Chapter 134 – Urgency

"Alright. The time is now. Everyone prepare for battle!"

A man shouted through a mana channel. This channel was spread over the crowd of tens of thousands behind him.

Hearing this, all the soldiers tensed up and began making their last preparations. The class 3 officers and class 4's also began preparing to lead this army.

When everyone had finished, they all gathered and formed up, awaiting orders. Seeing this, the officers nodded and began their march. Their destination was the kingdom several miles away.

As they marched, the atmosphere was nervous and fearful. All the soldiers knew the fate of the other army that had tried to retake a kingdom, and they were afraid of being the ones to repeat history. Most of them had families and loved ones, and being here was basically a death sentence. None of them had much hope of coming out alive.

But they wouldn't back out, nor did they have that option. So after purposefully and courageously marching for a bit, they had arrived near the kingdom.

Everyone looked at the destroyed walls in front of them. Though contrary to what they expected, there were no demons running around. In fact, it was extremely quiet. Too quiet.

"Report."

A man suddenly appeared next to the leading class 4's. This was a scout who had done a last minute survey of the battleground.

"What happened? Where are the demons?"

"I'm not sure how, but they're dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes. When I went and searched the city, there were no demons to be seen. All the buildings are destroyed and demon corpses can be seen everywhere."

"...All of them?"

"Well, all except for the class 4 demons. The 4 of them are in the center of the city. But other than them, there are no other sources of life that I could detect."

"...Let's check it out. Tell everyone to stand by."

Saying that, all the class 4's rose in the air and flew over to the kingdom.

Upon arrival, they indeed saw everything the scout described. All the buildings of the city were reduced to piles of wood and stone. And among this rubble was blood, guts, and limbs, obviously the demons. 

"We got a report only a day ago, and it said that this place was absolutely crawling with demons. What happened since then?"

"Not sure. But either way, all demons besides our targets have been killed. This'll save a lot of men and resources."

"And only we need to fight now. Since that's the case, let's start our battle."

After relaying the situation and telling the troops to stay back, the 7 class 4's clashed with the remaining 4 demons. 

Back at the formation of soldiers, when everyone had received the orders, a wave of surprise and excitement washed over them. They had been hopeless about the situation, but now, everyone would survive and get to go back home. All of them were beyond happy and relieved. 

............

.......

Several hours later...

Dream and the family were sitting around the living room watching a movie and gorging themselves with tasty snacks. 

Though halfway through, Riddick suddenly received a message. After reading it for a bit, he looked over to Dream.

"Boy?"

"Sup."

"I just got a report. The battle to retake the kingdom has concluded."

"How'd it go?"

"Absolute victory. Zero casualties."

"What?"

Selene suddenly blurted out, shocked by that outcome.

"How? It was estimated that nearly all of them would die. How do you go from that to zero deaths?"

"Well, according to the scout and the class 4's, when they arrived at the kingdom every demon besides the class 4's had been mysteriously killed. This meant that the army never even had to raise their swords, and after a long but smooth battle, our class 4's killed the 4 demons. And while the entire city was decimated, it was of little consideration."

"..."

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

Everyone looked at Dream, who just looked off into space dumbly. Though it didn't take a genius to know that he had interfered.

"You went and killed them anyway huh?"

Selene smiled, as did Luna who looked at him sweetly. He just shrugged his shoulders.

"I still had those aircraft and decided I could just decimate the area. Although I couldn't kill those class 4's, they handled it."

"What about all the materials you used?"

"It was almost entirely in the form of projectiles, and after sending some bots to scour the area I had recovered most of it. The rest I'll get later. So I pretty much haven't lost anything."

"I see...Either way, it's nice that you helped. You don't want to publicize it?"

"No, it's fine. I'm sure the Empires will be able to figure out who did it. I'll consider this a free trial proving my abilities. Besides, I think I'm going to need to take action either way."

"Why's that?"

"After equipping the drones with mana sensors, most of them were sent to the demon continent to get a look at things. And the results were rather dismal. After overlooking their main base, to say it was just gushing mana is an understatement. The mana fluctuations released from that single area has the approximate combined strength of 2 Empires."

"So their single Empire is as powerful as two of ours?"

"Just about. And this is just what I could sense. As for numbers, it's up past 100 million, nearly all of which are combatants."

"..."

