As Logan neared the main room where lesser trolls generally spawned and spread from, he noticed a huge movement.

It should be clearly said, lesser troll and even normal trolls are not pack hunters, they are very solitary and there is a very clear reason for this.

Despite having two thirds of their mana in their bodies their bodies are actually strange. Maybe because of the overload of mana, their body actually breaks down and has to rebuild itself much more and it wastes a lot of mana. This forces them to actually eat a huge amount of food because their mana is unstable due to this. Of course, the unstable isn’t the same as in eshen, instead their quantities are in constant flux.

As such, they are unable to actually remain in packs or they would clear out the area too fast. They even kill each other if they start increasing too much but what Logan never expected was actually going on at this very moment.

As explained, monsters with unstable mana bodies instead of solid bodies don’t have actual sex but there does exist a concept of it. That is why monsters have shape and strengths matching distinct sexes in each monster race.

This produces rare events such as now.

Logan reached the door to the room and he saw a big battle going on with hundreds of trolls and many parties trying to block them.

Logan frowned and quickly approached those near the back.

“What is going on with all these trolls?” He shouted.

One of the mages stopped and looked at him, “Oh good, more help! For some reason, all the trolls on the floor gathered at their spawning room and are now moving rapidly like a wave.” he said.

“Does anyone know why?” He asked.

At this time, a man appeared and his body shined and lights flashed as monsters appeared. Among them was shockingly a powerful troll. A lesser troll was limited to 3 meters but this one was a fully trained one and had blue skin compared to the other green skins. This meant this wasn’t a normal troll, it was a Frost troll, one of the strongest breeds of trolls.

“Everyone! The lesser trolls entered their mating season! They all attack to rapidly gather massive amounts of mana to overload their bodies into a more solid state. Aftering gathering a lot they will war against each other and kill and eat each other to eventually gather up mana! During this time, they are likely to advance into D rank trolls and form stable bodies making them extremely dangerous! We need to clear at least half their population to stop this!” the tamer roared.

Everyone was shocked and complained.

Unlike ogres, all lesser trolls are E rank, after all, they were a solitary breed so they were much more powerful. They had no way to expect a wave of E ranks like this. It was like putting them in a situation faced above the 40th floor.

Logan knew it was serious and couldn’t think about his mission. If it was normal times he could properly capture trolls but how would he do that now when he had no parties.

“Let’s go!” Logan shouted and Storm instantly jumped and shined as he expanded.

A lot of people were shocked when they saw that but he didn’t care as they ran to the front.

A lot of heavily armored warriors acted as a wall but trolls were strong and they were having trouble.

At that moment, the tamed troll came running and with a massive club equal to its size, it jumped and slammed the other trolls while landing on the head of another.

His weight pushed it back and the head exploded under the weight.

It roared its presence.

The appearance of dungeon trolls was mostly the same, they were basically massive ugly goblins. Their bodies were 3 meters tall, a huge hooked nose, wort filled green skin and a mouth full of distorted fangs.

As the troll made itself more powerful the other monsters burst forth while Logan finally jumped at a troll raising its arm.

Jumping above it, Arashi slashed down while a golden light coated Arashi, “Golden Surge!” He roared as he swung down.

The powerful golden slash smashed down right on the right shoulder and released a small shockwave before the next moment cleaved right through throwing the arm up into the air and the slash continued and split the troll behind it in half. That said it missed the heart and Logan landed looking at them.

They roared in anger instead of pain.

Everyone who saw that watched as the wounds began to bubble disgustingly and closed. The troll that lost its arm watched the arm fall down and grabbed it, it actually waved it and swung at Logan making him jump back before he slammed it over the wounds.

They watched in shock as the wound extended into the arm and reattached it, even healing the bone.

“This is madness!” Logan said. The wound didn’t even bleed. As soon as it formed the wound started closing magically.

“You can’t kill them with these, superficial cuts. You aim either to decapitate them instantly or you break the monster core!” An armored knight shouted.

The trolls he attacked suddenly rushed roaring as they grabbed their log clubs again but at the same time, Storm burst over roaring and clamped his claws down. The troll roared and trapped to chomp down as he felt the strong mana in Storm but the green crystals began to shine.

“Move back!” Logan shouted.

