76 A Grand Show

While this was happening, the topic was being talked about someplace else, also known as the International underground meeting room. A lot of people were present, albeit in their holograms, discussing with one another, while some were mad and confused.

Ms. Carmen Brightcroft once again stood in front of these leaders, representatives, and proxies. One seat was empty, which was the Corde clan/conglomerate.

Ms. Brightcroft began her spiel.

"Good day to all of you. We are here to discuss what the proposed plan is against this outsider, Homer Simpson, which we can assume is behind the current fiasco happening with the Corde clan."

"Befriend him rather than make him an enemy. I don't want my clan to end up like the Corde, being toyed around, fighting for their lives." immediately, a leader of one of the mid-range clans spoke up, his voice containing his fear towards Xander.

Immediately, voices of agreement followed.

"I second that."

"The same."

"The same."

…

However, a more dissenting voice appeared, this time coming from another country, Nema.

"I don't know about you, but a higher being coming and befriending lower beings? I smell a plot, where we are the casualties. It's better to act fast and isolate the Corde clan's headquarters, where it is possible the perpetrator is in." President Valores said, obviously sneering at the countries who agreed with the idea of befriending the outsider.

"We of Eta disagree! How dare you try this as an excuse to impugn in Eta's sovereignty!" General Farm shouted at the President of Nema, President Cain Valores.

"Then what are you doing, General Farm? Why is it that there has been no progress for the past 30 minutes since the broadcast began?"

"… The entire area has been cordoned. Even Divine magicians cannot enter or break the barrier that seemed to protect it. All their attacks are sent to a different dimension every time they launched their attacks. We also tried digging underground, failed. We tried to check for loopholes in the barrier, none were discovered."

"Have you tried the newest magic explosive you were flaunting at us? Why not use that?" General Cabal sneered.

"Do you think we can evacuate the entire province? Hmm? What if the bomb doesn't work? Then who pays for the land reclamation and rehabilitation? Will you do it? Will any of you even do it?" General Farm retorted, rendering the other party silent.

"Order! Order in the session!" Ms. Brightcroft said, grabbing the attention of the people present. She lightly coughed, before telling the group,

"Both sides have valid points as well as their demerits. The committee believes the usage of large-scale magic explosives should not be used unless it is concerning war. Friendship is also not out of the option, however, we can still opt for a third option: non-retaliation; basically, as long as the interests of the planet as a whole are not endangered, we do not act against him."

Immediately after saying her opinion, whispers abounded the whole area. Soon, all of the groups and nations agreed that non-retaliation is not a viable option. Anyone whose neutral in a war never ends up good in the end.

After a few more minutes and discussions, they already decided to launch several ballistic-based magic explosives at the area where the barrier was erected. Eta had agreed to do it on the condition of reparation for damages from every country.

In the meantime, every single being in the world has been tuned in to the show Xander was broadcasting. The Corde clan had just passed the 3rd and 4th waves, with several of their members experiencing disease and rotting of their flesh. From 250, it dwindled down to 235 people left.

Once again, a monotonous voice sounded.

"4th wave completed. 5th, 6th, and 7th waves will now commence. Random natural disaster activated. Chosen disaster: Typhoon."

The skies became dark. It began to rain heavily, affecting the area around the fortress. Although the rain and winds weren't able to get into the fortress, the demigods discovered a problem: the previous AoE spell they cast was neutralized. They would have to face 3000 magic beasts without its help, throwing the council of elders into a dilemma. They did have spells related to water and air, but what happens if they cast it and the next random natural disaster is a counter of their spell?

However, they were later on surprised because they only saw 6 monsters. However, their sizes… they were around 1 kilometer tall each. Each of the beasts had their own unique appearances and movement, as well as carrying almost humanoid facial expressions.

When the others outside saw this, some were curious about what these beasts were. Once again, a snarky voice-over sounded from their communicators, while zooming into different angles of the situation inside.

