The army stood in formation around "the door" and waited for their generals next command, the faint smell of urine hung in the air intertwining with the already repugnant smell of blood, soldiers would occasionally take a glance at the unholy structure they had surrounded and break out into a cold sweat.
The imagery of "the door" was quite effective on the inhabitant's of this world, imagine someone from the dark ages stumbling across the artwork depicting devils for the first time, Lucifer had spent a significant amount of time and thought on this piece of artwork, he had carved the images of the most terrifying creatures from all the media he could think of into the door with exquisite detail.
Drake was about to order the army to leave for the next floor, but something shiny fell from above.
The soldiers immediately recognized the object falling as a magic crystal like the ones they were previously bombarded with, they raised their shields and only a dozen men were blown apart by the explosion, they looked around to see the enemy, but no one was there.
A shrill yell warned everyone "ABOVE THERZ MORE OF EM", they looked up and saw hundreds of objects falling, most of them were magic crystals, however, some of the objects looked like they were coated in small plates giving them a pineapple like appearance.
Explosions rocked the dungeon floor and severed limbs flew everywhere, now the ground matched the air as everything was painted red.
The modified crystals caused the most damage with the small metal plates attached to them becoming shrapnel, they shredded armor and shield alike and turned an area of several meters around them into swiss cheese.
Men with missing limbs gasped and called out for help, but there were far too many casualties and far too few priests.
Drake was inside the core group which gave him room to move allowing him to dodge a falling crystal.
Over the sound of men dying a constant thumping echoed behind the army, he turned to see a massive boar wearing armor that looked similar to the falling crystals charging through the rear, most of the soldiers were still shaken from explosions so they didn't react in time before the boar plowed through the ranks.
Tusks gored soldiers as it barged through the crowd, some soldiers were able to turn around and move behind their shields, however, the boar moved as if they weren't even there.
Normally Ajax (the boar) would have to chase adventurers around in circles while they killed him at a range, but the soldiers were packed so tightly together that they couldn't run, so Ajax used his power to its greatest advantage and crushed them as he ran.
Drake saw the boar charging towards the core group where all the healers and remaining mages were and panicked, "STOP THAT BOAR" he commanded the group following him closely.
The group consisted of 5 people each wearing custom armor, they were Drakes personal guard and as former B rank adventures they could handle something like this easily, they dashed forward to the front of the core group and got into formation.
A large man in the group took the front position and shoved a tower shield into the ground with just raw strength and braced behind it, a faint blue glow spread out from the shield forming a barrier a meter on each side for the party to stand behind.
Ajax saw the glowing man as a challenge and charged straight towards him, The shield took the full impact of the boar's charge and was pushed back half a steam, the barrier cracked and faded out of existence.
Even after enhancing his body to the limit and bracing with an enchanted shield he still took damage, his shoulder had cracked and dislocated and his head was bleeding from the shield hitting it, but he had stopped the boar's charge and his party used this opportunity to attack.
An arrow flew into the boar's eye causing it to rear back in pain, then a swordsman appeared by its side and cut the tendons in its back leg crippling it. The boar fell to the ground and before it could attempt to rise a rogue pushed a dagger through its spine from above, between a crevice in its armor.
Nearby soldiers cheered the skilled display while the group checked their weapons. The rouge noticed something and said, "look the boar's stomach is distended, that looks painful".
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The other party members took a glance and saw that the stomach was starting to softly glow orange, the glow became more intense and lit up the boar from the inside, this made all the organs and bones visible from the outside and the group took a step back from the strange phenomenon.
Yet they did not move far enough, inside the boar's stomach 20 magic crystals cracked against each other from the impact of hitting the shield and started to become unstable.
BOOM, the boar exploded and its brittle armor shattered, the explosion was larger than any of the earlier ones and it was close to the core group, dozens of mages and priests were killed instantly, others bled out on the floor while the priests tried to heal them, some of the wounded priests attempted to heal themselves when their fellow priests ignored them for people that might survive, one man desperately tried to push his intestines back into his body while his lower body was missing.
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Lucifer laughed menacingly then activated the next trap.
The insects that were previously on the door were now living in pockets in the roof and he had just commanded them to jump.
The mist concealed the insects until they were landing right on top of the unsuspecting people below, soldiers started frantically brushing and slapping their bodies to get the insects off, but there were too many of them attacking.
The wounded had no way of defending themselves and with weakened bodies, they succumbed to poison before anyone could help them, others managed to take their military grade antidote and stop the effects of the poison, but the insects were still injecting them with more poison, and it was only a matter of time before the poison overpowered the antidots in their bodies.
Drake shouted orders and the support mages surrounded the insect infestation, they cast a water spell and torrents of water sprayed the soldiers, they got knocked around a bit by the water pressure, but the insects were gone now.
Lucifer had to give credit to Drake's quick thinking, water was an excellent way of repelling insects Lucifer would have just used fire, but that's because they were Lucifers enemies.
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Drake had just lost his personal guard and the only people who were experienced in dungeons to a suicide boar attack, and now more than half of his army were dead, he was now sure that the dungeon core was behind the door if it defended it so fiercely.
He angrily ordered a group of men to open that door even if it killed them. (which it did)
The fear they had of the door was almost as much as their commander considering his reputation, but they were still soldiers so the pushed through the fear and grabbed the door. A quick tug later and they found themselves as mangled corpses flying towards the other soldiers.
Another group was sent forward and were attacked by the skeletons on the inside of the door, but they easily destroyed them and only suffered 2 casualties, those 2 were grabbed first and found knives in their eyes before anyone could react.
Now they stood before a large inc black portal going to who knows where, if the carvings on the door were any indication of what was inside they wanted nothing to do with it.
A moment later a frustrated Drake bellowed at them to enter.
After the first group entered he sent another group, then another until half a dozen had entered without sending word back, they could be fighting but it seemed unlikely that none of them would be able to step back through the portal and call for backup.
Drake thought there were traps inside so he sent a group of elite troops to enter and find out what happened to the others, they stood outside the portal and poked spears inside to check for traps or obstructions, and the others wondered why the earlier groups didn't do that.
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The group of 10 elite infantry entered the portal, they found an empty hallway that led to a door, they saw no enemies so they moved forward to see what was behind the door, however, once they took a step forward their weight pushed the floor down and it fell away on a hinge.
The group landed on something squishy, they looked and found the crushed and dismembered corpses of the earlier groups.
CHOMP!, The group looked behind them startled by the sudden noise and found what they thought was a rock had eyes, they jumped up and raised their weapons and noticed one of them was missing.
CRUNCH!, the missing member was inside the rock monsters mouth and after the sound, the body dropped beside its head in two parts. One of the men said "that's a bloody turtle" and the others strained their eyes to see the shape of the creature in the darkness.
It moved its head forward and chomped another man in two then retracted, the soldiers tried to attack the monster, but their weapons just bounced off the hard armor on its head.
They looked for exits but found that the turtle was blocking the entire exit and there was nowhere to hide from its mouth in this small space.
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Lucifer observed his new trap with satisfaction, he recently found out that although he couldn't block off his core with a wall, he could put a door or trap there to block the path and this hinged floor was a new trap he designed after a rat trap.
Once they put enough weight on the floor it would swing down on a hinge and drop them into Snappy's "playhouse", then the floor would reposition itself for the next group.
"they want to send an army after me fine, I will just have them walk through a meat grinder 1 by 1 then. OH a meat grinder that's a good idea, note to self--"