Jacobs studied the markings on the wall closely, after a moment he gave up trying to figure out what had dug this cave system, he pulled a device out of his robes and chanted a short incantation, a needle on the device pointed into a branch of the cave system so they continued deeper into the dungeon.

they began to hear skittering occasionally putting the soldiers on edge, after watching their comrades die to insects did nothing to improve their deposition on insects, they turned a corner and raised their weapons in preparation for the new enemy.

Ants the size of dogs filled the tunnel and were skittering towards them on the floor, walls, and roof, with spears in hand the soldiers took the front line, individually the ants posed no threat to the soldiers but, they fell from the roof and walls not allowing them to properly settle into their positions.

Suddenly curses were heard from the student as he threw wind blades around, Jacobs frowned at the man's antics, he spotted the ants and used an ironskin spell causing the student's skin to become impenetrable to the small insects attacking him, the student said his thanks and continued to attack the swarms of small ants.

The student found his body to be rather stiff after the bug bites so he gritted his teeth and swallowed the disgusting antidote, Jacobs said "don't burn them or we will be poisoned by the vapor of the poison", the student nodded his head and continued to send wind blades across the cave surfaces.

Jacobs spotted the small insects crawling over the soldiers but they had not noticed yet because of the adrenaline coursing through their bodies, he sighed before commanding "stand closer to me I'm going to erect a barrier", the soldiers moved back and the barrier was created around the group, after checking with Jacobs they continued stabbing out of the barrier to kill the ants who had no way of harming them.

The company leader looked at his soldiers and noticed the small bug bites were still bleeding after several minutes, he asked Jacobs to see what the problem was despite his obvious hate of the man, Jacobs looked at the wounds chanted causing a bright light to coalesce onto the soldier, Jacobs frowned "The small ants have a paralytic venom, however, such a small amount won't effect a warrior at all, but they seemed to have been poisoned previously, and this poison has removed the bodies ability to clot blood", company leader asked "why don't you just heal it then?" Jacobs answered "only high ranking healing magic would be able to heal this because the poison is a naturally occurring part of the body, not some foreign invader"

The company leader was growing irritated at Jacobs circular speaking and spat back "then use high-grade healing then", Jacobs looked at him disdainfully and responded harshly "do I look like a healer to you, I can use most systems of magic, but I only specialize in one ignorant fool"

Before this argument comes to blows the guild leader chimed in with a smug smile "perhaps you are in the need for some dark magic haha", causing the arguing men to look at him with a look that said "why are you butting in", he saw the look and chuckled to himself before speaking "dark based magic just happens to have a spell that can turn a mans blood solid" while grinning.

The company leader firmly replied "and what use is it if my men die from a blood clot instead of bleeding to death", Jacobs sighed "it's plenty useful you idiot, he just has to tone down the power of the spell and they will be able to heal normally again".

He watched as the guild leader used a spell and a dark wisp of energy entered the men, they looked like they would rather bleed to death than have dark magic cast on them but the company leaders glare cut of any discussion on the matter.

After finishing the spells he asked if Jacobs would like to solve his problem to which he replied "I don't plan on bleeding so I'll pass", the leaders could tell the real reason he didn't want to have the spell cast on him was that he didn't trust the guild leader.

Meanwhile, the ants weren't just sitting idly by either, larger ants with thick plates on their skulls started to appear, they then pushed their armored skulls against the shield from all directions, the soldiers attempted to kill these ants halting their advance but found their spears could not penetrate the new ants.

Armored ants piled up against the barrier while more ants pilled in behind them, the small ants then filled the gaps left by the others creating 1 solid mass of ants, they began to rapidly spasm their muscles.

In the barrier the mages felt the heat first, it was warm at first, then the increasing temperature started to become unbearable and the warriors started to feel the heat too, one soldier remarked "they are trying to cook us alive sir" while trying desperately to stab the ants blocking the way, they began to feel difficulty breathing after a while longer.

Jacobs grew increasingly annoyed until he yelled "fucking useless" before casting a spell, the resulting shockwave sent all the ants flying through the cave system, the group could now feel the fresh air and sighed in relief.

after a short break, they continued deeper, they passed several larger rooms with holes all through it, but the barrier allowed them to easily pass, another man stated "I think that those rooms are not to stop people from entering, you can use the opening as a kill box to funnel the enemies at a reasonable rate to kill them, but once your through they don't have to come at you several at a time, they can just wait on every surface and in the small tunnels, It's nearly impossible to go back that way without being drowned in enemies", causing a shiver to go down the other soldiers spines.

