Chapter 307: First Ten Days

Kai walked through Mythal, and the city looked nothing like it had the moment Tiamat first stepped through the Crimson Gate. The roads still carried scars. Several buildings remained little more than skeletons. But construction was everywhere, hunters hauling materials, engineers repairing conduits, Church members installing relics, new towers rising against the skyline.

"Your city survived better than I expected," Tiamat said.

He glanced at a ruined building beside him. "You sound surprised."

"Most civilizations would have lost far more after facing me directly."

"How many?"

Silence held for several seconds.

"You don’t want that number."

His expression sobered. "Yeah." He looked away. "Probably not."

He opened the System.

[Second Disaster Countdown.]

[16 Days Remaining.]

He stared at it. "...Sixteen."

Ten days had disappeared since he’d last checked.

"Time passes quickly when you are busy," Tiamat said.

He closed the window. "We can’t afford to slow down."

"No." A pause. "But you also cannot fight endlessly without rest."

"Are you telling me to rest?"

"I am telling you that exhaustion makes people stupid."

Kai laughed. "That sounded suspiciously like concern."

Silence.

"Don’t become arrogant."

He smiled. "Definitely concern."

He reached the research building a short while later, a holographic map of Mythal spread across the central table, Lily, Elden, Gabriel, Mayor Ko, and several Church specialists gathered around it.

Mayor Ko looked up. "Perfect timing."

"How is it?" Kai asked, studying the map.

Lily pointed at several districts. "Better." She activated the display, golden lines spreading beneath the city. "The surviving relay network is almost fully restored."

"But we’ve changed more than just replacing what Tiamat destroyed," Elden added.

"Version Three," Kai said.

Lily smiled. "Exactly."

She walked him through it section by section. Multiple defensive layers overlapping, so instead of one barrier taking the full brunt of an attack, several nodes divided the impact between them.

"If one section takes more damage than expected, nearby barriers automatically reinforce it," Elden explained.

"Redundancy," Kai said.

"Exactly."

Mana could now flow through multiple routes instead of one central pipeline. "Nexus used a similar system," Gabriel said.

"You called it the Lifeline Network?" Lily asked.

Gabriel nodded. "Used during large-scale disasters."

"And now we’re combining it with Mythal’s relay system," Kai said.

"That’s the idea."

Elden activated another section, small symbols spreading across the map. "Temperature." One changed. "Pressure." Another. "Mana density." Another. "Gravity."

"You’re trying to detect the calamities before they fully manifest," Kai said.

"We’re trying." Elden paused. "Whether we can detect them in time is another matter entirely."

Lily activated another function, highlighting several districts. "This is the biggest change."

"What is it?"

"Environmental stabilization." The network could now counter abnormal environmental conditions directly, sudden temperature shifts, pressure spikes, mana storms, unstable terrain, gravity disturbances.

Kai remembered the simulations. "So the city itself can fight back against the environment."

"That’s the goal," Elden confirmed.

"Some civilizations attempted something similar," Gabriel said.

"And?"

Her expression sobered. "Most weren’t successful."

Silence. Lily closed the display. "Which is why we’re testing everything before the real event."

One section of the map stayed red.

[Emergency Protocol — Locked.]

Kai noticed it immediately. "What’s that?"

Lily glanced at Elden. He shook his head. "Not ready."

"What does it do?"

Lily smiled. "You’ll find out if we finish it."

Kai stared at her. "You sound like Tiamat."

"I heard that," Tiamat said instantly.

Kai laughed. Gabriel glanced between him and the empty air. "Are you talking to her again?"

"...Maybe."

A B-Rank dungeon somewhere across the city gave Sera the chance to test her weapon again days later, the Aegis of the First Dawn catching a massive blow.

BOOM!

Mira rushed past, the Titanheart Maul crashing down.

BOOOOOOM!

Lily’s Astral Longbow scattered arrows around the survivors, and the three finished together.

[Experience Acquired.]

Sera checked her status. [Level: 72.]

"Finally," Mira said, checking her own.

"Seventy-two," Lily confirmed.

"We’re all seventy-two," Mira said.

"Then we’re ready for the next level," Sera said.

Lily shook her head. "Not yet." She looked toward the deeper dungeon still ahead of them. "We still need more."