The knights instantly cleared out before Storm burst out releasing intense lightning. The lightning spread for nearly 10 meters on all sides as thick as arm bolts were released and struck several trolls. Even they couldn’t shrug it off as it attacked their nerves and brain but it wasn’t enough to actually kill them. F rank mana didn’t have the full penetrative power for that but it stunned them and Storm raised his right paw and coated in lightning, he plunged it into the trolls chest and ripped out the monster core.

Instantly it burst. The burning body shockingly gathered into a glass orb and filled with red liquid.

“Troll blood!” Logan shouted. That was nearly 10 gallons instantly.

He didn’t even look and his body shot forward as he pocketed the items from his battle beast’s kill.

When he got it, his eyes shined before he got in the midst of several active one and Arashi started to shine.

Powerful wind began to gather around him as he started to use one of the trained skills.

Stopping in the middle he took a low posture before he spun a full three times, “Lion’s Ascent!” he roared.

At once, the light shined and burst upwards like a tornado of golden light. The attack was formed of wind blades and it shocked dozens of wounds and lifted the heavy trolls from the ground.

Logan looked at the damage and grinned, he could clearly understand why the Golden Lion Knights were so powerful. Even though he was using the old form of these skills, their power was immense.

The trolls in the air struggled and he jumped up lashing and splittin the bodies in half at the waist to incapacitate them before they landed before he fell down and split them again before ripping the cores out.

The mana stones of an E rank was about the size of a 10 year olds fist, it was a far cry from the top digit of a pinky that F rank had. The mana inside was also much more intense compared to the others.

At the same time, more and more powerful adventurers arrived. Many came up and down as there wasn’t any easy way to go between the floors.

All the corpses burned each time he ripped the cores out, unable to heal fast enough but the drop rate of the troll blood was low. Nails, fangs and other body parts were left. He was lucky to find a heart and quickly put that away.

With the support of stronger people the adventurers finally pushed the trolls into the passage allowing for the defensive wall to tighten and strengthen.

The stronger members were in the thick of it for a while and would jump out to rest.

Storm was efficient at temporarily incapacitating them and Logan stayed close and watched for when he did that and would quickly move over to help him and grab the loot. Eventually they both had to clear out as they huffed from the consumption but they felt very good.

They were also heavily bruised, no one can actually fight trolls and get out of it unscathed without having absolute power over them.

They didn’t waste time as they began to heal and regenerate mana quickly. All the trolls on the floor and a number from the floor above had gathered so there were thousands of them. Their break meant they lost out on getting countless items including troll blood that they needed. Unlike the still unstable blood he got the barrels to gather it, the dropped blood was fully stable and of much higher quality. Despite being less blood, it was much more highly regarded by alchemists.

The problem with gathering a lot is that trolls are spread out and hard to acquire so much at a time.

It was only a moment like this did Logan realize exactly why the absorption method of the Golden Lion favored a slight weaker compression. It allowed them to recover much faster. It might weaken them later on but what is important is that they are returning to battle.

The two opened their eyes and focused on the trolls and jumped at an area like wolves into a frenzy.

Not everyone was efficient in hunting and as a result, despite pushing back, the number of trolls dying were far lower than what it should be.

For over 6 hours of constant fighting, they finally reached the other entrance and walked through, those at the front gasped when they saw the situation of the room.

They had thought the room had at most a few thousands but there were tens of thousands.

To make it worse, it almost felt like Helix induced this because the walls crumbled all over releasing new trolls constantly and there were tens of thousands.

“This is serious!” the tamer said and without any hesitation, he removed a scroll and as soon as it filled with mana, it shined bright red .

Instantly all the adventurer ID on the present people along with everyone within a 5 floor proximity instantly lit up.

The warning went all the way down to 20th floor city.

The man breathed in and spoke and his words reverberated from all the IDs.

“This is a major emergency, floor 23 room 5 on the path to the 3rd entrance has entered an eruption state! Lesser trolls are undergoing a mating season and Helix is spawning tens of thousands of trolls. If the situation continues, with adventurers blocking the exits, they will eat each other and a horde of trolls will appear. Immediate reinforcements are required!”

The scroll instantly burned and the red glow persisted as he focused his mana and recalled many of the weaker monsters.

"I need protection or I won’t be able to sustain this battle beast!” he shouted.

