16 Meat Grinder (2)

As the Kobolds approached, the lower dragonling burned and clawed its way through the crowd doing minor damage, but it wasn't before the raiding party was overwhelmed and it could start fighting one on one with opponents. When the voice of Smaug rang through the heads of all of the monsters.

"Lower dragonling, keep pushing deeper into the crowd, don't worry about killing just get to the center where their injured are, kobolds organize based on level, higher level close combatants follow the lower dragonling and maintain the opening in their formation. Next kobolds with ranged abilities don't worry about accuracy just keep kitting preferably towards the middle of the group if you are low level and high levels will fight off the outskirts. Next mid to lower-level kobolds you are back up your job is to keep the outer ring busy while the rest of the dungeon arrives. Just hold out for 10 more minutes."

As those words rang out across the dungeon for only the monsters to hear, the raiding party noticed a slight change as the kobolds shuffled around to better suit their roles.

"Sir, Giony it appears as if they are getting into some sort of formation."

"You don't think I can see that? Everyone, battle stances something is in charge of these Kobolds and it's pretty smart. How is the healing coming along?"

"We are working on it but too many people aren't in fighting condition yet, and some of the healers are running low on mana. The health potions are also lagging since their wounds are serious."

"Ok, keep working on that this shouldn't have to be said, but you have full access to the mana potions. I don't care what it takes, just make sure everyone gets out of here ALIVE!"

As Giony was commanding the healers in the middle, he noticed the Dragonling fighting through the middle and back lines of the combatants, while it was backed up by kobolds, seemingly splitting their ranks and keeping that hole open, none of them were fighting to kill, just weaken and fight off. At this moment Giony tried to go deal with the problem himself, however, he was swarmed with attacks the moment he started to turn around. Unable to deal with the problem himself, he called out to the other party members

"We need more tanks in the back, they are piercing through our ranks but aren't trying to kill, just take the beating so we can slowly chip away at everything else."

As Giony roared out commands, something happened on the human side.

"Gahhh-"

The dying gurgle of a Dwarf was heard, the sounds of the all-out fight were almost deafening, but even then everyone heard it. Looking over one would see a kobold with no weapon and bloody claws scratching at the adventurers. Near its feat was the body of the dwarf with his throat clearly in shreds, blood leaking on the ground and his eyes glassy. He was dead and served as no more than a tripping hazard with his small stature and heavy plate armor.

The nearby kobolds quickly took this as a sign of opportunity, the smell of fresh blood in the air sent them into an even deeper frenzy, imagining the meal they would have after this invasion was all said and done, and how much stronger they would be by the end of it all.

Not too far away a healer was having a small crisis, it was a human girl, not much older than 17 or 18, and once she heard the death wail of the dwarf she started breaking down. On her robes was a small badge, the emblem of her party. A matching one could be seen on the dwarf showing they worked together, likely for a long time. Eventually, however, due to the loss of her party member, her mortality was struck with a sense of dread.

This one breakdown eventually leads to a cascading effect. Slowly over time, more and more adventuress was losing hope, and as this happened the rate of injury skyrocketed. There were even a few more deaths, which only worsened the situation for them.

However it wasn't over just yet, as Sca'Bla had arrived, and right behind him the lower Wyvern hovered off the ground.

"SHIT! Everyone, we have to leave NOW! Drop anything non essentially even the dead, it sucks I know, but they belong to the dungeon now. We can't risk losing more people because you wanted a proper burial for your friends"

As those words were spoken, the injured were carried on the backs of those who could walk and everyone maintained a huddle as they cut their way through as best they could. eventually, they came face to face with Sca'Bla and the lower wyvern. What is worse is the lower dragonling was behind them, however, it was badly injured so it stuck to long-range fire attacks.

"[RAAGGHH HAHH]!"

The sound of Sca'Blas's voice rang out as he activated a skill, which enveloped every monster nearby in a dim red light. On Smuag's side of the dungeon, a new notification appeared

[Sca'Bla has used the new skill [commanding shout]

Effects: when used, the user empowers all allies in a small range around themselves granting a small boost to speed and strength. However, this ability can only be used on allies that are in active battle with ten or more active participants.]

"Ah, that could be very useful, maybe I should replace a few regular kobolds with commanders, one for every other group to make sure the requirement is always met. Anyway back to the battle, let's see what this wyvern can do."

After being set up with buffs, the wyvern not too high up to be out of reach but high enough to have the ability to go over the kobolds started firing off balls of fire toward the enemy which exploded on impact severely burning many people for the price of one attack. Eventually, it switch to a different attack where a beam of condensed flame shot out burning single targets in short bursts of only a few seconds.

Of course, as the raiding party ran they never escaped the fight. The wyvern was following them ignoring the crowds of kobolds, while the kobolds were constantly rushing towards their location so they always had fresh and new ones to deal with After a while there was a trail of bodies mostly kobolds, but also some people as well.

It was a full 30 minutes before Giony and his group escaped and by then, they had lost a sizable chunk of their group. Most were heavily injured if not dead. When a member from the third raid party quickly came up to ask questions.

"Giony sir, what happened? Why is everyone hurt? Where is everyone else?"

"We got surrounded, there were hundreds of kobolds. Their dungeon master is also pretty intelligent. The damned bastard had them break our ranks to get to the weak we were protecting while they were healed, the ones that are left barely made it out alive.

" for now I think we should all just rest and wait until the next rotation. This… this is going to be a long week."

Meanwhile, Smaug was overviewing everything he got from the invasion

[congradulation for fending off a raid. You have been rewarded with a name for both your lower dragonling and your lower wyvern as they had major roles in your defense]

[You have earned 10000 DP]

After sacrificing the items to the core Smaug then earned another 3,000 DP.

"Sweet, system replace all of the monsters you need to"

[confirmed

today a total of an extra 50 Kobololds have been killed

Summoning 60 kobolds and 1 kobold mage]

[-620 DP]

"Perfect, all that's left is to name those two dragons of mine"