Sinner System-Chapter 486: Little More Than a Dent

"You guys ready?" I inquired, as I cracked my knuckles.

"<Yes, Chief, I shall do my best to keep up with you this time>," Nodded Ira, a determined look on his face.

"<I suppose I don’t have much of a choice>," Acedia sighed wistfully.

Today’s the 10th of January, 2171, four days had passed since this final wave of Dungeons appeared, we’ve got less than three days before they reach their Stampede point, and all the Monsters inside start flooding out.

Naturally, we aren’t even close to having conquered all the Dungeons yet. By the end of yesterday, we’d taken down seventy Calamity Level Dungeons, which isn’t even a third of the total.

The HUC also had the Aces, along with a number of K-Ranked Attack Mages, form a total of twelve parties to handle the High and Critical Level Dungeons. I had Luxuria, Invidia and Superbia join some of those parties, since we need all the manpower we have.

As of yesterday, those parties of Aces and K-Ranks have conquered a hundred and three High Level Dungeons, and twenty-four Critical Level Dungeons...however, they had suffered a few casualties, mostly among the K-Ranks, but a few Aces were killed too.

As a result, our plan to possibly deploy smaller teams once we get the hang of these new Dungeons has been effectively taken off the table.

The same goes for the three X-Ace teams too. The fact that we all basically soloed the Calamity Level Dungeons we initially got trapped in four days ago, that’s increasingly starting to seem like a fluke.

It’s little more than dumb fucking luck that all of us survived that, because even as groups of three, it’s hard not to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of Monsters we’re up against.

Maybe if we were only tackling one or two of these Dungeons a day, we could manage with groups of two, maybe even a few solo assignments, but each team has been taking on around ten Calamity Level Dungeons each.

I was teamed up with Ira and Acedia, Aria got grouped with Cleo and Ai, while Jaden was with Iseul and Aarav.

I did consider recommending Brid for the X-Ace teams too, but his Limit Breaker Spell only lasts ten minutes with a full tank of Mana, and if he fully uses up that time limit, he’ll be completely drained of Mana.

So, he’s with the Ace teams instead. Ten minutes aren’t nearly enough, each of these Calamity Level Dungeons take around forty-five minutes to an hour to conquer.

We’ve been fighting for about fifteen hours each day, including twenty to thirty minute breaks between raids. Each of our teams have been assigned high level Enchanters, they stay outside the Dungeon, and then restore our energy afterwards.

Well, it’s kinda redundant in my case since Desecrator restores my Mana and stamina when I cut Monsters with it, and I can just resummon Ira and Acedia to restore them to a hundred percent.

Ai was a lot more tricky, but since she’s technically an artificial entity, she doesn’t count as a living thing, so I can put her physical form in Treasury.

Aria lets me know when her team’s raid is done, and then I just withdraw Ai, summon her again, put her in Treasury, and then Aria takes her out on her end.

That doesn’t work with the Apostles though. While they’re technically undead, so not alive, their souls aren’t artificial, so I can’t place them in Treasury.

So, once they’ve used up their Mana, or get destroyed, I can’t just sent them straight back to their parties. We do have several jets on standby to transport them immediately, and we’ve needed to make use of that a few times, which has resulted in a few delays.

I initially had Ira teamed up with Aria, and I kept Acedia and Ai by my side. But Ai’s fighting style is more compatible with fighting alongside Aria than me, since I’ve been opting to use mostly ranged attacks, while Aria’s been leaning more towards close-range.

If I’ve got someone in front of me, I have no choice but to hold back, and since Ai can only fight at close-range, her only option is to be up front.

And that wasn’t quite meshing well with my tactics, but it complemented Aria nicely. Likewise, Ira isn’t great at precision with his Ether attacks, so he struggled to back up Aria without hitting her in the process.

But he’s been able to coordinate with me a lot more effectively.

It’s also worth noting that these intense Dungeons are definitely helping us improve. Aria’s been testing out her Blaze Ignition: Supernova against the Dungeon Bosses, once all or most of the other Monsters are dead, and she’s made decent progress with mastering it, though she’s still got a lot of work to do.

Jaden and Iseul have gained a better grasp over their respective power boosts too, and Aarav mentioned that he feels like he’s on the verge of a breakthrough with his abilities too.

Cleo’s improving by leaps and bounds too, according to Aria’s assessment.

Still, the situation isn’t any less dire. Over these last few days, the number of Dungeons conquered has pretty much been a new record, and by a massive margin...but it’s little more than a dent, we’ve only conquered about two hundred of these Dungeons.

There’s a bit less than seven thousand now, and at best, we could maybe bring that number down to around six thousand five hundred.

And with the Calamity Level Dungeons, I’d say we should be able to pull off conquering about two-thirds of them.

At the current rate at which we’re conquering the Dungeons, there’s going to be approximately around two and a half million Monsters attacking each Sanctuary.

Even if most of those are Low and Mid Levels, even us X-Aces would seriously struggle against those kinds of numbers, and so far, no one’s come up with a real solution.

I suppose all I can really do for the time being is focus on the task before me and hope I, or anyone else, figures out our next course of action.

"Alright, you two. Let’s head in there, shall we?" I suggested, as I took a step towards the entrance...