As I was getting bored from watching the Fifth Floor, humans flooded into the dungeon.
All had different symbols on their bodies but had the same high-quality equipment on their bodies.
I can see them flowing in without stopping.
Is this what they call human wave tactics?
Half of the floor was occupied by them! I didn’t even expand it lately, because I am more focused on the higher floors, as the lower floors always will be a speed bump for them.
So what’s the point of fattening up the speed bump?
They did not stop at all and did the first three floors in one go.
Their causalities were 0 as they had a shit ton of priests, and from the looks of it, they prepared a ton of paladins too for the Fourth Floor.
Soon the clash between the two sides ensued as they entered the Fourth Floor.
More and more skeletons were drawn to the noise as their fight became bigger and bigger. They also realized the skeletons could combine with the dead skeletons and started destroying the bones on the ground.
Just as the last skeleton was killed, the bones all around the floor started being drawn into the position where the last skeleton was killed.
As if all the bones were magnetic, they soon combined, even if they were broken in two or turned into dust, they returned to their original look before they got destroyed.
Soon a massive skeleton appeared with a height of 50 meters. (164.04 ft)
With just a casual step, it killed 4 people and didn’t even attack.
“Retreat!” Soon the voice was heard as people tried to distance themselves from the monsters, but they were not so lucky.
With a kick, it sent flying many people, and those people landed in the crowd, injuring or killing others in the process.
Soon magic spells bombarded the giant skeleton as it trashed the people under his feet, not caring about the spells at all.
It can be seen the spell does work, but simply the giant has so many bones, and they replace the damaged parts with ones in much better shape.
Even though it cannot regenerate, it can still replace the damaged ones with much better ones.
As the fight continued between the Floor Guardian and the humans, it became clear they were going to defeat the Floor Guardian as the situation stabilized. Even though the Guardian had great strength, the problem came when it combined, it became a massive target, which was hard to miss.
Looking at this, I wish I had popcorn, as it was so entertaining. I looked at them trying to bombard the giant skeleton, only for it to grab people and throw them far away.
For some reason, this was one of the most entertaining parts of the whole raid.
Seeing them running away and only being trampled or being thrown away.
Even though the situation stabilized, some people had to distract the giant skeleton, so they became its primary targets.
{For some reason I always imagined the people being thrown away having Tom and Jerry screams. After this, I imagined this, I couldn’t stop laughing at it.}
Man, if only I could create popcorn… Wait a damn minute.
***
“Don’t let it get close to the mages! Stop it at all costs! Thanks to the front!” I could scream into the voice enchanter crystal so everyone could hear it.
Damn it! This giant skeleton is just too much! We can barely leave damage on it, and no matter what, we concentrate as if it is a bulldozer and are not stopping even for a second.
“AHHHHH!” I could see a person fly away as it got kicked away. I knew the tanks stood no chance, but we didn’t have any better way to draw the monster's attention away.
“Raid Leader! Not good!” One of my guards pointed at the monster as it dug into the ground and ripped a large piece of dirt and stone out.
“Out of the way! Get out of the way!” I could only yell as I soon lost my voice from the constant screams.
Soon the large chunk of dirt and stone landed amid the mages, killing many of them in the process.
“Tell… the…mages to scatter and bombard it that way.” I had to calm down as I couldn’t properly speak from the stress.
“Sir, our casualties are increasing! We have to do something.” Another person appeared not long later, as it said the casualties of the mages.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Out of the 200 mages, 27 died instantly, 8 died of the injuries they sustained and could not be saved, and 53 were injured and needed medical assistance.
Soon I saw the situation not stabilizing but deteriorating for the worse.
“Bring the weapon.” I could only give this with a heavy heart.
We prepared this weapon for the Dungeon Lord, but who knew we had to use a relic so soon?
Soon a strange weapon was brought forth. It looked like a horn, but once I touched it, I felt my mana being drained crazily, so I let it go.
I looked at my mana, and I could only gulp.
240/5.
One touch and drained 235 mana like that.
This item consumes mana for its charge-up.
Soon, with a heavy heart, I took out mana crystals. These crystals are infused with astronomical amounts of mana and are an extremely rare material that can only be obtained by killing Dungeon Lords.
{Dungeons Cores = Mana crystals, as humans cannot become Dungeon Lords, so they have other uses for it.}
Not caring about it anymore, I felt a heavy burn leaving my body as I grabbed in one hand the mana crystal and in the other the horn.
Soon the mana from the mana crystal got sucked into the horn.
Soon the horn, which had dust on it and had already started to rust, turned golden and radiated light from it.
Soon I collapsed on the ground, but my guard grabbed me as I could barely stand and instructed them to blow the horn.
