It was Sora, the trickster Tengu that first learned of the best method to defeat the hordes released from the dungeons. The intelligent species weren't mindless like the crazed, only driven insane and forced to the peak of rage by the effects of the spell. So, her first idea was to mind control them and turn that against each other. But what she found when she tried was even better.
The four dungeons within Blood Sands Castle had opened at the same time. The dragons had immediately flown away, maintaining enough of their sanity to realize how much time had passed and wanting to regroup and recover, and the Synthetic Seraphim that the two mischief makers had left behind simply flew to the top of the tower to watch the show while the humans, dwarves, and elves were all tossed into the castle grounds in utter confusion and battle lust.
The appearance of Sora and Maggie, the two Lieutenants stationed at the Castle, along with their army of summons, backed up by two dozen first awakening Guild Members, was enough to make even the dungeon-crazed armies pause to consider their next action. That's when Sora tried for mass mind control and things took a drastic turn for the better.
The Tengu quickly realized that using [Mind Control] on them had a high chance to break the effects of the dungeon debuff now that they were outside. The more intelligent the target, the higher their mental resistance and the more likely it was to succeed. This also had the side effect of turning their former allies against them, but the confusion was more than enough, and the soldiers that were now free of the spell fought valiantly against their former comrades.
Once the castle grounds had been secured, Sora began her travels to drop off reinforcements, stopping along the way to mind control groups that looked like they might be reasonable after the debuff was removed. She explained to every group what had happened, and a bit of history, which was enough to convince most of the Fae and humans she found that they were not dead and that this was their old world, only dead and lifeless in this region because of the intense ferocity of their battles.
The truth was a nightmare to many of them. What was the point of a war to defend their homelands if there was nothing left for them to live on afterward? The war destroyed their homes, their entire nations, and everything else.
Sora did her best to convince them to take shelter in the Darklight Host, giving directions to Blood Sands Castle, which now had a large refugee population camped inside. They were mostly travelers who were caught up in the chaos of the dungeons closing, but there was room for more, and the Tengu sensed that these soldiers had potential, even the ones that didn't have an active system.
She knew that if they were granted a Skill, they would awaken a Class if they had the potential and that the Watchers that Cain sent to them were like his Echoes, having the ability to use most of his skills at reduced power. If she convinced them to grant all these people a skill, they would have a much stronger force at the castle, sufficient to hold against all threats, and even begin to take back the desert from the monsters and others that couldn't be reasoned with.
That wouldn't solve the problem on a grand scale. Too many groups wouldn't be willing to cooperate even without the dungeon effects, but it gave the lower-level areas a bit of hope for their future.
The capital city of Skyview was in much worse shape by the end of the first week. The dungeons that had opened released occupants much higher level than the locals, thanks to the difficulty that made them so valuable before. They had a lot of Epic monsters inside, and Legendary bosses, which most of the residents could barely injure at their current level.
Plus, the two dungeons inside the walls suddenly dumped their contents all over the capital city, and the sudden turn of events took the city guard and the stronger factions by surprise, allowing the monsters to destroy a large portion of the buildings before they were chased out or brought under control.
With communication, they laid traps for the insane former dungeon residents, herding them into well-prepared defensive points to be wiped out.
In contrast, the Long Fang Valley only had one dungeon, while the surrounding territories had a combined total of four. With everyone working together, plus travel time, the Darklight Host had the entire area cleared in under an hour.
When King James heard of their good fortune, he immediately sent a message to Svetlana, who handles the city's affairs on behalf of Cain, asking for assistance to be sent to Skyview's allies. He has a lot to deal with, and he couldn't send anyone to help small territories like the Nyanko Confederacy with their monster problems.
Some regions already had Guild Members in them, some didn't but teams were sent in all directions to help wherever they could, including no fewer than ten members who volunteered to go help Nyanko, home to over a million feline-type beastkin. Officially it is because Princess Khali, the petite human girl who became part of King James's harem is such a good friend to the guild, but Svetlana suspected that it had more to do with the fact the population was over 70 percent female catgirls with a strong fitness culture.
