I watched as the sky worms approached. I was kind of looking forward to this fight. I had already done it a couple of times, but that was what made it so great. It was an easy benchmark I could look at for my progress in terms of combat.

The flying worms came in and I kicked off the ground, quickly gaining height. Air Burst. Acid Shot x2. My attacks easily hit them. I didn’t really care about saving energy either, since I knew there were only ten. The one thing the Almighty System was good at was repetition.

Once you understood the pattern or had experienced something already, the difficulty level went way down. I quickly took out one flying worm after another. While I wouldn’t say level 4 monsters were easy, they were not stressful. Even these flying ones.

I landed back on the ground and collected the dropped point crystals since I had nothing else to do. I cashed the crystals in, as a small drop to the vast reserves I had. It was honestly a bit disgusting how big my health insurance policy was at the moment, but better more than less. After the regenerations and other expenses, it stood around 485 million points or so.

Checking the pillars, the 100 minute upgrade timer was still running. Well, I was going to purchase the next upgrade for sure. That would allow anyone to purchase the Channel stat, so they could use active equipment and possibly more esoteric raw energy manipulations. That was the same level the Forbidden City had been at.

Apparently, the Divine Empress didn’t want to risk the next upgrade, for some reason. While all her cities were stuck at level 3, the Forbidden City had been at level 5. She was clearly fine upgrading her own city and she had soldiers, buildings, and lots of other things to help win a fight.

That was why I was curious about what the next upgrade would bring. I probably wasn’t going for the one after that, but the thought kept lingering in my mind. Risk the fight for a meta-point. It was a big question and a bigger risk either way.

The downtime also gave me a chance to regenerate my energy for the next fight. Another aerial battle, or something to actually test the walls? I peeled an orange and ate the slices while I waited. The people in the city had already been warned off about what I was doing, which was why I was alone.

While backup would have been nice, there just wasn’t anyone at my combat level and getting someone up to my level wasn’t simple or cheap. I thought about boosting someone up to be a sidekick. But that wasn’t very appealing, since if they had enough points to be useful, they had enough points to betray me.

It was a matter of trust at the end of the day. Unless someone proved themselves beyond all doubt, I just didn’t have it in me to trust someone like that. I looked at the light source as I finished off my orange. It was getting close to setting, but I had an hour of light left, even with all my waiting.

The Astrologer had mentioned that the sky was messed up, but he had said he hadn’t found anything out that was useful about the light source or the stars. His best guess was that it was all an illusion of some kind and we might be in a bubble. That made more sense than some crazy geometry shenanigans. Gaining altitude didn’t make the light source appear any bigger.

The real headache inducing thing that was very hard to wrap one’s head around was the fact, that one’s shadow didn’t change except from the light source moving across the sky. No matter what direction a person moved across the Systemic Lands, it was always the same angle. The only change to one’s shadow came from the light source moving.

I checked the pillars again. Well, the time was up, time to purchase the next upgrade. I spent ten million points. A small drop from my vast bucket of wealth. I moved away from the pillars and leapt up into the sky, while turning around.

Nothing in the air, but it might take a moment. I checked the occasional cloud drifting through the sky and there was nothing coming out from behind them. I felt the ground shake slightly. I leapt into the air again and spun around once more.

What the hell?! There was a multi-colored wave coming up and over the wall from all directions. Large swaths of liquid moved up and over the wall. I quickly moved to a building next to the plaza, got on top and then leapt up in the air from the top of the building. The walls in the distance were melting, along with the buildings.

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I tried to process the sheer scope of what I was seeing, but my brain just didn’t want to accept it. It was a city sized slime, or multiple slimes, approaching from various directions. Thankfully the entire wall hadn’t been engulfed. I counted the number of wall sections that had been melted in an eight portion. There were about twelve.

A quick bit of math put the estimate at 96 level 5 super slimes. I could tell their level based on how much energy they were packing. I was an expert at using my Sense stat like that now to instantly tell the level of a monster. It was probably 100 knowing the Almighty System. That most likely meant a level 6 city would have a 1,000 level 6 monsters.

