After the demons were wiped out, the state of the world greatly calmed, and people started to reboot their original lifestyles.

Businesses reopened, soldiers returned home, many went back to schools, academies, and the like. Projects were also being carried out in an attempt to rebuild the many kingdoms that were partially destroyed. However, despite the reduced tension, everybody was still a little on edge. They didn't know if the news about the demons being totally wiped out was true. After all, there were hundreds of millions, and for that many of any species to be destroyed in only a few days was unreal.

But sure enough, after several expeditionary teams were sent over to the demon continent, the news was verified. No matter where they looked, the only things the teams and scouts found were massive craters, leveled mountains, valleys of ashes, and even a new volcano. In fact, both the landbridges had been so obliterated that they were now under the ocean, making it difficult for the teams to even get into the continent.

Either way, once the news was reliably verified by the now 3 Empire alliance, everyone then truly had their hearts eased and lowered their guard.

Like that, several months passed. For many people, the peace and lack of excitement was blissful. For others though, it was a nightmare. With peace came boredom, and many people had trouble staying still. One of these people included Iris.

Iris was a battle junkie, and going so long without fighting or killing something was hard for her. The fact that she was at the top of the food chain didn't help either. In fact, she got so restless that she decided to go pick a fight, the unlucky victim being Raoul, the man who kidnapped and imprisoned them.

Neither Luna nor Iris were ones to be trifled with anymore, even individually. So to be targeted by either one of them was bad luck no matter how one thought about it. But since the person in question was one who had caused them and their family great displeasure, it could be said that he brought it upon himself. And so, a great battle erupted in the Empire.

At first, Riddick and Selene were very worried. Raoul was someone to be avoided at all costs in their mind. Not only that, one couldn't just walk into the Empire and expect to fight one of their class 4's with nothing happening.

However, Iris did exactly that. Flying straight into the Empire without any regard for safety, she located, fought, and beat Raoul into a bloody pulp without anyone interfering. The beatdown lasted an entire 6 hours, and the only reason it lasted so long was because Iris wanted it to.

That day, the entire Empire was thrown into an uproar, especially the Fox kingdom that Raoul was the only king of. To see him so brutally beaten was a major humiliation. Unfortunately, nobody could do anything to Iris. Plus, the other class 4's wouldn't interfere as they dubbed the fight an internal struggle. They were basically saying that it was Raoul's business, and they had no reason nor desire to make Iris an enemy.

The whole thing left all the foxes very displeased, but since their king wasn't killed, they just dropped it and forgot about it. At least, that was until a week later when Iris came back and fought Raoul again.

Once more, everyone was enraged, but they were also a bit baffled. The fight lasted 7 hours this time, and Raoul came out looking more miserable than before. Iris left with contempt in her eyes, and the stir caused by the fight died down quickly.

But yet again, a week later, she came back and started another fight. It was the same for the following week, and then the next. For 4 months, Iris came every week to beat Raoul into a mess, regardless of whether or not he was recovered. He was put on death's door on several occasions, and after a while, it seemed like he was withering into an old man.

Eventually, Raoul's recovery slowed, and he became weaker and weaker. His battle prowess lowered every time she came, and by the end of the 4 months, the man barely had the strength of a high level class 2. Not even an entire week of healing could recover him. And so, Iris left, and didn't come back.

After that, Raoul spent over a month in isolation. However, the other kings of the Empire wanted to know his status, so he couldn't stay isolated forever. But upon coming out, they found that Iris had hurt him worse than expected. His power was lowered to that of a class 2. Permanently.

From then on, there was one less king in the Empire.

Meanwhile, Iris knew exactly what she did, but she, of course, didn't care. Raoul was just a punching bag, a way for her to exert some energy. Plus, he was basically the enemy of everyone in her family. His minions almost killed her dad, imprisoned her mom for 20 years, and even kidnapped them. She wouldn't have had any problems with killing the guy, let alone weakening him a bit. But if she did that, she wouldn't have gotten as much use out of him.

