After fighting for a long while and venting his anger on the demons, Dream eventually wiped them all out, and having calmed down, he decided to go back up to the factory.
As they were heading up, Sophia gave him a rundown of the general global situation. Turns out, the armies were making great progress.
From what Sophia had heard, the human armies were planning on pushing all the way to the landbridge. From there they would hunker down, stabilize their position, and then focus on recuperating at home. They had been thrown into disarray with the fall of the Mercenary Empire and the overall state of affairs didn't warrant an all out assault on the demon continent.
The situation was similar with the Animal Empires. Actually, if directly comparing their states, the animal armies had it much better. The Empire at the forefront was the United Empire, otherwise known as the strongest single Empire on the planet. With everyone supporting that Empire in the war efforts, taking the offensive was much easier.
Like that, they had slowly but surely advanced their armies toward the land bridge. Although they weren't there yet, at the rate they were going, it would only be another couple of months until they were ready to attack. After that came the continent.
Unfortunately, the offensive on the demon continent would be much more difficult than fighting on their homelands. It would go slower and they would be met with much more resistance. Any invasion was disadvantageous for the instigator, but it was a necessary path, that much everyone was certain of.
While that was going on, Dream just focused on himself and recovering his strength, and the main way he did this was by building things. Anything that made him stress his skills and soul was beneficial. At the same time, he studied that new gray mist within his soul, the spread of which was advancing slowly but surely.
One of the things Dream focused on in terms of construction was his second orbital railgun platform, otherwise known and recently named as the 'Long John'.
Since he had dipped so much in power, his construction capabilities were also drastically reduced. Although he still had all his construction bots, his intervention accelerated progress by several times when at full strength. Now that he was barely able to match up to one of his bots, the construction would take a while longer. A few months in fact. But Dream was fine with that. He just wanted to build things.
So that's what he did. Almost every day he would be up in the factory working on the Long John. He would weld metal, bend metal, move tons of materials, assist in building the massive fusion reactors, enchant items, and more.
One thing that Dream actually found funny was that Aegis now had better enchanting abilities than him. Dream had long put Aegis back into his body, but he didn't allow him to release the power of the heart. Dream's soul wouldn't be able to take it, and the contracts could be disturbed. Luckily though, Aegis now had full control over the heart. Especially now, he was more valuable than ever.
Other than Dream, the girls were out and about, finding different things they could do. Turns out, they could go anywhere they wanted even while contracted with Dream. And regardless of whether or not it was good, distance wouldn't affect the conflict of their powers across the contracts. Not even being across the world would do anything, as if the contracts could communicate across infinite distance. However, there was one amazing perk to this, and it came from one of Luna's skills.
Luna was a familiar, and she was contracted with Dream in more ways than one. While she wasn't sure what her new skills did, she spent plenty of time messing around with them. Her's weren't as straightforward as Iris's, and they required a bit more study.
She focused the most on two skills: [Guard] and [Synergy]. After doing some experiments, she found that Guard did exactly what it said. It guarded. More specifically, she could take some damage in place of a person. In the case of Dream, even if she wasn't near him she could use her skill and defend him through their contract. Though she could also use Synergy in unison with it, which led to even greater results.
As for Synergy, Luna found that the applications were varied. For one, it allowed her to tap into the skills of contracted beings similar to before. And vice versa, she could pass on the benefits of her own skills. However, there was now one interesting feature of the Synergy skill that she accidentally found. It could bring her back to her contracted partner.
While it wasn't anything like instant teleportation, Luna could barely tell the difference. Upon accidentally activating this feature, she had been on the other side of the planet with Iris compared to where Dream was. And when it activated, she had suddenly disappeared, and a little more than 10 seconds later, she was in her spectral form attached to her contract on Dream's soul. It frightened both of them. As for Iris, she was left by herself and had to fend off the several class 4's they had been fighting. While that was no problem, she had been left a bit dazed.
After that event, the rest of the day was spent messing around with that feature. Turns out, Iris could be teleported too. Unfortunately, while the girls could teleport to each other and Dream, he couldn't teleport to them. He couldn't become spectral, and he was the nexus to which their contracts connected. It bummed him out not being able to, but at least the three would be able to better cooperate this way.
