Murk had evolved again.
The moment he'd heard they were done, he'd passed out, his sweat drenched body breaking down into the ground, most of his men doing the same or long unconcious. None had been allowed to die, but that didn't mean it'd not been compensated for.
The last week had made 'hell' seem like a good vacation spot. All in all, they'd cleared three dungeons. All B-rank.
The first had stupidly fast monsters, who attacked at all times. If not for the orc party of six guiding them and holding off the majority of the strangely sized bunies, all soldiers would have been massacred. They'd eventually gotten ussed to being in a state of constant vigilance and terror, some soldiers even being lucky enough to make that murder balls impale themselves in their weapons, but no one really got to a state where they could fight back even by the time they'd reached and killed the boss.
There hadn't been anyone who'd not gotten close to death during those two days. It was just that besides the boss monster at the last floor, no monster on the dungeon would be able to instantly kill even normal soldiers. In fact, the regiment was convinced they had poison to cause pain and induce euphory. With the healers drinking mana potions till they passed out, no permanent wound was left on any of the present. No physical wound at least, but they were soldiers, traumatising events were both a job hazard and something mentioned in their pay check.
The second dungeon on the other hand, had the whole vanguard dodging killing or maiming blows while the magicians slowly killed the rock ogres with barrages of spells. In a situation where there were five man to distract one enemy, there was still a couple of times someone almost died instantly, but the veterans made sure to safeguard those guys and send them to do even more training, which concisted in wearing enchanted weights and servng as the mages' supports. When a mage screwed up a spell and almost got someone killed, because that did happen a couple of times, that person than became the vanguard's support, buffing everybody while being made do a complex mana exercise that hurt even looking at. This time, several soldiers were able to change jobs during the delve, a crystal being carried by the praetorian.
At last, they faced a dungeon of undead. By themselves. Which was something everyone complained about imediatly.
"Now, i know what everyone is thinking, and i totally get it. This one wasn't my idea. The Lord himself said you'd be able to do it in these four days though, then he gave me several sets of enchanted equipment personally made by him and gave me this record crystal, which has a series of songs, each highly magical and capable of buffing your stats through the roof." She said, pressing glowing rune.
Seven nation army started playing.
No one knew exactly what happened after that, but everyone woke up to extreme pain, tiredness, full XP bars, a dead dungeon boss, a graveyard of bones and roten flesh behind them.
"You're all finished. Never seen someone remain in a beserker state for three days straight before, but all one hundred of you did it!" Comented the flabbergasted giant in full plate as the whole expedition fell to the ground at her words. She'd never be able to forget the sight of men and women of such diversity all stripping and gearing up at the speed she tore the clothes out of her wives in bed before they all went down and started to mechanically hunt down every single mob in the dungeon, fighting with complete disregard for their bodies while preserving their lives. They ate, drunk and bathed with the passion of zealots, all so they could get to battle faster. When it was time to sleep, a part of the group had their vitality restored like normal, then the rest would fall asleep for four hours like rocks and be even more silent than the undead while the awake group would wipe the floor with precise guerrilla tactics.
When it came to the boss, they literally set several magical item up, shot bombs at it, detonated them with spells and them swarmed the giant squeleton with blades till it couldn't move it's joints before bludgeoning it with everything they had, a combo of control spells not letting it move after that.
*****
"That went better than i expected." Murmured Aki as he inspected the troops trained through his dungeons, none having died even once. "Well, it does speed things up, so I'm not going to complain about luck at the moment."
"You really weren't kidding on that part." Sighed his tallest in-law.
"Not a bit" He rebuted, stepping forward and taking stage on a small platform, his presence and magic aura silencing all around. "Thank you for your attention, I assure everyone this will be brief. As you may have noticed, I am Aki, Lord of Duran, the one who personally assigned your mission." After a brief pause to let the realisation settle in, because it was necessary if the worshipping gazes of some were any indication, he continued. "As of the time, the territory did not have troops as strong as you all, a force in which your weakest is equal to a knight, so I had to make one. The task ahead is simple, but not easy. While I do not wish to discredit your dedication in having reached this point with success, it simply is not enough to garantee your continued survival and safety, so I must offer those without full conviction, to just step up and go back. Your services will be much more effective now, so there was nothing lost. Though any special equipment will stay, there will be nothing further on this matter for those that choose not to join. I understand some people might want information on the mission itself, but all I can disclose is that it involves thousands of lives, and our target is to bring these people in danger here, so they may have a beginning like any other these lands have witnessed in recent times." He solemnly explained.
People looked around, some not as sure as others, but none daring to be the first. In the end, no one did.
"Thank you for your dedication." Aki bowed a perfect ninety degrees, greatly surprising the soldiers.
*****
What happened after was all very... intense. From the introduction to the execution, the small amount of time in between allowed for all participating to have full moral, and since their part was so simple, there wasn't a risk of flunking it.
