Leon's POV

The sun had set not too long ago, the bright blue moons were already hovering over the forest, washing it in diffused blue hue. Down under a tree, Leon sat, relaxing his muscled legs, clearly uncomfortable in his armour and eyeing the activities of knights around him.

The expedition had been proceeding smoothly so far, something he was exceedingly grateful for. The adventurers guild and the Knights Association had cooperated in the clearing of the northern part of the forest and hundreds of lower levelled monsters had been destroyed in preparation for the door.

It normally wouldn't take long for such high level warriors to move through this part of forest. To the higher levelled Knights and adventurers, this place was simply no threat at all.

To be completely thorough and clear out every side of the northern part of the forest, every part and all of the routes around it, systematically took a lot of time and effort. It had been six days since the expedition started. With two forces as sharp as the Knights, who only accepted the best, and the Adventurers, who lived for this kind of environment, the task was done as quickly as it realistically could be done.

"Don't they look too relaxed over there", the sudden sound interrupted his thoughts, as he saw a girl in black leather armor, long black hairs tied back in a ponytail, shifting her face and indicating the senior Knights standing by a giant Karri tree, chatting and laughing together.

"I wouldn't stare too much if I were you, and keep your voice down", Leon whispered back, keeping his hands on his crossbow as his eyes scanned the forest, "Seniors have incredibly advanced perception skills. If they hear you whining you'll be digging monsters inside the northern marsh.''

"It just doesn't seem right that us lower levelled knights with weaker classes have to do all the heavy lifting whilst the senior knights stand about and watch. I've launched so many ice shards in the last ten hours my fingers are literally frozen right now." Mahira moaned.

Mahira usually wasn't the type to whine and complain when she was on the job but fighting monsters and being on constant alert for the better part of half a day was enough to get anyone in a foul mood. And furthermore using mana crystals to recharge the mana points, can be highly straining for their brains. To make matters worse, even the junior knights were high enough of a level that they received abysmal experience for using their skills or killing lower levelled monsters in this forest.

"Hold on a little longer you slug" Leon admonished, "we'll make it down to the first forest valley and set up the advanced camp. We're scheduled to rest once the fortifications are in place.''

Mahira groaned, "Great, more digging!''

Leon could only roll his eyes at Mahira's continual complaints. He couldn't blame her too much. Mages who specialised in AOE ice magic like Mahira were often called Burst-users, because they were effective in wiping out large amounts of lower levelled creatures, Mahira had been forced to work much harder than he had.

"How are you two travelling? Managing to stay awake?" laughed one their senior knights, Calvin, as he approached to check on them.

The two juniors immediately saluted. "Just fine senior!" Mahira declared, her voice full of vigour, "I'm ready to serve another twenty hours, easily.''

Calvin snorted. "No you're not, in another hour you'll be snoring down on your feet."

The well-built senior knight gave them both an encouraging slap on the back.

"Remember, for you and the other junior knights, this mission is more than just an expedition. Expect that you'll be worked extra hard. The dungeon would be your stepping stone for becoming a powerful knight, believe me, it'll be an out of world experience.''

Mahira looked up to their laughing senior's face, ''but, is tier-3 that high for a dungeon that we felt the need to launch a full scale expedition?''

Calvin groaned, ''You all have entered tier-0 and tier-1 dungeons during your entrance exam, right. Tier defines the difficulty level of the dungeon and you know how tiers scale with levels. As you know, Tier-0 would range from level 1 to level 10 in terms of monster levels, tier-1, from level 1 to 20, tier 2, from level 1 to 30 and so on. It would have been that simple if it was a regular Dungeon.''

''So, what's different?''

''It's a castle dungeon.''

''Castle dungeon?''

''Yep, castle dungeon. The record of reading crystal stated that it was a tier-3 dungeon, but that reading only implies that the top floor of dungeon contains mana that equals a tier-3 dungeon. There's no way to scan the underground floors from outside the barrier.''

Leon raised his eyebrows, ''does that mean?''

''Yep, the deeper we go the harder it gets. Every floor has a different guardian and we don't know how many floors are there, there might be four, five, ten or even hundreds of floors, that's what makes the castle dungeon unpredictable and add it to the fact that you cannot leave a floor until you defeat the floor guardian, it becomes unpredictable as well as dangerous. But that's for later, now stop slacking off and get back to work.''

Leon winced and Mahira audibly groaned, causing Calvin to laugh again.

"Don't worry too much, the Reconnaissance company should have started clearing the first floor by now and you all will get to slack off once we reach the redwood valley fortress", Calvin leaned closer to whisper conspiratorially, "you may not know this but us higher ranked knights are built to function a lot deeper in the Dungeon than this, it hard to show our stuff up here.''

Mahira choked back a laugh. "Why? Because the monsters here are too weak?" She scoffed.

"Nope", Calvin drawled, "because the mana in this part of forest doesn't work the way it's supposed to be, I don't know the exact reason but we have to preserve our mana to avoid mana starvation, once you get to the higher levels, it gets hard to recharge yourself with low grade mana crystals. The mana inside the city is balanced with certain artefacts, so it isn't a problem inside the walls of the city. You'll see some good stuff after entering the dungeon. Even commander Drayden is here with us, but you gotta watch out for him, he's granted the title of Harbinger of Doom for a reason you know.''

"Calvin!" came a shout from across the forest.

