The soldiers marched through the second floor unmolested, several soldiers managed to get themselves caught up in spider webs, however, the spiders didn’t even have a chance to attack their prey before they were cut down by dozens of soldiers.

Drake stopped the army roughly in the center the dungeon floor. He remembered what happened last time he sent everyone out in a search net and wasn’t going to make the same mistake. After a moment of thought he sent his men out in groups of 50 to find the entrance to the third floor.

A short time later… Lucifer coldly observed the situation from above, the larger groups made things more difficult but it wasn’t something that could stop him, he sent a message to Ahri’s mind to begin the opperation.

The group they were stalking were about to pass through a small valley between a grove of dense trees and a short cliff, with Lucifer's guidance they were able to find the easiest group in the most advantages situation, so Ahri was able to confidently spread her poisons in-front of the group, far enough away to remain hidden even if the enemy had an expert tracker and she didn’t have to worry about the group changing directions here.

A soldier tripped on a felled branch to the light chuckles of his group, to his relief another person took the attention away from him by tripping over their own feet, this time more people laughed, they were beginning to lighten up after getting out of that nightmare nest full of traps and an unending supply of black death.

Suddenly there was a flash and the soldier’s ears were in excruciating pain causing him to yell out, he found that he couldn’t hear anything and he couldn’t balance properly. He stumbled while trying to find his footing on the loose mud and saw an open space behind him. He was sure that there should be 2 squads behind him but the closest one that was supposed to be there was missing.

Again another flash and the ringing in his ears increased but this time there was no pain, however, the flash revealed the floor in more detail than he cared to see, blood and gore covered the area and he was suddenly reminded of the corpses he passed when entering the city.

He finally put together that they were being attacked and drew his weapon with practiced ease, but the reassuring blade didn’t swing in-front of him like it usually did, after looking down he found out what was wrong, his arm was missing, it was at this moment that he knew it was over for him, he had seen his fair share of men with severe wounds who didn’t even know they were hit and without immediate healing they all died... and there were no healers left.

He absentmindedly grabbed his potion from his waist and drank it for the first time without noticing the horrible taste, he almost thought it was good luck that he kept the potion on his non-dominant hand’s side because he wouldn’t be able to reach it otherwise.

A common potion that soldiers carry wouldn’t be able to regrow his limb but it couldn’t hurt anyway, after finishing his potion with nothing left to do he wanted to at least see his enemy before he died so he stumbled towards the cliff, with only one hand he attempted to climb it but only managed to get onto one of the lower rocks.

From here he could see over the heads of his comrades and he saw the end of the valley blocked off by a single enemy. At first, he mistook the enemy for some sort of advanced golem because if its size, however after watching its quick movements he realized that it was probably a young giant, but this didn’t seem right to his clouded mind either, he could distinctly remember hearing that giants don’t like to wear armor.

Whatever that thing was, it is easily holding back 50 soldiers by itself, his comrades would charge forward and the giant would swing its enormous axe with a blade running along the handle, the lucky ones were cut in half from the blade and died instantly, while the unlucky ones only received glancing blows from the axe and were crushed inside their armor, he could see several men on the ground desperately trying to claw off their collapsed armor before they suffocated not realizing their chests had already collapsed along with armor, he imagined this was one of the downsides of having mana, you can survive for longer while fatally wounded, just like the horror stories the soldiers used to tell the rookies, where a soldier survived a week after the battle without his legs before horribly dying to the elements or magical beasts.

His hearing was starting to come back and the first thing he noticed was that there was the sound of battle behind him too, he turned around and saw that the flank was blocked off too, his vision was blurring so the only thing he could clearly see were large yellow eyes.

His neck had started to hurt at some point and when he rubbed it with his only hand he could feel a warm wet sensation, once he pulled his hand back he saw blood for a moment and the light shimmer slightly in front of him before he blacked out.

Several minutes later… Lucifer finished off the last man with a vicious overhead swing and crushed the man in half with his axe, he thought ‘note to self, sharpen the axe it dulls quickly… oh, and figure out how to remove my sense of smell for Sigmars sake’.

Ahri re-appeared and asked “are you OK, you took the brunt of the attack by yourself” then she glared at Rick who was hiding a plant behind his back poorly.

Lucifer replied “I’m fine how about the rest of you”

Selenia answered “my barrier was up the entire time so me and Kuro are fine, not that we needed the barrier for such people”

Ahri was staring at him again in her own little world so she was fine, he looked towards Rick and just sighed before ordering, “since we are unharmed we should move on, there is a group that is just about to reach a chock-point and Lucky is nearby to help”, and he muttered to himself “although I don’t know how much of a “help” she will be” as he prayed she would behave herself this time, he just plainly ignored the “do not enter under construction” sign that mysteriously appeared near the entrance.

After an hour Drake started to receive noticeably fewer reports as time went on and could only curse his bad luck and “shitty soldiers”.