Chapter 448

“Is there anything we can do to affect the rate of spell decay?” Cain asks the device out loud, for Cyrene’s benefit.

[Affirmative. Deactivation of Dungeons, Vortexes and pocket dimensions will rapidly destabilize the spell.] The device answers.

He should have come here earlier. This device is a treasure trove of knowledge if you just know the right questions to ask. Cain considers the problem for a few minutes while Cyrene waits patiently. He had originally intended to close the vortexes to release everyone trapped inside and reduce the number of Crazed that are being created daily. But doing that is only destabilizing the region even more. While that would help with the crazed problem, breaking down the barriers that keep the awakened beasts in the awakened zone would not help his popularity anywhere else on the planet.

The neighboring zones in the Southern Continet might be the first to be affected, but a flying beast can cross the ocean in a matter of days, or even hours for the more agile. Even a single one reaching the other continents would be a natural disaster as terrible as the Great War.

While Cain is thinking of a way to either warn the awakened areas of what is happening, or if it might be possible to cast a new spell that would keep them confined after the dungeons were gone, a steadily increasing number of red lights began to shine on the map of the Northern Continent floating in front of him.

Cain hadn’t been paying attention to it or the western continent at all, looking instead at the three continents he was at least familiar with, so it wasn’t until a large area had turned red that it caught his eye.

[What is that red region?] Cain asked the device, turning the globe on the interface around with a gesture of his hand.

[Data indicates that a Spirit Level spell locally known as Nullification has been used to destroy a Spirit Level dungeon in the Northern Basin. The effect has caused a ripple of unstable Ley Lines to spread.]

“Projected Outcome?” Cain asked out loud, startled. Who would have thought that after all this time, someone else had the same idea that he did?

Or perhaps many people have in the past, but this was the first transfer who grew powerful enough to actually do it?

[Collapse of the spell to natural stabilization within one one hundredth of a rotational cycle.]

Cain does the mental math quickly, twenty four hours of sixty minutes divided by a hundred… That’s about fifteen minutes from now.

Cain panics and sends a Guild wide message. [All Guild Members prepare for combat and home defense. The Dungeon spell has destabilized beginning in the Northern Continent, and every dungeon monster is likely to be ejected into the real world, possibly hundreds of levels more powerful than they are at the present moment.]

That’s enough to get the whole Guild mobilized, and Cain sees hundreds of Guild Requests being sent by members trying desperately to pull close friends and allies into the Darklight Host to bolster their power level.

[Officers, quickly vet every applicant that you are familiar with and trust. Members, you will be responsible for your recruits, since there is no time for the usual procedures.] Cain sends in Guild chat, and a flood of notifications start.

“Echoes, get to the Southern Continent as fast as you can and notify our friends and neighbors.” Cain instructed them before they suddenly vanished.

Cain sent a thought to their location, finding that they were already at the farm, which made him smile. Victor was so attached to his magical trees project that he set the rented farm as their home base.

What else could he do for now? He has Pet Sitters that he has never tried out, they might be of some assistance.

Cain tries to cast the spell, and a menu notification pops up on his interface.

[Please select region to babysit.]

First up is the Manor house, then the Castle, then Montauk at the entrance to the Beginners Valley. The device in front of him said it should stabilize before the Beginners Valley region collapses, but he sends one to Char at the house in Sunnyvale anyhow. That leaves him one Lesser Watcher to work with. Assah has a bunch of high level transfers from the north there already, so they don’t really need one, so Cain sends the last to Port Nefheim.

The port isn’t fully populated yet, but it is growing fast, and will likely become a haven for refugees once the particularly high level dungeons collapse.

Neffie sends a message in Guild Chat the moment that he adds the last Lesser Watchers. [Oh, you sent me a cute pair of twin butlers? Even at the end of the world, you’re so good to me.]

The little demon queen’s antics make a lot of the members laugh, while Cain recalls that the numbers would have been doubled the moment that they appeared.

The spell itself didn’t give much of a description, but he can see what they are seeing and hearing, like ten television sets in the background of his mind. It is distracting unless he fully tunes them out, but his mind doesn’t seem to be having an issue comprehending the influx of information. Looking at their stats in is list of summons, Cain can see that they are basically Echoes, which makes him inwardly sigh. Just Victor and Lou are enough of a headache, having ten more just like them, but not cloaked in shadows? That’s just a disaster in the making.

Unlike the Echoes, the Pet Sitters changed their appearance to match either the first person they saw, or the majority of people in the area. Neffie’s are Demon Kings, Char’s are Spirit Folk men, while the ones at the Manor are Wolf Kin.

