Lucifer swung his axe using the last vestiges of mana left in his body, the axe crushed through the soldier in front of him before becoming stuck in another at the end of the swing arc, not expecting the heavy weapon to suddenly jerk to a stop Lucifer fell flat onto his face with a heavy thump.

He looked to the side and saw a few soldiers opportunistically charging with the intention of skewering him, reflex kicked in and he slapped the ground in an attempt to roll away from the incoming spear points, however, his body had once again reached its limit and this time in the middle of battle, so his arm barely moved an inch and rolling away was even more of an impossibility.

Their first thrusts pinged off of his armor unexpectedly, but Lucifer could not count on them to keep missing his armors weak points, or lever a plate away far enough to fit a blade though.

He tried forcing his dungeon core mana into his body, but the number of enemies nearby made it nearly impossible to use any external dungeon abilities. While he was doing this a soldier started bashing his helm with something heavy and Lucifer's helm was collapsing further with every strike.

Just as Lucifer’s nose bent past its limit and broke he heard faint screams over the ringing in his ears. A moment later he could feel a warm sticky liquid dripping through his visor onto his face, then he heard Ahri’s concerned voice ask “are you alright” from slightly far away.

Lucifer grunted in response, although it sounded rather strange Ahri seemed to understand as he heard her say “be right back”, before a few less muffled screams were heard nearby. Suddenly the feeling of his dungeon abilities being blocked disappeared and he quickly absorbed the core’s pure mana into his body, at first it felt refreshing, but after a few moments it started to feel like all of his organs were bathing in acid causing him to cough violently.

It felt like the helmet was suffocating so he ripped it off and regretted it instantly when half of his nose came off with it, Lucifer was sure that this body should not be able to feel pain, but the agony from his face and lungs told him otherwise. Perhaps the constant healing from using pure mana had accidentally returned his nerve signals to normal, or perhaps they were in overdrive considering how much everything hurt at the moment.

While his nose was repairing itself he took note of the surroundings, all the soldiers were dead in one gruesome way or another, most were cut in two or mauled from Selenia and Kuro, a few were crushed, cut or a combination of the two from his attack, however, compared the earlier battles there were pitifully few who died by his hands. The lucky ones died cleanly from a slice of the neck or an explosive arrow and barely felt anything before they died, which was the work of Ahri.

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Lucifer was surprised that Selenia the elf refused to use a bow like it was radioactive and Ahri would be using the explosive arrows herself, which increased her kill count quite quickly and helped to save mana.

And the remaining corpses belonged to the most unlucky of the group, their bodies were bloated to ridiculous proportions where their flesh bulged out of the gaps armor and water gushed from their mouths, These poor souls were killed by Rick in such a mana even Lucifer “almost” felt bad for them, Rick had summoned water and shoved it into every orifice of a soldier until his eyes popped out from their sockets, then he immediately removed the water and shoved the disgusting liquid into the next victim.

After the first battle, Rick fought in Ahri asked him “can’t you kill them in a more humane way”

Rick replied “but this is more mana efficient than creating the water for every spell”

Lucifer sent everyone to go kill the next group without him because his body didn’t have another fight in it, then he observed the situation on the front-line.

The army had found the entrance and was starting to regroup, this only gave his people enough time to take down one group before the army was one again, Lucifer had them follow the army and wait for a good opportunity to strike when they split up again.

However, after the army entered the third floor they didn’t split up like last time, now they hugged the dungeon wall and followed it giving no opportunity for Lucifer to pick off smaller groups.

Lucifer thought ‘Since they are going to play dirty I don’t mind playing dirty myself’ before messaging Lucky.

The army preceded forward smoothly and the soldiers felt more reassured moving together as a group again, especially after they heard about the other groups going missing, they heard an occasional battle but they thought they were fighting the dungeons beasts or something.

After more than an hour, the army came to a stop just before an underground lake, Drake ordered a small group to check if the water was safe, they walked up to the water and threw a few things into the water and hit the surface with their spears before bending down and taking a drink.

After they drank their fill they came back to the group and meditated, once they searched their bodies for any anomalies with their mana sense they declared the water safe to drink.

Drake ordered the army to take turns in groups drinking while the others stood guard. It was common for enemies to set ambushes at water sources or poison them before his army arrived, so he was well experienced in this field, and this experience paid off. Moments after the first group kneeled down to the water nearly one-hundred giant panthers pounced from the darkness, some from trees and others simply burst forth through bushes.

Drake yelled and immediately a tight shield-wall was formed against the enemies, however, the Panthers were hundreds of kilos of solid muscle charging into softer humans, so the moment they made contact the shield wall crumbled and allowed the Panthers to tear apart the unprepared people behind the wall.

Claws and fangs tore metal and flesh alike for several dozens of seconds before the army managed to counter-attack. Under the tight press of humans the Panthers couldn’t maneuver like they normally would and became sitting ducks for the soldier's spears, the Panthers specialized in sneak attacks and had a relatively poor defense, very few survived more than a few seconds before they died to their wounds. All except two which were standing some distance away.

Drake noticed the lone Panthers that didn’t take part in the attack and noticed they were standing in front of a hole, when he paid closer attention to what they were obviously protecting he could see a poorly constructed den, not willing to allow the Panthers to fade back into the darkness and attack his soldiers in the back he ordered a group to kill them.

The two panthers were easily taken care of this time when the soldiers were prepared, after they killed the pair they looked into the den to make sure there weren't any enemies left. The only thing they saw was a bunch of cute panther babies.