Other than that, nothing shocking happened for a while. Luna and Iris would go around fighting demons with both the animal and human armies while Dream worked up in his factory. They would often spend time with each other and agreed that they would take at least one day off every week to fully relax and unwind. Since they almost never got tired and never really needed to eat, sometimes they would get carried away doing their things, thus building up some mental fatigue. Even without that though, rest was always good. Especially for Dream in the state he was in.
.........
Like that, things around the world proceeded smoothly for about 6 months. During that time, Dream was able to complete the Long John railgun. He was also able to push his stats back into the A tier. However, over the course of gradual recuperation, he had discovered something about the gray mist.
The gray mist acted as its own energy, completely independent of Dream's mana. However, after spreading through almost a quarter of his soul, it started seeping into and filling his mana pool, seemingly mixing with his mana while not actually taking up any space.
Not only that, but the mist strengthened him too. Upon entering the A tier, he found that he was definitely stronger than a normal A tier. Even him back then with the same stats wouldn't match up to him now, the reason being that the gray mist somehow strengthened him alongside the mana. They worked additively with each other, not separately. Weird thing was though, that extra strength didn't reflect in his stats. His status only reflected how his mana enhanced him.
It was odd, but Dream couldn't find out why. The gray mist was even more mysterious than mana or flux, the reason being that Dream couldn't actually directly use the gray mist in anything yet. It only seemed to strengthen him more. It boosted his enchantments, his mana usage, his body, his skills, his speed, his mind, and everything else. Anything the gray mist came in contact with would be strengthened. Even his mana pool was expanded and densified some. But no matter what he did, he couldn't actually control the mist.
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He wasn't put off though. He was very happy about the extra boost. It meant he would reach his previous strength faster, even if it wasn't exclusively through mana. Although, it would still take a long time.
6 months and Dream had only risen to A stats. In the past, he had gone from level 0 to A stats in around 6 months. Now he had only gone from B to A. It was a snail's pace as far as he was concerned, but he could do nothing but suck it up and keep working.
During that 6 months though, perhaps only Dream was so lax. When it came to the Empires, while they had made progress, the demons had thrown yet another curveball.
The Empires had advanced all the way to the landbridge, both on the human and animal side. After getting close, they decided to hunker for a while and solidify their forces before launching a heavy offensive on the strongholds. This went as planned, and the armies were extremely well prepared. They pulled out nearly all the class 4's they could and all the armies were armed to the teeth. After talking between each other a bit, the human and animal class 4's had also agreed to fight on separate days with the human armies going first, and even go so far as to support each other with some class 4's. They wanted to be totally prepared.
And thus brought them to the start of the battle at the landbridge. The human armies advanced, and a nasty battle immediately erupted. It was a clash of tens of millions on both sides. Nobody was guaranteed to come out alive.
Even the class 4's were locked in an intense battle. The humans and their animal reinforcements numbered almost 65, but the demons came with nearly 80. It was an absurd amount, and the Empires were glad that they had made the choice to fight as they did. Either way, they all got into a never-before-seen battle, the aftershocks of which even threatened to kill the armies below.
But it went smoothly. Although class 4's died here and there, nothing out of expectations occurred, and the humans maintained the advantage. This was especially true considering Luna and Iris were there assisting. However, that was until a flip happened.
Luna was the first to notice. In the middle of the battle, she had suddenly looked backward at a human fighting a demon one on one. Neither were injured, and it seemed like they were faking the fight. Not only that, but the human's soul started changing. It seemed as if it were casting off a shell, and a demonic aura slipped out from underneath.
He wasn't the only one either. There were 10 others who started letting out demonic auras. None of them were injured from fighting the demons, and all of their eyes were a little blank, as if they were resigned to some miserable fate.
Luna could immediately recognize what happened, and she sent what she saw to Iris, Sophia, and Dream. After being notified, Sophia went through some records to identify the reason, and sure enough, all these humans had a common thing among them.
They were all victims of at least one assassination attempt by the demons.
The implications were obvious. They had been converted during the assassination. Such a thing wasn't impossible. A conversion could be done if the target was weak, and each person had come out of their attacks as a bloodied mess. But Sophia hadn't been suspicious since they had all taken a demon with them, making it plausible that they really did fend off their attackers. But who would've thought that was all a ploy.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much they could do in a short amount of time except notify the others who were fighting. But by the time they had been notified and processed what happened, those humans and their demon pairs launched their surprise attacks.