Cain also finds that using the effects of [Dominion] which increases his spell range to anywhere his own senses can clearly percieve allows him to cast spells anywhere that his Pet Sitters, or Lesser Watchers as the system called them, can see. It seems to take a lot of mana for the ones further away though, so there is some hidden cost that wasn’t mentioned in the ability.

[You just got tired of writing Tooltips didn’t you?] Cain complains in his mind.

[Given the option, the System would not have contained tooltips at all.] The system answers him cheekily, making Cain smile as the soft laughter sounds in his head.

At least it fully fleshed out the status screen for the transfers. Learning by trial and error become easier every generation, as the base of knowledge plus the tips, tricks and exploits come to light and the old generation teaches the new. Assuming that they all survive the next few months that is.

[Boss, there are Bunnies.] Victor sends Cain a cryptic message.

[Of course there are. Bunnies are everywhere. Why is that relevant now?] Cain responds, annoyed by the message while he is trying to think.

[No, they are here. Lots of them, and more are coming.] The echo sends back, adding a mental image of a convoy of Bunnies in everything from priestly vestements to farmers overalls and servants livery stretching as far as the eye can see.

Oh, there are BUNNIES.

[Ask what the Goddess told them, and help as much as you can. I’ll bet they would even accept if you started giving them combat classes at this point. Or just give them all a summoning skill for all I care, but look after the bunnies.] Cain instructs, snapping at his Echo before sending a wave of instructions to his Lesser Watchers to send one clone out into the area near the closest dungeon in an attempt to mitigate the damage done, should the occupants prove feral or hostile.

They might not know that the Great War is over yet, since they are in a time loop, or they might be as insane as the Crazed, though not as mindless, since they can use their abilities while within the dungeon.

Something else on the globe is changing as Cain watches and sends directions. The ice of the Northern Continent is melting rapidly, and the view shows nothing but fire.

[Can you tell me what is causing that heat wave?] Cain asks the device, indicating the fires over the Nothern Continent.

[Sensory logs indicate that the usage of Nullification caused a backlash, and sections of the Fire Elemental Plane that were previously accessible through stabilized portals have now manifested in this world. The spaces are stable, but the heat emitted has caused widespread fire damage.]

Cain sighs as he looks at a Continent in ruins. [Where else is this likely to happen?]

[Analysis shows that only the Northern Continent had been experimenting with Dimensional Portals previous to this incident.]

That’s a bit of good news, but did they have to make one to the Fire Elemental plane, where very few mortals could survive? Though, as experiments, they might not have been able to target them properly yet, and that is the first place that they happened to come across.

[Is there a way to see casualties?] Cain asks, and a number of columns pop up on the projection.

Cyrene looks at the data and begins softly crying with her head on Cain’s shoulder. The device displayed them in the common language this time, and the results are horrific.

In most zones, the death toll is in the tens of thousands, as the collapse is ongoing, or only just finishing. But in the north and the northern sides of the Eastern and Western Continents, the deaths are already in the tens of thousands and climbing. Broken down by species, Cain sees that the Gnomish population of the Northern Continent has been reduced by 98.7 percent. They must have been the ones experimenting with the portals, which would mean that their cities are at the heart of each of those lakes of fire.

[Guild Master. Bad news, the dungeon residents are just as insane now as they were before, possibly even more aggressive. I’m not sure how long we can deal with this, the dungeons in the desert are pushing out level 250 and higher monsters and crazed fae.] One of the members sends in Guild Chat.

[Regional Officers, organize reinforcements. Members, if they are too much for you, withdraw back to a safe location and we can deal with the fallout later. Now that they are back in the world, the scaling damage reduction of the Dungeons should have dissipated though, so we should be able to damage them.]

At least that’s what Cain hopes.

[True for the Fae and Beastkin, not for the dinosaurs and other monsters.] Neffie answers, and Cain shifts his attention to where she is fighting next to the Lesser Watchers that he sent to her. She has called Summons, and is using Mythic Rank Fireball, so Cain guesses that they have shared the spell with the group. They are currently under attack by a wave of Dinosaurs, but the city residents are holding strong, and the Mythic magic is making up for the difference.

The only real upside is the Southern Continent. The residents of the Vortexes have been spit out with their sanity intact, and those who had systems before they were trapped all got a boost to level 200, which is what the elite monsters in the dungeon started at, progressing from level 200 to level 299 after which the Epic grade monsters started.

That might not be much consolation, but many of them were new transfers when they were trapped, and this gives them a headstart of a whole advancement or more. They might lack the ability to deal with Mythic Monsters, but they are adding a lot to the cities that they have taken shelter in. Cities that currently need all the help they can get, because the number of magical beasts that have flooded the continent is overwhelming. They too got trapped in the spell, but unlike the Crazed, they weren’t cloned daily, only imprisoned, waiting for this day when they could hunt again.