Trump Card

The human soldiers were highly disciplined and immediately fell back before reforming their defensive line.

There was a stark difference with the hired adventurers and mercenaries, who were a haphazard bunch that attacked in small and large groups, eating away at the flanks of the monster wave with all kinds of attacks and sub skills.

Wild elements raged as fire and lightning tore through the battlefield, but all the monsters were completely consumed by bloodlust. They charged at the humans regardless of casualties, barely giving the army any reprieve.

"Reinforce the lines! Hold back the monsters and prepare the cannons!"

Orders were shouted across the human army as it broke off into smaller battalions, each with their own command structure and purpose.

Teams of mages controlled the battlefield, whilst medics reinforced the defender and recovered injuries, luxuries the mindless monster wave didn't share.

These mages and the human army as a whole were unaware that they were technically inside Styx's dungeon during this battle.

Styx had Dungeon Control, which allowed him control over his dungeon like it was his own sandcastle. At <Lv. 25>, he merely willed it and the humans' walls and barriers came collapsing down into rubble.

The human army may have had their own battlefield control forces, but they were directly contending against Styx on his own grounds.

"Mages!! What's going on!?"

"Sir! The wall collapsed by an external influence; we are already repairing it!"

The mages waved their staves and raised giant blocks of earth or water geysers to block off the monsters from flooding the buried, staggered soldiers who were caught off guard. Others joined forces and used group formation magic spells.

Styx immediately interfered with their blockades to allow the monsters to pass. Blocks of land were raised and formed bridges whilst geysers were blocked off entirely.

"You humans have become too used to trapless dungeons. Traps are where we excel the most!"

Styx spoke to himself as he watched over the battlefield from his omnipresent perspective.

He had long predicted the direction the humans would attack from and placed countless traps along the forest. He manually triggered poisoned arrow traps with arrowheads made from a soulium alloy whilst also dropping pitfall traps beneath the mages and other combatants.

Spears shot out and attacked the soldiers, but being Third Step, hardly any were injured by this, let alone killed.

It served Styx's purpose however, disrupting the enemy and causing their casualties to start piling up. He also released a portion of his own monsters at this moment, which attacked their weak points with deadly precision.

Strange yet incredibly powerful monsters tore apart adventurers and mercenaries mostly, ganging up and overwhelming small groups with huge quantities.

They bit, tore, spat fire, and struck from shadows. The battlefield became even more chaotic and was a grinder of meat and bone on both sides.

A giant swarm of 10,000 blood crystal bees merged amongst the monster and proved to be one of the deadliest forces against the humans. The swarmed unsuspected soldiers and adventurers alike covering them with poisonous, bloody holes all over their body. They would squeeze into armor joints and even open wounds to sting and bit deeper, whilst they were small enough it was difficult to attack them with weapons.

"Where are the cannons!?" The battlefield commander of the human army shouted at the back line.

"One minute, Sir!"

Giant cannons were hoisted up and being filled with mana. They hummed to life and the barrels began to glow ominously.

Styx hurriedly had his monsters retreat as fast as possible, but the wild monsters attacked recklessly at whatever they could.

"Aura! I need you to build a barrier and block at least half of the cannons!" Styx commanded the wolf-eared woman who had been emitting a sinister atmosphere ever since the beginning of the battle.

Styx stood just outside the dungeon entrance, ready to retreat at any moment, whilst looking up at the errie dome blocking the sky.

