Upon entering the entrance, his constant sense of danger only increased. The mercenaries formed a close formation so that they could cover each other in an emergency. Since the parasites had been watching them all, he already knew that the whole city had to be teeming with them.

Not much longer and they made their first contact with the enemy, who shot at them from a side room. The knights attacked their shield wall, causing the creature to throw itself directly on their shields; the men then tried to strike, but without the swords having any real effect. Only one hit on the eyes seemed to have an effect.

Sam: On the eyes, aim on their eyes!

With this exclamation, the attacks were directed specifically against the head, as a result of which, after enough contact, the beast was at some point pierced by a sword directly through the eye. Once the brain was destroyed, it simply collapsed, twitching, on the floor.

The formation was drawn closer together, only narrow corridors were selected so that if the parasites wanted to overrun them, their gigantic numbers could not be used. After the individual attack, there were always individual small attacks that seemed to him like attempts to test your defense. Still, was there something strange about it? What was strange about that, why weren't they just overrun right away? Would they all be waiting for you at one point? Did you want the filtration system to break down? If so, were they protecting the arrangements that operated the portal?

Somehow everything was going too smoothly from his point of view and nothing worth it should be that easy to achieve. Maybe the whole thing was a trap, flashed through his head, somehow he was beginning to doubt that their way back was free from these beings!

Although the portal appeared to be above the facility, it doubted that destroying the stone ring would disable the portal if it did not literally widen the problem. Presumably the ring was even supposed to limit the portal, and the technology, just like the magic behind it, was absolutely alien to him. In his opinion it would have been best to pull the plug. Presumably the source of energy was hidden deep below them.

The moment they got to the central stairwell, some pleaded for going upstairs, which almost resulted in the group actually trying to destroy the stone ring.

Magna: I don't think destroying the ring will solve the problem!

Basically, that was completely atypical for him. He wasn't someone who spoke up like that. In that one moment he was surprised even by himself. Even more so since he continued to speak.

Magna: I think whatever is doing this stone ring in the air has to get its energy from somewhere, destroying the ring probably won't destroy the portal too. I'm assuming that a portal is using outrageously high amounts of mana and if the thing has been active for who knows how long, then there has to be a constant source of energy somewhere.

Besides, I don't know if they noticed, but on the plateau itself there is a relatively lower mana density in the area, even though we are very deep in this magical forest. The forest cannot spread directly around the plateau either. Before that I assumed something else, but as the density decreased on the way into the city center ...

Nobody interrupted his short monologue. No, they all turned their gaze to him. Sam looked at him carefully too. He was reluctant to reveal so much knowledge, but right now his damn survival was related to this group and if he was being honest with himself he wanted his damn rewards too. Just looking at the task, the time had dropped to under 30 hours. They might have a day left, maybe a few hours more or less, but time was of the essence.

Outside the day was already breaking. Soon it would almost certainly be teeming with parasites and their willies victims.

Bard:That doesn't sound unreasonable, but what if you’re wrong?

Unknown knight: In addition, I did not expect that the portal would feed the four rivers, two of which not only run into the magical forest, but also beyond. If we close this portal, sooner or later thousands of people will be without water.

Magna: Well, whatever comes out of that portal is definitely worse and the task was not to replace the filter system. Although that could save thousands, when I look at the energetic faces here, they don't care about the people anyway.

Bard just shrugged: I have never doubted the gods, their wisdom is above that of mortals.

Lark: You should have known that beforehand. This can create some complications, both political and strategic. After all, these rivers separate lands.

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Magna: I hate to be the spoilsport here, but if none of us want to renew the filter system and want to forgo our bonuses, then we should piss our socks off. Maybe even go their separate ways?

Lark: I'm against us breaking up. All forces should remain close to his lordship.

Sam just wrinkled her nose in confirmation and swallowed hard once before following the conversation again.

Lark gave the mercenary an unpleasant look. Obviously he thought she was some kind of muscle brain. Well, the hammer on her shoulder was fond of guessing like that, but Magna was still more comfortable around her than around this Lark. This man just gave him a goose chill!

The knight, who seemed to be pursuing his own agenda, began to support Magna in the venture. Whatever the person was planning had nothing to do with him, so he gladly accepted the support. Even if he was extremely reluctant to support this man's agenda. All this Lord stuff just missed his ass. He just wanted to get the damned job done and then get out of here as quickly as possible.

None of them were magicians in the usual sense. Although they could use one or the other spell, some might even have a bit of talent at it, but at the moment Magna seemed the only one among them who had the most understanding of the matter of the situation. Of course Magna did not understand anything about the matter, only drew a conclusion from the environmental conditions.

In essence, he couldn't even tell what drove the golems outside or gave them their previous functions. But they were astonishing to look at. Presumably they were a crucial part of the rise of this breed? In principle, a cheap, almost endless manpower?