Dream also didn't care, but he had paid attention to the effects of Iris's powers on Raoul. His weakening basically confirmed what he thought about Iris's powers. Now, she was much more of an opponent to be avoided. To fight her wouldn't simply result in getting injured, but being reduced. Something about her powers ate away at the very essence of a person, and it was clear that her new skill [Deprive] was much more fearsome than any of them thought.

Either way, it was of no consequence to Iris, and from then on, she just went around and found other ways to kill time. Most of the time she would fight some bots using only her bodily power, of which she needed to work on some. Other times, she would go around with her sister, or hangout with Dream.

As for Luna, she would usually play with her magic. She experimented with many things, tested the limits of her skills, and expanded their application. She would also go on little adventures around the planet with Iris, exploring and sightseeing.

Finally, as for Dream, his activities consisted of two things. Construction and using his skills.

His second orbital railgun had long been built, so he had moved onto another project. This project was actually for a particle collider, and it was something he had already planned to build after the railguns.

The particle collider would be entirely built in space. It would consist of one main ring with 6 secondary rings and over a dozen smaller auxiliary rings around it. The diameter of the main ring would be 50 kilometers. Needless to say, it was a massive undertaking.

It would take at least 2 years with all the bots helping him, and he would have to build some new processing facilities for new materials as such a device couldn't be made with just steel or silver. It needed magnets, liquid helium, silicon, wiring, computers, measuring instruments, many fusion reactors for power, and more. Dream would have to collect many different elements and forge them into what he needed, which varied wildly.

Because is varied wildly and would require even more materials than before, Dream decided to tap into a source that he hadn't before. The moon.

The moon had many different resources, and tons of them too. They were all free for the taking, and it would allow Dream to expand his operations even more. And while the moon was far, with his ships that had fusion reactor driven rocket engines, a one-way trip would take as little as 8 hours. This made ferrying resources too and from very easy, maybe even easier than from the planet to space.

So he immediately put the plan into action. While Dream hadn't healed all the way, he was still able to make bots that hardly utilized mana, especially with the help of his other bots. Luna also helped, adding in her powerful will to power any enchantments. With that, it was a simple task to prepare a massive fleet of nearly 3,000 mining teams.

They would be launched to the moon, set up a few processing facilities to act as a secondary factory base, and then send resources back to the main factory where they would be used in construction. It was a great system, and it would all make the particle collider project go smoother.

So while the project was extensive and intimidating, Dream didn't mind the daunting nature. He had time, and the construction helped him mess around with his skills which promoted recovery. Plus, he found it fun and exciting as he organized the processes for production and assembly.

But he didn't work all the time. Every week, Dream would take at least a day to fully rest and spend time with the girls. While he would spend time with them on other days too, it would only be for a few hours at a time, and the girls would always have to fly out to an area next to the factory where he worked with his bots. Which they didn't mind, but they wanted their time with him in a place that wasn't surrounded by machinery, cold steel, and soundless space.

Aside from the construction project though, Dream also worked on many new and interesting devices. He never ceased experimenting with different things, and through many imaginative designs and prototypes, he had made several cool tools.

One of these was a handgun. Except instead of gunpowder, it was electromagnetic. Dream had found a way to deliver massive amounts of instant power by sacrificing the integrity of the supercapacitors it came from. The handgun would require consumable charges like bullets, but for its size, it was very handy and capable.

Another thing Dream came up with were nanoparticle bullets, a device he employed Aegis to help make. These bullets were made of particles, and they would activate upon reaching their target, delivering different effects. Some would act like a scattershot, piercing into the body and destroying flesh on a micro level and effectively turning it to mush. Others would act as sensory disruptors, some would deliver electricity, some heat. The list goes on.

Dream spent lots of time going from construction to relaxation to creative experimentation. He would constantly find different ways to improve his personal weaponry, defense, and power. He found it all very interesting, and doing these things wasn't working for him. It was simply something he was passionate about doing. It was learning, exploring, creating, building, and theorizing. It was the pursuit of higher knowledge, his greatest aspiration.

............

Like that, a year went by since the demons were wiped out.

Dream's particle collider was over half done, and he had healed a good amount.

