Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 180: Chaotic Melee

The rest of the day was spent mostly without incident. From what I could gather, the scheduling of events in this dungeon was intentionally set up to allow players the freedom to participate with their limited availability. In other words, there would only be a few hours of active battling every day, after which the rest of the time was spent handling things behind the scenes. All activities that could easily be accomplished by the Chosen.

In the morning, once breakfast was over, Brent arrived at our unit’s camp, his expression solemn. As soon as he appeared, everyone suddenly stood at attention, with even Diane following along. “Everyone, it looks like today is going to be a particularly fierce battle,” he said in a serious tone, causing all of us to look at him questioningly.

“According to our scouts, the enemy has been gathering more and more grandmasters in response to the failed jailbreak yesterday, and the shift in the balance of the battlefield.” As he spoke, he turned and gazed off into the distance, towards where the Light camp rested. “With more high-level combat power being brought into the fight, it only stands to reason that the battles ahead will become more harrowing. As the Dark Dragon Unit is an elite team, it is likely that you all will come under fire during today’s battle.”

“However, it is the lord’s decision that we must give your team its grand debut. You all are to prepare to depart with the Infantry unit in thirty minutes. Once in the field, assist the main unit in advancing towards the enemy’s camp. However, once the grandmasters appear, your highest priority is to escape safely.”

Clearly, Brent himself was conflicted about these orders, so Diane stepped forward to speak. “Sir, if I may, why do we not request reinforcements as well to maintain the current situation?”

Brent smiled bitterly at her question, shaking his head. “Unfortunately, that is not an option. Given our current momentum, the rear command does not deem it necessary to invest additional resources here at the present moment, and instead wish to reinforce the lines that are already struggling.”

There was only the one battlefield in this dungeon, so that was likely just a background detail to explain away why one side would get an abundance of reinforcements when the tides were turned against them. Still, Diane furrowed her brow, clearly displeased by the information. “Do we have any other standing orders during the battle?”

Again, Brent shook his head to deny this. “The specifics will be left to your unit commander. There is too much chaos on the battlefield to arrange specific orders for you all, especially given the nature of your unit. I will leave you in Sir Advent’s care until the end of the day’s fighting. As I said before, I only ask that you all try to return in one piece.”

After saying that, Brent turned to leave the camp, likely having other areas that he needed to deliver orders to. Once he was gone, Diane let out a long sigh and turned to face me. “What are the odds that we can make it back today?” she asked quietly, glancing over at the other recruits.

“I don’t think that we should have much of a problem making it back alive, so long as we are careful about the other party’s high-level power,” I mused, but Diane shook her head to deny this.

“They’re going to focus fire on us as soon as we show the skills that we used in the ambush yesterday. The fact that I took out a grandmaster, and the others were able to safely restrain the two masters in battle, despite one of them being specialized to counter dark skills, is enough to know that they will see us as a serious threat.” After she said that, she looked towards the outer perimeter of the camp. “I’d say that at least half of us aren’t going to make it back today, and will be spending the night in the Light camp’s cells.”

My face tensed slightly at that, knowing that there would likely be more to it than that. If anyone from the unit was caught, they would likely be interrogated about the new techniques, possibly even tortured for information. I didn’t know if the NPCs of the dungeon would be able to give out skill quests or not. If they could, there was a real risk of the other army gaining their own dragon form.

I took a deep breath, calmly assessing the situation. Most likely, the skills could not be passed so easily, or they wouldn’t have tried to get me to be the one to do it previously. Dylon or one of the others would have just asked the recruits for the skill quests to get a head start. In the dungeon’s background settings, there had to be restrictions on who could or could not pass on their skills. Perhaps only those with the ‘talent’ of an instructor, I wasn’t sure.

Either way, that was something that we’d only have to worry about later. It was almost time for us to move out, so the rest of the unit packed up their gear and walked towards the main infantry camp. As expected of a main force, it was far larger than that of our own, smaller unit. Dozens of larger tents were spread out, each designed to hold a large number of soldiers.

Among the soldiers, I noted several who did not match the native race of the Dark camp. Whether they were beastfolk, human, elf, or some other race, they all had the same brand on their forehead, marking them as either a Player or a Chosen.

Among these, many of them looked excited for the day’s battle, talking amongst themselves about how much experience they could receive, or the number of credits that they would be able to earn from the fighting. For the others, however, they had more solemn expressions as they donned their armors.

“Everyone!” a brilliant voice called out, and the players excitedly turned to look at its source. A silver-haired woman in plate armor stood at the heart of the camp, her pitch-black skin a stark contrast to her armor. “We move out in five! Split into your groups, and prepare to charge!”

