The major got up from the ground surrounded by the cries of pained soldiers around him. 

He looked up and saw that a large portion of the army had avoided falling. In fact, the majority were still above. When the major looked around him, he saw only eight living soldiers.

"Is everybody ok?" one of the soldiers called from above.

in a muttered breath, the major said. "ye can bloody well see can't you."

"What?"

"We're alright, just a few cuts and bruises."

"Didn't one of the mages take an arrow through the neck?"

"Aye, he did. But the rest of us are fine. best ye run along while the rest of us deal with this." 

"Are you saying you want us to leave?" 

"Just find ye own bloody way is what I'm saying!"

Under his breath, the major added. "like walking a bloody dog."

The rogue type had landed on his ass, he stood and dusted himself off.

"Your not the best at this leadership stuff, are you?" The rogue asked.

"Shut yer mouth or I'll have you reprimanded,"  the major replied.

"Just my luck," the rogue-type said to himself.

"Followed you in, and now I'm trapped," he added.

The man dressed in more religious robes seemed to be with them all; he appeared over them seemingly without a spec of dust on him.

"Gather your soldiers and move on, lest I inform the church of your careless charge," he said, a cold Stoney look across his face.

"Get a load of grumpy here." The major said to the rogue.

"You're one to talk." The rogue replied. The Major grunted and turned to carry on down the tunnel.

Adil saw them progress further through the tunnels sitting at his war table, formulating new plans on the fly. He saw Swift appear next to him and noticed the mana drain from the spawn crystal's reserves. Experience from the slain enemies seemed to add towards the spawn crystal's level, a couple percentages added to the bar.

Spawn crystal level 10

13% progress to 11

"How'd it go?" Swift said, grabbing some new clothes by the anvil and putting them on. 

Adil was keenly focused on the dynamics of his new war table; his attention only wavering for the odd glance. 

"Good, or... We found something new."

"New good?"

"It's this priest." 

The screen focused around a religious figure that seemed to be with the leading group. What appeared to be the ones in charged, had fallen to a lower path. When the priest was highlighted in the picture, there didn't seem anything abnormal about him, just another standard religious zealot wearing religious clothes. The man looked like Adil and Swift would imagine most attached to the church would look like. 

"What about him?"

 "See his clothes?" Adil said. 

"Yeah, basic robes, some pattern, probably religious."

"It's not damaged, even though it's just a robe, he fell something like 20 feet, everyone would have been caught on some rocks. It's not even dirty,"

 "You might be reading into that a bit too much, did you see him fight?"

"Maybe, but I didn't see him fight, and this thing doesn't seem to record anything... So I can't even tell how he fell."

"I think you might be focusing on him too much." 

"Maybe, but he has that look you know?"

"What look."

You know, just looks like a massive asshole."

 The war table was still hovering over his head. The priest's angry and dismissive expression and mannerisms seemed to show a considerable distaste for everything and everyone around him.

"K, about the shields though."

"Oh yeah, I don't know why the shield didn't block the arrows or people but blocked the fire and lightning."

 Swift a bit miffed. "Round two then?" He asked. Adil gave a thumbs up before carrying on his path.

The other goblins then appeared next to the spawn crystal, almost warping in. The marks on that symbolised their allegiance to the cave were glowing. They seemed to be naked but quickly gathered more weapons from the forge, a collection of the makeshift tools enhanced to fit their needs.

"Down there," Adil said, pointing in the same direction Swift had just walked. After a moment of realising their miraculous resurrection, they moved down the path Adil pointed to.

The next stage now ready in Adil's plan, he moved to interact with the now separate forces. The larger group further split trying to cover more ground as they came across a fork in the tunnels. Adil looked at them closely.

They appeared to be walking around with torches in their hands; the cave lights turned off for their invasion. There was a nervous air about one of them.

"hay, this doesn't feel right."

none of them replied.

"Should we really be going further in, what if something's in here?" he added.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Guys, I don't think this is-"

"Shut the fuck up, Steve," said another.

"But-"

"If you're going to keep bitching, just leave. You can just go-"

The group turned to see the path they had just taken appeared different, as though some sort of illusionary magic was deceiving them and getting them lost.

"That's odd. I could have sworn" A growl could be heard in the distance, a sudden shake emerged, and suddenly some giant mole creature popped its head out of the dirt, looked at them, and then backed away again. The growling continued until a few moments later a small greyish-blue creature curiously popped its face in front of them.

"Aw, look, a meerkat," one of the soldiers said.

 Adil felt he knew what was coming and was going to look back to this group at a later date. He turned to the goblins he had commanded to wait in another section of the cave. This time the group coming towards them seemed well orientated, silently moving forward in two squad-like formations holding all fifteen of them. 

One of the soldiers gave out a hand signal, and the group stopped. It was almost as though they saw the new group waiting up ahead. Seeing the opportunity, Adil took ahold of one of the drones in the area and spoke through its robotic mechanism. 

"Flee now; it is your last chance." 

The group seemed to be stationary until another hand signal pointed in the direction Adil was hidden. An arrow was fired with power and ferocity from one of the men, it went through the illusionary wall into the hiding spot and splatted the drone, silver goo spread across the wall before it dematerialised. The troop then charged in weapons drawn.

 Arrows were flung again past the illusionary wall, hitting one of the goblins before they had a chance to emerge. The goblins burst forward, roaring as they appeared through the wall. A single goblin fell and dropped through, an arrow impaled in his head. More of them were killed before they reached the church's forces. Finally, they clashed as the armoured and fighter goblins smashed against shields. The goblins were thrown off their kilter through expert bashes before spears and sword shot through their hearts. A single soldier was hit, but he was quickly taken away, the injured, soldiers removed from the fight. In the end, every goblin appeared behind Adil, whilst none of the soldiers met their doom.