Charging through the portal, Murk was the first to step in front of the strange metal building, black smoke coming from a couple of long chimneys. Seeing the Lord flying forward and cutting open a path through both the entrance and the guards manning it with several rays of light was quite terrifying, but the monster coming from the sky were clearly the evil ones.
The sheer amount of eyes and exposed flesh made it almost impossible to recognize it as a wivern, but he'd studied the poisonous flying lizard enough to do so. The almost dragons were beasts, but there was no way something like that was from nature. He could only blame the owners of this factory and kingdom.
He shouted a battle cry as he rammed himself against the steel door, shielding his head as he tried to break the wall and open a path forward, even as he knew that he'd be the first to be shot at. No, it was exactly because of that he'd ran ahead. Batting aside the block of metal and the falling bricks, Murk caved in two golems with his axes, the dust barely shielding him as several attacks hit his arms and chest, several getting stuck in his muscles, leaving only small tricles of blood as he stored his weapons and caught a warrior in each hand, throwing them at the incoming projectiles, many enemies falling off balance and being targeted by his troops as he moved around.
As the spells started reaching for him, the cloud of debris was torn to reveal that they were fighting against automated defences. Only, automated defences. If he didn't know the whole place only had twenty employees and a squeleton garrison, he'd have found it odd.
With the battle going foward, all the one hundred soldiers had an opponent to fight by the time the real thing started outside, the clashes and sonic booms indicating a battle of proportions that barely made sense to those of lesser realm.
Though that was the theory, Murk himself had five golems reforming in front of him and crossed blades with more as one of the engineers dissabled the doors leading to the production lines. Hearing the call from behind him, the centurion threw his oponents off, calling for reinforcements as he activated several consumable enchantments and again charged through, several control formations reaching for him as he stepped inside, all slipping through an invisible bubble they couldn't seem to get a hold off.
Locking on the woman manning the controls, he tossed an axe at her, followed by another to the man trying to activate a portal, the second hitting home while the first was stopped by several strings of magic. They didn't have the chance to register that he'd jumped before he feel on the same tentacle, freeing his axe and hacking away the arms of the baffled mage.
Holding her jaw with his bare hand, he muffled her screams of pain, turning a cold glare towards the other enchanters.
"Don't resist and you will not be hurt." He intoned, more of a command than a suggestion. He could see how some had their determination shaken, the image in front of them clearly too much, more of his man entering the room before they could take any decision. It was questionable how long the man who had an axe head to the torso would need to die in a situation like this, but it was better to consider him as made of paper since it was unknown how much these people had focused on bettering their crafting and mana manipulation. "Who has the key to the battery room?"
His question caused shock to course through the eyes of even the wounded in the room, and though he didn't actually expect an answer, one of them took out a dagger and tried to kill himself. His hand was hit by an arrow, making him lose grip.
Murk put the maimed woman in the hands of a captain so he could look after her and procedded to take the most afraid man by the arm, escorting him through a series of rooms he'd memorised. By the time they'd reached the heavily enchanted door, most constructs had probably already lost their integrity, because he could hear the reports of his captains saying they were advancing and had already secured the enchanters, starting to activate the construct destabilizer and sending the second mage squad to his position.
Piercing the man in his hold with a special seringue, the fast acting poison started showing effect almost imediatly after injection, his skin becoming pale and his eyes glazing.
"Say the password." He ordered.
"Gegrüßet seist du der Sonne" The monotone pronunciation of the language he'd never heard only made the big orc be sure that this was definetly not a good place.
"Say it's an inspection of the batteries states."
"Ehrentest" As the door slowly oppened to the strange word, Murk was able to witness the lights becoming brighter inside the underground chamber easily the same size as the whole factory upstairs with it's various crafting and living implementations plus the garrison and reception area.
Gritting his teeth at the growling and the killing intent being dirrected at his dirrection, the man stepped foward, the adults' gazes borring through the man he held and the younger ones not differentiating either. As far as some of them knew, he might just be another abomination of this place.
"Attention civilians!" He bellowed after breathing deeply, the sterile smell irritating his nostrils in a diferent way than filth would. "The demon lord of Pride has heard of your situation and has sent his followers to bring you all before him. Your suffering is unnaceptable! For you are now also his subjects!" He announced, the room trembling both from the force of the scream and from the tremors of the battle above. Confusion was obvious in the faces off all that could understand common, but he could see that most had gained a small amount of hope. He broke off a small bottle he took out of his storage, mana suddenly being sucked towards it before he took out several beast cores, releasing the dungeon seed to the ground as it started feeding until it blossomed.
A small portal appeared, the field hospital on the other side. Demons, kin, humans, elves, dwarfs, goblins, kobolts, several species rushed foward to treat the patients and secure the area. They didn't come to conquer, but they weren't going to leave the place intact either.