Different from normal people, tamers contained their battle beasts within their bodies and summoning them required him to sustain the summon as a means to control wild powerful monsters.

He moved to the backlines and from his body, a powerful light shot out and crashed right into the middle of the incoming horde before erupting.

A pair of red eyes opened as a massive beast stood there. Pure white fur and black stripes, a quadruped figure and powerful musculature that could be seen through the fur.

What stood there was a D rank White Tiger. It roared as soon as it was summoned and the very mana of the surroundings trembled instantly drawing the attention of the nearest trolls.

The tamer clearly had little control over it, Logan looked at him and he saw the man sweating already.

“Targets are trolls!” he shouted simply before his troll shined and returned to his body along with the remaining few leaving that as the only one.

“That guy isn’t a normal person. He clearly got the tiger from someone and it is above his normal control limit.” Logan said instantly. He was only able to direct the beast on a target and had no control.

Instantly it roared, the fur stood on ends and the tail and paws began to glow before solid metal coated them. The tail was even more amazing as a spiked mace head at the tip showing the immense power. Lastly, the fur burst out with white lightning and he instantly began to attack

At that moment, the red glow on all the IDs turned blue and a new voice came from it.

“This is 20th floor adventurer guild. All adventurers between floors 21 to 40 are too quickly head to the 23rd floor. A sudden eruption of lesser trolls during a mating season is on the verge of forming a monster wave if the surge is capable of expanding to other rooms and affecting their natural functions! I repeat, all adventurers are to proceed as backups to the present adventures on the 23rd floor!”

Everyone turned happy as soon as they heard that message.

“We need to organize our ranks, we need to play the defense game!” Logan suddenly shouted and quickly told the knights to form rank to let them switch out as the front line got exhausted.

The message quickly spread among all the knights and a firm defensive wall quickly formed. All the vanguard and heavy attackers all jumped over to reduce the pressure as much as possible and Logan prohibited Storm from going because the numbers here would be too extreme to deal with. His size was a hindrance because he couldn’t easily escape if ten or more trolls' dogs piled on him.

That didn’t demotivate him. Instead he joined the mages and raised his body as he charged compressed thunder balls and showered them from the back. The magic users all joined in causing powerful attacks.

Storm only regretted being next to the wall or he could call down a storm like before but that wasn’t true, the storm got like that because of the humid conditions and terrain permitting it.

Logan roared as he jumped into the fray. “Great Crusher!” he roared as Arashi struck down.

Within a 5 meter radius, gravity suddenly intensified as soon as she touched the troll and the sudden extra weight pulled Logan with more power and Arashi instantly split through the entire troll.

Even with his vitality, he wouldn’t get up from that as his body was fully split.

The increased gravity was earth magic and a similar defensive spell used the same effect to weaken magic.

As soon as he hit the ground, Arashi was already starting to glow again and he turned directly into Lion’s Ascent forming a rising tornado blasting the rest of the nearby trolls away.

Pretty obvious by now, the sword arts of the Golden Lion used all basic elements. It made total sense why Maxwell wanted a magic sword of all the elements.

Before he even finished he jumped while turning and facing away from the wall he sent out a horizontal slash, “Dawn’s Horizon!”

The jump was intentional and the swing was at the height of the troll’s chest.

Those that were hit were split and their cores chopped even with the reinforced ribs.

Of course, the strong bones weakened the blade but it still crossed three trolls before it dissipated and he didn’t even turn around as he jumped upwards to deal with those sent flying up by Lion’s Ascent.

He still landed already breathing heavier. Using it continuously was hard but it was thrilling. It was the first time he was letting loose and using all the skills he trained was refreshing, his body was feeling the practical usage and he began to understand the thoughts of those who made it.

The modern style was great because they were close combat the skill curve for dodging, deflecting and more was precise there but that became useless when you finally access the sword magic side.

What it required was less finesse and more power to be able to attack.

As for speed, that was covered.

As Logan touched down, suddenly he used brain overclock and low output lightning clad to enhance his muscles but at his feet, a spell activated and it was strictly speed and movement. “Lion’s step.” he said.

The next moment he vanished from the sight of those near him. Logan’s natural speed with lightning clad was already good and his burst was good for 50 meters. Using that movement spell enhanced by clad was like using wind slash with wind clad. The effect stacked.