"Wooo!" exclaimed one of the men. 

"Wait till we tell the boss about this," said another. One of the soldiers went to lift up a goblin's mace.

This group appeared to be well trained and coordinated especially compared to the others.

Adil quickly turned back to the meerkat group for a check-in. There was a lot of screaming and blood along the walls, one of the soldiers was on the floor having had his neck ripped out, from the crystal by his deceased body he was likely a mage.

"Where's it gone? where's it gone!?" One of the soldiers shouted. Another soldier keeled over.

"I, I can feel it inside me," he said. And then an explosion of guts erupted and sprayed everything around them. The meerkat stood there in what was left of the soldier's upper torso, lightning coating its body as it looked around for the next target. That was enough for Adil to see. 

 Over the war table, Adil could see one group had left the cave; they were setting up a sort of camp, battlements and a safe position. Another with the main forces was underground, having had the floor collapse under them. Then there was the one in Swift's dungeon, facing off against the meerkat. Finally, the expert group, slowly progressing through the caves. 

Aku was waiting on standby in the underground whilst the other goblins moved in. Adil checked the spawn cores mana, hoping it was keeping up. Eighty percent left, it was plenty left to revive the group. The collection rate would restore another five before the next fight, and it was still recovering from the work Adil had to do before the invasion began.

 Aku was waiting with his sword in hand, fidgeting as he stood there, so its wait was not overbearing. A few goblin fighters and armoured goblins came running in.

"Is it time?" Aku asked. The goblins arrived just before a silvery drone approached form the other side. 

"They are coming. These ones are tough, but if you can, aim specifically for the priest. Try to make him fight." The silvery drone said, then it carried on travelling down the path to further down, seemingly trying to escape the conflict. 

Down the corridor, the group of soldiers seemed to be getting increasingly frustrated with each other's company.

The major took a swig of something brown; it seemed to spill a bit across his moustache. 

"You sure you should be drinking that on the job?" The rogue type asked.

"Shut ye mouth merc, like you would know any better."

"I'll have you know me and my men are professionals. I don't-"

"MY men," the major stated.

"Well, yeah, your men. When we used to be mercs, we took it seriously."

The major gave a guttural grunt.  

The group moved further ahead, and the rogue stayed back a bit.

"Are you not coming?"

"Do you not see that?" The rogue said, looking down the path.

"What."

"The shimmer, me and the boys once came across something like this in some rebel mines."

The major looked impatient; he looked towards the ex-merc-leader as the man drew an arrow with his bow. He was aiming at a wall down the path.

"What are you-"

Adil could see the actions of the person and using a drone next to Aku he shouted: "Brace!" An arrow flew through another of the hiding spots Adil had placed throughout the tunnels and clanged against Aku's shield, which was held over his face. 

Then Aku jumped out of the spot and landed safely on the ground facing the soldiers. His zweihander, as intimidating at his side as his size and bone adorned armour. A few other goblins followed suit; fighters, armoured goblins, crossbowmen and dagger-wielding rogues. 

Aku looked around for the priest, but he had appeared to have vanished. Adil too looked around the space, having lost track of the priest. He enhanced the image and seemed to see a faint shimmer of gas moving around the area.

"Just my luck," the rogue said

"You better not hold me back merc." The major said, pulling out his sword. The rogue type was starting to have enough of this guy; he had gathered four more arrows for rapid-fire in one of his hands. 

The goblins charged forward, a few arrows flew towards the goblins, three from the rogue hit the legs of fighters stopping their advance, another impaling the side of the neck of an armoured goblin, but not killing him. It seemed as though the other soldier archers only hit shields and armour, to the disapproval of the rogue. The arrows from the goblin crossbowmen seemed to collapse to the ground when they passed through some magical field. Then a man holding some crystal orb seemed to lose energy an arrow then hitting a soldier in the gut.

One of the mages appeared to cast a bolt of energy at one of the goblins, but the goblin raised his shield even letting go of it. The shield shattered with the blast and the goblin shrugged off the slight concussive force appearing through the cloud of dust and destroyed the shield. 

Aku swung for the major, but his sword was parried, just after the clash the major threw some of his brown liquid into Akus eyes, making him reel back from the sting in his eyes. Aku kicked out and pushed the Major away, the major went back but was not taken off his feet or even out of his fighting stance.

Adil had made the drone much smaller, now even implanted in Aku's shoulder, the slight gassy drift had seemingly moved to an open space just behind the Major. 

"Throw your shield at him!" Adil said through the drone.

"What? I'll lose my." 

"Just do it."

To the major's shock, Aku threw his shield, which the major easily avoided by a simple duck. The large metal shield struck the gassy area, and the shimmer faded to reveal a displeased priest. His dark, furious expression seemed enhanced by the slight trickle of blood down his head.

"Enough." The man shouted. He raised his hands to the goblins and launched out a furious barrage of arcane energy. The goblins were all frozen, and even a couple soldiers the priest had been too lazy to check for.

The soldiers looked shocked.

"Could you not hav-"

"Quiet your mouth merc; you are all a disgrace to the high church." The priest wiped the blood trickle from his face onto his robe, seeing the mark it made he tsked.

The major looked down and away from the priest before he carried on walking down the tunnel. The goblins frozen solid appeared to be breaking down as they thawed. 

Aku was still alive though, his legs seemingly frozen into the ground but even without his shield to brace through some of the freezing death he was thawed enough to move. As he shuffled against the cold, bits of ice breaking off his skin, he tried to spin his sword. One of his legs seemed to snap off in his incredible exertion of will. Trying to stab at the priest as he moved past the priestly wizard put one hand to his face and shot out a burst of cold that both froze nocked off and shatter Aku's head before he managed close enough to a swing.