Nate collapsed against the wall next to an exhausted Aura. Even with how hurt the cultivators had been, the fight hadn’t been easy.

It was not easy to hop multiple realms. Powerful weapons could do a lot, but even they had their limits.

Aura had been forced to do most of the work on the more uninjured cultivators in the group.

The payoff had been worth it though. The rainbow orbs he had collected afterward had been very helpful toward his cultivation. The other items had been equally good in that regard. There had been more variety than normal in what he got, as the items were coming directly from the cultivators. The dungeon was still improving them each time, but they were definitely coming from the people.

He recognized many of the items due to how closely they resembled the original pieces. The colors changed, and the shape had often gone through a minor shift, but knowing where they had come from, the similarities were obvious to his eyes. To anyone else, he doubted that would be the case.

He would have plenty of items to go through later. Most of it would end up going to his parents. There were one or two pieces that he wanted to look at more closely before deciding.

That could wait for a time when his mind was working better. At the moment, it was all he could do to keep his eyes open.

Aura disappeared into his chest as he opened the menu on the computer attached to his wrist and closed his eyes, falling properly asleep.

When he opened his eyes in the morning, Nate had a message waiting for him. It had actually appeared in the middle of the night, but he had been too busy to pay it any attention by that point. Then later, his mind had simply been too tired to process what it was saying.

‘The Dungeon Core has been successfully upgraded to the third level. All functions of this dungeon can now be primarily relegated to the Dungeon Core, though specific tasks will require permission from the administrator. At this stage, the Core can maintain, strengthen, and slowly make improvements to the dungeon based on empirical data. The walls, floors, and overall material of the dungeon are now adjustable in strength by the Dungeon Core. There are five total levels for each Dungeon Core. Keep upgrading the Core to discover the additional functions that await at each level.’

Well, that explained why more cultivators hadn’t been coming at them then.

Nate pulled up the cameras for the dungeon as he showered. The rooms that had been destroyed by the cultivators, and by his own explosive traps, had all been completely repaired. There were several groups of foreign cultivators that suddenly found themselves spread out in undamaged rooms with working traps.

It looked as though they were still able to damage the dungeon to a small extent. The new level 3 Dungeon Core was able to repair the damage done to its walls, floors, and ceilings in such a short time that it hardly mattered.

Downstairs, he found the house silent and still.

That was right. He didn’t need to get ready for school that day. Until the call came for him to show up at the wall, he had free time.

Despite that, he decided to follow his normal schedule for the moment and made breakfast. While he was eating, he pulled up his storage and began going through the items he had gotten throughout the night.

There were several pieces of armor that he pulled out for all three of them. Since the original design had come from cultivator equipment in the first place, they could even wear them normally. The dungeon had still added its own enchantments to them, but they were hidden from view. They looked high class and would mold to the wearer’s shape. The chest protection was a mottled black color, while the pants were an off-grey color.

There were two other items of note. He had gotten a crossbow and a quiver for it. Both items he kept inside the storage for use with his avatar. It would be nice to have both of his actual weapons available to him each night. He enjoyed being able to use the gun and kriegsmesser, but there was something to be said for stability and proper practice.

He cleared away his dishes and laid out the new protective pants and armor tops for his parents on the table where they would see them.

After that, he began working on his meditation model in the living room. He kept his phone close and had the TV on, but turned it down low.

The city had detonated large swaths of buried explosives at different points around the perimeter of the wall. It was the first time he had seen any hint of the people of this world using explosives. From the camera footage, they seemed great at digging holes, but less useful at killing anything that had a core.

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Even with the extra help, the cultivators on the wall had barely managed to keep the beasts at bay throughout the night.

The wall had suffered a lot of damage as a result of their inability. Not that anyone was really blaming them. Everyone had always known that nighttime was going to be the hardest period.

The view on the screen split for a moment, showing the reporter on the top half while below her was a panning shot of the horde. There were portions of it where you could see that it had shrunk or damage had been to the specific area. The reporter was talking about the amazing progress they had made. Despite that, it was obvious that they were in a losing battle.

Even with the constant expeditions out into the dimensional zone and surrounding areas, the number of beasts hadn’t shrunk at all. Now they were seeing how many there actually were as they came from all around and converged on their city.

