The Illicitous Dungeon

All the adventurers, mercenaries, even common citizens who rushed out to collect devil flowers returned as soon as they could no longer defend themselves.

A lot of people didn't return at all, either dying to devil flowers or by other killing them to loot their earnings.

Gabralter stood beside Duke Ashburn, whom looked over all of the people returning with their earnings with a sharp gaze. He didn't care that people died outside the city, as this was a dangerous world with people dying in every corner of it.

There was a judicial system which people could use to accuse someone of their actions and seek amends, but neither the duke nor the guards would actively target criminals unless their actions took place within the city walls or there was a public arrest warrant out on them.

Once they begun filing back into the city, the devil flowers started following. A giant wave of them worth millions of points began chasing behind them.

"Sound the alarm," Duke Ashburn ordered the guard commanders standing beside him. "Anybody not within the gates within time will have to seek their own survival until the end of this wave."

A blaring siren sounded from the top of the wall, indicating that the city gates were about to go into lockdown. Another guard commander placed his hand on a voice amplification array in one of the guard towers and poured his mana into it.

"All citizens, the gates will be closed in 10 minutes. I repeat, the gates will be closed within ten minutes. Anybody not inside the city within that time will have to seek their own survival."

The guard commander's voice echoed out across the plains and hills, warning all the people returning of the deadline. Many people panicked and rushed towards the nearest gate as fast as they could.

The Second Step rankers had it easiest. They were much faster than First Step rankers, and had higher level skills too.

They vanished into shadows and appeared from of others, rode the wind or employed complicated footwork techniques to rapidly increase their speed. As for the rare Third Step rankers, they made the Second Step rankers appear to be First Step rankers as they moved even faster, employing ground shrinking techniques or even short distance teleportation. Their movements were casual, but the very air itself around them shook when they moved.

A Third Step ranker could of course defend themselves from a large number of devil flowers, but nobody wanted to be caught between an entire city's worth of aggression and the city's defenders.

About 90 percent of the people outside managed to get in the walls in time before the gates slammed shut. The remaining people howled outside of the gate to let them in or fled in different directions to not be caught in the crossfire.

Gabralter and Duke Ashburn ignored those people as the city prepared itself to defend against the incoming wave. Hundreds of thousands of devil flowers charged at the walls across the plains, and while each made only a small amount of sound, the total aggregate noise was thunderous.

"All defenders, attack at will!" The duke commanded and swung his sword at the devil flowers, launching a giant wind blade which chopped nearly a hundred devil flowers in half and tore the ground asunder.

Gabralter admired his father's strength, which was in the upper reaches of the Third Step. He stood on the edge of the city wall and every swing of his sword sent dirt and devil flowers flying all over the place.

Chaos fell upon the battlefield as skills of all kinds rained upon the devil flowers. A First Step Apprentice Fire Mage cast several fireballs while monitoring his mana levels while right next to him, a Third Step Earth Rending Mage created a giant dragon made from rocks and dirt which trampled through the battlefield and crushed and tore countless devil flowers into pieces.

Archers used area wide attacks and rained curtains of arrows across the battlefield.

With such a large force, there were a lot of Third Step <Lv. 40> Tortured Soul Devil Flowers. These flowers stood approximately four meters tall and had giant, deathly grey petals. Their petals were partially transparent and offered a view into the other shore, where dead souls resided.

These souls would enter the world of the living through these petals and charge at anything living, ripping their souls out of their body before carrying them back to the land of the dead, where they would feast upon them.'

Fourth Step <Lv. 60> Resentful God Devil Flowers were the leaders of the army and very sparse in number. They stood nearly ten meters tall and flicked their enormous flower heads in wide circles, releasing enormous black spears of light which accelerated across the battlefield and shot at the city walls.

They were also extremely sturdy and even ordinary Third Step rankers' skills had difficulty causing any significant damage on them.

"Raise the defensive array!" Duke Ashburn shouted as the deadly attacks shot at the city.

Countless huge and complex arrays lit up on the city walls, creating a thick transparent barrier over it.

The black spears of light crashed into this barrier and the entire city trembled from the force behind them. The barrier itself was covered in cracks, but it quickly started repairing itself with more mana being put into it from piles of mana gems in storage tanks.

A resentful soul climbed up and over the barrier over the city wall and lunged at a Second Step adventurer who reflexively swung a mace at the enemy in panic.

The mace passed through the resentful soul without affecting it, while the soul flew straight through the adventurer's body, ripping out his own soul without any resistance. The twisted, resentful soul flew up into the air with its claws in the adventurer's soul, biting into it with it razor sharp teeth before flying back to the Tortured Soul Devil Flower it came out of.

