Both Sides Bloodied

Both Sides Bloodied

The Lizardmen army's fighting strength exceeded A De Lai's expectations.

As a former centurion of the conscript corps and now Silverpine Town's sheriff, he did not dare boast that he was battle-hardened, but he had beaten up Lizardmen more than a few times.

Those things looked fierce, but their organization was atrocious. Even gathered together, they were worse than the thugs of Thunder City's Underground Street.

In his memory, a battle line supported solely by Lizardmen usually collapsed before the fifth volley. After that, they were either chased down by Grand Duke Campbell's knights or blasted into the sky by the artillery brothers...

Yet he had never expected that these losers, who had never won a battle against outsiders, would be so difficult to deal with in the dungeon!

The human commander A De Lai was not the only one dumbfounded. Mo Er La Ge, standing among the Lizardmen army, was even more bewildered.

In Mo Er La Ge's memory, human muskets were frightening, but far from deadly.

Considering their slow reloading speed and excessive penetrating power, they might not even have been much stronger than the Lizardmen's bows.

Compared to that, they feared Grand Duke Campbell's knight corps and mage corps more... but clearly, neither was here.

The ones standing here were merely eight hundred peasants holding fire pokers!

As for Extraordinary Power, there was only one old man in a cloak capable of casting spells, probably possessing strength at the peak of Bronze-level.

Aside from him, there were a few adventurer-looking fellows who kept using the same Black Iron-level spells or combat techniques... Such circus tricks were utterly insignificant before his Dragon Language power! As for the five priests in white robes, they were clearly Black Iron-level as well. However, perhaps because they carried Saint Siss's protection, the range of their spells had been noticeably enhanced.

With just this much combat power, they should not have been able to stop his army at all. Yet for some reason, the young men of the Earth Dragon Clan could not break through no matter how hard they tried! The battle had reached a stalemate, and casualties on both sides were climbing sharply! Both sides regretted it somewhat, yet no one dared call for a halt.

In this cramped dungeon, an encounter like this meant whoever lost their nerve would die. Retreat was simply not an option!

Mo Er La Ge once again attempted to cast Dragon Language Magic, hurling a Dragon Breath Bullet toward the crowd ahead.

However, holy radiance enveloped the human soldiers once more. The white barrier stood like a wall, not only swallowing his Dragon Breath Bullet but also infusing the human soldiers at the front with sacred strength and courage! Mo Er La Ge finally panicked. Watching the young men of the Earth Dragon Clan continue to fall, he stopped holding back and brought out even the magic power he had originally intended to use against the Demon Lord.

"You are courting death!"

As he chanted the spell in the dragon language, golden light burst from his eyes, and a faint golden glow seeped from between his tightly closed lips.

The instant he saw that, Qie Er, president of the Silverpine Town Adventurers' Guild, went pale and cried out.

"Dragon Roar! Quickly! Use Holy Barrier!"

"Do you think my magic power is unlimited?!" Priest Matt of Silverpine Town Church cursed under his breath, his face pale. The ease he had displayed earlier had already given way to exhaustion.

And not just him.

The four priests casting jointly with him were all gasping for breath, their aged faces flushed with a final burst of life.

One particularly elderly priest even coughed up blood and slumped against the wall to sit on the ground.

The Extraordinary Power wielded by the other side was clearly above theirs!

They had only barely blocked that Dragon Breath Bullet by relying on the sacred artifact worshipped at Silverpine Town Church, yet they had not expected the enemy to still have enough strength to continue casting! Saint Siss above...

He should never have gotten involved in this mess!

If not for that damned sheriff's honeyed words, telling him that he could earn merit easily by coming along and then be transferred to a church in Thunder City's prosperous district... he would never have lost his mind and entered some dungeon!

As Priest Matt cursed a certain foolish sheriff, that same foolish sheriff wanted nothing more than to slap himself twice.

Without a doubt.

Things had gone wrong! A De Lai could scratch his scalp bloody and still not understand why the Demon Lord Army was so strong. Why had the Lizardmen, who normally collapsed at the first touch, refused to run here?!

Although the militia currently held the advantage, the enemy's brute strength and dark arts had still inflicted considerable casualties on them.

Over a hundred corpses already lay on the ground, and the number of wounded was even greater!

Even if he won this battle in the end, it would be an undeniable pyrrhic victory!

Earn merit and get transferred?

He would be lucky if they did not strip him of his sheriff's badge!

"Sir! We can't wait any longer!" the leader fighting at the front shouted as he turned back. "Light it! The brothers can't hold on much longer!"

A De Lai gritted his teeth. Judging that the time had come, he finally waved his hand and gave the order, deploying his final trump card.

Because its power was difficult to control, he had originally planned to save that thing for a last-resort escape.

"Light it!"

The fuse was lit.

A faint spark quickly raced beneath the Lizardmen's feet, darting toward wooden crates scattered throughout the dungeon corridor.

The battle was at its fiercest, and no one noticed the anomaly beneath their feet.

And almost at the exact instant Mo Er La Ge unleashed Dragon Roar, several hundred kilograms of explosives detonated. Blazing fire instantly tore apart the surrounding Lizardmen soldiers! The power displayed in that moment had already far surpassed Steel-level magic! It had even reached Silver-level!