As he appeared, he was at his upper limit of 80 meters but wasn’t winded but behind him, more than 20 troll’s heads disconnected from their necks and the bodies started to collapse. Even more, there was a big cut on the chest alongside the decapitation and the monster cores were gone.

All of them were already stored away.

Lion step was not a burst movement to begin with. The spell enhanced speed but as with every spell, the following technique accompanied it. It wasn’t a burst, lightning clad just made that speed better so the 80 meter coverage wasn’t pure forward, he ran around all of them in moments.

That didn’t mean his body didn’t feel the stress. The G force acted even more heavily on his body as a result. It is just that his lungs didn’t feel like it was burning like with full lightning clad.

He turned and watched the drops before rushing quickly and packaging anything dropped and returned to the spot he had been and finally jumped over the wall sweating.

He didn’t even pay attention to the few people who paid attention to his fighting and were looking at him in awe, he instantly started restoring his mana and healing wounds from connected attacks and self inflicted ones from his skills his body couldn’t fully handle.

He gave himself just enough time to regenerate and ran back in.

Storm frowned seeing that and watched.

Blade storms raised each time but Storm frowned as he watched because he could tell the damage and power was dropping so on the 6th time he walked over and bit the back of Logan’s armor.

“Hey! What!?” he shouted.

“Master, you are heavily injured and your power is dropping. Take a proper rest to heal or you will need a higher quality potion if you keep this up and leave internal wounds agitated.” he said and put him behind the back line.

Logan looked and sighed.

He didn’t want to stop but as soon as he raised the complaint, cheers came as they saw a large group of people arriving from the tunnel. These were the people closest to the scene but had not arrived.

“There, master can relax with the backup.” Storm said.

He had to give in to heal his wounds and ate a pill and calmed down the mana before letting his body get proper rest.

He grunted when the medicine reached wounds that had not properly healed before and it was burning now due to the gathered blood in the bruising. Fresh wounds are the easiest to heal but they heal slowly during battle because blood goes to where it is needed most instead of wounds.

Despite most being fresh, the blood had already begun to set here so when the healing medicine reached it, it had a burning sensation as the blood was liquified again to start closing the wounds.

Muscles that were damaged were slowly relaxed and healed in cycles.

Eventually his body relaxed and he felt fully relaxed.

The time he spent there was 30 minutes but a lot had changed. The trolls at the center had finally gathered to breach but at the same time, more and more groups had arrived.

It would likely not take long if the entire city emptied out to reach here to make one big raid but no one knew if that was the case. Those up above were even less likely to arrive from the back and would have to teleport to the lower city before coming up alongside the wave.

At that time, the bloodied white tiger appeared close to the wall and the tamer scowled at the condition and decided it was enough.

The body glowed and returned to start healing or it would be a massive loss for him. He was covered in sweat and the loss of the tiger instantly increased pressure as the trolls fully focused on the wall.

Logan didn’t wait and drew Arashi and jumped in with the wall and started to deal as much damage, disregarding the danger through speed. Arashi shrank to the size of a katana and he held it as he ran while his body coated and his feet shined with Lion’s Step.

“Katana secret techniques! Sword Drawing technique: Lion’s Pounce.” his body burst like a bolt of lightning while his brain activated Brain overclock. His feet landed on a tower shield and Arashi was drawn. Like a knife through butter, she passed starting on the lower left riding up and coming out of the right shoulder. The next moment his body appeared behind the troll. A click came as Arashi’s handle connected to the sheath as she was put back in and a glowing light shined before the body burst and the monster core fell while sliced in two.

This was a drawing technique famous in Junpin. The technique was a single attack movement using extreme speed to draw, attack and sheath in a single motion.

Right after, he drew her into Dawn's Horizon towards incoming trolls and finished the combo with Golden Surge.

The combo of Dawn’s Horizon and Golden surge actually had a name, “Dawn’s Cross!” he shouted as soon as it was complete.

The glowing slashes connected as Golden Surge was cast to move faster and instantly the attack amplified and the range expanded and ripped through the horde.

However, just as the surge began to get more intense, noise from a different far off passage could be heard and to everyone’s shock an extremely loud roar came before a massive explosion came sending trolls flying. Everything stopped because the explosion was immense.

Everyone turned and looked at what appeared was a small group with red robes.

“Good job everyone!” a loud voice said at their tunnel.

