In a large stone room Ellora swung her heavy sword around with ease, her pronounced muscles flexed with every movement of her barbaric sword dance as she sent her opponents flying with sheer power.

Several minutes later a sheen of persperation covered her body as she breathed roughly, dozens of people stood at attention infront of her sporting various wounds, her previous opponents. Ellora spoke to each person indaviduialy, pointing out their flaws and where they could imrpove, each person listened intently and thanked her for her guidence.

With nothing left to say she let them go and they scurried towards the healing potions a little to fast for her likeing. Ignoring the noise behind her Ellora walked back to her room, inside there wasn’t anything unnessisary that you would expect of a womans room, unlike Selenia and Ahri’s room there was no mirror or table, there was only a bed a bathroom and a rack of weapons lining one of the are walls.

Ellora went to the weapon rack and picked up a heavier weapon, it was more of a weight than a weapon, but she proceeded to the centre of the room and began her sword dance again, without enemies the moves should have come out smoother and more elegant, however, the weight of the blade threw all finese out the window the moment it was picked up.

Her muscles strained and veins threatened to pop out of her already exhausted muscles, she was drenched in sweat and strangely enough she had a faint smile on her lips. The burning coming from her limbs that were screaming in pain gave her a vague sense of accomplishment.

She placed the sword back on the rack and sat down with her back flat against the wall, closed her eyes and began to meditate.

Several minutes went by and it felt like her brain was on fire and trying to leak out her eyes, she smashed the ground in frustration and tried again.

However, the result was the same, she was only able to successfully meditate for several minutes before her body couldn’t take it, she ground her teeth so hard that it felt like her teeth would crack. She tried one more time.

This time only a minute went by before she screamed out in nine parts pain and ten parts frustration, Ellora gradually calmed down and dragged her tired body to the bath, this was the only time in the day she devoted to herself and she spent nearly an hour relaxing in the warm water.

As she sat there alone she thought to herself, ‘if I can’t meditate for a decent length of time then I will never get stronger’

She wondered when Lucifer would “make her stronger” and how he would do it, she was also worried that he was getting too powerful too quickly, ‘soon he will attack the duchies with Swadia’s help, what will he need me for then’.

After looking down at her sculpted body she sighed, unlike Ahri she couldn’t seduce Lucifer into getting what she wanted, instead, Ellora would have to prove her worth to Lucifer, or else she was afraid of being tossed aside before she accomplished her goals.

After her bath she briefly tried meditation before giving up for the day and getting into bed, Lucky had told her that Lucifer was currently on a “date” with Selenia in the elven forest making “bunkers”, Ellora knew that Selenia was far closer to Lucifer than she was and stayed awake thinking about how to change that for several hours, until finally she decided that she would help Lucifer fight against the Duchies, she wasn’t a general, but she had seen enough wars to know the basics which might prove useful to a dungeon.

Meanwhile, Arthus marched at the front of his army in the dark, he couldn’t afford to let the duchies know he had mobilized his army so he had only his most trusted generals.

Marching in the dark was slow and it took time for the mage corps to set up the arrays that would hide the army during the day, but this level of secrecy along with a dungeons tunnel network would be key in defeating his brother.

Arthus had to quickly take his brothers territory before the duchies can put aside their current squabble and work together, if he is able to take the territory and have his mages set up their arrays then he can consider it his victory, either the duchies work together to take back the territory at a massive price from dug in mages, or they forget about it and focus on defense.

Arthus would prefer them to go on the defensive because the deepmist forest would prevent half the duchies from sending reinforcements to the other half, then he could focus his attention on a few duchies at a time, but this is also the reason why the duchies wouldn’t go on the defensive.

After several hours they arrived at the designated location, he ordered the mages into action, soon two great mounds of earth rose from the ground and between them a tunnel was revealed, Arthus walked into the tunnel then smelled the fresh air and smiled, a few of the mages started examining the tunnel and some of the plants that lined it’s walls, Arthus waited until he received their report before marching his army into the depths.

Arthus heard several of his generals talking with their mages about the tunnel, most were giving reports about the strange undiscovered plantlife that seemingly creates breathable air, others were discussing the possibilities of such a tunnel network for trade. It didn’t take long before they heard a faint howling sound causing Arthus to raise his hand and halt the march.

Once again the mages went forward to investigate, this time with an armed escort, Almost half an hour passed by and Arthus was becoming impatient, he knew Lucifer wouldn’t pull any tricks, especially when they weren't very deep into the tunnel, if Lucifer did collapse the tunnel then his mages could just dig the army out.

He strode over to the mages and found them heatedly discussing something, he ordered, “report”, and several mages jumped from fright.

One of the mages stood forward and gave a salute, “your majesty, these air tubes go to the surface and have two magics supporting them, one is a simple air magic--”

“An elegant masterpiece of air magic beautifully enchanted into stone”, another mage rebutted.

Another man looked at the interrupter and rebuked, “don’t interrupt the kings report and the portal magic is more impressive, it only uses the ambient mana to function”

Arthus felt a great urge to punch one of these old fools and would do it if he wasn’t commanding an army right now, instead he coldly commanded, “answer me, is it safe to move my men through here”

Once they got on their way again Arthus was forced to send the mages further back in the column to stop himself from getting a headache, they wouldn’t stop arguing over magic this or magic that.

Several hours later they came upon an underground clearing, Arthus was sure that the dungeon was still several days march away minimum, but the tunnel opened up abruptly, However, it didn’t take long for his doubts to be answered, there was preserved food in the center of the clearing along with a place to refill canteens and even toilet facilities.

Arthus had waged quite a few wars and thought this was quite extravagant for a forced march, but he still thanked Lucifer even if he wasn’t there, forced marching with mana enhancements was tough even for veterans and the food and water would mean he could drop quite a few supplies to ease his armies burden.