As the horn sounded, the ground shook, and even the world color changed, and everyone, including me, gained a status buff.
Hope of Tomorrow
Darkness fades away and hope shines as a new day comes to bring light to people's hearts.
This buff grants a 200% stat bonus to all people who are considered allies by the user and grants for 1 hour and the Hope Buff for 2 days. This buff reduces the user's fear and enchants the user's bravery. Once the person enters a situation with no escape gain invulnerability for 3 seconds, but this debuff will disappear as a result.
Feeling my newfound strength as my weakness went away, I gave the order to attack.
As the people saw new hope, the attacks became even more crazed on the Giant Skeleton.
I turned towards one of my men.
“Does this dungeon have a fifth floor?” I asked, as this dungeon has evolved extremely fast recently, and I need to make sure there are no problems, but the answer I got back was there is.
Just before the dungeon raid, people came and checked the mana of the dungeon, but the device that measures weaker dungeons exploded.
But before it did, they found there were only five floors, but it also showed the dungeon boss being extremely strong.
It took them several hours, but they did it. They finally did, and they defeated the Guardian, but the cost of it was extremely bad. They never expected such a giant to appear on the lower floors of a dungeon, as a giant of this size typically appears after 10 floors, but there is already such a monster.
{Before the question comes, what they are saying is that such a humongous monster cannot be besieged on the lower floors, as hardly any profession deals with them on the lower levels that specialize in hunting them or professions that can offset the differences with buffs and the like.}
I could only hide my frustration on my face, but my hands clenched as blood dripped from it.
Instructing them to search for the key, and after they found it, I told everyone to rest, and the scouts were sent out to see the next floor of what kind of terrain it was.
One scout came to inform me they found the entrance, and others went down to check the situation.
As I made my way there with the other vice leaders, there were 11!
Man, the dogfight that happened for this position was extremely brutal.
I can even see the envy and jealousy for this position, but I did not care as I had to conquer this dungeon at all costs, as we cannot fail here.
Soon we reached them, as we did not come with everyone, as they had to rest after such a big fight, and we only cared to inquire about the situation, but no one came back up.
Even after we waited for an hour, I sent 2 other people down, and soon they came back panting.
“Captain, not good, they’re all dead! There are some monsters down there similar to the ones that broke out from the dungeon beforehand!” I could see the terror on their faces as they came back scared shitless.
After hearing the ruckus that was happening behind me, I ordered everyone to return as we would make a breakthrough once we reached the next floor.
“Did you see anything else?” I turned back to them, asking if they saw anything else.
“I…I saw a few palm trees, so the dungeon is near the ocean, or we are on an island.” Said one of them as he tried to recall the horrors he saw there.
An island? Ocean theme? We have a few elemental mages, but not many people for diving if the situation turns out we have to dive into the ocean.
Fighting in the ground and the ocean is different.
We can use monster lures to draw some monsters out, but if they can’t leave the ocean, then we need to prepare a team for it.
80% of people currently have never experienced ocean-themed floors, and less than 3% have experienced fighting in the ocean.
We currently have around 900 people and 500 in the reserves and more coming later.
Our total reserves are around 4000-5000 people.
But this is the maximum we can mobilize.
Any more than this and we are out of manpower and need to request from the Army, but that is something we have to avoid at all costs.
If I have to, I will pave the way to the Dungeon Lord chamber with human bodies.
Our guild's fate is on the line.
We might need to use our freelancers as meat shields for the next floor. They might not like it, but so what? Should have joined a guild if you didn’t want to be cannon fodder.
“Everyone, after a 3-hour rest, we will enter the next floor. We use plan M.” The vice-captains hearing my next plan smiled to themselves.
They did lose people in the fights, but there was a reason they participated in it, and they took the main fighting line against the Guardian.
Is to create a trap for the freelancers so they think the guild deals with the hard part while they get rewarded for doing nothing.
This situation makes them think they reap great benefits, and everyone knows the monsters on the floors are stronger, but not so much that you are outclassed by them, so they will think they have a chance.
With them at the back, they cannot retreat but fight against the monsters that are in front of them.
Cruel? What are you talking about? It was a tragedy where the Guardian took out the heroes who bravely died to take it down with their lives on the line.
So instead of meat shields, call them martyrs. Your ungrateful bastard.
As the time was up, everyone slowly got into formation. The freelancers did not find anything suspicious, as they had no way to back out, they got encircled with no way out, and a small minority did find out, but it was too late, and they were taken away for causing chaos in such dire times.
Soon the freelancer’s forefront encountered the first monsters. Even though they wanted to retreat, they couldn’t, so they had to fight with everything on the line.
With this, the conquest of the Fifth Floor began.