking at the silent, ruined city in horror. “It’s all gone.”

Jax patted the man’s shoulder. “See? I told you the ecosystem shifts. It’s been decades; the local Swarm probably absorbed or adapted to the ambient radiation long ago.”

The navigator didn’t look convinced, but he couldn’t argue with the sensors.

“Alright,” Jax called out, his voice echoing down the line of transports. “The air is clear! Everyone mount up! We punch through The Lost Cities at top speed. Do not stop for anything!”