Everyone went quiet, obviously not hopeful about that information. Though Selene picked up on something.

"Wait, you said that that's only their main base. What about their other settlements?"

"Well... After scanning the majority of the continent and calculating the mana levels of all their bases, their estimated population comes out to around 600 million, and their power level exceeds that of every human Empire and kingdom combined by around 20%."

"...So if we were to combine the combat power of the entire human race, they would still be able to beat us?"

"Not just beat us, but knowing their abilities, they would be able to utterly wipe out everything on this continent and still have much of their forces to spare."

"..."

Hearing that, everyone suddenly had a sense of panic wash over them. If that was true, then what the hell was everyone sitting around for? This was basically saying they were on the verge of extinction!

"But there's two reasons we're still pretty safe."

"What are they?"

"One, the demons aren't focusing on only us. They're splitting their forces about half and half, one to attack us and one to attack the animal Empires. So they don't have enough power to destroy us yet. Two, contrary to what I initially thought, their rate of growth has greatly decreased, so they won't overrun us in a short amount of time."

"So we still have time."

"Yes, but not much. What we've seen with these two attacks on the kingdoms is only the start. Even now I can see huge movements of demons heading straight up the continent. We're going to see many more attacks, all of which will likely have much more combat power. And if we weren't able to track and scout their armies, we would be in a bad position."

"But we can?"

"I can. My upgraded drones will allow me to track them and alert the kingdoms or settlements of approaching armies. This way, we can evacuate people and properly prepare for battle. But like I had told everyone at the grand meeting, if we sit back and only defend, then we will get overrun."

"Won't you be able to destroy their bases like you just did?"

"There's only so much I can do with the materials I have. Sure I can bombard the ever-living balls out of them, but they can easily replace the small fry. There need to be people to take care of the class 4's. Only by killing them can we effectively reduce their overall power. But nothing is being organized fast enough and our own class 4's aren't moving."

"So if you had the class 4's taken care of, you would be able to take care of everything else."

"Pretty much. Although their population is over half a billion, making a big enough army would allow me to slowly cut down their numbers. Plus, by that point I would hopefully have the support of the Empires."

"Hmm..."

"Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure people will only start taking things seriously when the situation becomes worse. Apparently two kingdoms aren't enough, so we'll need to wait for these demon armies to arrive."

"How long?"

"They've already entered the continent through the landbridge that they've heavily fortified. In fact, there are armies heading towards another kingdom right now. It'll be a week before they attack. And that's if they don't split off and attack another kingdom off to the side."

"How many kingdoms are there between them and the Empire?"

"If they attack the two I'm thinking they will, then there will only be one more. They'll then have a straight shot to the Empire."

"...Something like that would put huge pressure on them. Question is, should you alert the kingdoms who are about to be attacked?"

"I'm thinking I will. Although dooming those people would increase urgency, alerting them would increase my reputation. It will help me to have a following later on."

"Alright. Then until those armies arrive, we can only wait."

"Yeah. I guess so..."

Dream sat back and sighed tiredly. He could already feel the stress coming and knew that there was going to be much more in the future. Luna moved in closer and gave him a kiss, letting him know she was there.

Riddick thought for a second before asking a random question on his mind.

"...By the way, Boy. What class did you receive for your advancement?"

"It's called [Exalted Arcanist]."

"Exalted... So that's what's above Master. And you're still only class 3."

"You know, back at the United Empire I know only a few class 4's who have the word Exalted in their class. The fact that you have such a powerful class as a mere class 3 makes me a bit conflicted. Are you sure you're not a class 4?"

"Pretty sure. I mean, I know that I'm powerful for my level, but my classes aren't really the reason. It's the skills that give me my power. That's what I always told that Old Man right there. Skills before levels. In fact, leveling up too fast can be detrimental. You'll hit those class advancements and evolve yourself, but if your skills aren't maxed, they won't evolve as well. Then you end up having crappy skills for your level which eliminates your future potential."

"But your skills are crafting types. What if you have a combat oriented skill?"

"No matter the skill, levels work the same way. The level of a skill represents its perfection. If you max out its perfection, you become more powerful and can then level up easier. So if you have problems leveling your skill, you need to first try and understand what your skill is and test its limits."

"And you were able to max out your skills?"