The Darklight Host would never stoop so low as to pick who they saved first based on how cute they were, right?
On the Southern Continent, one small farm had suddenly become a refuge amongst the chaos. Those ejected from the vortexes weren't insane like those trapped in the time loop of the dungeon. But there were hundreds of thousands of refugees suddenly appearing, and the power level of the Mythic Beasts all over the continent had suddenly skyrocketed.
The only saving grace was that Mythic abilities don't suffer the same level of degradation that lower-quality spells do. The higher-level monsters were much tougher, and physically more powerful, as well as having higher spell power, but they still took just as much damage from the Mythic spells as they always did, so the difficulty wasn't overwhelming.
The Echoes had granted all their summons Mythic Fireball and Mythic Ice Breath, the two applications of [Ancient Wisdom] balancing each other out well. What was immune to fire was rarely immune to ice, and vice versa.
With hundreds of summons in the area capable of Mythic level attacks, there wasn't much fear of wandering monsters at the farm or the nearest village, so they naturally became a gathering point for those who escaped the vortexes.
The Echoes were happy to help those in need. Not because they suddenly became selfless, but because the ever-growing camp provided them with the much-needed manpower to replant crops for their experiments, now that their summons were busy keeping the area clear of beasts. Without all these new people, they would have had to do it themselves or make puppets to take care of it for them. Instead, they got thousands of volunteers happy to help, and they even gladly ate the experimental foods without asking too many questions about what had been done to it, simply accepting the excuse that the Echoes were trying to increase the quality and output.
The cities of the Southern Continent weren't enjoying things quite as much as the Echoes were though. The extra strength emboldened the monsters, and many of them lived in packs. One or two at a time, the extra levels were manageable, since they were using Mythic abilities anyhow. But dozens at a time, with their increased durability and seemingly neverending mana pools, turned many less defended small towns into monster dens.
The monsters didn't seem as interested in the farming villages though. The small groups and widely spaced houses didn't trigger the hunting instinct like a large group with aggressive guards did. The Echoes were studying the reason why in their spare time, but the preliminary decision was that the fault actually lay with the incense that the cities used to repel the monsters. It contained a magical equivalent of a pheromone that deterred them, but now that they were so much more powerful they were willing to challenge what they thought was a rival monster pack.
Since the farmers didn't use it and didn't actively hunt them, they weren't viewed as a real threat, more like a food product that sometimes did a good job of fighting back. The monsters were overwhelmed with newfound power, not starving, so the farmers simply didn't matter enough to attack.
In Landis, utter chaos reigned. The city was still recovering from the civil war, and the outlying regions were occupied by Orcs, who barely knew where the dungeons were to begin with, so the entire nation was flooded with a wide variety of combatants, now enhanced to their full previous power.
The residents were a bit higher level than the desert, but not by much, so the elites at level 200 were pushing their skill level, while the Epic monsters that used to be dungeon bosses were completely beyond all but an elite few of the military. The only saving grace was that Carlos was there, and managed to call for reinforcements from the Guild. Svetlana sent him a combat patrol of Bearkin, all over level 200, and they took back the capital city in a single day.
Over the course of the week, they slowly started securing the outlying villages that survived and still had residents, while the Bears passed on the news of what happened to the ecstatic Orcs, who decided that what the residents of Landis viewed as the end of the world was nothing more than a blessing from the Gods. A return to the glory days of the continent-wide war.
The bears thought that viewpoint was quite admirable, as they had quite a few combat maniacs among their own ranks, so they simply told the humans to leave the Orcs alone and they would do their very best to take care of the problem themselves. Working in raid teams, and fighting almost every waking hour, the strength of the Orcish nation began to creep upward at a noticeable rate, greatly alarming the humans of Landis.
There was only one thing to do, they decided. They must join in the battle, and strengthen themselves to handle both the former residents of the dungeon, as well as the threat of Orcish invasion after they ran out of other targets to fight.
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