Hextia and I backed away from the approaching monsters, her splinters were proving a very difficult hurdle for our enemies, I heard something metallic clang against the wall. I peered at the far edge to see a strange looking piece of metal, the top half folded down and hooked onto the wall.
With the large crowd, it was hard to see but as we were about to descend the staircase I saw a large red-skinned brute haul himself over the ladder, it was nearly 6 feet tall with a wild mane of black hair. It had a suit of scale plate armor though as more of the beasts came over the ledge on similar ladders the armor they wore became varied as some wore leather and more tribal looking clothing.
"-We have to retreat, master, Orc warriors are far beyond what adventurers can handle-" I agreed with her and we ran to the lift. As we made our way down the staircase I heard the cannons continue to fire, once we made it to the lift there was a group of soldiers coming from the lift. They formed up and pushed through the retreating adventurers, in most of their eyes I saw ridicule and resentment for those that were retreating.
I boarded the lift and heard the battle cries of the soldiers charging towards the new threat.
On our way down I heard the muttering of the adventurers about the orcs, it had been nearly a hundred years since the last time the orcs invaded a city. They had even reached the inner city and nearly wiped the city from the map, it only survived due to a few other cities coming to its aid, and even then it took decades to rebuild just the inner city.
Once we reached the bottom of the lift Hextia and I made our way to the guild, along the way were hundreds of adventurers probably on their way to speak with their managers as well.
The street was packed, the splinters kept the crowd away though even with them acting as a deterrent there was plenty of shoving and shouting. It took an hour in line outside the guild to finally see Sett who had broken into a sweat and her face was red from yelling at a group of adventurers to scram or she would demote their asses until the only job they could get was clearing the sewers.
I walked up to her as the adventurers looked like they were ready to brawl right in the center of the guildhall, Hextia made her move and her splinters rushed forward and pushed the adventurers aside. Being outnumbered the adventurers backed off and left the guild, they shoved their way out getting the others even more riled up.
Unfortunately, they were smart enough to leave before it got interesting, there were rules for the guild one of them being you couldn't draw weapons within the wall of the guild, there was a magic formation that alerted the guards if anyone did and the punishment usually ended in being blacklisted or death depending on how aggressive you were towards the guards.
Sett jumped into my arms as I turned to face her. I wrapped my arms around her shaking shoulders, Hextia had her splinters form around us to block our intimacy from the view of outsiders, Sett took a few shaky breaths to calm down before pulling me to our usual private room.
Sett went to the table and moved the chairs close together and motioned for me to take a seat, she proceeded to pull up a map of the wall and all the reports on the monster invasion. Looking over the data and the maps there were several indicators that the orcs came from the dungeon, most of their war machines were placed on the sections of the wall nearest to the dungeon while the elites of their army were mostly gathered in the same manner.
Our side of the wall was only getting the scraps and we were forced back. Adventurers, for the most part, would find small packs of monsters and would work together for nests but they were not the kind of people you would have in your army and it wasn't their duty to kill monsters but their way of making a living.
There was no way the adventurers would continue going to the wall unless they were only on the backline, though this was only true for those of us with low levels. Many high-level adventurers would be celebrating as they could start gaining experience from the orcs, and the payout for their kills would be quite generous.
Looking over the reports there were pieces that didn't quite fit with the rest, sentences were cut short and there were no photos, drawings, or images of the dungeon. 'Well, that isn't suspicious'.
"Sett, is this normal for there to be absolutely no information?"
She walked over and quickly cycled through the files, when nothing turned up she placed her tablet on the table making a new hologram appear. She typed in some info and the files reappeared, they were the complete files but everything that was missing before was blacked out. I saw her eyebrows come together before she began going through the rest of the files before we came across a blurry image. The image was so blurry I could barely tell the difference from the forest and the mountain, how was this supposed to be a picture of the dungeon?
Hardly anyone who was sent to the dungeon had died there, seeing how everything they learned about the dungeon was redacted or hidden they had basically sent in those adventurers blind.
