Day 1352

The day rises in the east and passes the cliff, the camp has been animated since dawn and the soldiers prepare for the imminent attack. The prisoners are already unconscious, and my monsters, after training and resting overnight, are ready to sacrifice themselves. I feel their fighting spirit ready to destroy my enemies, I even feel adoration and indignation of vampires, panthers and ants.

Finally around eleven o'clock the army is aligned and the mages begin to activate the formation, I immediately recall the last spies in the depths of my dungeon, but I let some ants observe the scene for future research.

I feel an extreme magical power concentrated a few miles away, the cry of souls and the sound of crushing bodies can be heard as a ball of purplish red material pulsing with black emerges. In three minutes there is nothing more to suck and the mages move before throwing the ball towards the city, it is 1.5 meters in diameter and moves slowly, at 20 km / h. The mages are exhausted and collapse but are still alive, I watch through the ants the orb getting closer and 5 min later it hits a building before collapsing on itself and then exploding. The energy released is enormous and I feel my whole dungeon shaking, the surrounding mountains partly collapse and I lose my vision with all the ants nearby. From those further away I can see a huge purple dome and a ring of red rising. I have to keep my concentration and my entrance is destroyed. Luckily my first floor is deep underground in the cliff.

The dust settles slowly and the army still has not moved, finally the area can be seen, nothing remains, no wall, a crater 20 meters deep and 3km wide seems to be embedded in a cliff. My entrance is now at the bottom of the cliff side, while the mountain rises behind, on either side in a perfect arc, rock walls 80 meters high surround me. The circus opens onto a gently sloping plain which joins a forest 4 kilometers away.

A road connects a crater to the forest and a waterfall emerges from the top of the cliff to the east to land in the cirque before continuing on its way east and then reaching the forest.

The slums in the east have not been touched but have been ashes since the flight of the refugees.

It's a fascinating sight, there is nothing left, even the count's hiding places are gone, the cliff has been pushed back for about fifteen meters.

The reconstruction will be long and I will have to review the plans but let's see the bright side. The defense of this place has become easier and the setting can certainly give birth to a beautiful city.

I am torn from the contemplation of this apocalypse by the sound of walking in cadence. The army is finally moving, the guild has edited a fairly accurate map so they will probably follow the most direct route to my heart.

The soldiers slowly enter the circus and then enter the dungeon. They march in line with elites in the front then the lambda soldiers who supervise the mages who did not participate in the training.

They sent 5,000 men.

Vampire Lord POV change h

I realized a few months ago, it is the progenitor who created me, it is an almighty being who can give life to a whole new race. He named us vampires and I am the most powerful, I could never thank the progenitor enough but I would do whatever it takes to make those wishes come true.

My name is Vlad, my first assignment was to take control of an inferior race that lived in rubbish heaps. The purpose of their existence is to give energy to the progenitor, that's when I understood the power that my race represents. We can blood control all the lower races, So my goal has been to create an organization to reunite the servants of the progenitor, We have infiltrated the black market and the underworld of the realm.

Our mission was going well and we had control over the slums and several organizations in the kingdom. Then his heretics appeared, they dared to destroy our work and worse still threaten the life of the progenitor. We have lost all of our work over the past few months.

Yesterday the progenitor brought us all together to defend him, none of his heretics will pass, they will become the energy of the progenitor.

Queen Ant POV change

I am the progenitor's first servant, I was created from a humble ant, and today I am the queen of hundreds of thousands of soldiers willing to sacrifice themselves to protect the progenitor.

My name is Victoria and I take pride in my role and I will not let anyone interfere, I am not the only Superior Servant. There are other senior servants, the vampire lord, the earl and the main panther, but these latter do not yet have a seat on the higher councils because their race is too young.

We gathered the upper council tonight to discuss the situation, the council room is next to the false room of the progenitor's heart. It is intended to bring together the superior servants.

(Go back)

- These heretics are going too far, trying to kill the progenitor is unforgivable blasphemy, I propose to attack their kingdom to destroy them to the root.

- Don't say anything, Vlad, we can't expose ourselves yet.

- Victoria is right, now that the city has been destroyed it will take several months to rebuild it, if possible.

- I will not forget what they did and one day I will destroy them all.

- Yes and we can start tomorrow. The first floors cannot stop the army, we will fight on the 18th floor.

- The ground is advantageous to us and the fortifications prepared by the progenitor will help us. They will not be able to send siege weapons and the monsters should decrease their numbers.

- Vampires and Blood Servants will stand at the top with Hector's guards, to give the impression of defending the core.

- Yes, I would be in the middle to pass myself off as the keeper of the core, I would have to attract the attention of enemy assassins.

- If you fail, I will prepare my soldiers. There are 200,000 soldiers and 20,000 warriors prepared and I can already cast some mass spells to motivate them. If there are no A-rank soldiers, there won't be too much damage.