That adventurer's soul flailed and screamed, a scream which his sound couldn't audibly express, but the expression on his face made any onlooker feel that scream. His body was like a puppet with its string cut the moment his soul was torn from his body, dropping to the ground with lifeless, dead eyes.

"Target the Third and Fourth Step enemies with the cannons! Fire without hesitation!"

The giant manaburst cannons rotated on the top of their support pillars, targeting the most deadly devil flowers.

The blue light inside the cannons' barrel exponentially increased before the entire city wall shook and the battlefield exploded.

Each cannon produced a thunderous boom as all the hypercondensed mana was released as a singular beam. All the defenders ducked their head instinctively as the impact point of these beams exploded in a maelstrom of mana which destroyed everything nearby.

Multiple shockwaves wreaked havoc amongst the weaker devil flowers and hit the city wall, creating another quake through its foundations and causing a storm of wind to pass over the top of it that even Second Step rankers had to brace themselves for.

Gabralter hid behind the battlement wall while Duke Ashburn himself resisted the shockwave and following storm with his body alone. His hair flew back, and swirls of air currents could be visibly seen around his body, yet he stood as firm as a steel rampart.

Light blue smoke constantly trailed from the cannons' giant barrels as they begun recharging for the next attack.

All the high rank devil flowers and most of the smaller minions had been destroyed in this barrage though, so the city defenders were the only force to kill the remainder of them.

"There will be some time until the next wave, the city guard and collection teams are to go collect the fallen devil flower loot," The duke used a personal voice amplifying device to spread his command across the city wall and to all defenders. "All volunteers are to remain in place until your distribution of the profits are to be divided."

Along with the duke's words, the city gates opened and hundreds of carts and nearly ten thousand workers entered the ruins of the battlefield. They quickly and efficiently collected all the devil flowers left upon the death of the monster.

Many lower level flowers had been destroyed in the battle, especially from the manaburst cannons, but the overwhelming majority had survived. No amount of damage to them would devalue them either, and was only if they were completely destroyed.

The flowers were carted back into the heart of the city where they were quickly tallied and divided based on earnings. Any expenses in reducing aggression came out first, but the remaining part were then dividing into the following ratio:

⠀

[

Total Points Profit: 3,475,112p

50% – Maple Dragon Kingdom Earnings – 1,737,556

20% – City Earnings – 695,023

15% – City Guard Earnings – 521,267

10% – First and Second Step Volunteer Earnings – 347,511

3% – Third Step Volunteer Earnings – 104,253

2% – Duke's Personal Earnings – 69,502

]

⠀

The sun began to rise over the horizon as if signalling the end to the war, but this was only the first wave.

The Maple Dragon Kingdom earned over 400 million points by sunrise, but it was ranked in the 10,000s as the top empires which spanned across worlds had already earned billions.

Gabralter looked up into the slowly brightening night sky and wondered what those kinds of megalithic empires looked like. The Maple Dragon Kingdom was already a terrifyingly strong presence in his mind, fighting off the Neth'rite Demon Kingdom armies along their eastern border for centuries.

"All commanders are to immediately report to the northern briefing room," Duke Ashburn commanded over the city wall and to all the higher ups before turning to his son. "You too Gab. Come with me to attend this meeting."

"Yes, dad!" Gabralter gave a military salute, although his father waved for him not to give him the formalities and led the way to a briefing room where all the guard commanders gathered.

"Report the damages to me. How are the losses of personnel?"

The commanders each reported the number of deaths and injuries.

"So, there are currently a total of 27 city guard deaths, 134 volunteer deaths, and 1,248 people still seeking treatment from emissaries of the Eve Temple."

"Correct, Duke!"

"It's not too bad, but I want it lower. We can have more and more people dying every wave. Reduce that number to 10 percent of the current in the next wave. Should we be unable to cope, I will lower the aggression to a more manageable amount."

"Understood!"

The next wave was expected to arrive in several hours so everyone rushed off to complete their tasks, ready the defenders for the next wave, and also establish a shift rotation for defending the wall.

"Dad, do you believe me now?"

The duke looked at his son and merely stated, "Evidence is required."

"What do you mean?! I told you what would happen, didn-"

Duke Ashburn raised a hand and cut his son off.

"I have sent a message to Duchess Euklid that your warning originated from a highly reputable diviner currently within our territory and precautions should be put in place. Any further proclamations require concrete evidence to sustain any action against them."

Gabralter bit his lip in frustration. He was thankful that he had already given information to The Relevant's reporters, so they would force his father into taking action and by extension, saving Therina.