Columns lined his way through the various halls. Despite the demise of the dwarves, this place was still incredibly fascinating. He regularly scanned his surroundings with the mana waves, but except for a small group of goblins, he couldn't find any of the small monsters in his immediate vicinity, but with the mass streaming over from the bridge, there still had to be scattered groups somewhere.
Now and then he got into small skirmishes with groups, which he destroyed with magic, in order to then transform them in close combat with his hammer. Lumen illuminated the supports that supported the ceiling. One hall was soon followed by another, until he came to the battlefield in which the brood mother lingered and which he so roughly pushed through the ceiling into the next levels. Under the hole that the rock had made, there was apparently a deeper mine system. He had already given up collecting all the weapons after several identical specimens had accumulated in his storage, then he should salvage the rest after the dungeon had been cleaned.
On the other side of town there were still innumerable hostile creatures lurking and something inside of him embarrassed him for not having cleaned them up. This city impressed him as much as it once had to astonish its residents.
His hand clenched around the war hammer in his hand. He's always been fond of dwarfs and he wouldn't let these filthy bugs keep this place dirty for longer than necessary. Spiders were one thing, a personal thing, but these little gray monsters filled him with an entirely different form of revulsion.
Another, much smaller, bridge was before his eyes towards the gorge. The passage behind the crossing was deliberately sealed off by him. This time he was not in the middle, but still in the starting area where he began to restore the bridge for a crossing. He didn't even have to specifically attract her attention, because as soon as he showed up, her eyes were sure to be on him. In disbelief, the first entered the restored passage, from which he slowly withdrew, being careful not to lose sight of him. You should follow him. Most of the corridors were sealed so that everyone could be diverted into the chamber with the machines. There in the middle was the machine that he found earlier. The hammer was on the floor. A few mana crystals from its storage brought the machine into a mobile state. Unfortunately, the whole dungeon wasn't suitable for the equipment, but these halls were a perfect location.
He sat quietly in the cockpit of the machine, which cost him some time, his hands were in a vessel filled with a jelly-like mass that was used for control, the lumens from the ceiling completely illuminated everything in his field of vision. After the first goblins poured into the room through the opening, he picked up the hammer and held it up while he sat grinning in the machine.
The thing almost ate the hair off his head, if you wanted to put it that way, because he was constantly forced to feed new mana crystals while he swung the mighty hammer at the next group. Again he drew the gigantic war hammer at another of the two who shot him with their simple arrows. Simple magic bounced off the machine like rainwater bounced off a windshield. He crushed a few of the other little monsters with his feet who beat his legs with their weapons. They ricocheted ineffectively before he buried them under the metal he was standing on.
Kills pooled in his eyes, slowly but steadily climbing some steps as he repainted the halls. No place was not covered by crushed intestines or scattered body parts. He worked his way through the never-ending stream of them. The war hammer has long been turned into a meat hammer, and the shiny metal is stained with their filthy blood. If he hadn't had so many of the crystals in his inventory, he couldn't have run the machine that long. This alone showed why this device of destruction never saw its use.
Only very slowly did the current drain from them until it finally turned into a trickle that he believed was about to end. Surprisingly, the smaller ones were replaced by bigger and bigger enemies.
Soon they reached orders of hobgoblins who came in much smaller quantities, but seemed to him stronger in that to fight him, still smaller than himself in the machine, but they at least went up to his chest. He still had to swing the hammer with both hands of the war machine.
Unfortunately, they were much better at avoiding him, where previously he could hardly miss in the crowd their larger relatives seemed much better at coordinating. The first time he had to swallow, after wondering if he had made the transition to stable, because behind the larger ones followed a small group of ogres with heavy clubs. These towered over him a little, which made him sweat a little.
He had already been forced to evade more often than before, because of a strike, which was confirmed by a dent in the racket that was directed inwards, confirming the danger that was approaching him.
With a twist he dodged another attack in which he sank the warhammer into the side of one of the ogres, whereupon the ogres collapsed with a scream, which he followed with the metal foot after he lured another blow with the hammer. Maybe the whole idea wasn't as brilliant as he thought before. He lit one of the lumens outside and it bloomed in a bright light before it died afterwards. That glare gave him just enough time to knock down two more of the hobgoblins. Slowly they pushed back in the direction of the holding bay. Dents began to accumulate all over the body of the metal structure. Joints delayed their work or stopped working for a few seconds before they started to work again.
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Inside the cockpit he couldn't use the magic as freely as if he had fought outside, but without the machine it would have been a retreat fight in which he was constantly losing ground. Although the kills brought him more experience than he had previously expected, because he slowly came to level 55, which made him 24 levels, but the levels were hard.
Another blow dented one of the ogres' skulls, which confirmed another kill after the Giant simply fell backwards without a movement. Still surrounded by enemies, probably the biggest and heaviest goblin he ever saw pressed his way through the opening into the hall. Carried by a few hobgoblins, he wobbled around on his throne and barked orders to his porters to attack the machine. It itself bit a generous amount from the leg of one of the spiders while it appeared to be watching the fight.
