Once Lucifer and Arthus settled some of the finer details he sent the king away escorted by Lucky, Selenia looked towards Lucifer and harshly questioned “why do you have a secret path to elf lands”

Lucifer laughed for a moment before answering sarcastically “oh, I didn’t know I had to tell you all of my plans before I could do them”

“did you plan on attacking my people” Selenia questioned once more and it was obvious Ahri didn’t like the tone.

Lucifer joked “and if I was, what could you do about it”.

…

Ahri scolded “why do you care about what happens to people who betrayed you”

Selenia quickly refuted “they didn’t betray me, only the druids did”

Lucifer shook his head and cut between the two, “you both can relax, I never intended to attack the elves, the tunnel system is an escape option in case the country I was in was too powerful to defend against. If they proved to be too much of a threat they would find my core has been moved across the border of Deepmist Forrest”

“see” Ahri chided, “I’m getting tired of your attitude towards Lucifer”

Lucifer has more important things to do so he left them to argue.

Soon an army would be moving through Lucifers tunnel network and currently that was impossible, the air would quickly become poisonous from having so many people in such a small place. Lucifer thought for quite some time before coming up with several solutions and getting to work.

First, most dungeon expansions was halted and priority was given to expanding the tunnels leading to the elven Forrest, currently, the tunnels were only two or so meters wide, enough for ants to move backward and forwards to dig or move material, but not enough room for moving an army though efficiently.

Second, Lucifer modified a moss-like plant that he had previously modified to clear the dungeons air, after some tinkering and an ungodly amount of mana he was able to increase its oxygen output and co2 input. Although lining the tunnel walls with this moss would not be enough for an army every little bit counts, and the only downside was the moss uses a small amount of ambient mana from the tunnel.

Third, Lucifer created a small enclosure only a foot cubed just below the surface and forced it above ground, then he connected the small enclosure to the tunnels below, once that was done he placed a very basic wind enchantment in the tube so air would flow into the tunnel below.

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With a basic prototype completed Lucifer created several more across the length of the tunnel, until he was satisfied that the Swadian army wouldn’t suffocate before they got to the exit. After that was complete he linked all the enchantments together so he could turn them all off at will, this would allow him to still have some passive mana regeneration from the tunnel when its not in such heavy use.

With breathing settled Lucifer sighed as he realized that there were several more things to take care of, he had the ants open up large caverns across the length of the tunnel as rest stops, then he added facilities so the tunnel wouldn’t end up as a sewage pipe, although they were temporary. Lastly he added dim mana stones for light across the tunnel roof, just enough to see were your going because he suspected they would be gone once the army passed through.

Work on the tunnels took nearly a week and now Lucifer could focus on dungeon related projects. Hopefully a massive shipment of death row prisoners would arrive soon and Lucifer needed a place to deal with them.

Their first use was to die in the dungeon, Lucifer had been hoarding life energy and even created a crystal to store it similar to the giant mana crystal he used to store access mana, but life energy’s uses kept pilling up and if he experimented on it like he wanted to he would run out rather quickly, so he required a steady supply of lives which the adventurers addiction to not dying was preventing him from having.

Experiments were their second use, Lucifer needed “test subjects” for his research into the soul, and hopefully the cure for his degrading mental condition.

The third use Lucifer was considering was creating a human force loyal to him, with soul bindings of course, his research has led him to creating several modern weapon imitations, but the golems weren’t able to put them to proper use. So a human force seemed like a good idea for the people he liked, and for the people he didn’t like, he would just send them to the ant farm for recycling.

Sighing once more he thought about how troublesome it was to keep humans alive, he needed someone to take over the daily management of such tasks, thinking of his recycling plan suddenly made him remember someone who he completely forgot about.

Lucifer quickly entered the ants farm and located a small wooden hut, just outside the hut Lucifer found who he was looking for. A woman was standing near the underground river passing her hut swinging a sword, she had fire red hair and thick pronounced muscles and simple leather armor which made her look like some sort of Amazonian.

“Lucifer” she coldly greeted when she noticed the giant of a man approaching.

“… whatever your name is you’ve got a choice to make, I have a job for you so you can either do that and live like my other followers, or you can leave and never see this place again”

Startled she asked “I thought you were going to keep me until I died”

Lucifer shrugged “misunderstanding, I only intended to keep you until I revealed myself, it was merely a measure to keep my secret”

She started “the best way to keep a secret--”

Lucifer interrupted her “if only 1 person knows it and keeps it until the grave I know”

“then why go through all the trouble of keeping me alive” she questioned

Lucifer shrugged for the second time and casually replied “because Selenia asked me to, and it wasn’t really any trouble” he pointed towards the small hut, “you seem to take care of yourself just fine”

“she has a soul bond just like me so you own her, why would you do anything she asks for”

Lucifer sighed at the rapidly extending conversation, “because she’s my follower and has served me well thus far, and as for the soul bond, that's simply insurance, a means of keeping honest people honest”

“then if I was your follower could I ask for something too”

Lucifer casually replied “what do you have to offer other than doing the job I came here to give you”

She hesitated for a moment before replying “my loyalty”

“considering the soul bond I already have that” countered Lucifer.

“you have my soul not my loyalty” … “my body”

Lucifer chuckled “don’t flatter yourself, just tell me what you want without all the song and dance”

“power” she simply said.

Lucifer thought for a moment about what she could mean or why she would want power, but decided he didn’t care, he said “well you're my new jail warden and if you do a good job I’ll give you power”

“how?” she asked.

Lucifer said “I don’t know yet, if its a strong body you want I can give you that, just look at my own, if its strong magical abilities then I’ll have to research that when I’m less busy, if its just power itself then I can just hand you a personal monster army, oh I forgot to ask your name”

“Ellora”