"Audiences, you may be confused about what these beasts are. These are 6 different species of the Gigantus Titan family of magic beasts. You can even consider the dwarves being a far descendant of this family. They are very lascivious, mating with almost anything that breathes and breeds. These six came from 6 different species of Magic beasts: Hundred-arm centipede, Hairy Flaming Ape, Ice Silk Snake, Holy Light Ox, 18-legged Fear Spider, and Intoxicating Man-eating Flower.

Their offsprings carry the characteristics and power of both species, making them quite special. Although these beasts are Mythic-9 magic beasts, they can rival with someone at the Demigod-6 cultivator or below. This was supposed to be at the 9th wave, but it seemed that the Fortress was having an easy time, so we needed to up the ante for the enjoyment of the viewers!"

"Now what will the elders of Corde do to solve this problem?" The view then zoomed into each and everyone's faces in the fortress, with a myriad of emotions, before giving an overhead view of the whole place.

One of the demigods headed towards one of the magic beasts and began to launch her spells towards one of them, the one descended from the Ice Silk Snake. Initially, her attacks had an impact, but when she was about launch her next attack, she realized that she couldn't move anymore from her position, and panic was plastered in her face.

"Oh no, one of them was exposed to the Ice Venom! This kind of technique is quite insidious because it's dispersed in the area as cold air. Tsk, tsk, she wasn't careful and filtered the air around her." The voice sounded once again, and to the viewers, they saw the body of the female demigod staggering in the sky before falling, stiff.

It was at this point the camera zoomed into the face of the person, who was still able to barely move her facial expression. It quickly transformed into horror, as a large hand grabbed a hold of her body, and from the dim shadow produced by lightning in the sky, viewers can see that the giant ate her piece by piece, her last feeling was that of fear.

"That's it folks, our first demigod casualty! Who will be next? Who will survive?" the snarky voice echoed from their communicators once again.

In the Corde headquarters, the body of the female demigod that just died rapidly disappeared from its place, like it was never there in the first place. Xander, aka, Homer Simpson, was standing beside James, who was just watching them with pity. He was glad that his uncle wasn't here in the headquarters, or else he might have been pulled in as well.

James didn't hold any feelings for the clan, but rather for his uncle, his grandpa, and his parents. However, he didn't also want innocent people to be affected as well.

"Er, Homer, can you maybe spare the ones at the Legendary class? I'm quite sure they had no idea of what was happening."

"Eh? Why? Aren't they part of the Corde clan? Doesn't that mean that by being here in the headquarters they tacitly approve of the activities being done here? How do you think they were going to bring your sister into the headquarters? They'll use a Demigod. Who'll torture her? Most likely, one of these legendary members of yours, like the man in charge of your VR capsule. Don't worry about that man, he's already dead." Xander said, scoffing at these people. He hated this kind of person who valued family by how valuable you are to them.

James was silent, as he couldn't refute the words Xander just mentioned, yet somehow, it felt wrong. Seeing he wasn't convinced, Xander merely sighed, and said,

"…I can accede to your request, however, once they die in the dream, when they exit, all their memories will disappear, as well as their current cultivation, and if they want to cultivate they would have to begin from scratch. I can't really agree with anything more because they know more about me. The other magicians… those are free game for the punishment~"

"Okay, thank you, Homer."

"No problemo, I'll just-" Xander responded before suddenly stopping, causing an ominous, overwhelming aura to seep out from his figure, scaring and confusing James.

"Hehe. It seems she managed to survive, huh? Planning to interfere with my game?" With those words, Xander's figure disappeared, leaving a puzzled James in the rooftop.

_________________________

Dream dimension, near the bubble of the currently-made space for the Corde family. A group of people was standing nearby as if decrypting and attempting to break something. A man that looked like he was in his 30s was standing. The female that Xander trapped before, Zendaya, was there, albeit she was missing her left arm and her right eye. The mature-looking man looked at her and said,

"Zendaya, are you sure the person you have reported is in here?"

"Yes, Captain Hallow. Although I couldn't trace his dream bubble, I was for a lookout for the same magic fluctuations before, and saw this place."