Everyone turned and gasped because standing there was a group of mages but the aura from them was intense.

The next moment, all passages had similar robed figures and they pulled out a massive scroll and unwound it before it glowed and instantly hundreds of people flew out.

Everyone was much stronger.

“You can all relax because the dungeon emergency response force is here!” the lead figure shouted and instantly all the people that seemed to be summoned out of the scroll rushed out into the horde but every last one exploded with even stronger auras.

Like wolves in a massive pack of sheep, they ripped through the hordes instantly.

Mages in the back began to chant together forming numerous magic circles in the air and shooting high into the air and falling into the thick of the trolls.

Every explosion was followed by immense shockwaves specially designed for internal damage.

For trolls, they did not attack the body completely, the magical shockwaves sent destructive waves at the monster core cracking it instantly and heavily damaging the trolls. Healing worked on the body but not the core.

Those who responded first were in awe.

The force contained in every dungeon for dealing with unexpected dungeon waves. Helix couldn’t even control this. Dungeon monsters had many phenomena and the troll spawning was an unfortunate uncontrollable thing that happened as it drew a huge amount of mana from the dungeon and summoned every gathered soul belonging to trolls all at once.

It was very rare but it did occur during mating season only when the total number of trolls gathered surpassed a certain number. He had not watched the number of trolls and as a result, this event happened so the only solution was to extinguish every troll and break the chain affecting the dungeon room finally stopping the constant spawning.

Sword masters at D rank, any casual spell did what Logan focused to do, C ranks would kill dozens at once and that didn’t even count the B rank at each door to the room. Several times, C rank mages would cast meteor spells at the center and bring about havoc.

It showed the clear difference in power. The power of each rank is not a fictional difference, just looking at monster sizes you can tell that. Some creatures aren’t even considered adults without a specific level of power.

He had seen C ranks work, fishermen were said to be even stronger but never going all out to literally clear tens of thousands at once.

It took a little over an hour for the dungeon to finally stop breaking apart and releasing them. The walls began to glow and the rubble released from the walls burned up like the monsters as the walls thickened once more. Damage to the ground wasn’t easily healed however but it was an amazing sight, the entire room glittering with mana stones. If everything was gathered and fed to a single creature, it would definitely form a very powerful monster.

“Good job to all those who arrived and helped clear this disaster. The rewards for your heroic actions is before you, please gather what you can from the drops. These don’t have much meaning to the Defense force as we are supplied by the guild and dungeon itself to deal with these disasters head on!” the leading figures said.

Everyone gasped but became excited.

Logan in particular had shining eyes as he waited for their talk to end before calling Storm back to his small size and used the movement spell and lightning clad to quickly rush out and start gathering troll hearts and troll blood. A lot of missions were likely to be completed with all this material but troll blood and troll hearts had a constant price. He wasn’t planning on completing them all though. The prize was good for the dungeon but Logan thought of this as a training ground, not a place to get money.

There are countless places that would pay thousands for even a lesser troll’s blood because it isn’t everywhere that trolls existed. If they did exist in large numbers they would be exterminated instantly to protect the environment. They are creatures of plagues even though their blood is a treasure.

Gold had a very low price and he didn’t care much for the price here. Tip was the main continent coin and selling blood for Tip would be the true money making business. It was a truly rare event and he wasn’t losing out this chance.

He wasn’t the only one to rush out using magic to speed his way but lightning magic is still the fastest element and Lion’s Step was a lightning spell boosted by his Clad skill.

Among E rank, there might not be many who were faster in instant burst speed. He kept his strides at 50 meters though, he felt like it was the safe move to do.

For nearly an hour, mana crystals and drops were gathered all over and his pouch was filled greatly with drops. After it was cleared out, the defense force guided anyone who wanted to go back down safely. The aura of so many strong people had a good ability in scaring monsters away. Those that still attacked didn’t even stop the march as archers killed in one shot to the monster core.

After about 2 hours, they finally returned to the city. Logan was exhausted mentally despite his body being well.

He headed to the inn he had spent the last month at and rented the room he had been in.

That said, when he stepped in, it was for a moment but a bright light flashed in the room blinding him for a moment and when he looked inside, what sat on the bed was a tinier than normal but very strangely humanoid monster.

Above her, a floating sheet of paper.