"I have a bad feeling about that…"

~~~~~

⠀

"Fire!"

The human commanders bellowed in voices that echoed through the destroyed forest, all the trees and undergrowth scorched and torn asunder.

Ash drifted across the blood-soaked battlefield before being blown away as over a thousand hyper mana condensing burst cannons shot at the monsters. Styx altered opened pitfall traps in the ground below the cannons that were meant for dungeon city defense, but they had been firmly secured and refused to budge.

He could raise the terrain instead, but the mana cost to do so for hundreds would drain his mana storage almost instantly. Instead, he chose to rely on Aura and her ability to protect most of the monsters.

The Monster Lord in question appeared at the forefront of the wild monsters as the air around her twisted and shifted under strain of the raw power she was emitting.

"AWUUUUU!!!"

All of Aura's hairs stood on end as she violently howled, parting the clouds and causing a tsunami of dirt, dust and ash to wash over the human army.

As her powers spread out, an enormous multicoloured barrier appeared in between the monsters and the human army, catching all the cannon shots in it.

The hyper condensed mana shots were absorbed into the barrier, leaving behind only ripples on its surface before vanishing as if stones falling into a pond.

Aura growled in pain and the barrier begun fluctuating, threatening to fall apart any second. Due to this fluctuation, several mana bursts slipped through and landed amongst the monsters. Enormous explosions and maelstroms of chaotic mana ravaged the monster forces, although only a small portion of them were Styx's monsters which he had retreat.

"You have locked down your cannons, fools," Styx derisively sneered from his viewing location and controlled his own cannon. "They are now fixed in position and can't be moved easily."

Under the collaboration of countless mana gems, Aura and Dragon participating, Styx's Obelyon Mana Gauss Cannon was fully charged with 400,000 mana points.

He only had one shot with it at full power, so he had been saving it for the best opportunity.

The wild monster forced had been half eradicated with the last attack, despite only several attacks got through Aura's defense.

"The Monster Lord has appeared! Plan Eternity Lock begin!"

"Sir! An extremely high mana reading has appeared and is rapidly approaching!"

"Hurry up and restrain the Monster Lord! All defensive formations activate!"

Styx sensed something bad with "Plan Eternity Lock", so he hurried in transporting the mana gauss cannon. It was moved along one of countless pre prepared underground tracks and would raise itself out of the top of a hill where it would fire upon the enemy.

Aura was panting and severely weakened from blocking over a thousand shots, each of which each could kill a Fourth Step monster.

"Evade!" Styx immediately sent a mental command to Aura.

Between Aura and the random monsters, Styx would rather sacrifice the random monsters, even his own. If Aura fell, it would be a crippling blow to the dungeon and potentially be the deciding factor in the battle.

The wolf-eared woman swung her claw like nails, creating giant rifts in the ground and killing hundreds of Third Step soldiers.

The cannons begun training on her and focusing their fire on her. Unwilling to let them hit she immediately flashed away from the spot and appeared far away to the side.

The mana burst cannons speedily rotated and fired at her again, but she vanished once again before the attacks landed.

This game of cat and mouse that caused explosions to appear at random across the battlefield and even distant hills as the humans continued targeting Aura with their mana burst cannons.

Styx's cannon arrived at this moment and rose above a small hill. The entire barrel was alive with blue lightning sparks of pure mana arching off its floating three-piece barrel. They snaked down the hill and split open the already ruined hill even more while evaporating the rivers of blood and causing a crimson mist to roll out from its location.

"Activate the defensive formations!"

Defensive mages throughout the human army joined together to cast enormous barrier formations, especially around the cannons where they were stationed. The priests and healers in the army prayed to Goddess Eve before spreading her blessings across the army, causing them to all be filled with endless vigor and strength.

"You lose."

The barrel of the Obelyon Mana Gauss Cannon rotated faster and faster before firing its entire 400,000 stored mana points.

A blinding white pillar of light shot across the battlefield and into the human army, burning out the retina of many weaker monsters and also Styx's avatar which was personally watching.

Styx didn't so much as flinch as his avatar bled from the eyes. He was watching and controlling everything from him omnipresent viewpoint regardless.

This beam didn't just aim at one spot, the mana gauss cannon swept across the human army in the blink of an eye, carving though it as it did.

Their enormous floating defensive formations did little to stop the attack, even with the goddess' blessing. They sank backwards when being struck by the beam and shattered into countless shards seconds later.

The beam incinerated anything it touched and not even dust remained, whilst the ground and air exploded in a violent storm of mana which tore the earth apart and fragmented the bodies of soldiers.

The beam vanished as fast as it appeared, leaving behind a trail of destruction unlike anything Styx had ever seen.

Dirt and soot covered the sky, blotting out the sun, whilst droplets of magma fell from the air. The trail where the beam passed through was a magma river within a deep ravine.

There was a brief lull as everyone's ears were still ringing across the battlefield.

This strategic attack alone destroyed all the enemy's mana burst cannons which they couldn't move nor protect in time, and countless humans. It was a devastating attack, but Styx could unfortunately only use it once.

Styx hadn't actually lost too many forces. The overwhelming majority of monsters were the wild monsters baited into attacking the human army. Of his 120k force, he had only lost about 5k monsters.

Of the 10,000 adventurers and mercenaries, 7,000 of them had been killed whilst another thousand abandoned the battle and their pay. The remaining 2,000 where the embodiment of high level rankers and either crazy or completely unafraid of death.

The soldiers were the main ones defending the cannons so they suffered even heavier losses, with the final attack wiping them down to only having 15,000 left. Styx was still disadvantaged as they were stronger than his monster army due to the level and rank difference, but he had more than just monsters left to contend with. The main one being a Fifth Step Monster Lord who no longer had to avoid the main cannons.

"Gather! Together, we will wipe out this evil before it can grow any more!"

"For his majesty!"

"For the kingdom!"

Contrary to what Styx expected, their moral did not deteriorate but instead became more frenzied. The army were less organized, but the murderous atmosphere they gave off increased.

"Aura."

Styx called the wolf girl to his side, but the human army did something Styx didn't expect.

Just as the wolf-eared woman began tearing apart the army, a group of 100 mages in long robes knelt in a circle and pulled out sharp daggers.

They called out in a frenzy and slit their opposing wrist with the blade, allowing their own lifeblood to flow out and onto the ground.

These mages were a specialized mage class called a Ritualist, and were some of the kingdoms most exclusive forces. It was close to a suicide corp, exchanging their own blood for grand and powerful magics.

Ritual class magic was the most powerful magic that could be used as there was no theoretical upper limit to how powerful the spells could be. They all had greatly enhanced effects, but were equally expensive and difficult to cast. These mages used their own life to fuel this kind of magic, this particular ritual magic needing such a huge number of people to work together.

A blood red magic formation appeared in the soot covered sky, shining through the black sky as if it were made from the fires of hell.

"Fuck! Dodge it!" Styx called out in panic to Aura, but she seemed held in place by the spell as giant chains used to seal gods fell from the sky like bolts of lightning.

"AWUUUU!!!!" Aura howled and struggled against the chains, but they instantly bound her and tied her down to the ground.

Just as Styx had essentially won the battle, this ritual spell instantly flipped the situation over and put him in a severe disadvantage.