"Ok then. Don't let others waste their time. This is a unique space, connecting all dimensions and then trapping those segments in a pseudo-dream bubble. I'm not even sure if this was man-made or a natural occurrence. You can't enter without force, and using that would alert the enemy. In fact, I'm not surprised if he detected us since we actually tripped a few traps on the way here." The man replied calmly, surprising the others. They didn't notice any hidden traps nor realized they have triggered anything at all. The man continued to speak,

"If you can find out where it is in the real world, you can enter through that place. However, it seems there is no need for that, right Mr. Dream walker?"

"Aurora Organization branch head. Huh, aren't you supposed to work in Empires? Why are you even in Eteria…anyways, I'm hosting a special event right now here, so leave, unless you want to be part of the festivities and your identities are to be revealed to the world."

"Special event…wait, don't tell me, you're the one that attacked the Corde family? They're actually in there?" The man said, quite astonished with the person in front of him.

"Good for you, you get a cookie! Do you want to join them? Either you're joining or you're leaving and watch the live stream instead, from your communicators. I'm on a tight schedule." Xander replied sarcastically, scoffing at the poorly-disguised attempt to gather information about him.

"We came here to ask you for clarification concerning the 7 members of ours that went to your dream bubble. Are they still alive?"

"Dude. You're a divine magician and you still have to ask that question? Did their signed binding contract with Aurora Organization dissolve? That's your answer."

"…I see. Then I have no choice but to invite you to visit our headquarters in the dream dimension if you will."

"Um, what letter in the word 'busy' do you not understand? Do you want me to translate it into Universal Language? How about Morose code? You can see me doing something here and then you cajole me into going to your headquarters?" Xander rolled his eyes at him, condescendingly looking at the leader.

"It's quite important since every member of the Aurora Organization is highly valued. If you can't come calmly, I'll have to use force." Hallow responded, his powers beginning to show, attempting to intimidate Xander.

"Yeah, let's see about that mister." Xander snapped his fingers, and immediately, the whole motley group was transported somewhere in the Dream dimension, with only a few small dream bubbles out and about. Snapping again, the dream bodies of the members of Aurora Organization froze, unable to move, causing confusion and fear to bubble up in them. Even the leader was astonished, as he had not seen such an ability manifesting in other dream walkers.

"You should have left when I told you to do so, and you should have stopped digging the matter up," Xander mumbled as he began to active [Thread of Karma] to all other members besides the Divine cultivator, causing them to fade and disintegrate in a matter of minutes, their existences gone. He didn't use it at the Divine cultivator because he wasn't proficient enough to do so.

What he did, however, was to drain his good fortune repeatedly until it would take 108 million years for it to recover, and transfer it to a dream stone, a common item in the dream dimension. After transferring the good fortune and keeping the stone, he looked at the person pitifully.

"Goodbye. If you get resurrected in the real world, do remember that I don't want to be disturbed or forced to do things I don't like to do. Also, concerning your members, they're truly dead this time, since I cut off their Karma. Ciao, fam."

After saying these words, Xander immediately cast [Ethereal Sunrise] and [Frenzied Sunset] together, casting [Twilight Sonata] within the range of 1 light-year. Immediately, the whole area of the dream dimension began to show the same characteristics as the place he did it too when an assassin entered his home. This actually ensured that the events in this place would be forever removed, inaccessible to anyone.

Once everything was normal, there were a total of 162 crystal seeds formed, 108 of which are seeds of Creation and Destruction, but the remaining 54 was a different kind of seed, and when he began to observe them closer, they had a dreamy kind of feel to it. He wasn't sure yet what it was and he couldn't ask the System since it was still offline, so for now, he just kept them, once again wiped the traces of his activity, and left the now-fragile but slowly recovering area of the dreamscape.

_______________________

Xander appeared once again beside James, who was quite confused. After all, for him, the amount of time Xander had left was merely 5 seconds. However, during the fight, the snarky voice comments were still ongoing, explaining the situation to the viewers.

"So, it seems they managed to kill the 6 magic beasts, eh?" Xander murmured.

_______________________

Inside the space. Corde clan had suffered a nearly Pyrrhic victory against the 6 magic beasts, costing them 3 demigods. However, the fortress continued to be modified and improved as they managed to delay time and kill the beasts.