He almost certainly realized that this wasn't the smartest idea he'd ever come up with. This swirling mass had clearly been something like her broodmother. Again and again the smaller ones cut themselves out of his flesh, whereupon they came to life and also attacked the machine.
Just seeing it from a distance made him choke in his cockpit. Instead of shrinking in the process, the fleshy mass didn't seem to subside. Probably giving birth to new ones of their kind was not his only skill. He swung the hammer again, this time tossing it at the crowd in the distance. The fat one merely raised an eyebrow until he weakly raised the other hand, blocking the warhammer from a flicker of a shield, causing it to fall harmlessly to the ground.
This only confirmed his thoughts further as he now got both hands free for the fight. A skull in each hand that seemed to crack under the pressure of his metal claws, he rammed their heads together. He used their bodies as shields to block some of the ogres' blows until two more killings were confirmed.
A club hit him from the side, from which the machine was thrown on its side, which seemed to be a signal for the smaller, fresh goblins to attack him. They jumped on the machine, hacked the joints with their little machetes and other weapons.
Would he die down there? Overwhelmed? No. Cursed. No, he wasn't going to die. Not lying on the ground. His metal hands closed around one of the clubs lying on the ground, which he swung at the legs of the next ogre, causing him to fall. Another swing in the skull made it burst like a melon. With protesting mechanisms, the fighting machine got up very hesitantly, despite the many small ones attached to it. With the holding bay behind him, he retreated into the bottleneck to show his last resistance there.
Perhaps he should have fought there from the start, but it was too late to repent. Instead, he focused on dismantling the skull one hob at a time. He used every opportunity to bring down another one of the ogres. The thing he was sitting in was taking on the shape of a junk heap. In the course of time, his available resources of mana crystals in his storage continued to decrease until the level was dangerously close to drying up. He never expected that this battle would last so long, which is why he tried to feed the mana silt, which he still kept in the store, into the cauldron for the energy supply.
What happened next wasn't expected of him. A bright glow brightened up the machine which suddenly drew more energy than ever before as a result of which some enchantments began to work on the machine. The metal reformed itself to its original state very quickly. The clawed hands began to glow unnaturally bright, almost glowing as if they were heating themselves. His next attack, in which he grabbed one of the skulls, had the clawed hand cut through the head like a hot knife through butter.
That was not the end of the last battle. Via the control he could even feel that he could change metal if necessary, if this was what he wanted. With another thought he formed the metal above the hands into a short gladius that went beyond the clawed hands!
With the new weapons he slaughtered his way through the incoming reinforcements like a butcher until he was standing with the machine in front of the swirling mass of meat. A barrier ended his advance on a street full of corpses. The amount of mana silt in the filling container shrank very slowly. A free hand reached for the war hammer, which seemed to empty the container further. The glowing glow jumped over the war hammer, which also glowed with a light glow.
Again he rose to another level on his way through the crowd of enemies, whereby he found himself back to level 56. Spraying sparks he hit Hammer again and again against the barrier of this goblin birthing machine and hobgoblins began to form from his body, which he had to eradicate with a calm regularity.
Fear was clearly written on the thing's face, the lively interest in the conversation that the fight may have offered him before it found itself in a dangerous situation in which all his strength flowed into the barrier directly in front of his eyes and his little helpers slowly carried him away.
Magna could see it in his eyes. He didn't expect this. He never expected to get into this situation when he was lying on the ground before and was in his last breath.
Distress, that was the feeling in the eyes of this monster while the hammer hit the barrier again and again, but he himself also had to struggle with a growing problem. There wasn't much of the silt left in the container. It also needed everything he carried with him so that the machine could last that long. Besides, it didn't seem to be able to hold that state forever. Material fatigue spreads slowly everywhere. This extreme condition had put a heavy price on this thing. A few of the enchantments flickered like lightbulbs that had broken contact.
With a further swing, which he reinforced by drawing additional energy from the silt, the barrier showed a few cracks before the mana in the air crystallized into shards and the structure shattered like a disk.
The hammer had already lost its momentum when the barrier shattered, but instead of continuing to use it, he simply dropped the still-glowing hammer onto the mass of meat. He could hear the thing screaming inside the cockpit after he lay Hammer on him like a hot paperweight! Instead of pulling back his hand, he twisted the clicking joint of the machine and thrust the blade right into the monster's skull, followed by the burning claws of the hand that cut into the head.
No killing notified him, so he did not give up destroying his enemy's body, but tore pieces of meat out of him and simply threw them aside. Like a child unpacking a Christmas present, he tore his opponent more and more until his metal legs slowly collapsed from metal fatigue. Only with his arms and his claws he dismembered it until either the machine took its last breath or the thing took its last.
A few seconds later, the left arm also broke apart in bursting metal, which simply ate in the writhing mass of flesh like shrapnel after an explosion in a house wall. With the last effort, the clawed hand reached into the chest, where it pierced the still beating heart. At the same time the silt in the container went empty and the last important killing report went along which announced the end of their king.