- Hopefully, in the worst case scenario, we all sacrifice ourselves to destroy them, none of his heretics should escape.

- The progenitor is all powerful !!

- The progenitor is all powerful !!

- The progenitor is all powerful !!

(Return to present)

I prepared my soldiers ready to devour the enemies, tunnels ready to collapse, an unmapped maze prepared by the architects, traps and explosives prepared by the runic ants, the first shamans who should separate the soldiers in addition to a small group and panther assassins hide in the shadows.

None of the progenitor's enemies will escape alive.

Dungeon POV change

The 5000 soldiers entered, they have no problem clearing the first floors, there are less than 10 dead until the 5th. These are tunnels, not ideal for ambushes and goblins can only attack from the front or from the back. Areas heavily defended by elite soldiers full plate.

The open areas of the following floors cause more injuries but few deaths thanks to the mages and the organization of the army. It's not the first time they've attacked a dungeon and they know how to defend themselves. I notice that a man in the middle is at least B-rank, surrounded by a group of professional C-rank mage. They go slowly but always follow the shortest path, they take regular breaks and despite the tides of monsters I throw at them, they are still progressing.

On reaching the first floor they lost 200 men, the officers are tense because the army is exhausted and the mages have no more mana. They decide to take a break before reaching the 16th.

They have a tool to communicate with the outside world, and from what I hear they weren't expecting so much loss so soon.

Day 1353

The army starts up again, the officer is stressed from what I understand the crusaders are heading here at a forced march and should arrive in a few days. The situation is not optimistic if they all want to return to their kingdom.

The losses increase in front of the tides of beasts, dozens of trolls with giant eagles and basilicas are not easy to fight. The army deploys in the plains and the gentle slopes to face it, the mages do very large damage from a distance.

The giant eagles try to approach them with no real success.

They have to take a new break at the end of the course, they know that the 18th is the last and that all my strength will be gathered there. They are no more than 2000 men but the majority of the mages have survived. They sent spies to reconnoitre the general arrangement.

They must bring in reinforcements, I try to block them with monsters without success and a few hours later 15,000 soldiers arrive with all the mages. The officers are all there, including the general and his elite guards. The camp outside the city has only 10,000 men and they must keep an exit route in case the Crusaders arrive sooner.

The rows of soldiers enter the immense caves and charge the precarious fortifications of the mountains.

At first the trolls resist well and the other monsters can massacre the soldiers. Until the arrival of the mages who cast spells at the barrage destroying the first line of defense.

There are five lines of defense before the fortress at the top of the slope. All the soldiers are out and go up the slope in line, shields raised. The general did not expect this type of siege but ordered the mages to create a magic shield.

This prevents crossbow and ballista bolts from getting inside but consumes mana.

The second line falls an hour later, the mages who are not taken by the shield prepare a group spell and I am wary of them, I send panther assassins but they get slaughtered without reaching them.

The soldiers are stranded in the third line but do not suffer too heavy losses, they are waiting for something. I hesitate to attack, but I am not a military strategist and I prefer to keep the elevated position of defense.

I order to prepare all catapults and ranged weapons for a concentrated barrage. Finally the group spell of mages is over, it's a heretical spell! The one they used to defeat the alliance outside the capital.

The spell increases the strength and endurance of soldiers by consuming their health. Half of the mages are fighting gold with no mana and the shield is coming to an end. But there are still 10,000 enraged soldiers who charge, they destroy the third lines with their superhuman strength and slowly move towards the fourth.

The magic shield is exhausted and all the projectiles go towards the ranks of soldiers. Hundreds are broke but they do not realize it and overcome the fourth line.

The fifth eventually falls, and only the fortress remains, guarded by the vampires, the earl and the panthers. The army has no more than 6000 men including 1000 mages, they are safe in the rear guarded by a thin line of soldiers to prevent a rear attack, but I have no monster to send them. Wait if I can.

As spells begin to be cast from the fortress on the enraged soldiers attempting to climb and smash the door, I build a large formation at the end of the 17th floor.

When the first soldiers enter the fortress and pounce on the blood minions of the vampires. I activate the formation and hundreds of lower and medium demonic beings appear, I pay souls to recruit them for battle, but the price is not high, demons are made for murder and I have no shortage of soul after the refugees and the army.

With the end of the battle in sight, hordes of lesser demons led by medium demons sweep the rear of the army. The protective cord quickly breaks and exhausted mages are overwhelmed. The senior officers remaining in the rear quickly recover and charge their new enemies while the fortress is violently attacked.

It is at this moment that I feel an important bond breaking, the count is dead. An assassin killed him, I returned my attention to this part of the battlefield and there are only 2000 soldiers left against a score of superior vampires. The earl's guards are dead, the few panthers stationed here too, and the blood servants have been slaughtered. The good news is that officers and elites have mostly been killed and the heretical spell is coming to an end. The fortress was useful, and vampiric magic did heavy damage during the siege.