It looks like the infantry haven’t been informed of the increase in high-level combat power, Diane messaged me silently, and I gave a small nod of agreement. If they had been told such, even thee players would not be looking as relaxed as they were now. That, or they just didn’t even consider a grandmaster to be anything to worry about, not taking the battle seriously in the slightest.

“How long would it take you to set up a runic ritual?” I asked quietly, and Diane pursed her lips in thought.

“Depends on the size. As long as it’s darkness-based, I just need to be able to spread the runes along the perimeter of the area. However, if those runes are destroyed, or my focus is interrupted, the whole thing can be taken apart. The other method is for me to act as the focus of the ritual, but that requires me to be a rather obvious stationary target.” After saying that, she glanced up at me. “Why, did you have a specific ritual in mind?”

I hesitated briefly, before shaking my head. “No, not really.” I had considered whether she could erect a field of darkness to cover our retreat at the last minute. However, with such strict conditions, it would probably go poorly to try to do such a thing under the eyes of the enemy forces. “When the time comes, I’ll draw their attention. Try to get as many points as you can until then.”

Diane nodded her head in agreement, and we began to advance in the middle of the infantry. Aside from our distinctive armor, there was little to set us apart from the rest of the advancing forces. 

As for me, I was quite curious to see what the battlefield itself would look like. Given that I had been stuck in camp since the beginning of the dungeon, I hadn’t had the chance to take a proper look, aside from the mission of Diane’s that I was allowed to observe.

Our march carried us out of the Dark camp, over a large series of hills that stretched for several kilometers. By the time we stopped, I could no longer even see our previous camp. However, I could see the Light army, lined up on a hill more than five thousand meters away. The two armies faced each other, and I could only assume that their formation was similar to ours, with the knights in the lead, and other units waiting behind the infantry.

In between the two armies was a barren wasteland, one which showed the obvious scars of battle. Craters and jagged rocks lined the landscape, and not a single blade of grass had survived.

“Advance!” the female leader from before shouted out, and the knights lifted their shields, running forward with the infantry behind them. On the other side of the battlefield, the Light army began to move as well, mirroring our movements.

As soon as we began to move, arrows and spells raced through the air above us, crashing down against the ground around the enemy forces. With their line of sight obscured, they were left to fire blindly, hoping to hit their mark. Of course, that also meant that the enemy was doing the same, with arrows and bolts of light crashing down around our advancing forces.

My squad immediately entered their draconic forms, deploying their auras to mitigate the damage from light attacks. Others were less fortunate, with pained cries already filling the air. One beam of light, as thick as my waist, crashed into a soldier barely a dozen meters away, shattering his armor and sending him flying back with a scream of pain.

I had to restrain myself from teleporting to the enemy backline and wreaking havoc, knowing that would just bring out the enemy’s upper ranks sooner. If I acted immediately, Diane and the others would have almost no chance to get points. At the same time, I didn’t try to issue commands to my own unit, because I knew better than anyone that I was not a proper battlefield commander. I did not know these people or their skills well enough to command them accurately.

Instead, I trusted them to follow their own training. They had all heard the same orders before, to make sure that we were able to retreat when we needed to retreat.

More and more skills crashed into the ground around us, until eventually the two armies met in a melee clash. At that point, the ranged units stopped trying to interfere in this brawl, and moved their attention to trying to hit the backlines of the opposing party.

Of course, now that we were in this brawl, I was finally able to start acting. I drew the draconic sword that I had been given the day before, flickering around the battlefield while maintaining my Ghost-X effect.

Because of the special effect of Ghost-X, which allowed me to maintain stealth even after attacking, I was confident in inflicting maximum damage in a chaotic mess like this. I didn’t aim to assassinate the enemy units, but rather to cripple them. I teleported behind a knight in full armor, slashing out with my sword while using the Sunder skill to create a gap in the armor for others to exploit. Or, I would cut at the back of their knees to injure them, making it easier for others to attack.

The point was that I didn’t deal the finishing blows myself. If I did, that would just attract even more attention from the supervising forces. If the damage was limited to people being injured in melee, such could be overlooked. But, if people were dropping dead without anyone visibly targeting them, that would be far more suspicious.

That said, there were also several assassins from both sides mixed in. With my True Sight, I could make out quite a few assassins from the Light army weaving through the battlefield. One of them approached by my side, aiming to target a soldier near me. However, I created a spike of darkness beneath him, striking into his leg and cancelling out his stealth.

When the assassin suddenly appeared with a grunt of pain, the nearby soldier looked on in surprise, before immediately taking advantage of the situation to slice at the assassin’s neck. Blood gushed out, the white-cloaked man collapsing to the ground as I flickered away, moving to a different region of the chaotic brawl.