"Sett do you want to go on a field trip?" She looked over at me and cocked her head slightly, she looked at the image and back at me before giving me her reply.
"Nope, not going to happen. I am a noncombatant, I can't go out there! There is nothing you can say or do to get me anywhere near that dungeon!"
An hour later Rin, Sett, and Warren all on the bridge of MoonShadow. At maximum velocity, it would only take us half an hour to get to the coordinates of the dungeon. Rin and Warren were relatively excited to see the dungeon while Sett was a little nervous; she had calmed down once I told her we would take MoonShadow and not the shuttle.
I let the pilot guide us to the coordinates and while I had the time I went to a room I had built over the past few weeks, it consisted of all my lab equipment with a few other modifications. I passed through the main lab before moving through a second lab that hadn't been fully outfitted yet, at the end of the second lab was a specialized door.
There were turrets in the corners of the wall with overlapping fields of fire, the door itself was two feet thick and had an internal power source that powered the locking mechanism. I walked up to the door and a hologram popped up with a question.
'What did you lose?'
I typed in my answer and the door rose into the ceiling, Hextia was standing on the other side of the door waiting for me. I walked in and the door closed behind me, I heard the locking mechanism rumble into place as the door sealed us in. The room was the primary bridge and command center I had built in secret, there were several slots along the walls. These slots were housing units for Hextia's main unit and possibly the clones of her whole self, which is what we were going to be testing soon but first, we would test the splinters.
We slipped several splinters into the slots and watched them power up, Hextia waited a few minutes before placing a few more. She kept repeating the process until there were 36 splinters set into the walls, "-Master, the splinters give me minor access to the ship's functions, the more I place the more control I gain but I would need hundreds to gain full control over the ship. I believe I would either need to place my own core within the chamber or create the clone, though I am unsure of what will happen to me if I create a clone.
Will I still be me if I create two of me-?"
I heard her voice distort and waver when she questioned about the frailty of her identity, I was surprised by the expression and self doubt she had. "I won't make you clone yourself if you are concerned with the side effects." I placed a hand on her shoulder, I was proud of her for voicing her emotions though I wished she could have a bit more freedom and make a few friends. It was what she deserved.
We moved on from the cloning experiment for now and went back into the lab, it was time to test out the enhancement skill. Hextia laid on the table as I went to a large aquarium, unlike most aquariums mine had no fish, it was filled with various slimes. I had many living specimens as well as dead ones kept in a freezer, I took one from the freezer and one from the aquarium and went to Hextia.
I cast life hack and inspected her bloodline and navigated my way to enhancing her bloodline.
[Enhance? Yes/no]
I placed the dead slime in her hands and focussed on enhancing her bloodline. My mana surged and the slime dissolved into a violet colored liquid and soaked into her skin, the percentage of the king slime bloodline rose slightly but that was all.
I walked away thinking of how to increase the speed of absorption, then it hit me, I just needed to turn the slimes into the elixir first. I drained the aquarium and recast lifehack, I kept up my spell and let my mana flow and the slimes began to melt into a glowing violet liquid. The aquarium was only a quarter full with just the living specimens, so I began to dump all slime corpses from the freezer into the aquarium.
Once it was nearly full I helped Hextia disrobe and carried her over to the aquarium and gently placed her into the elixir. It was cool to the touch and her body quivered and she held onto me tightly as I let her go, it shouldn't be that cold, "Are you alright?" I asked looking down to see the top of her breasts pressing up against me with her face a deep shade of red.
"-I am alright master, the elixir feels amazing like it is shooting electricity throughout my body, it just surprised me is all.-"
I nodded and let her go while her grip slowly released me as she sank into the liquid, I smoothed her hair and let her soak, I spent the remainder of the flight analyzing her bloodline as it was being enhanced. The process looked like my mana was diving into each cell and taking the smallest portion, which I assumed was a part of the king slime bloodline, and bringing them together. At first, it was quite quick but it began to slow down as it neared completion.
We had reached 90% when the shook violently.
I ran back to the bridge.
As I came into the bridge I saw a massive iron bolt coming right for us.