Lucifer's legs wobbled slightly as he kneeled down in his restrictive armor, with long deep breaths he could faintly smell the scent of fresh earth and flora over the metallic stench of blood, once he was in a stable position he moved most of his consciousness outside the body and began inspecting it in greater detail with his dungeon senses.

Muscle bundles were torn, blood pooled on the bottom of the lungs, several organs looked shriveled and discolored, he internally sighed and injected more pure mana into the body for it to use and witnessed the bodies condition deteriorate at a visible rate.

Lucifer had just finished slaughtering the third group of soldiers and after each battle he needed to refill his mana, however, injecting pure mana into a living body or using it with a living body was a destructive process.

Once all of his cells became saturated with the magical energy he could once again move properly, the torn muscles re-knitted themselves together and his organs started functioning, although every time he forced this type of healing without any time for the body to recuperate it became closer to breaking down completely, however, he could always get a new body and with the experience of this one he would be able to make the new one even better, also as an added bonus switching bodies might just get Ahri off him and back to reality.

His consciousness began the merging process and his senses started to shift into the limited human spectrum, the dim light of the second floor filtered through his eyelids and the soft flow of water entered his ears from a small stream nearby.

“are you going to be alright, it took longer this time and after the last battle you were having trouble walking,” Ahri asked with concern.

Lucifer casually replied “I only intended to use this body temporarily so it is okay for it to die” before he closed his eyes to sense the next best target he could see Ahri’s complex expression. There were still roughly a dozen groups of soldiers left and he was sure his body wouldn’t hold out for that that many battles.

He asked Rick “can’t you simply move the blood flog so the soldiers are affected?”

Rick responded “Nothing is simple about such complex magics, first of all, I didn’t “create” the fog in the literal meaning, I’ve only summoned it with bait made of a few carefully measured plant essences mixed in some weird and wonderful ways.”

“so it’s some sort of blood mist monster, well if you move the bait won’t it follow” inquired Lucifer.

Rick pondered for a moment before answering, “The bait has already been absorbed, but if I created more it may move towards a given direction, although it is more likely to move another part of its body into this dimension and leave the fog in the dungeon to continue digesting the bait”.

The fog continued all the way into the sixth floor, however, the entrance to the path that leads to his core is underwater and thus free of the blood fog, Lucifer was reasonably confident none of the enemies would survive exiting the fog so he no longer had to worry about his safety, this means he could use these people as a test for the lower floors that haven’t been explored very well yet.

But, Lucifer wanted to be certain of the outcome rather than being surprised when someone pulled something he didn’t expect like that dark mage, he did a stock-take of his weapons, first of all, his body is almost done so he will only get another 50 to 100 enemies out of it, after counting the mana crystals in Rick’s ring he estimated that he could take another 200 or 300 down depending on how he used them, his dungeons remaining strength was difficult for him to measure as was his groups strength.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Rick hadn’t fought anything so Lucifer had no idea what he could do, Ahri could continue killing small groups until her mana run out and she couldn't sustain her invisibility, so with the right conditions, he estimated that she could kill at least 200 with potions.

He had absolutely no idea how to quantify Selenia, against these enemies that can’t even scratch her theoretically she could kill them all given enough time, however, Lucifer was sure that Drake would figure out a way of stopping her from moving and render her useless, so he would estimate that she could kill 400 or so with hit and run tactics.

Snappy was still alive and he had already healed its eye which could at least take 50 down in an open space and the right conditions, that only left Rick and he was nearly 3000 enemies short, originally Lucifer didn’t intend to interfere with Ricks matters because he was quite a useful asset, but now was not the time so he glared at the man still picking ingredients through his helmets eye slits and harshly demanded, “Stop Picking Plants for once and listen… can you even fight”

Rick placed the plants he had just picked and answered while he was re-planting seeds, “I can fight, although not very well, if I wave a wand around I should be able to kill 2 or 3 hundred before running out of mana”.

Everyone was taken back by how weak Rick was, Ahri asked “aren't you extremely old, how can you have so little power”

Rick chuckled and replied “I’ve never been a gifted mage because I was cursed with an abysmal mana pool, even after hundreds of years growth it’s still nothing to be proud of, that’s why I spent my time perusing alchemy which I did have a gift for, in fact, my low mana actually forced me to find “alternate” methods of doing things any normal alchemist could do. I believe this hardship is what turned me from a common alchemy genius to an alchemy grandmaster. Another excuse for my low fighting potential is I’m actually a warrior, not a mage--”

“excuse, at least you know it yourself and what do you mean your a warrior” countered Lucifer.

Rick continued “ahem… as I was saying, Since I was absent of any gifts in the field of magic, I instead focused on using my alchemy to support my warrior abilities, with an iron-skin, regeneration, swiftness, strengthening potion and a few other things I was a very formidable warrior, however, time has caught up to me I--”

This time Ahri interrupted “aren’t you immortal, why would time have any effect on your abilities?”

“indeed I am immortal, but as I was going to say, that doesn't make me impervious to time, I only have one body and using such many of potions to enhance my body slowly destroyed it, I should look twenty years old but overtaxing my body so many times had caused it to degrade to such a state, now I look fifty--”

“90” interjected Lucifer.

“50” Rick snapped back.

“90” Chuckled Lucifer

“55?” said Rick with a slightly questioning tone.

“...”

“Anyway, I can’t use potions to enhance my body anymore or else I could kill at least 1000 of these soldiers” continued Rick.

Lucifer thought something was weird and asked “if you can’t fight properly anymore and given your valuable abilities, how have you managed to keep enemies at bay, don’t tell me you have been hiding the entire time”

Rick scratched the back of his head and casually explained, “Usually my enemies find a valuable artifact and soon find that their heirs are unable to have any children, then time and their enemies take care of the rest”.

The group simultaneously thought ‘so you did hide’

Rick saw their expressions and guessed what they were thinking so he hurriedly added, “AND if I was pushed into a corner I can always rely on poisons and a few artifacts I’ve created”

“then where are these artifacts” questioned Lucifer.

Rick looked off into the side and almost quietly replied “I used them”

“well they’re not very useful than are they” rebuked Lucifer.

Rick awkwardly replied “That is true… I had to turn them back into essence to maintain my immortality”

“ah, you have to ke--”

Rick interrupted Ahri’s obvious question, “there is no immortality potion, and there definitely is not an immortality potion that lasts forever, longevity is something you have to maintain and because of my bodies damage It has increased the amount of essence I require to sustain myself”

Selenia exclaimed “so that's why you became a dungeons slave so easily”

Rick solemnly nodded “indeed, that is one of the main reasons, if I continued as I was outside there would be no possibility of obtaining enough essence for the next rejuvenation unless I went into the untamed lands, but that would be a death sentence regardless, even if I was still at full strength. “

Lucifer contemplated “I guess that means that we will have to rely on the blood fog to kill the rest of them then”

Rick heavily added “the blood fog will dissipate after a few more hours and when it leaves it will only kill roughly half of the enemies, the smaller amounts of blood fog that has absorbed into the soldiers bodies will try to follow the main body and kill a significant portion of soldiers, but they won’t be able to reach the main body when it crosses back into its own dimension so it will turn dormant and become harmless.”

Lucifer growled, “WHAT, god damn, if we fight hard we can kill 1000 together and I think I may be able to squeeze 1000 out of the dungeon monsters, but that still means I have to pull another 1000 out of nothing...”