After 4 hours of combat, the life of the soldiers is exhausted, they will not survive this battle. I order the vampire lord to retire, I can recreate the account to any of my minions, but some are more difficult than others, it will take me several days and many resources to recreate it.

The last soldiers kill everyone before charging inside.

After a moment of panic the rear front recovered and organized itself, the officers and the elite guard of the general massacred the demons. I can spot a rank B mage, three rank B warriors and the general who has not yet reached rank A but he is not far from it.

After thirty minutes the situation is settled but a good part of the mages is dead. I have received a huge influx of magical knowledge, my soul and energy stores are overflowing.

There are less than 300 mages and about twenty officers, they arrive at the fortress and the heretic spell is deactivated. Soldiers are rapidly aging and few survive. When the general and the main mage test the core I trigger the mana explosion.

The mage's collar is activated and a blue shield covers it, the general hides behind. The mage howls in anger at the loss of a precious artifact and so many soldiers for nothing.

The officers appear to be discussing what to do, either give up, or send an elite team or recall the rest of the military to continue.

Eventually they decide to call everyone back and continue the expedition, They know that they are late and that they will not survive the crusaders who arrive, they prefer to try to recover the core and send it back home. . A small group will pass the blockade more easily.

The rest of the army is called while the remaining mages rest, the dungeon is deserted and while the reinforcements descend I decide to clean the territory of the count.

I send worker ants to take away the slums and the military camp, I also renovate the mines because part of it collapsed after the explosion. I'm rebuilding the main mines and main tunnels stronger and deeper. I'm renovating the five more checkpoints at the entrance, with living spaces for the guards.

As there are no witnesses, I allow myself to renovate and the exterior appearance has not changed much. The area to the east now looks like a gently sloping plain where a river flows down and the forest. There is a large empty square of dirt and five buildings rise up from the cliff with stairs to access it.

Inside, the main casings lead to open spaces and thinner casings to extract the ore.

I keep an eye on the army and finish a bit before the reinforcements reach them. I take this opportunity to recreate an exact copy of the Count with all these memories and a new personal elite guard. I will update them when I have deciphered the new knowledge.

The count then leaves the dungeon to hide in the mountains and make his story believable. The guards are poor because I don't have time to recover them well.

Reinforcements arrive and are rather demotivated when they see the carnage on the 18th floor. After they've all gathered, they destroy the floor of the fake room and enlarge the openings before entering the ant territory.

A few minutes later, an oil slick arises and charges the front and rear of the group. The situation is under control, but the mages in the middle cannot reach the extremities and the darkness decreases the effectiveness of the soldiers.

Then the tunnels collapse and new columns of ants emerge from the sides. The ants measure over a meter and are robust, but above all they are almost endless.

Despite the elites, the death toll increases and the arrival of strange ants that cast low-level dark spells complicates the situation. The soldiers are desperate, and casting heretical magic takes time and resources that mages don't have.

The ant tunnels that appear in the middle of the column are set on fire, but new ones are still arriving.

I am quite disappointed with the performance of the Panthers, it is a failure, I will have to review my plan.

After an hour of harassment, the army is exhausted and only the elites are still able to fight. The general decides to abandon his men and takes the four most powerful mages and ten of his elites to break through.

A rank B earth spell allows them to roughly map the tunnels and they destroy the walls to go deeper.

They manage to detect the masses of ants and avoid them to move towards my last floor, it is not good for me.

The remains of the army are destroyed and I leave all the loot to the ants, the queen has personally moved with the war ants to intercept the elite group.

She chose a large room with several entrances, the general has to go through here if he wants to reach me. They know that hordes of ants will intercept them, but they have no choice.

Arriving in the cave, they try to pass the blockade but walls of war ants, the evolution of ants soldiers, prevent them. They form a circle to protect the mages.

A battle of attrition begins and streams of ants charge from all sides. Mages resist well at first with fire spells. They have to use breathing potions to survive without oxygen, but for an hour thousands of ants are turned to ash.

Until the arrival of the queen and a squad of shaman, she can cast more powerful shadow spells and with her help several soldiers are isolated before being overwhelmed. The general tries to charge but the queen uses a shadow spell to disappear among the ants.

While the general is away the ants charge more, when he returns there are only four warriors left. The rank B mage then makes a gesture to save his life, he tears a parchment and disappears with another mage, who are apprentices. This is a teleportation scroll, an extremely rare and expensive item, they are only produced by the Mage Tower in a kingdom west of the continent.

With the support of two less mages, their fate is sealed and soon only the general remains. He ends up exhausted by the queen with one arm missing, and dies, I leave the corpses to the ants to reward them for their work.

Tens of thousands have died but they will recover, which is the most terrifying thing about bug type dungeons.