"Aura, come back to the dungeon," Styx informed the wolfgirl whom was currently wandering around in the depths of the Abyssal Forest.

She suddenly vanished and reappeared in the dungeon next to Styx. While he still couldn't understand how she moved, he could guess based on her status.

It was likely a combination of several things, such as Spatial Movement, Time Stagnation, raw stats, and possibly even Phantasmagoria.

"Aura, if you are one of the Fifth Step Monster Lords, why are you and the others always within the Abyssal Forest and don't leave?"

"We can't leave."

"Eh, why?"

"Goddess."

Styx felt like there was a huge story behind this, so he pushed the woman to elaborate while enticing her by brushing her pitch black tail and hair.

"I used to go out seeking for food. Humans fought back a lot and were quite tasty, so it worked, I suppose. The kingdom has a goddess who presides over it though, and once the damage is too great, or beyond what they can contend with, she will descend to erase the problem."

"Eh?! What goddess?"

"I don't know, but she was very strong. I barely survived and was then told of the agreement between her and the monster. She won't descend as long as we don't actively attack the humans. Once we do, we will not be able to live anymore."

Styx pinched her brow and felt like the shadow of the kingdom he was in had suddenly become much larger. He would have to ensure he didn't cause enough damage to attract the ire of the goddess, and keep Aura out of the human's radar.

There was no issue in having her protect the dungeon from devil flowers though, which would allow him to earn a huge number of points.

He also called the elves in and told them to go out and start collecting devil flowers. He was surprised to learn that a crystalline stele had appeared in the heart of his dungeon, as if it knew there were people living inside of it.

With the opportunity presented before him, he didn't see why he shouldn't take advantage of it.

They weren't exactly flowers themselves, but a type of plant based monster which almost looked like large flowers. Yellow Devil and Crimson Devils flowers were all over the outskirts of the Abyssal Forest, each about as tall as a person's knee and were non aggressive until someone attacked them.

Each flower devil killed was worth the same number of aggression as points from exchanging the flower they leave behind upon death.

By killing a Crimson Devil Flower, you would earn 10 aggression. This would cause at minimum another Crimson Devil Flower, or ten Yellow Devil Flowers to attack you or the stronghold you were hiding within.

By killing an attacker, this would remove the aggression, but also add an equal amount back, effectively bringing a null change to the amount of total aggression and making another come from somewhere and attack at some point of time.

However, this is just the minimum and the total aggression would increase over time.

This continued until the end of the festival, and meant that one had to manage their aggression and not attract more devil flowers than they could fight off. One could also spend points to lower their aggression at a ratio of 1 point to 10 aggression.

Anybody could safely harvest points by keeping their aggression close to zero, but this would also give them a much smaller amount of opportunities to earn points.

While the elves were out earning the initial points, Styx built some fortifications in the dungeon while preparing the monsters for the devil flowers which would attack the dungeon.

