Sinner System-Chapter 480: Turn for the Worst

"Well, it looks like we’re going to need to change our plans entirely now. Everything we assumed and thought we know has all but been thrown out the window," Sighed one of the HUC members.

"It looks like our only real option is to do things the hard way, conquer as many Dungeons as possible and then prepare to attack the Fortress-...or rather, Final Dungeon...-and eliminate the Demon Lord," Responded Lachlan thoughtfully.

"Yeah, about that...," Spoke up Jaden, before continuing, "Usual party tactics aren’t going to work in these Dungeons. We can’t just take it floor by floor, the Monsters will just keep coming until you kill all of them."

A few hours had passed, and things hadn’t gone well. The other X-Aces ended up in a similar situation to me, only they started at the bottom of the Labyrinths instead of in the Boss Room, except for Jaden, who was teleported to the Boss Room of the Dungeon he was assigned to, by the other Ace Teleporter.

All the Teleporters who teleported us X-Aces to the Dungeons survived, but nearly all the other Teleporters in the world were killed, the only exceptions were those who were too low-ranked to be considered for this.

So, besides those exceptions, there’s now less than ten Teleporters in the world. Between that and the fact that teleportation is useless in these Dungeons, Teleporters have effectively been taken out of the equation.

Thankfully, all the X-Aces had survived, and Ira and Acedia had also managed to conquer the Dungeons they were deployed to.

Still, this has certainly taken a turn for the worst, it’s going to be all but impossible to conquer all the Dungeons in just a week.

We were currently in a conference call with the HUC, all the X-Aces were in attendance, along with the chairs of all of the branches of the Union.

I was in my office with Aria and Cleo, and we’d just started the conference call. Pretty grim vibes so far, understandably.

"Yeah, I agree. Honestly, not sure how I made it out alive, considering I had to fight all by myself while also protecting the Teleporter who took me there. Honestly, the Monsters’ numbers ended up working against them, it was harder to miss than land a hit," Recalled Aarav with a sigh.

"Mhm, I can attest to that. It started off not too tough, then got really, really tough, and then a bit easier since the piles of corpses worked as both cover and obstacles to slow down what felt like an endless stream of Monsters. And I think that long battle did help me master my Lightning Boost Spell better," Chimed in Iseul.

"Oh, same here. The power boost I happened upon during my fight against the Sentinel Sky, which I’m calling Telekinetic Surge, by the way, I was able to stabilize and control it a lot better, though it does still wreck my body. But if I can master it and get it fully stable, I should be able to use it without injuring myself in the process," Added Jaden with a nod.

"I know that Spell helped you survive and conquer that Dungeon, but you were in a hell of a state by the end. Your left arm was hanging on by a thread, your right arm wasn’t much better, the bones in your legs were so badly broken that-...," Began one of the HUC members.

"Yeah, I get it, but it’s fine...I got healed up good as new, so yeah. I bet if I fight in one or two more of these Dungeons, I should be able to fully get it under control," He replied with a gleam in his eyes.

He wasn’t the only one who sustained severe injuries. Aarav and Iseul were in pretty critical condition, they were just barely taken to Ace level Healers in time, otherwise they might have died from their injuries.

Aria told me that she took a lot of hits in the Dungeon she was sent to, and the Demons landed a number of blows on me too, but since she and I both have Super Regeneration, our injuries healed up.

Same with Cleo too, though since she only fought one Monster, it didn’t make much of a difference. Based on what she and Isla told me, she only sustained a few minor scratches and grazes.

"Hm...this could be risky, but maybe we should just let most of the Dungeons reach the Stampede point. I mean, we don’t really have a choice in the matter, considering that there’s no way we can conquer all of them. We’ll deal with as many of the Calamity Level Dungeons as we possibly can, of course.

And then, at the end of the week, let’s surround the entrances of the Dungeons with a large number of Attack Mages, and have them blast the Monsters as they emerge. The entrances are bottlenecks, after all, they can’t all rush out through it at the same time," Suggested one of the HUC members.

"Not sure that’d work. If it were ordinary Dungeons, sure, but these ones are different. The instant they’re conquered, they disintegrate and disappear without a trace, and we find ourselves outside, along with the corpses of all the Monsters we killed. What if that’s what happens when they reach the Stampede point too? The Dungeons just disappear and all the Monsters inside just end up outside...if that turns out to be the case, all those Hunters will die," Pointed out Aria.

"She’s right, if that many Monsters just pop out into the open all at once, we’ll only be sending our Hunters straight to their deaths. There are just far too many of them...while we didn’t quite get an accurate number since a fair bit of the corpses were completely destroyed, it seems like there’s an average of thirty to forty Monsters per floor, which is around double what we’re used to, more or less. From each of the Calamity Level Dungeons conquered todays, we counted between four thousand to six thousand corpses."