"I was. Although, I actually held off my advancement for a short time so that I could level a skill that hadn't been maxed. Once I maxed it, I did the advancement and it evolved. But since they evolved, the skills I have now are much different than before, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to max them before class 4. I'll probably have to max them after. Anyway, if you two have any skills above level 50, we should max them before class 4."

Dream patted both the girls, to which they nodded. Knowing about the demon threat, they knew they would have to get stronger. 

Selene and Riddick also looked at each other. Although Riddick had advanced, he could still max his skills. And for Selene who was still a class 3, she was in the best position to increase her strength so long as she took the advice.

............

........

Although they could only wait, none of the family decided to be idle. After hearing about everything, they were all feeling too urgent to lazily watch movies all day. So they made themselves active.

Riddick and Selene began practicing their magic with each other. This involved them frequently leaving and going to the Spire where they had plenty of resources at their disposal to test whatever they wanted. Not only that, but Dream gave them data on his discoveries through their suits. This included everything he found out about magic, including the peculiarities he observed with Riddick's own mana. Maybe it would help him in some way.

But other than that, Dream, Iris, and Luna stayed home and practiced not only their magic, but combat.

As Dream had been taught by the best, he was also naturally able to teach the best as well. And while Luna wasn't much of a close combat type, Iris was. So Dream decided that the best thing for her to practice would be her technique and longevity.

Though Luna wasn't going to be idle as they practiced. In fact, she cooperated with them. Well, cooperated with Iris was more accurate. Basically, Dream had them fight him together. Both of them were told to try and kill him as effectively as possible.

Currently, the three were in a large grassy area within the dome. Dream stood a little distance away from the two girls, who had transformed. 

"Come at me."

Dream smiled at them. Currently he was barely clothed with only some shorts on. The reason was that he understood that Iris' attacks would just disintegrate everything he wore, so he didn't feel like dealing with that.

After waving, Iris instantly bolted over at high speeds. Her fur flamed up a bit and burned everything within 10 meters of her. It was like her fire created its own domain.

It took less than a second for her to cross the short distance. Soon, she was moving her head to bite Dream's thigh. 

As she got close, Dream could feel the intense heat coming off of her. Just that itself threatened to boil his insides, at least whatever was liquid. But with his extensive upgrades and ability to control heat, it wasn't nearly enough to affect him. 

As Iris' teeth came close to clamping down on his leg, he moved his opposing knee and drove it into her side.

*Boom*

A heavy sound came from the impact and Iris was thrown few meters away. Though despite this, Dream wasn't feeling at all smug.

'She's tough.'

When his knee had come in contact with her, it was like her fur had turned to metal. Not only that, but her body was extremely hot. 

As Iris recovered and turned to him, Dream checked out her fur. He had noticed the deep red color on it before, but he had only thought that it was the pigment. But feeling that temperature, he knew that it was actually because the fur was a few thousand degrees hot, giving it that color.

As he looked at her, Iris also checked him out. She looked at his knee that had struck her and saw that it didn't have any burns on it. Though she wasn't that disappointed. She remembered when they were back at the Enchanted Mountain and how Dream could handle red hot metal with his bare hands. Just her hot fur obviously wouldn't be enough to cause him wounds. Luckily, that attack was only a feeler.

Feeling a bit more energized from the hit, Iris dashed back to him, except much faster. She blurred as she suddenly moved next to him, going straight for his leg once more.

"You should get serious."

Saying so, Dream sped up his perception, slowing the world down. He moved his body with much more power than before, throwing a solid kick to her body.

*BOOM*

A small shockwave was released through her body as the foot made contact. And unlike last time, Iris was thrown much farther, nearly 100 meters. She hit and rolled on the ground for a while before slowing herself down.

Luna, who had been watching from the side, suddenly widened her eyes. Though she smiled the next moment.

"I think you riled her up."

"Good."

*Woosh!*

After they spoke, an explosion of fire was suddenly released, creating a pillar of fire almost 50 meters high. Iris could be seen walking out, snarling as bloody flames poured from under her fur. Her eyes had turned black, giving off a destructive and deathly feeling.

"Very good. Now come at me again! Show me how much you've improved!"

Dream shouted and smiled widely, excitement welling in his chest. Iris responded by darting at him at her fastest speed while shooting out more flames. These flames destroyed all life around her, even some unlucky birds flying overhead.  

Soon, they clashed in a magnificent red explosion.