On the hillside, Badul looked down at the valley below.
Explosions came intermittently from the trenches. It was the Mushroom Fortress's harassment tactic during the lulls between major battles, and it was thoroughly irritating.
He walked through the position.
The dwarves had the finest craftsmen. Even though these fortifications were only temporary, they were solid and fully functional.
But the problem now was not that the defenses were too weak. It was morale.
As he made his way through, the warriors' eyes no longer held the excitement and courage they'd had on arrival. Their sunken sockets held mostly numbness, and dread of an unknown future.
There was no helping it. Anyone who clearly understood that their enemy was an undead monster, one that could ripen back out of the ground in three days and come surging back, would fall into the same self-doubt.
What was more, lately a fair number of dwarves wounded in battle had begun sprouting mycelium from their bodies.
Badul entered one of the rear strongholds. Here the stone walls were three times thicker than at the front, and runes flowed slowly across their surface, sealing out the muffled explosions outside until they were almost inaudible.
Inside the bunker, besides Zafa Clan Leader Bretta, there was a presence that should never have been there.
The succubus Morfrey sat in the center, wearing a dark gown, her tail swaying gently behind her.
Badul was unmoved by the succubus before him. He simply reported the state of the warriors. "Morale won't hold. If this keeps up, we won't need to fight at all. We'll collapse on our own."
Bretta said nothing. She had no good answer either.
Morfrey, however, tilted her head. "Don't you still have the battle golems? All three are intact, and they have plenty of mana. Just keep fighting."
"Keep fighting?" Badul said angrily. "Those Puchi across from us die and come back to life, then come back again. What are we supposed to fight them with? Send my warriors to throw their lives away for nothing?"
Morfrey's gaze settled on his face, a pink glow kindling deep in her pupils. "All you have to do is obey."
The veins at Badul's temple stood out. His right hand trembled faintly, and his five fingers tightened bit by bit.
But under Morfrey's stare, he finally loosened his fingers and bowed his head. "Yes."
Watching his retreating back, Morfrey puzzled over how unstable the [Charm] effect was on him.
She glanced again at the Zafa Clan Leader beside her. Her control over Bretta was perfectly stable. It seemed only this Badul had the problem.
If Badul had not been such an important combatant, she would gladly have killed him and been done with it.
The Mushroom Fortress's Puchi army launched another assault.
The Puchi Masters were fearless, their fighting spirit running high.
By contrast, on the dwarven side, despite a staggeringly favorable casualty ratio, deep fear lurked in the warriors' eyes.
If not for the invisible psychic field binding them, their resolve would have crumbled back when No. 10 reappeared after its second resurrection.
The dwarves' only advantage at present was the way their three battle golems countered No. 10.
These golems were different from the two that guarded the gate to the core of the Puchi underground city. Lin Jun's golems were formed entirely of naturally grown S-grade magic crystal, without a trace of any other material.
These three golems, by contrast, were humanoid alloy frames inlaid with large quantities of S-grade magic crystal traded from Lin Jun.
There was a clear gap in performance, but they were still powerful, especially in their ability to counter spellcasters.
The magic crystal in the golems could disrupt the surrounding mana environment, weakening and deflecting spells. It would not be an exaggeration to call them anti-magic units.
For No. 10, fighting them was like a Rock type going up against a Grass type. The disadvantage was maxed out.
Fortunately, the new model of battle golem the Mushroom Fortress factory had been developing was finally ready.
On the battlefield, Badul once again coordinated with the three golems and charged into the Puchi swarm. He meant to do as he had the previous times: behead No. 10 first, even if it would surge back again in a few days.
Only this time, things were different.
Thump. Boom.
From the distant horizon came a series of muffled rumbles. Something heavy was approaching, its footfalls making the ground tremble.
"Is that... a Giant Puchi?" The Zafa Clan Leader looked over, and indeed saw an enormous silhouette.
The dwarves naturally knew the Mushroom Fortress had Giant Puchi. Running into one now was troublesome, but they had prepared countermeasures, so they would not be thrown into disarray.
But when the colossus actually appeared on the battlefield, the dwarves were dumbstruck.
The Giant Puchi stood taller than a city wall. The edge of its mushroom cap curled back, exposing a dense metal skeleton beneath.
Iron-grey alloy conduits interlaced with mycelium, like vines climbing an ancient tree, woven together with the mushroom body into a single whole. Between the runes engraved across it, blue-white light flowed.
Metal rings coiled around its four tentacles. Four huge A-grade magic crystals floated around each ring, sixteen crystals in all. Guided by [Resonance], they sent out ring after ring of pure mana shockwaves in every direction.
The shockwaves were not violent. Neither the Puchi nor the dwarves they swept over were harmed.
But against the magic runes on weapons and structures, they were devastatingly destructive.
Explosions went off one after another across the dwarven position. It was the sound of their explosive crossbows detonating in their hands.
On every small stronghold, countless precise runes surged out of control and then fell dead.
"That... what is that monster?" The Zafa Clan Leader stared in disbelief at the creature fused from siege golem and Puchi, unable to fathom how such a thing had been made.
The only hope now seemed to rest on Badul and the golems' decapitation squad.
But even the three golems were affected by the mana shockwaves.
The golems' once swift and precise movements began to glitch now and then.
Two of the golems, under Bretta's control, had meant to charge straight at the Giant Puchi. But mid-charge, one of them actually tripped over flat ground from its own uncoordinated movements.
The other was intercepted by No. 10 with ease.
In an instant, the golems' fighting strength was more than halved, the position's defenses became useless, and morale dropped to freezing.
And once again, Lin Jun laid the final straw on this swaying camel's back.
[Kin Maker]
[Dragon Presence]
A vortex of mana rose up from the countless Puchi remains on the hillside. Mycelium swirled through the air, and the mana within the Puchi bodies merged into the vortex, swelling it larger.
Before the dwarves' horrified eyes, a second Giant Puchi appeared right in front of their position, wreathed in a terrifying mushroom-presence. Then it raised a foot toward them.
At this, not even the psychic field could stop the dwarves from breaking.
The dwarves scrambled to flee, but the very trenches they had dug became obstacles in their way.
What was more, though both had short legs, the dwarves had none of the Puchi's talent for rolling charges.
The fleeing dwarves were swallowed up one by one by the rolling Puchi. The annihilation of both legions was an almost foreseeable end.
Meanwhile, No. 10 chose not to keep tangling with the golems. Instead it scooped up the Yellow Codex and flew off in the direction of the dwarves' rout.
Guided by the Yellow Codex, at the very front of the fleeing crowd it found the succubus, a full head taller than the dwarves around her.
And the moment it saw Morfrey, Lin Jun's excited command rang out in its mind. "So that's it. It's Lust! No. 10, take her alive!"
(End of Chapter)
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