Armed forces? Builder? Its uses were endless, and technology could likely change the world outside of the forest. Almost every achievement had this potential. He wouldn't be surprised if there were airships, teleportation and other curiosities somewhere, the airship being his personal lifelong dream.

If his airship had teleportation technology later, all he would need was a mechanic he could call Scotty, he thought with a wandering thought. The others were still staring at him while his thoughts went back and forth.

They argued for a while until Lark reluctantly consented to the split. But with the idea of parting, it was still not clear who should go with whom. Unfortunately, no teams were chosen like at the dodgeball, but a discussion was held about who was pursuing which goal. The whole conversation was so tiring that Magna decided to go out alone with Leica. There, as if arguing on the platter, his meat plate had basically become useless. Instead of waiting for the decision, he took advantage of the distraction and started walking down the stairs with Leica. The stairs were extremely elaborate, which he doubted, for it seemed no less enchantment than art. Well, the patterns were completely alien to him, but you could clearly see enchantments in them.

It didn't take much longer for a few confused shouts from above to indicate his disappearance. Soon he could hear boot heels behind him on the stairs. Right behind him, an angry-looking Sam came to a stop.

Sam: What was that supposed to be?

Magna: What should what? Oh. You mean the children's squabble about who does what? The superfluous quarrel between people, where no one trusts the other even though everyone is in the same boat? Now listen. I want to finish this job before the night ends and before we get overrun with this damn whatever. The last thing I rely on is for you to find a solution.

Sam: Arrogant, but not wrong. You are lucky that you are not one of my people, I would have had you flogged for that.

Magna whispered: Maybe I would have liked that ...

Sam: what?

Magna: what? I haven't said anything and it seems like a decision has been made. I can't see any of the knights behind your people. Then let's go further.

CARTER I agree, but don't forget that you are our guest, not our leader.

Magna: Right. Sorry, then apparently my assessment is no longer needed. I am very happy to see how you solve the problem with the portal.

Sam started patting her hammer: There is nothing a hammer cannot solve.

Somehow this type of person looked very familiar to him and he certainly knew one or the other person of this type. They all had in common to be very charismatic people, but also very simple people. There was nothing left to do but run a hand over his face. A gesture he suppressed because it would only have pushed the hood of his coat down.

Maybe his idea was even a stupid idea, because if he remembered all the horror films in his life, parting had always been the beginning of the end.

Very soon he discovered that breaking up was actually not a smart idea, because the deeper they got into the complex, the fiercer the resistance became. The mercenaries could handle most of them, but not without taking a few losses themselves.

Sam didn't trust her much more than the blue-blooded man or his entourage. They were prepaid so it made no difference whether they did the job or not, but one thing Sam had never let down and that was her instinct. The same old instinct that made them survive countless battlefields, that made them slowly rise in the ranks of the mercenary clan of border fighters, recognize their enemies and recognize the dangers. From the beginning, she mistrusted this strange woman, as you would with any deed in exile, but also her instinct, which told her that her chances of survival for this task at her side were higher. That didn't mean they liked each other, she didn't doubt for a second that the stranger would sacrifice them if she could save herself by doing this. By the gods she would not have done it differently herself. But she just didn't like the beast by her side. Tamer has never been able to understand why you wanted to live with a beast.

Immediately after she realized that her newcomer was missing, she went in search of her, the knights as well as Bard looking out for her. This creepy servant seemed to bother this somehow, but no longer bothered him by the whole situation.

No, she could smell it from the group of the nobleman that something strange was going on there, just how one of the knights kept pinning the young lord with his eyes.

After some pretty tough fights in which even Magna had to intervene by laying a hand on the heads to grill the parasites directly with a mana push, he believed he was getting closer and closer to the matter.

Even outside in the city he could recognize something with his mana perception, which boiled down to the fact that all mana in the area was slowly being drawn into the city center again and again. This turned out to be a rather slow process, which he could only really confirm with the central building, because it seemed to suck up all the mana. Probably the whole structure works as the only mana collecting circle to do whatever in the center that kept the portal running.

He was pretty sure to find this in the basement of the facility, where the expected resistance of the parasites also seemed to gather. Soon they had to fight for every further step, every further landing, every room. The resistance grew so strong that he wondered if there was no more efficient way to deal with their enemies. Most of the attack was taken by the mercenaries, like those with their shields.

The next major problem was that the stairs did not lead directly into the depths, but to different levels. There were various laboratories and other dodgy facilities everywhere. The different floors were then separated again with stairs, which were closed with sturdy metal doors. In all the time on the way down, they might have climbed two floors, but still not where they were going.

To make matters worse, the day had just dawned and there was another realization that he missed his mood.