Drake was starting to becoming increasingly irritated with his men's incompetence, he pointed towards a group and yelled "poke your head through the portal then come out and tell me what you saw.

The group moved towards the portal and moved their head inside and came back to Drake, one of them said: "it's just an empty hallway with a door sir".

"just an empty hallway, then why did everyone who went in never come back out" spat Drake. He didn't have time for this, all of his plans were useless when the entire mission suddenly changed, he brought elite troops well versed in hunting flying beasts along with their heavy equipment, this made moving through the forests that had suddenly appeared even slower.

However, this would allow him to set up balistas and other anti-air weapons to take down Merlin's mount, and once Merlin fell to the ground they could surround and crush him with sheer numbers, no matter how powerful Merlin is he was only one man and would run out of mana eventually.

Instead, he had his orders changed the moment he captured the city and he had almost no equipment for effectively capturing a dungeon, he could not fathom why the King would send him into the enemy territory blind and unprepared, maybe there were spies in his army and the King wanted them to spread misinformation to the enemy. Bringing an army designed to capture a city and hold it and instead, stealing the dungeon was bound to catch the enemy off guard, they would think they had months to prepare an army and a strategy of attack, but his army would have long ago left with the most valuable thing. This would be quite a genius move if the dungeon wasn't so damn dangerous thought drake.

Tired of thinking about the Kings intentions he decided that the King intended for there to be mass casualties in this operation, so he ordered the army to simply march into the portal until they capture the dungeon.

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Inside the portal men started flowing through "the door", after only a moment the floor trap activated the only place left to stand was a narrow ledge before the floor trap. The soldiers who first entered fell and were crushed in Snappy's maw, the others that came second wanted to stop, however, the soldiers marching blindly behind them pushed them into the pit, then they too were pushed in from people behind them.

At first Lucifer found it amusing especially when his plans worked perfectly, but after only several minutes he found out there was a problem, Snappy's playhouse was becoming full, Snappy's stomach had also long ago become full so it had been spitting back out the chunks of flesh and this only added to the problem, he then figured out the best place for the meat grinder he had thought of earlier.

As the pit became more full Snappy had more trouble attacking the falling soldiers, it had to stretch its neck up to reach over the pile of corpses the new soldiers were standing on, soon enough it could not reach the falling soldiers anymore and it was forced to move back in the tunnel, this let the corpse pile fall down and the turtle moved forward again and sat down compacting the corpses, Snappy continued this for a while before it's several tons frame had compacted enough armor and soldiers that it coldn't get back into position anymore.

Now the soldiers had a space where they could stand up and get ready to fight instead of instantly being crushed, however, this also did not last for long, soldiers continued to march through the portal then they fell onto their fellow soldiers heads, some of the smaller soldiers were crushed to death before they could move and the rest were forced towards the turtles maw.

Snappy gave a horse roar deafening the men in the enclosed tunnel, Snappy had started to become tired after the continuous battle, so he didn't react in time to stop a soldier from stabbing one of its small beady eyes, normally Snappy would only open his eyes for a short moment before going for a bite and a thick plate of armor protected his eyes while they closed, but a soldier got "lucky and managed to catch him with his eyes open.

The turtle became enraged, it retracted it's head inside its shell and stood up, then it charged forward, although Snappy was not quick he did weight several tones and when the soldiers had nowhere to go it became a contest of weight and strength, and Snappy was far larger, the soldiers stood no chance in a contest of power against the gigantic beast, the soldiers only offered a brief moment of resistance before their chests caved, this caused their ribs to shatter and stab into their hearts and lungs.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The initial group of 50 soldiers in the tunnel compressed to the size of only 20, only then did Snappy move back, but he wasn't finished expressing his rage, he charged again once the tunnel filled up and crushed another group of soldiers.

This strategy increased the speed Snappy was able to kill, however, this method was far more taxing on the turtle, soon he became too tired to continue and walked backwards out of the tunnel, the soldiers saw this chance and charged forward to attack, but their weapons had no effect on the turtle's shell, so Snappy tiredly walked though a tunnel that fit its exact size and as it passed it pressed a heavy trigger pressure plate, a wall fell down blocking the soldiers from attacking Snappy and he was able to leave to get some rest and heal.

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Lucifer had watched the entire Snappy event with glee, he thought 'snappy takes the lead with nearly 10% of the enemy army', even the most powerful mage he knew was only able to take down a third of the enemy army, so having a single boss monster kill a third of that is quite impressive, he made a mental note to give a reward snappy,

'hmm what would a giant turtle want, maybe I will create some turtle bitches for him I'm sure he will like that, I will ask Rick if he can make a material that is both strong and translucent enought to see through and make some glasses for Snappy, this will stop him from getting stabbed in the eye in the future, maybe I will put two cannons on his back and give him water elemental magic, this would allow him to clean up as he kills so he won't be forced back from excessive killing, besides I doubt there is copywrite laws in this world' Thought Lucifer.

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Drake entered the portal with half the army still behind him and immediately noticed that there was no ground in front of him, he called for a stop but the people behind him were outside the portal and couldn't hear him, he too was pushed over the edge like the others and fell down onto the pile of gore, someone of his strength would not die from falling from such a distance, however as someone who hated dirty things, landing onto a pile of crushed up corpses was horrific for him.

He jumped up and started looking for somewhere without blood and guts everywhere to clean himself up, but he found the entire tunnel to be full of gore no matter were he looked, he saw a relatively clean area and he rushed over to it, but when he stepped on it the ground squished and sprayed blood, he realised that this was an island of compressed human flesh and armor and wondered how many people died here and how.

Drake pushed past all the soldiers marching forward and reached the front of the line, he asked the front soldiers what had happened.

The soldiers replied "there was a turtle sir, it was massive and our weapons couldn't hurt it"

"a turtle, how did it manage to kill so many people," Drake asked dumbfounded.

"Sir there was a small man that managed to hide beneath the feet of everyone who saw the whole thing--

Drake interrupted "where is he, bring him to me now"

The soldier scratched his head and awkwardly replied "we killed him for cowardice, sir, we can't have weak soldiers in the army sir, those people tend to flee and cause routs"

Another soldier continued when Drake didn't speak, "sir the coward said initially the turtle just kept people in the small falling chamber and bit them in half with its strong jaws, but after a while it became tired and a lucky former rogue managed to stab it in the eye, the man said "this only served to piss it off more" and the thing began charging the men inside its shell, apparently this is how most of the men died"

After hearing the story Drake suddenly found something strange and asked "aren't you the people who saw the turtle get defeated, why is the information second hand"

Another soldier replied "the turtle didn't die, we were told it simply walked into a tunnel and a wall closed behind it, we have no idea what happened to it"

Drake was becoming irritated but he could figure out that the soldiers didn't know what second-hand information was, so he asked as calmly as he could, "why are you saying "we were told" didn't you see it for yourself"

The same soldier replied, "no sir, the people who saw the turtle were at the front and they are dead now".

Drake was wondering what kind of dungeon this was, he had never heard of such devious traps in dungeons before, although he had never been in one himself, he along with all the Dutchy soldiers gained their experience by fighting other Dutchys. After sighing, Drake asked "and why the fuck are they dead"

The only words the soldier replied with was "ants Sir"