Turn About

The Ritualists restraining Aura were heavily sweating whilst their blood was rapidly depleting. It was an enormous stress holding down a Fifth Step Monster Lord, but they were prepared to expend their lives to complete their roles in the war.

This kind of ritual magic needed continuous feeding to maintain. A weaker Fourth Step monster would be relatively easily restrained with little risk, a Monster Lord constantly wore down on the shackles.

"Full attack! Push them back!"

The crescendo of shouts from the soldiers shook the air as they charged across the ruined battlefield.

The army mages that were still alive sent giant orbs of lava catapulting overhead and summoning dragons made out of earth.

Styx controlled his monsters as best he could, but the humans constantly shifted their tactics to fight back. They knew they couldn't keep Aura tied down forever though, so they desperately pushed forward the line.

"It's time. All defenders engage these crazy humans," Styx emotionlessly commanded into the minds of all the women.

With the human forces whittled down to a much smaller number, his monsters and dungeon residents used a combination of guerrilla and wave tactics to kill as many humans as possible.

Styx's monsters were stronger overall, so they were exchanging their lives with the Third Step soldiers at a rate of ten to one. They were still being pushed back towards the dungeon and at a disadvantage.

600 of the dungeon residents joined the battle and would snipe at or ambush enemies. Large groups would work with the monsters, but humans and monsters weren't the only ones to fall. Dark elves and tiger beastmen also became corpses in this conflict of blood and steel.

The dungeon wives were one of the stronger forces on the battlefield, especially as they were all Second Step.

Therina ambushed several people with her soulium weapons, thrusting with deadly precision into eyes, necks and armor joints. She didn't worry if they were not killed, they soon would be due to monsters swarming them.

Her wispy smoke-like tails fluttered through the battlefield, choking victims or making them drowsy during battle.

She would then flee into the dream realm when her situation became too unsafe, reappearing elsewhere. She could easily heal any wounds with mana in the dream realm too, allowing her to maintain her top fighting condition unlike most of the humans.

Kale and Klair flanked the enemies, the former floating through the air as if swimming whilst flinging dimensional blades, the latter supporting with arrows and shadow attacks.

Niah performed dances, vanishing into one shadow and reappearing again from another. Black smoke billowed out from her steps, creating a carpet like mist around her which clung to and climbed up the legs of any enemy in it.

She would then use a pair of daggers with a sense of elegance as she mercilessly slashed the human's throat in the blink of an eye.

~~~~~

⠀

Elena was a yin oni and much more combat oriented than the others. Her body itself was a weapon, the pale skinned former dark elf used her lithe body to slip past the enemy attacks and use her fingers like claws to rip and tear.

Wherever she stepped, the ground was covered in a bone chilling frost, and the same with whatever she touched. Her mana wildly circulated as even the air began to frost over in her surroundings.

"Die, monster!" The human Third Step soldier shouted whilst running his sword through Elena's chest, the blade rapidly becoming covered in ice in his hand whilst the yin oni's blood barely stained her body.

Elena didn't so much as flinch as she was run through. She had no way of avoiding an attack by a Third Step other than ensuring it didn't hit anywhere vital. She was ready to save her neck should he go for her head, but the chest was non-lethal to her.

With his blade through her chest, she struck like lightning and gripped his throat in a claw grip, her nails biting into his skin and spreading her yin aura within his veins.

The soldier's lips grew blue first as his entire body began to freeze from inside out.

A trickly of blue blood ran from Elena's mouth as she tore out the throat of the soldier before he could do anything, his life leaving him as well as what remained of his body's defensive skills. The corpse was instantly covered in frost before it was discarded on the ground, a frozen corpse in the blood and brimstone battlefield.

"No, you humans will be the ones to die," Elena coldly glared at the corpse as she removed the sword and healed herself, repairing her lungs and enabling her to talk again.

~~~~~

⠀

Vivy, a Third Step Shadowthread Archer, didn't use a bow as expected, but a pair of curved daggers and her bare fists.

She had the dexterity and agility of an archer, but the balanced strength that was greater than mages or assassins. The ground split open and dented beneath her feet as she vanished from one spot and appeared against with her entire arm pierced through a soldier's chest, holding him up in the air.

"Is this all you have?" She asked arrogantly, her eyes filled with disdain.

The soldier tried to give one final attack with his spear, red mist pouring off his body and begun corroding everything around him as he activated his subskills. Blood poured out of his mouth but before he could attack, Vivy vanished and in a flashed of light, his head was detached from the rest of his body.

Vivy laughed in arrogance with a trace of insanity as she charged through the human army.

"Pull back, you are going too deep," Styx's icy voice spoke in her mind and gave her his commands, breaking her out of her battle lust.

"Will you be mind now~?"

"Stop messing around."