With a shake of his head, he went back to working on his meditation art. There was nothing he could do about the situation. He was nothing more than a very small cog in an extremely large machine. As a student, any contribution he could make was almost inconsequential, but it still added up in the end.

While he and his parents could now easily pack up their house and leave, that was not the case for anyone else. Angie and Lindsay’s families both had rather large estates here in the city that would be utterly lost if the place was overrun. And while both families had holdings in other cities, so they would be fine, it would still be a blow.

That wasn’t even considering the massive loss of life. If the walls fell, then everyone inside the city would be doomed. The beasts didn’t separate their victims between civilians and active cultivators.

It would not be a pretty sight if they were forced to abandon the city.

Unfortunately, it was not something he could control. It wasn’t even something that Aura could control. These beasts were no longer really her family’s subjects and wouldn’t listen to her, even if she tried to command them.

With a groan of annoyance, he stored all the work he had been doing on his meditation art and relaxed into the couch. There was too much going on at the moment, and he was having a hard time concentrating.

He felt a little helpless at the moment and had no idea what to do. This wasn’t some movie or anime where he could simply force himself to become stronger because things were getting serious. No, that process took time, and while he was definitely making progress, he wasn’t quite there yet. And even if he hadn’t been, one single realm advancement from him wasn’t going to make a single bit of difference. There were thousands of cultivators out there on the walls right now who had several realms on him, and they were still struggling.

The survival of their city wasn’t going to come down to the actions of one teen, with the memories of an adult. No, it was going to be a group effort. Nothing short of that would keep them alive.

***

Nate felt the wall shaking beneath his feet as the dirt compactors went about their work, reinforcing the wall behind him. They were using large industrial-sized machines to do the initial pressing of the dirt down. Then behind them would come several specialized cultivators at a time, one of which he recognized as Alice, one of the people who joined them during their last expedition.

They were each using affinity-enhanced energy skills to further compact the dirt to a rock-hard consistency. This would drop the overall level of the dirt by several feet in the new sections. So, more dirt would then have to be brought in and the process was repeated until the new section was level with the old one.

It was a stopgap measure, but it was better than nothing.

He waved to Alice, who gave him a tight, strained smile in return. That was really all he had time to do. The next barrel of bolts arrived for him to use, and he went back to work.

The city always maintained a hefty supply of arrows and crossbow bolts. The other throwable weapons were less abundant. Teams of cultivators that were being sent out of the gate already had an additional goal for their trips. They needed to retrieve as many usable arrows, bolts and thrown spears as possible.

The people of the city were already making more of each to ensure they never ran the risk of running out.

Looking down the line of the wall, he could see fewer people using non-standard weapons than the day before. There were a couple of them in key points, but that was it.

Nate loaded the bolt and leaning against the small parapet, aimed at whichever beast caught his eye at the moment. There were so many of them that there was no need to be choosy. He had been on the wall for a couple of hours already, and a feeling of doom had started to settle into him.

The wave of beasts was never-ending. Even the large energy skill attacks that had wiped out dozens at a time had done nothing to thin the horde.

He fired bolt after bolt into the mass below, doing his part in keeping them at bay. Occasionally, he would use his energy skill point break whenever he saw a target get too close. The skill destroyed the bolt, but he held little hope in getting most of them back regardless of what the city wanted. The people being sent out on expeditions didn’t have any sort of storage items. That meant they were limited to bringing back what they could carry and nothing more.

He tried not to use his energy skills too much, as he needed his qi to pull the crossbow back into position each time as well.

Nate had attempted to use basic ties on the beasts a few times in an effort to see if there was something controlling them. Each time, he had come up with nothing but a jumble of lines. There were the usual ties between related beasts, packs, and a few others, but nothing that drew them all together. They were simply mad, infuriated because their precious safe havens and natural treasure spots had been destroyed.

And instead of going after the idiots who had caused the damage, they were attacking the closest mass of people.

Down on the ground, one of the expeditionary forces launched a fierce counterattack. Powerful energy skills burst into being. A couple were even augmented by the user’s particular elemental affinity. Instantly, an area of land two-hundred yards in front of the wall and thirty feet wide was laid bare of life.

The ground itself had seemed to come to life as roots, blades of grass, and everything else vegetative reared up and speared through the beasts. A sharp burst of wind cut them all to the bone, leaving them on the ground bleeding. The third attack finished them off as a powerful beam of fire seared the flesh right off their bones.