The three of them immediately snapped to sudden attention. "Yes, Lieutenant Eubert!''

The big man in black armour was glaring at Calvin with a heat he could almost feel. "IF you're done running your mouth to the juniors, Calvin, then I suggest you take the juniors to the swamp section. We'll need to dig out the monsters fallen inside swamp and take their cores out before we reach the valley!"

Mahira almost cried.

***

Drayden's POV

As the two junior knights trudged away, cursing silently at their senior, Drayden was chuckling quietly to himself.

"You think I shouldn't be so hard on them?" Eubert asked, one eyebrow raised.

Drayden shifted his grip on the massive longsword, resting on the ground, sheathed inside a dark scabbard with a silvery insignia representing a crossed sword and spear. Instead of answering the question he asked one. "Do you remember your first tier-3 castle dungeon expedition?" he said.

Eubert grunted. "How could I forget, the more I think about that, the more I feel sympathetic of these kids.''

His answer drew a fearsome grin from the commander. "Now you're one of the finest lieutenants I've ever seen. We don't coddle knights Eubert, we push them past their limits, you know how the system works. If those kids aren't crying themselves to sleep tonight we haven't worked hard enough.''

"And what happened between you and Anton?"

"…" Drayden frowned, "I just had a little chat with that guy earlier today.''

Eubert winced. After a 'chat' with commander, Anton wouldn't be speaking for some time. The healing alone might take weeks.

"Are the Adventurers clear on their duties until the door opens, Lieutenant?" Drayden asked.

"Yes commander. We can leave protecting the redwood valley fortress and the area around the dungeon to them. I'll have to thank the main branch leader in the capital personally when we get back, her Adventurers, really know their stuff.''

Drayden grunted. It was true these adventurers were highly skilled, but he wasn't sure it was necessarily the best idea for the Adventurers guild's main branch in capital to send their most competent adventurers, along with issuing order to the city branch to stay put. He never thought he would have such easy time convincing Anton. But something was definitely wrong here, everything was proceeding smoothly yet he couldn't put away this certain feeling creeping down his spine.

With all of the northern part swept it was time to make the push into the Redwood valley. This is where the the Castle Dungeon was located. Danger increases as one goes down such dungeon, hideous and dark dangers begins to reveal themselves, as well as the dungeon's wealth. Highly rare affinity-mana essence crystals were just one of the valuable materials that could be harvested from the depths, minerals, powerful mana crystals as well as the raw experience the higher levelled monsters provided all commanded a price.

The deeper the expedition progressed into the Dungeon, the higher the mana level goes, the easier he would be able to move. After so many years of living in high mana zone like the capital city, Carylex, it was certainly uncomfortable for him to spend such an extended amount of time in this part of the forest. There's something always wrong with the mana here.

Within the hour the expedition was prepared to advance further into the forest, drawing nigh unto the valley fortress. Drayden positioned himself at the head of the caravan, leading his knights towards the Dungeon.

After ten minutes of marching with the occasional pause to crush a few monsters that came their way, the forest opened wide clearing, suddenly, to reveal the vast green valley that had been named the Redwood valley.

The diffused moonlight spread before them, over the valley, glowing with fluorescent red and blue plants, their faces illuminated by the radiant light of the forest.

Mana levels were already skyrocketed around the dungeon.

In orderly fashion the Knights moved swiftly towards the fortress.

Earth mages moved quickly to raise walls in front of fortress, using the mana from the highly purified mana crystals to create temporary barriers made of the soft earth of the grassy forest surface. The junior knights were charged with unloading the supplies from the carts and erecting the tents.

Drayden watched the knights go about their tasks with a critical eye. One hundred knights made up this expedition, forty of those were juniors knights on their ascension delve, the remaining were senior knights. Ten knight lieutenants were also part of the force, not participating directly in the expedition but responsible for medical aid, logistics and of course, cooking.

Knights would construct a forward fort here, right before the fortress, allowing the adventurers from capital to barricade the only path leading towards the city of Anthea and defending it during the expedition, in case the door opened.

From here they would also launch their scouting missions to locate the floor guardians with each respective floor they have cleared.

Suddenly Drayden heard a loud hissing from the edge of the forest.

Tempestivus Vinia Serpens Lv38

Bursting through the trees was a mature vine serpent, a giant green scaled throny serpentine creature hissing violently as it made it's way towards the camp.

The commander could only sigh. The creatures in this forest can be disturbingly territorial. That damn guardian, where the hell is she? He was hardly surprised to see a territorial being such as mature vine serpent, engaged in such a suicidal charge.

As the monster slithered closer, the rest of the Knights showed no reaction as the commander stepped slowly forward. When the beast was directly in front him, its hissing washing over his face, Drayden finally moved.

With one hand he unsheathed his giant longsword, the enormous blade dark glowed with a hue of blue under the diffused moonlight, before he graciously shifted his boots over the grassy surface in a circular motion, moving the sword over his head and effortlessly swung it down just in front of the charging serpent.

[Doomblade - Flickering Candlelight]

The sword graciously tore through the air and touched the grassy floor, the silence descended, before a massive roar erupted, as if a meteor had struck the earth.

When the dust settled a thirty metre long groove had been cleanly cut into the forest surface, the sharply cleaved corpse of the vine serpent, cut directly in half straight between the eyes, laid unmoving on the both sides of the groove.