***

  The emergency meeting went on after the disappearance of the traitors. While some tried to blame all of the Beasts, the words of the leader of the Beasts made it clear that they had no knowledge of this happening and did not approve of this move.

  Yet, over and over again, it was brought up. Eventually, the leader of the beasts got tired, and after a particular question, it allowed him to move the meeting along.

  “Of course he did it with your permission, otherwise the vows would have killed him?”

  “Don’t you think I would have been dead if that was the case? We all have our own vows, do we not? We all do things differently, so let me tell you how we do things. We don’t suffer blind loyalty, so we have ways to get out of vows amongst ourselves.”

  “The only way he could have done what he did without dying and with me still alive was that he truly knew our entire history and lineage would be destroyed if he didn’t do what he did. So, I don’t know what you think you can get by continuing this line of bullshit, but I, on the other hand, want to talk about the literal threat to this entire world!”

  “What threat? It’s baseless. The dungeon doesn’t have such capabilities. What it showed was simply a play to make us believe.”

  Yet the person who spoke those words didn’t get the support he was hoping for. To the relief of the leader of the Beasts, the topic actually moved forward to the one he was worried about. A lot of arguing followed, but more and more evidence seemed to indicate at least some truth to the dungeon's claims. There were many diamond ranks at the event, and their senses were excellent. The biggest evidence for this to be an actual threat was the breaking of vows.

  Outside, a frantic evacuation and preparation of defenses continued. Before anyone could properly realize, the 24 hours were up. The emergency meeting was interrupted, and almost everyone was surprised that it went by so fast without them ever coming to a decision on anything.

  None of them took the dungeon’s threat about driving them away from this place seriously. They didn’t believe it would be possible. So, the emergency meeting continued while some went out to help the platinum ranks with the defense, in case it was actually needed.

  Before the timer went to zero, all over the mountain and the entire area now claimed by the dungeon, rumblings and smaller earthquakes were felt. Then, holes opened up everywhere. A moment later, a quiet yet fast marching sound was felt, and from those thousands of holes, endless streams of human-sized ants poured out.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The defenders laughed. While the numbers were significant, everyone could sense that these were just monsters, and all of them were gold ranks. It didn’t take long for the ants to reach the defensive lines. When the monsters got close to it, they simply disappeared, and the defenders laughed again. Their positions were protected by devices that disrupted dungeon territory, which meant that monsters couldn’t survive there.

  A moment later, the monsters could move further. This confused and scared a lot of people. Then, a voice was heard above all: “The dungeon is pushing our disrupting devices back. Begin the offensive!”

  Not a moment later, ranged attacks fell onto the ants, and soon the melee defenders had to get their blades dirty as the dungeon pushed back on the territory disruptors, using its vast reserves of mana to overwhelm almost all of those devices. Even then, the defenders were not pushed back—they weren’t even strained, although they still had to defend from all angles.

  There was merriment in the defensive lines. Sometimes people switched out with others as those in the back got bored. The fighting continued, yet there didn’t seem to be a stop to the stream of ants. They were killing them as fast as they were coming, but slowly, hours started to go by. The emergency meeting continued, with diamond ranks every so often rushing into the flood of ants and destroying huge swaths of them.

  Yet they never stopped coming—not for a second. On the second day, after continuous fighting, the defenders started to run into mana problems, and this time they actually needed to switch people out to give them rest. There were still smiles on their faces, but the joyous mood of the day before was gone.

  So it continued, the emergency meeting never stopping as there were many actually wanting to leave the dungeon alone, believing the threat it posed was credible. Most of their words fell on deaf ears, and the situation outside didn’t help their case—at least, not until the first few deaths happened.

  These were mainly accidents: people getting in each other’s way, and then ants taking the opportunity to deliver proper, devastating attacks with their mandibles that could easily hurt the platinums if they simply got close enough.

  On the fourth day, deaths continued to mount up, yet the flood of ants never stopped. Many in the defensive lines didn’t understand how there could be so many ants—they must have killed millions already. But they were underestimating the numbers. They hadn’t just killed millions—they had killed tens of millions. Their leaders understood that, yet the flood never stopped.

  The generals in charge of the defenses were counting on the dungeon running out of mana, but when they consulted their dungeon experts, they were told it didn’t seem that the dungeon was using any. It seemed to be operating like it always had. So, everyone came to the conclusion that it was somehow hiding its actions, and they just had to tough it out until it ran out of mana.

  The real reason why they couldn’t feel the fluctuations was because ETG wasn’t actually creating an endless number of monsters. He was simply using his gold-rank monsters, the ones he had made to help with his fortress project. He had made billions of them to complete that work, and now that he could make platinums, they were just taking up the number of monsters he could upkeep.

  So, while the defenders thought they were fighting and winning this fight, ETG was just using this opportunity to get rid of his no-longer-needed monsters, the ones he had made to help with his building efforts, in a way that wasn’t too wasteful.

  When the fiftieth day passed, once again, earthquakes and rumblings were felt. Many more holes opened up, and the ones that were already there widened even further.

  ETG had gotten some good advice. Monster ants, like the ones he was using for this early assault, could actually climb over each other extremely easily, increasing the number that reached the front lines.

  This simple yet effective change, for the first time, properly challenged the defensive line. Not many had the reach to fight the incoming wave of ants that towered over them multiple times their height.

  Dozens of diamond ranks left the defenses and started to kill huge numbers of ants even before they could get close to the defenders. Yet anything they did didn’t stop the flow completely. Orders were given for the line to move back. Conjured platforms were made so the defenders could climb and form multiple lines on top of each other so they could still fight the flood effectively.

  And so it continued, with days rolling by with endless fighting happening. Even the leaders, in the emergency meeting, finally started to pay attention.