They were all armored and placed in defensive positions. Aura was also asked to go to a certain spot, but she just ignored that and stayed beside Styx.

~~~~~

⠀

Outside of the dungeon and in the forest, the elves scattered under the moonlight and begun killing as many flower devils as they could.

Styx had the brilliant idea of making Aura also kill them, of which she could probably clean out a significant portion of the forest alone. Unfortunately, she just complained it was bothersome and went back to having her tail combed.

The flower devils in the forest were primarily Yellow Devil Flowers and Crimson Devil Flowers, with the occasional Second Step Blood Gold Devil Flower. The Second Step devil flowers were weaker than the standard newbie Second Step ranker, so the elves could easily kill one with two of them working together.

Therina's sword flashed under the moonlight as she severed the stalk bodies of countless devil flowers. The flowers gave very little experience each, but there was a large number of them, countering that issue.

Elena held a shorter weapon and would strike even faster than Therina, but was less powerful with each attack. She was like an assassin in the night, weaving through the trees silently and killing whoever she passed.

Rhea was more graceful and more skilled with a bow, so she had trouble with these enemies. She did know some magic though and threw water blades at the weak points on their stalks whenever she could.

Klair and Kale fought together in perfect coordination. Kale creating dimensional blades and barriers to support Klair who was physically the stronger of the two.

Of the new dark elves, only Niah, Vivy, and Vivy's two men went out far to kill flower devils and return with the spoils. The others kept close to the dungeon and killed some Yellow and Crimson Devil Flowers for experience

Kale could also store all the collected flowers together in a dimensional pocket, so they had a massive collection once they all returned.

Styx counted a total of:

⠀

[

x Yellow Devil Flower – 635p

x Crimson Devil Flower – 1,020p

x Blood Gold Devil Flower – 1,800p

x Brimstone Devil Flower – 3,000p

]

⠀

This was a total of 6,455 points, and an equal amount of aggression. He looked at the stele in the heart of the dungeon and inspected the leaderboard, rewards, and shop there:⠀

[

Mortal Leaderboard:

st: Abyss Kings Galactic Empire......….. 225,200,509p

nd: Ulcien Regressors Universe Empire...…. 223,908,300p

rd: Laurent Intergalactic Empire ......…. 219,555,000p

th: Human Intergalactic Federation......…. 216,207,498p

th: Monster King Confederacy.......... 216,202,111p

th: Star Gazer Galactic Empire.......... 215,987,509p

th: Heaven...............…. 215,312,250p

th: North Cluster Universe Empire...... 214,888,012p

th: Geneva Explosion Conglomeracy........ 212,520,006p

th: Juniper Intergalactic Empire........ 212,255,609p

.

.

.

,749,344th: Styx................ 6,455p

]

⠀

[

Mortal Leaderboard Prizes (End of Event):

st: Elysium Sky Fortress

nd: 99 Ritual Class Magic Spells

rd: T9 Defensive Array Blueprint

th: T9 Offensive Cannon Blueprint

th: T6 Warp Engine

th: SS-Tier Dungeon Core

th: S-Tier Dungeon Core

th: Secret Mortal Plane Invasion Token

th: T4 Energy Gathering Array Blueprint

th: Divinity Shard

]

⠀

[

Store:

Divinity Shard – 150,000,000p

A-Tier Dungeon Core – 120,000,000p

Worldstone Core – 115,000,000p

.

.

.

Inferno Spear – 4,000p

Intermediate Monster Repelling Charm – 2,300p

x Gold Coin – 2,250p

..

.

]

⠀

"What the fuck! This is a fantasy world, right?!" Styx shouted in a tirade as soon as he checked the stele. "Not to mention, this is clearly fucking pay to win!"

"What?" Aura asked while tilting her head in puzzlement at his outrage.

Styx explained what pay to win was, which left Aura to ask him, "But isn't that natural? The weak cannot beat the strong."

"But this isn't how it is supposed to go!"

"How is it supposed to go?"

"You know, equal chance for everyone to win."

"It's your fault for being weak."

Styx understood this principle, but he was still outraged at the unfairness of it.

"But how do they earn this many points, and so fast."

"Weapons."

"What?"

"They use weapons which go boom, zap and zing. Bigger weapons, bigger booms, zaps and zings."

Styx sighed and thought of the nearby dungeon city.

"Does this kingdom have these kinds of weapons?"

"Yes."

"What kind?"

"The kind that go bo-"

"Okay, I get it!" Styx cut her off and pinched his brows in frustration.

He knew this fantasy world was a bit too modern thanks to the integration of magic in technology and production processes, but this was too much science fiction for him to comprehend. There were also other things in the leaderboard that made him both worried and curious.

'Why is Heaven in the leaderboards for god's sake. Is it the same Heaven that I knew from my past life?"

~~~~~

⠀

Lagoon Porter City was currently in high alert mode.

Hundreds of thousands of people charge out of the gates at the global announcement of this new festival. They wanted to earn points at the start when it was the safest to do so. Once the aggression against the city reached a certain point, they would be under constant siege.

Adventurers, mercenaries, and any other person could sign up to take part in the city defense during the festival. A portion of the earnings would then be distributed to them equally based on their overall contribution.

Duke Ashburn had currently rushed to the city wall with his son Gabralter in tow. Gigantic orbs of light were lit up above the walls and currently shedding light on all the city's surroundings.

Once everyone returned, it is estimated that the city would earn in excess of several million aggression. By this point, they would be under constant siege and it would be too dangerous for individuals to leave the city again.

"Arm the manaburst cannons!" The duke commanded to soldiers who hurriedly rushed off to pass on or carry out their orders.

"See dad, I told you this festival was coming!" Gabralter called out to defend his earlier case of predicting what events were to take place.

The duke didn't say anything and just glanced at his son before returning his gaze to out over the walls.

Large, hidden hatches opened and giant cannons on top of iron pillars rose into the sky. They stopped a dozen meters above the walls and the cannons tilted forward to face outwards.

These weren't the kind that shot cannonballs, but giant science fiction looking monstrosities with a barrel two meters wide and four high. They were made from refined iridium superalloy and a Second Step monster couldn't even damage one.

They were to be mistaken for product of science though. The excessively complex arrays within the barrel and around the barrel opening came to life and lit up as mana was redirected into them from the dungeon's mana network, which effectively turned off all the monster spawners.

The cannons took almost an hour to fully warm up, and if enough mana was supplied to them, even a Fourth Step monster had to avoid a concentrated barrage else it too could die.

"Hey, I've never seen those before," A young city guard recruit on the wall whispered to his friend.

"What? Were you not paying attention in training?" His friend rebuked in mock.

"Well, you know, you don't need to be all that intelligent to get a job as a guard…"

"Sigh… Do you remember that fad with guns?"

"Oh, yeah, I remember hearing of that in school. That's ancient history now, isn't it? At least several centuries."

"350 years ago, to be precise. At the time, there was a small group of individuals who discovered gunpowder and made what they call guns. As everything was powered by magic, there was a lot of promise and expectations in this new idea. Everyone bought a gun, excited to have one and future prospects it held."

"That died though, right?"

"Came and went like the fad it was. Gunpowder turned into a dead end pretty quick, but these people's inventions inspired some of the greatest magitech engineers to create the first mana burst cannon. These cannons are a few decades old, but they are testament to nearly 300 years of research and development."

"Is that so, but who wants to study all that old knowledge though."

"Its basic knowledge taught in school you blockhead! Listen a bit more! But boy, wait to these things fire. Standing this close to it, even a Second Step ranker's bones will shake."