At this point, the gray mist that was produced out of the conflict between Luna and Iris's powers had spread through 3 quarters of his soul. And while he still couldn't directly utilize it, it brought great benefits to his power.

Secondly, his stats had risen all the way back up to A+. He found it interesting because whenever his magic stat went up, the rest would follow. Which after thinking about it made sense. Everything was rooted in magical ability, especially with him who had all his bodily systems enchanted.

But as he rose in magical power, Dream could further detect the dramatic enhancements that the gray mist brought him. The way he saw this was mainly through mana density and how even though he only had A+ stats, his soul was already pumping out liquid mana like a geyser. Plus, his influence had spread to 5.5 kilometers. Based on this, he was basically back to full power. There was only a small difference between his power before and now.

Because of that, things had pretty much gone back to normal for him. Although it took over a year to go from A- to A+, a snail's pace compared to before, he had done it.

The gray mist was still a mystery to him though. Dream knew how to create it using the conflict of the opposite powers, but other than letting it spread through his soul, he couldn't do anything with it.

Not even the fact that it occupied part of his mana pool let him control it. This point was actually the most curious part. Dream found that the mist existed within, alongside, and around his mana inside the pool. It occupied space, but didn't shrink his pool, only expanding it and even compacted the mana within, making it denser. It also made his mana usage much more fluid, like it was some kind of supplement to his soul's ability to harness mana.

Everything really was simply enhanced by the gray mist. There was no other way he could put it. And while he was exhilarated by that fact, the mystery and shrouded nature of the gray mist annoyed him. He really wanted to know what it was.

But he couldn't do anything. Eventually he just gave up and appreciated the unexpected boon.

And so, throughout the year Dream continuously made progress. While he often dug into his vacation days working on his experiments and the supercollider, he was able to bring his combat power, both bodily and magical, back to full power. He also reintegrated Aegis into his systems and even improved upon his connections with Luna and Iris.

All was good in the world. Until one day, it wasn't.

Dream was inside the cabin in the dome, spending time with the girls on a day off. They were cuddled up on the couch in absolute bliss. Luna laid on one of the couch arms, staring up at the ceiling and listening to music. Dream laid on top of her, hugging and using her chest as a pillow, and Iris laid on his legs in her fox form, draping her 6 tails over his body.

As they laid there, Luna was pampering him with back scratches, advice she had been given from Sophia. It turned Dream to butter in her arms, and both of them loved it. But the good times wouldn't last forever.

[Is that... No way.]

Sophia spoke as she ran through some data. It was a visual feed from a drone, and in its view was a beach. Currently, some figures were walking onto the beach, not from the land, but from the ocean.

Sophia focused the camera. Things walking out from oceans didn't happen every day.

But as she looked, she found that there was much more than just a few figures. Over the course of 10 minutes, on that beach alone, several million more figures emerged from the waves, all of whom advanced onto the land.

That beach wasn't the only one where these figures appeared from either. After tapping into the feed of one of the satellites, she saw that on the coasts all along the entire human continent, there were figures emerging.

5 million, 10 million, 50 million, 400 million.

They came in hordes, filling the beaches to the brim. And they kept coming, from all directions, all coasts. Any piece of land that connected to the ocean, there was a figure advancing onto.

[What about... Don't tell me.]

Her urgency skyrocketing, Sophia moved to another satellite, one that was stationed over the animal continent. And sure enough, the same thing was occurring there. Hundreds of millions of figures were coming out of the oceans and onto the coasts.

[...Dream!]

Shouting, Sophia forcefully stirred Dream from his reverie. Eyes shooting open, Dream shivered a bit at the sudden jolt.

"What? What happened?"

[You need to see this! This is bad. If it's what I think it is, it's really bad.]

Saying that, Sophia sent Dream the data and showed him the feeds. He soon saw the advancing tides of figures coming out of the ocean, many of whom looked amphibious, humanoid, and beastly.

Seeing the images, Dream felt tingles go up his spine, and not the good kind caused by Luna's back scratches. He was getting a very bad feeling.