Elsewhere, Raze stepped over the remains of another defeated boss, Ruinbreaker resting over one shoulder.

[Level: 73.]

He laughed. "Seventy-three!"

Elden checked his own. "Same."

"We’re catching up to Kai."

"He’s probably already doing another dungeon."

"Then we do another one."

"I knew you were going to say that," Elden sighed, already turning toward the next forming gate.

Kai’s own dungeon runs moved fast that week, one after another compressing into a rhythm. A monster charged, and Stormcall tore it apart with lightning.

[Distortion Applied.]

[Drop Quality: Optimized.]

Another fell to Tidal Dominion, a spear of compressed water punching straight through it. An elite tested him harder, and he combined Tempest Fang with Storm Authority, a wind spiral forming around the blade, lightning arcing outward through its formation.

The boss went down to a single precise strike from Null Fang.

[Boss Defeated.]

[Dungeon Cleared.]

[Distortion Applied.]

[Drop Quality: Optimized.]

"You are becoming more comfortable with my Authority," Tiamat said, watching him gather the drops.

Kai looked at the water still curling faintly around his fingers. "It feels less foreign now."

"Good."

"How much?"

[Water Authority Synchronization: 2%.]

[Storm Authority Synchronization: 2%.]

His eyebrows rose. "Two percent."

"A beginning."

"I’ll take it."

He trained outside the city the next day, a small pool of water floating in front of him, trembling at first before stabilizing. He formed it into a blade, then a shield, then several needles, then a wave, each shift getting smoother than the last.

"Better," Tiamat said.

Kai grinned. "That sounded almost impressed."

"You were terrible when you started."

"Never mind."

She laughed. He tried again, this time shaping the water into a perfectly formed spear, throwing it.

BOOM!

It tore clean through a training target.

"Definitely better," he said, nodding.

Across the city, the wider hunter force kept improving too, not just the named few. A barrier activated automatically before an attack landed, and a rookie grinned. "It worked!" Another practiced emergency teleportation until it became second nature. A third group ran through environmental simulations rather than combat drills. Hunters weren’t just training to fight anymore. They were training to survive conditions that might not give them anything to fight at all.

Gabriel stood beside several Church members examining a newly installed relic. One of them noted, "The network’s already more efficient than anything in our records."

Gabriel looked out over Mythal. "Because we’re not simply copying the old civilizations." She watched Lily and Elden working in the distance. "We’re combining their knowledge with ours."

She’d read the records. She knew exactly what the Six Calamities had done to civilizations far more prepared than this one.

Watching Mythal prepare still made her uneasy.

"I hope this civilization really is different," she said quietly.

By the ninth day, the city barely resembled the ruin Tiamat had left behind. Roads repaired. Broken buildings restored piece by piece. New towers standing across every district. Underground conduits fixed. Emergency teleport points installed. Healing stations running. Environmental sensors covering the skyline. Church specialists working alongside Mythal’s own hunters like they’d always belonged there.

The city still carried its scars. It didn’t look like a battlefield anymore.

It looked like a fortress.

Kai walked through it that evening. "This place has changed," Tiamat said.

"It had to."

"You are rebuilding differently."

He smiled. "We learned from the first Disaster."

"Good." A pause. "That is how civilizations survive."

Ten days had passed, and everyone had moved.

Kai sat at Level 72, Water and Storm Authority Synchronization both at two percent, his control over both noticeably sharper, weaving them into his weapons more naturally than before.

Sera sat at 72, her S-Grade sword and shield feeling less like tools and more like extensions of her own body.

Lily sat at 72, her Longbow controlling entire battlefields now, still spending half her time buried in relay diagrams with Elden.

Mira sat at 72, deadlier the longer any fight dragged on, deliberately training against environmental hazards now instead of just monsters.

Elden sat at 73, his staff giving him battlefield control nobody else on the team could match, Mana Anchors letting him prepare spells before a fight even started.

Raze sat at 73, Ruinbreaker steadily becoming something closer to a small disaster in its own right, his armor turning every hit he took into more power to give back.

Kai stood on a rooftop that evening, watching Mythal glow beneath him, golden lines running through every street, relay towers shining steady against the dark, hunters still moving between buildings even at this hour.

The city was alive again.