They turned a corner and there was a wall instead of a path, the company leader remarked that Jacobs tool was broken, then the guild leader replied it wasn't broken but there was small fist sized holes where the mana was going through instead which sent the device down the wrong direction.

Several minutes of debate later Jacobs with a look of unwillingness had a darkness spell cast on him and everyone present, at first nothing seemed to happen then they begun to shrink.

Lucifer was chuckling to himself and insulting these idiots when they hit a dead, then cursed their grandmothers when he watched them shrink and swagger through the holes he thought were impassable.

He began to sweat as he realized they were getting closer and closer to his core, he wished he had more time to create traps, he vowed to spend less time researching things he found interesting and spend more time on researching how to kill cheating assholes.

The group made good progress in the dungeon and took only short breaks to regain some of the soldier's stamina but, the constant waves of armored ants had drained the mage's mana significantly and their progress slowed, after taking some potions they decided that it was better to push on instead of trying to wait for their mana to regenerate.

Nearly a day had passed since they had entered the dungeon and Jacobs started to worry that their plan would be uncovered soon, he did not want to be chased by the entire university before he got ahold of the core, so he pushed harder and ignored the fact that the guild leader had used almost no mana himself, he had a plan to get rid of him the moment he contacted the man and thought nothing of him.

Breathing heavily the soldiers arrived at an underground river, beads of sweat rolled down Jacobs' face, he said "the dungeon core is close, I can feel the mana getting richer here, it should be just up this river"

The soldiers and company leader looked at him in disbelief, they never imagined they would be stopped this far into the mission by a simple river, there was no way they could swim upstream these rapid waters even if they were in top shape instead of exhausted as they were now.

Jacobs said "right now I don't have the mana to take you all up with me, I can only take three people" as he looked at his student and the guild leader as he hid a devious smile and felt a small gem in his sleeve pocket.

He threw down a small disk onto the ground and a small barrier formed around the soldiers and company leader, he then said "this should protect you until I come back", the company leader glared at Jacob but could do nothing to prevent him from leaving, so he told his men to rest well because they would be likely attacked again soon.

Jacobs erected a smaller barrier around the 3 of them and jumped into the water together, in a small glowing ball they slowly made their way up the waterway, the guild leader knew that they were close to their target and Jacobs would make his move soon, so he prepared a spell in advance, he had chanted most of his spell and only required a single word to complete the spell, this was why he hadn't spoken for some time now.

Jacobs could feel the mana in a semi locked state it the man and guessed his plan, the moment the man looked up to see how far they had to go he pulled a small white stone out of his sleeve and cracked it, the guild leader saw his move and was horrified when he saw the stone, he desperately spoke the last word of the spell and his body began to fade to black, but before he could finish the stone exploded into rays of blinding light, Jacobs was forced to close his eyes for a minute as they floated there, when he opened them he found no traces of the other mage and smiled to himself as he finally let down his facade and revealed his wretched expression, he began to laugh hysterically causing his student to feel the barrier was not large enough from him to distance himself from this crazed person.

Lucifer watched their act play out with interest and once he thought that everyone who was going to get killed had already died he activated his trump card, several kilometers down the enclosed waterway a block of steel dropped from the roof and blocked all the water from continuing downstream.

with nowhere to go all the water crashed into the steel block cracking the stone around the area for several hundred meters, with the sudden stop all the water behind pushed futilely onto the block but only moved it douzen meters, the water compressed from the weight of the water behind the block, a shockwave of pressure shot up the waterway at the speed of sound cracking the tunnel all the way up.

When the shockwave reached the opening with the soldiers a small amount of pressure was released sending thousands of liters down the small cave, the soldiers didn't have time to react before they were swept into down the cave system, crushing their bones from the impacts on the walls and junctions of the cave.

Jacobs felt something was amiss and looked down and didn't see anything strange, suddenly the pressure wave passed him, his barrier collapsed in an instant, unable to bear the pressure, both his and his student didn't even have time to scream before they were crushed into a fifth of their original size by pressure that submarines don't have to deal with at the bottom of the ocean.

The shockwave continued up the tunnel until it reached several kilometers of empty tunnels that relieved the pressure, leaving only a small geyser at the opening to the hallway to lucifers room. Lucifer smiled at the success of his pet project then mumbled "yeah science bitch" before chuckling to himself.