"I was thinking Rocky."

Gordon ran beside Levi, his stamina draw a little high but improving. He regularly fell behind, then sprinted to catch back up in little cycles, but the time between falling behind was gradually inching up.

At this rate he’d be able to keep up with Levi better than some of his minions before the week was out. Though, with their newest giant centipede present, minion stamina was no longer much of an issue.

The one good thing about having a fifty-foot-long giant centipede was that he could carry a lot of weight. Drok was a bit much for him - with the ogre on his back even the massive centipede could only inch forward at a walking pace - but none of the others seemed to make the slightest difference.

When Levi didn't immediately respond, Gordon jogged closer to bump him with an elbow. "Come on, it's perfect!"

"It is... descriptive. But how about Pierce? He's got so many stabby legs. Rocky sounds like a boulder troll."

"At least you're not suggesting 'Cen Three'. Wait, are boulder trolls a thing?"

"Of course."

"Hm. Truck? Freight? We're using him as a train, basically, at this point."

"That's... even worse somehow. Maybe we should go with Cen Three."

"How about..." Gordon paused to strike a dramatic pose. "Doom Buggy!"

"And you say my taste in names is bad."

They both laughed, while Unnamed Freight Cen glowered, unamused.

"I do like Pierce..." Gordon conceded. "It just doesn't feel... big enough, y'know?"

"You think this guy's big, wait until we get you into a level 50 dungeon."

Gordon chuckled nervously. "Hopefully that's a long way off."

Hopefully. As much as Levi needed higher level dungeons, thinking about the inevitable escalation always made his stomach tighten in dread. They weren't ready, and were never going to be ready. He was careening forward down a collision course with inevitability and dragging the whole planet along with him. Or at least as much of it as Cassandra's website could reach. Not nearly enough.

He couldn't help feeling there should be something more he could do, but even imagining trying to go to the authorities with a story about being from the future... from everything he knew, they'd deny it until it was too late to do anything, and obstruct any attempts to prove otherwise.

Levi hated knowing that the only way to get through to them would be to wait until the first invasion hit, but there was too much inertia, too much complacency. Even proving dungeons to be real wouldn't prove anything about the coming invasion.

"I think I'll go with Pierce," Gordon finally said, breaking Levi from his musing.

"Sure you don't want to go with Freight Cen?"

"Positive. He deserves to be known for his battle prowess, not his day job."

Levi chuckled. "Can you read out his stats for me?"

"345 health, 30 mana, 70 stamina. Three in Strength, zero in Spirit or Psyche."

"Three hundred starting health?"

Gordon nodded and Levi began inputting the rest of the details as he read them out.

Strength: +15 Health, +1 H-Regen Psyche: +5 Mana, +1 M-Regen Spirit: +5 Stamina, +1 S-Regen

"You're sure of that?" Levi asked, frowning as he compared the information to that he had on Cen and Centoo. "No bonuses to regen at all?"

"+1 per point, same as normal."

Species Health per Strength point Mana per Psyche point Stamina per Spirit point Initial Health Initial Mana Initial Stamina Stone Centipede 15 5 5 70 30 70 Stone Centipede + 15 5 5 300 30 70

This put Pierce at almost no advantage over Cen and Centoo, apart from physical size and vastly higher initial health. It seemed wasteful for a plus-type not to have any special leveling bonuses.

Every time Levi thought he found a pattern to plus creatures, they found a new way to defy expectations.

"But his base regen is +10. He gets 13/minute now, with the three points in strength."

And there it was. The random missing factor that too him from 'bigger, I guess' to 'deadly'. +10 regen meant less than six seconds between regens, making Pierce a much better tanking option even than Drok. Not for much longer - Drok's +3 per point health regen would overtake the centipede's in a level or two, but for Gordon's team he could fill that role quite nicely.

The next two dungeons they checked were weak enough Levi left them for the locals to discover and delve. He considered trying to place a sign or marker of some sort to show future visitors where the dungeons could be found, but decided against the idea. First because he had nothing to write with or on, and second because it could well be an ordinary unprepared hiker who happened upon the place, rather than a team of delvers ready to face it.

If there was a team out there capable of taking down Pierce's dungeon, it gave him hope that they weren't the only ones preparing, even if the others didn't know what they were preparing for. The lure of visible progress in the form of levels and dungeon treasures would be enough for some. And in the end, their individual motivations didn't matter. As long as they were improving their combat capabilities, they'd be better able to fight when the time came.

Of course, there was also the possibility that when it bumped from level 2 to level 3, Pierce had been enough to slaughter the entire group. Levi really hoped that wasn't the case.

The next dungeon after that was a Destruction level 2, but a weak one. He sent Two out to scout it, and the gremlin returned with a shake of his head. No Essence here, safe to ignore. They left without clearing it, again leaving it to the locals. Levi would be taking over all the dungeons in his intended loop anyway, whatever anyone said, so best to leave them something they could handle.

It would be close, leveling the dungeons to a level that would be valuable enough to continue leveling Levi and his horde. Their once-a-day reset meant they'd only be able to progress marginally faster than the baseline, and none would be above level 30 by 10/24.

It would have to be good enough. Ideally, he'd be at level 40 minimum before facing down an army of demons, but he knew that wasn't going to happen. For the first invasion he had no choice but to bank on quantity over quality. Even if the dungeons would be able to reach level 30, they leveled far faster than humans. Even just reaching level 25 so he could evolve to Summoner on time would be a race against the clock.

A standard invasion portal would first send out waves upon waves of hellhounds, thousands of them to clear the area of anything living, followed by hundreds of imps to demolish whatever survived the hellhounds, and then dozens of warriors to deal with the final few who survived the imps.

He didn't remember if any Elites showed up this early, or just the Demon Lord - there was always exactly one Demon Lord with each year's invasion. This first one had showed up in eastern Canada, so he'd have plenty of time to prepare after the first invasion before facing him. Levi would need a team of at least level 50s before he felt confident even considering fighting the Demon Lord. Even if it meant abandoning the northeast to its violence and destruction, there was nothing he could do in his current state. He needed to level, gather more allies, and become a force to be reckoned with.

They'd probably help more people mopping up the normal waves first regardless. With hundreds of portals opening, there would be far too many demonic forces for any one person to deal with.

He bitterly wished he'd paid more attention the first time around instead of being blinded by grief. If he'd been able to memorize locations of portal arrivals, he could at least try to evacuate the impact areas. But it was too far in the past. Hundreds if not thousands of cities and towns would be completely destroyed in the coming attack, and he could do nothing to save them.

He pushed that knowledge away, trying to correct breathing gone ragged, the futility of it all clutching at his chest.

The invasion was months away, and he'd do no one any good if he stopped believing he could make a difference.

Focus on the moment, don't think too much about the future. For now, he had finally arrived at his first dungeon in the planned loop, and could finally get started properly.

Control Dungeon: Level 1