Mo Er La Ge's Dragon Roar was utterly powerless before that terrifying force, casually swallowed by the blast's aftershock! And that was not all—

The boiling shockwave was like erupting lava. After sweeping through the Lizardmen's position, it rapidly surged toward the Silver Pine Town Militia's position without distinguishing friend from foe! No one had time to evade it. They crashed headlong into the scorching shockwave and fell backward in waves like wheat flattened by a storm.

It was not just A De Lai.

Everyone present, even gunners who had once served in the artillery corps, had vastly underestimated the power generated by several hundred kilograms of explosives detonating in an enclosed space! But that could not be helped.

Compulsory education had only existed briefly in the Ryan Kingdom's history, while the Enlightenment and the liberation of thought had been comprehensively suppressed by the rule of divine authority and the doctrine of "Extraordinary Power granted by the gods."

Even though this world already possessed things like the Steam Engine, and had even improved it, most people merely used it as some "alternative form of Extraordinary Power."

Including the explosives bestowed upon them by Isaac IV.

Impact dynamics? What the hell was force?

The terrifying explosion rapidly swept through several dungeon corridors. It not only engulfed both warring sides, but even dragged in several players who had been watching the show from afar! Fortunately, they had been standing relatively far away and suffered only minor injuries.

But the humans and Lizardmen at the center of the explosion were miserable. They were either buried beneath collapsed tunnels or blasted apart so thoroughly that not even a complete corpse could be found.

Amid the dust.

Leaning on his sword sheath, A De Lai staggered to his feet. He looked blankly around him, and deep despair surfaced in his eyes.

The dead and wounded were beyond counting.

Priest Matt lay barely alive in a corner, while President Qie Er had his eyes tightly shut and was unconscious.

And his subordinates... including the man who had urged him to light the fuse quickly, most of them had vanished without a trace.

His Adam's apple bobbed, and his legs gave out as he dropped to his knees.

This place...

Was simply hell! "Roar—!"

An enraged roar suddenly came from afar, interrupting the grief and terror in his heart.

A De Lai swiftly drew his sword and rose, only to see a murderous Lizardman emerge from the shadows ahead. It held a curved blade and stared at him without blinking.

Fierce light flashed within those amber pupils, and its savage expression looked as though it wanted to devour him alive.

A De Lai swallowed. Though his knees trembled, he still summoned the courage to fight.

Come on!

Either way, he was going to die.

Perhaps—

For someone who had lost everything, death might instead be an easier choice...

Meanwhile, Leon was still looking in the mirror in the Demon Lord Territory.

Or more precisely, he was studying his Faith Points, which kept jumping up and down.

Something had been off with them since morning. At first, they had been growing nicely, but after rising for a while, they had started dropping again.

Why did this thing bounce around like the stock market...

He was utterly puzzled.

Although the daily increase still hovered around 2,000, as long as expenses remained unchanged, its net value would not fall below 1,000.

But this thing had no setting like a daily trading limit, so he could not be sure whether it would plummet in the blink of an eye, dropping right back to wherever it had risen from.

Where was the faith? Where was the loyalty? How could they stop loving him right after they had fallen for him? Leon could not make sense of it at all.

In the past few hours, he did not seem to have done anything inhumane either—

Wait!

Could it be dropping precisely because he had not done anything?! Leon suddenly understood.

Just as he was considering who to torment today, You You's voice had already been calling out one thing after another for quite a while.

"Lord Demon Lord! Arakdo has arrived with your servants!"

"Should I mark them all with green names? Please give them names!"

"Ahhh!! Lord Demon Lord, something terrible has happened! Put the naming aside for now—the Lizardmen have attacked!"

"Wait, according to the players, they seem to have started fighting the humans?!"

"An earthquake! The dungeon is having an earthquake?!"

"You're so noisy. Can't you say one thing at a time?" Leon replied impatiently. Then he jolted and sprang to his feet. "Wait, Lizardmen? They're fighting humans?!"

He had expected the Lizardmen to attack. He had long prepared at the hall by the dungeon entrance, waiting for them to come and donate their heads.

But what was this about humans?! Adventurers?

But... no, that was not right.

In his impression, adventurers would not clash with hordes of monsters. Those people were all bullies who feared the strong, just like Chris.

Although he had planned to use the surface humans to deal with the Lizardmen, he had never expected the two sides to break into direct conflict.

"Mhm, mhm! According to the players, it seems a human army entered the dungeon..."

At this point, You You paused for a moment, then spoke softly in an awkward tone.

"Uh... things happened rather suddenly. It seems the battle has already ended."

As the "land god" of the Demon Lord Territory, You You could only operate within the Demon Lord Territory and around Leon. It could not personally rush to the front lines to see what had happened.

The information it relayed to Leon was basically secondhand intelligence from the Official Website, so some delay was unavoidable.

Besides, players sometimes exaggerated. That was also entirely possible.

Although Leon did not regard those four-legged lizards as a threat, he had no choice but to be more cautious about the surface humans.

With that thought, he immediately stood up and stuffed the mirror he had been looking into for half the day back into his pocket.

"Release a quest to the players in the Demon Lord Territory. Have them gather at the dungeon entrance!"

"Also, tell Arakdo to wait for me downstairs!"

"Received!" Having received the order, You You immediately went to carry it out.

Leon poured the potion he had just prepared into a flask, then strode out of his workshop.

Fighting in this Demon Lord's territory!

If he did not go collect a toll, then this Demon Lord would be far too human!