To say the results were devastating would put it lightly. The demons already outnumbered the armies, and with a total of 13 humans turning traitor, the tides were instantly flipped. Those 13 humans turned and launched out their most powerful attacks toward their former comrades. Many died confused, and the sudden situation change baffled everyone who didn't.
The battle quickly went from 65 vs 80 to 52 vs 93. And with the deaths of the sudden attack, the human forces further dropped to 40. They were now outnumbered over 2 to 1. It was a difference they couldn't fight against.
Seeing that, Luna and Iris went full force against the demons, not holding anything back. But with so many class 4 demons there, they had been strengthened to an amazing degree, and not even the two girls could take the situation lightly. Even if they could, it took time to kill each demon. Going all out, their killing speed could barely match that of the demons killing humans.
Their effort wasn't for nothing though. After coming to a quick conclusion, the remaining humans decided they needed to retreat. They needed to get out and recover from this curveball. If they stayed and fight, while they might be able to kill many of the demons, the only way it would end was with their demise, something that would doom all the human Empires.
So they did. With the girls covering for them, everyone made a beeline for the horizon. Unfortunately, the demons wouldn't let their prey go that easily, and several were killed trying to leave. Other than that though, most got out.
As for the armies locked in a battle down below, there was nothing they could do but alert them. Sophia gave orders to everyone with a bracelet to immediately retreat. Many soldiers also saw the situation, and with the sudden change for the worst, the human armies didn't hesitate in retreating as fast as they could. But with their class 4 guardians gone, nothing was preventing the elites from swooping down and wiping people out by the hundreds of thousands. Only those who could fly quickly could escape, but they were a minority.
It turned into a one-sided slaughter. And seeing such a slaughter, Dream quickly jumped into action. Not personally, but indirectly.
All of his troops were ordered to target the strongest demons and attack full force, holding nothing back. This included the gunships that rained metal from above, the Immortals down below, and even the small railgun platforms stationed a few miles away. He had prepared many things for such a huge battle, and while he hadn't planned to intervene fully, that was before such a situation developed.
The concentrated fire of all these machines did indeed prove effective. Especially the railgun platforms. Their projectiles tore through everything, and not even class 4's could take them head on. This ended up killing 14 class 4's before they finally found the platforms. And even then, with their flight capabilities, they were able to stall their destruction and take 6 more with them before being annihilated.
As for the troops and planes, while they couldn't deal such damage, they weren't bad at stalling. The soldiers didn't hesitate to throw themselves at the class 4's by the thousand and grapple onto the demons, pinning them down or just acting as harassment. With the nearly 2 million troops acting so suicidal, many of the humans in the armies were able to get away on some cargo ships that also came to help. But not all of them were so lucky, and tens of millions were killed mercilessly.
After only half an hour, over 30 million of the initial 37 million humans in the armies were killed. As for the rest, about 6 million were able to escape. However, there was about a million that were taken prisoner by the demons with no chance to resist.
The battlefield became quiet, and all the prisoners were grouped up and moved into the stronghold. Dream was still watching everything though, and his brows furrowed.
He felt a bit of pain in his chest. He had made a decision, one that couldn't be stopped by a million prisoners. Not even 2 million prisoners would keep him from following through. He gave an order.
"...Launch the bombs."
[Understood.]
With a signal, the Pea Shooter was armed, and out came canisters. 7 fusion nukes were launched, and even a kinetic round was fired. Their target was the landbridge and its battlegrounds.
*Flash!*
Dream watched it. His eyes were glued to the feed that showed everything getting razed to the ground as several new suns lit up the lands for miles around. The tens of millions of demons all around the stronghold were killed. Not even the class 4's could escape. But the million prisoners were also killed. It left him feeling uncomfortable, but he still knew he should do it.
"They would only get turned into demons. Not even I could rescue them. And I would miss the chance to kill so many class 4's... I'm sorry."
Closing his eyes, Dream closed the feed. He wasn't the only one who saw what happened though. Luna and Iris also saw what he did, and knew exactly the decision he had made. It pained them having to see that, and after taking care of what they needed to, they decided they would go straight up to him.
Dream wasn't done with just that though. After calming himself and thinking for a second, he gave another order.
"Raze the other landbridge. And the demon kingdoms. Anywhere with high concentrations of demons, nuke them. I made a mistake. I underestimated them... but I won't do it again. I think it's about time we ended this war."