Once they have slain the beasts, a monotonous voice once again sounded out.

"7th Wave complete. 8th and 9th Wave will now begin. After the 9th wave, there will be a 10-minute break. The 9th wave will consist of 10,000 magic beasts. There is no natural disaster for these two rounds."

When they heard that there was no disaster, they heaved a sigh of relief, and began to prepare their spell matrices and once again cast an AoE with DoT effect in the area around the fortress. They prepared 2 spell matrices, both having different effects from one another. The rest of the demigods had to rest for a moment to prepare the gathering of magic crystals later.

Immediately, just after placing the spells down, they could now see the horde, all of the beasts were peak Legendary-9 stage, and their bodies were quite refined, causing the spell to have a delayed effect. Some even managed to pass through the 4-kilometer radius of death, but they were quickly dealt with by the mythic magicians positioned by the elders.

After 5 minutes, the waves were finally over, and mysterious countdown once again appeared in the sky, starting from 6000. Using this time, the mythic and demigods were busy gathering the crystals dropped, and once again reinforcing the fortress, creating an additional layer of defense for it.

For the viewers, the majority heaved a sigh of relief, because they managed to pass the situation safely with a minimum amount of casualties.

Once again, during this intermission, several clips were being played as the highlights of the past 9 waves. Once again, the snarky voice-over appeared.

"Oh my, oh my! They had passed one-twelfth of prepared waves! Dear viewers, do you think they have it easy? Please answer this poll of which natural disasters they should face in the next 9 waves! Please note, everything is secure and completely anonymous; do decide based on your heart's content!"

Immediately, the same interface as earlier appeared, this time detailing the list of natural disasters that they could experience, including disasters that may occur in other planets, other kinds of habitats, etc.

After 3 minutes, the polls ended, and the top 99 disasters had been voted on. Of course, the people viewing the situation had been informed by their respective leaders and governments to choose the least impacting and damaging disasters. However, they didn't realize that Xander had also prepared for such a scenario.

"Thank you for voting. To switch it up, the show will be implementing the 99 lowest-graded disasters based on your votes. Expect more thrills and changes to occur!" the snarky voice once again resounded, surprising everyone, family and conglomerate leaders, and even the government leaders who had guided the people were thrown off the loop as well.

After 7 minutes, the show began once again. The natural disaster this time was Confusion, causing the casters unable to focus on their casting. The demigods were the only ones who can barely cast due to their connection to the universe, compared to the others who were unable to cast spells. They can only rely on their body attributes. The 10th wave was a bit brutal, with 5 of the mythic magicians dying. At the 11th wave, the natural disaster was earthquakes, causing severe damage to their fortress. The problem was that the magic beasts that came in at the 12th and 13th wave were liquid-type magic beasts, allowing them to hide deep underground and corrode the area. The Corde clan managed to survive the assault, at the sacrifice of 1 demigod and several legendary and mythic magicians.

14th to 16th waves were quite easy, as the disaster was simply drought, and didn't affect much the states of the magicians. It did make their fortress almost collapse, due to the weakened foundation, but it was resolved before it devolved the situation.

17th and 18th waves summoned 6 magic beasts, Mythic-9 beasts once again appeared, and caused quite a problem with the situation of the Corde clansmen. This was because once they appeared, they didn't step into the area where the AoE spells were placed, but rather they stopped and destroyed the area where the spells were placed, wrecking the spells' effects.

The beasts began to launch their attacks, heading towards the fortress. The demigods began to launch their counterattacks, intercepting the attacks launched by the beasts.

The fight between the mythic and demigod magicians versus the magic beasts have begun. The mythic magicians were mostly supporting, causing debuffs or inconvenience to the magic beasts.

However, the casualties were still high. This time, only 1 demigod died, but half of the mythic magicians were wiped out. The current count of Corde members was down to 184.

Once again, they experienced a 10-minute break, and everyone inside the fortress sighed in relief, while those watching the situation were happy but quite pessimistic with the situation of the clan.

Once again, the snarky voice sounded out from both the people in the fortress and those outside, watching.

"Congratulations~ they have survived one-sixth of the total waves! This deserves a prize!"