Okay, I get you Divine Empress. Even I could see her wincing at those kinds of numbers. That would be a tidal wave. That would be insane. I couldn’t even imagine the scope of that kind of battle. Even killing a monster a second, it would take a while. The next upgrade was not happening until I could level 7 monsters easily and level 6 monsters weren’t even a thought anymore.

I kicked off the building and made my quickly towards the nearest monster. Each slime was about the size of two buildings, and they were quick. They also changed colors constantly, but the entire slime changed as one. No individual parts at least.

Acid Shot. A burst of flame erupted in mid-air, intercepting my attack. Of course, level 5 monsters wouldn’t be easy. Why would they be easy? The slime lunged at me. Acid Shot x7. Acid Shot x3. I went overboard to make sure I killed this one. I easily kicked backwards off the building I was on and retreated while keeping an eye on my surroundings to make sure I didn’t get flanked.

The color of the slime shifted from red to yellow and bursts of light and explosions intercepted all my attacks in the first wave, but the second wave got through. It was like a drop in the ocean, or a very large bucket. The super slime quickly began to melt, but it just had so much mass, that it wasn’t killing enough of it. Acid Shot x5. Acid Shot x5.

Another five attacks got through and the slime finally began to melt and then died. That had taken 6,400 energy. That was enough to make me want to puke a bit. I noted the other slimes were moving in on me.

At least they didn’t adapt to counter my attacks, they were just beefy. No range attacks either, but they were very quick for monsters as large as they were. There was nothing to do but run around the city, which was slowly melting.

That was when I noticed a couple of the slimes from the opposite direction going over the pillars and damaging them. Of course, that would happen. It was too much to hope for 10 level 5 monsters that weren’t a nightmare.

It didn’t help that the slimes were spreading out into a tight grid pattern around me, trying to ensure I had to place to retreat to. Getting close to a super slime would have them unleash a type based effect at close range. The same ability was being used for offense and defense.

There were just too many. I could deal with five, ten, maybe twenty. But there were 99 monsters left, all moving to trap me in a sea of various effects. Retreating towards the edge of the city, the multi-colored wave of slimes followed me.

It was pretty cool to look at and made me have a slight smile. Once at the edge of the city, I began to race near the wall, doing a loop around the city, pulling the slimes with me. While they were quick, they weren’t quick enough to catch up with me.

I did some mental math as I raced around the city, doing a lap. If it took 20 Acid Shots to kill a slime or 6,200 energy, and I got back 100 energy per minute. That meant an hour per slime, or ninety nine more hours.

This was going to be quite embarrassing when everyone started showing up and I was still running around in a circle. Well, there was nothing I could do besides run away or fight it out. Running away risked destroying the pillars or getting a retaliation from the Almighty System. I wasn’t going to risk that. So, it meant running around, while the technicolored wave of energy swarmed behind me.

I took out another slime that got in my way. Only 98 left to go. I was trying to think of anyway I could kill them more quickly. But the worst part about slime monsters, was that they were resistant to physical attacks. These monsters were also level 5 which mean that they were extra tough. Then they came in the large variety with close range defense and offense.

All that combined, meant that my only way to kill them was with Acid Shot. It made me wonder if the Divine Empress had fought them all. Upgrading Neo Brasilia had also brought sky worms, so I assumed the upgrade battle was the same across all cities.

I made a full loop around the city and the terrain was looking worse along with the wall. It was honestly impressive how much all these monsters were messing up the terrain. Upgrading a city was a good way to wipe it out.

All the nearby buildings, next to the wall were melted away. With how I was dragging the slimes and moving in a large circle, they ended up mostly on the interior of the wall, but some had gone up the side or on top, wrecking the city wall some more.

I was really glad that I wouldn’t have to pay for that, and it would just auto fix. Otherwise, I shuddered at the cost to fix all of that. I tried to think how I would handle round two of this battle as I killed a third slime. They were too strong, too quick, too large, and there were too many.

Maybe using the City Shield while taking them on outside the city would be the best option. That seemed like the best idea. Or activating the City Shield to cut portions of them off. The timing would be difficult, and it risked them entering in straw form. Better to not risk it for round two.