The snow elves on the other side seemed to have realized what Hel's group was trying to do. Their attacks became increasingly fierce.
When Hel and her team were just about to retreat into the tunnel, the enemy could no longer sit still.
With a series of sharp whooshes, figures leapt down from the rooftops — and Hel finally got a clear look at them.
They looked like young girls, almost loli-like in appearance, but their limbs were grotesquely mutated.
Their arms ended in sharp claws like beasts, and their legs were built for digitigrade movement, like cats or dogs — completely opposite in structure to human legs.
At the same time, two new information windows appeared before Hel's eyes:
[Name]: Snow Elf Mutant
[Rank]: Tier 1
[Power]: 18
[Description]: A snow elf enslaved and genetically altered by goblins — expendable cannon fodder.
[Name]: Snow Elf Assassin
[Rank]: Tier 2
[Power]: 38
[Description]: A snow elf enslaved and genetically modified by goblins — an advanced cannon fodder unit.
Thank goodness, their levels aren't high.
Seeing the scan results, Hel breathed a sigh of relief. There had to be at least a thousand of them, if not more.
If they had all been like the earlier Tier 3 and Tier 4 snow elves she'd seen, this expedition team would've been finished today.
But if the strongest among them were only Tier 2 — there was nothing to worry about.
Time to stop thinking and just crush them head-on.
A roaring tide of snow elves charged toward Hel's formation, like waves crashing against a steel dam.
Yet they couldn't even scratch Hel's forces — they were simply slaughtered.
But what was terrifying was that…
They felt no fear.
They kept coming, endlessly, like waves upon waves, throwing themselves into certain death — even more like undead than Hel's own skeleton army.
If Hel hadn't been storing their corpses in her spatial ring while commanding the fight, the tunnel they were standing in would've already been clogged with bodies.
Something wasn't right.
Hel frowned as she watched the suicidal charge.
Based on their earlier behavior — sneaky, darting in and out of shadows, shooting from a distance — this kind of mindless rush made no sense at all.
What could possibly be driving them to fight like this?
What was the point of such a suicidal attack?
To wear them down?
But that didn't make sense either.
Her forces were all either undead or mechanical golems — neither of which had stamina to wear down.
There was no way the enemy commander hadn't noticed that.
Even if they couldn't tell the undead apart, they must have recognized the mechanical sentinels among her troops.
No — they must have another plan.
Are they stalling for time? Waiting for reinforcements? Setting up some kind of trap that requires us to stay in this city?
Hel's mind raced as she analyzed every angle, probing the surroundings for clues.
And just then, the seemingly one-sided battle suddenly shifted.
A smaller figure darted out from behind the lines — shorter and slighter than the rest.
Unlike the others, her arms were almost normal, and she held a gleaming mithril dagger in her hand.
Her movements were clear and precise — she rushed straight toward a Tier 3 Bone Swordmaster who was busy hacking away at enemies.
In a flash, she plunged the dagger into the skeleton's back.
Crack!
The elemental crystal inside the skeleton shattered.
Its soul flame flickered once — then went out completely.
That was the first casualty Hel had suffered so far.
"Damn it — a Tier 3 just made a move," Hel hissed.
"And a sneak attack at that — an instant kill on another Tier 3?!"
Her soul flame pulsed sharply as she quickly scanned the battlefield.
Tier 1, Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 1, Tier… 3.
There!
"Kill that one."
She immediately commanded her strongest subordinate to strike — and before the snow elf assassin could even react, a single sword stroke ended her life.
After that, the battle returned to its grim rhythm.
Low-tier snow elves kept charging mindlessly, while any Tier 3s that appeared were instantly identified and taken out by Hel's command.
After their assassination attempt failed, the enemy made no new moves.
It really did seem like they were just trying to exhaust Hel's team — but she wasn't about to gamble on that.
What if they're just buying time for something worse? What if stronger enemies are coming?
She couldn't take that risk.
If this was all just a stalling tactic for a more powerful foe, her team might be annihilated before she even realized it.
So, Hel decided to stay put and use the tunnel's narrow terrain to hold the line.
Meanwhile, her real body — controlling the operation from elsewhere — began disassembling the ruins' walls.
She needed to collapse the passage before her expedition unit was wiped out.
If the walls here were made of Basaltite, known to be unbreakable to anyone below Saint-tier, it should be enough to block whatever was coming.
And if — by some terrible luck — the enemy really did have a Saint-tier powerhouse...
Well, there'd be nothing she could do.
But come on — how unlucky could she possibly be?
There were only a handful of Saints on the entire continent.
What were the odds she'd run into one while digging through some random goblin ruin?
That'd be like winning the lottery without buying a ticket.
So, time passed in tense silence.
The snow elves' side eventually received reinforcements — this time, a batch of mechanical golems joined their ranks.
But these new units were even weaker.
[Name]: Spherical Mech Soldier
[Rank]: Tier 1
[Power]: 15
[Description]: Cannon fodder units from goblin mechanical engineering.
They might not have been strong, but their numbers were staggering — an endless metallic tide.
Even though Hel's team fought fiercely, without slacking in the slightest,
the sheer quantity of spherical mechs eventually overwhelmed them.
The vanguard — the Bone Berserker Captain — was the first to be swallowed by the metallic flood,
followed by the rear ranks of skeletons and golems.
And when the enemy tide finally surged close enough to reach Hel herself —
She finally made her move.
Raising her pale, jade-like skeletal hand, she pointed toward the incoming swarm of spherical mech soldiers.