Vivy grinned and escaped the human army before she could be fully entrapped. Despite the soldiers being Third Step just like her, their combat powers were worlds apart.

~~~~~

⠀

Beatrice was decent in combat power, but she was too weak to go against the Third Step soldiers. She was practically immortal and could regenerate even from losing her head, but she wouldn't be able to kill any of the soldiers.

Because of this, she was forced to stay behind while clenching her fists in nervousness.

Despite everyone's best efforts, the dungeon was losing the fight as its forces was rapidly diminishing.

Styx stood beside her while wearing a dark expression.

"Where is Dragon? Is he waiting until the final moment? By then… everyone will be dead."

"…I don't know."

"What will even be the point if everyone is dead."

"Could it be that barrier in the sky?"

"It is possible, but… I can't reach anyone outside of it to know what it even is. I suspect it is an isolation formation of some kind, preventing messages from crossing over.

The human side had fallen to 5,000 people, but he only had 20,000 monsters left and 400 dungeon residents.

If the situation got any worse, Styx was estimating he would have to retreat with the dungeon core and as many dungeon residents as possible. The dungeon could be rebuilt even if trust in him was harmed.

Styx checked his mana, which only had 470 points currently and regenerating at 1 point every 20 seconds. He had enough to continue terraforming, but most of his traps had been used and the mana gauss cannon would only kill at most ten or so soldiers with that kind of input.

"Make. Stronger."

Beatrice immediately went on alert but was forced into the ground by a Monster Lord's unrestrained aura pressing down on her. Spider, or the Arachne, crawled out of a slit in space behind Styx and looked down on him from above.

Styx had been spared her monstrous aura and couldn't detect it at all, as if she were a ghost that only Beatrice could feel, but he knew that was the Monster Lord's doing.

"Restrain yourself. I have no time for this right now."

"You will. Lose. Must escape."

"Stop!" Styx barked at the spider, causing her hands to halt from grabbing him. "Can you free Aura?"

"Wolf. Death."

"No! Can you free her is what I asked."

"…Yes."

Styx turned around and faced Spider with his arm outstretched, mana tendrils extending and waving in the air and causing the Monster Lord to look at him curiously.

"Surrender and break Aura free, and I will make you stronger."

Spider seemed to be intoxicated, she looked down at Styx hungrily and leaned her enormous body over. Styx was taken aback by her actions, but before he could do anything she had knocked him to the ground and holding him down with her human torso.

"Make. Stronger."

"God damn it! Do you not listen to anything?!"

Styx shoved his mana tendrils at the Monster Lord, who calmly watched him as he did so. She didn't resist, allowing the mana tendrils to wrap around her human torso before entering inside of her.

The dungeon lord was surprised that she had allowed his mana tendrils to enter her, but he then felt the invisible spiderthreads pressing over his neck and knew that a single sign of hostility would see him instantly become a headless horseman.

Her mana network channels were enormous, even bigger than Aura's. He was much more powerful and his skills were higher levelled than then though, and he had a lot more experience too. Styx expertly maneuverer his mana tendrils amongst the torrential flood that was her mana network.

He pushed towards her mind, but there was a barrier around it that prevented him from entering. He was unsure whether Spider herself was aware of it, but it stopped him from being able to leave a piece of himself in her.

"Tch."

"Make. Stronger."

"Do you understand what that requires?"

"Yes. Have practiced."

"Practiced? Practiced what?"

Spider's entire body began cracking as flesh and bone wriggled and became more compact. Her giant spider body contracted whilst morphing into two pale, long and powerful pair of human legs.

"Becoming. Human. Can make babies."

"…"

Spider leaned over him on all fours, her giant breasts swinging above his head.

Styx was dumbfounded, not just by her assumption that mating was necessary, but by the sheer size of her body. She was easy fourteen feet tall, a beauty with long, wispy white hair nonetheless, but a giant of a person.

"Strengthening is done like this."

Spider was salivating all over Styx's chest, but she had controlled herself not to drip poison else he would have already become a puddle on the ground.

Styx controlled his mana tendrils to start massaging her mana network, expanding the channels as he did.

Spider ran a long finger with crimson nails down his chest whilst opening and closing her mouth. Styx could only assume this meant she was happy as she displayed such strange behavior.

"Done," Styx stated before continuing, "but it needs to be done multiple times to work properly."

Spider stopped her movement and looked towards the battlefield. Without notice and seemingly out of nowhere, a human soldier was cut into small pieces and died on the spot. Seeing her experience go up for the first time in countless centuries, she let out an inhumanly screech in delight.

"Now go free Aura!"

Spider wasn't listening again but instead leaned down and bit his shoulder deeply with sharp fangs, causing Styx to cry out in pain before hitting the Monster Lord. The latter didn't even register the attack and completely ignored it, her fangs drawing deeper into Styx's shoulder.

"If you don't go free her, I will not make you any stronger!!"

These words seemed to work and elicited the spider Monster Lord to finally rushed to where Aura was being restrained by god locking chains extending from the giant formation in the ash laden sky.

Styx looked at his bloodied shoulder and almost fell over from wooziness before the recovered Beatrice caught him.

"Don't tell me there's poison…"