The earth split open, revealing the sky directly overhead. Dragon wings beat through the air, countering their own weight as they carried Tashan up through the clouds. Then the wings folded.
Inertia propelled her another meter or two upward before her entire body plunged downward. She dove from ten thousand meters, height converting into ever-increasing speed, while eyes sharper than a falcon's locked onto her target a hundred meters above the ground. The spear crafted by the Dwarven Artisans for this very moment was gripped in Tashan's grasp, though strictly speaking, the weapon was her very self: any bird but a monstrous dragon of her stature would disintegrate in such a high-speed dive.
Like a meteor falling from the heavens.
Frenzied winds tore at Tashan's skin—or rather, her indestructible body ripped through the air before her. A curly black mane was braided into a bud-shaped bun, secured tightly at the nape by a custom hair net—Victor had noted that this body's hair contained magic too. Neither hair nor nails grew or fell out, making short cuts impossible; thus, this style offered the greatest freedom of movement. The ground and everything upon it rapidly magnified in her field of vision. Tashan's target wasn't the armored vehicle carrying the flying dragon, but another one positioned at a distance from the large vehicle.
The Spear from the Sky roared as it struck the earth. Under its terrifying energy, the lance easily pierced the armored vehicle's small window, the glass shattering into fragments the instant it touched the spearhead. The sensation of penetration traveled up the spear to Tashan's arm, prompting her to swiftly spread her wings.
In the next instant, the spear's wielder crashed onto the armored vehicle, a thunderous crack erupting from the several-centimeter-thick steel hull. As if struck by a giant hammer from above, a circular dent instantly appeared on the armored vehicle's roof, expanding uncontrollably in the blink of an eye. The struck steel beast resembled crumpled paper or a crushed soda can—the entire body caved in from the center, flattened, and snapped clean in two.
Any potential mechanisms or runes were utterly destroyed by the blow. The steel barrel bent into a startling arc, its tip losing its sharpness, melting like molten metal into a blunt rod. Even after flapping her wings to slow her descent, Tasha's body still throbbed with pain, as if she'd been struck by an airbag in a car crash—skin intact, but her insides churning. She gasped for breath, swallowing the metallic taste of blood. The gun barrel plunged into the mangled wreckage of the armored vehicle, prying up the collapsed roof panel and flinging it aside.
The interior was a chaotic mess. The driver had been reduced to an unrecognizable mass of flesh. Tasha used the gun barrel to dislodge the remains from what resembled a dashboard. The moment the action was complete, she swiftly flapped her wings. Her dragon wings lifted her into the air, and the wreckage beneath her was instantly slammed into by another armored vehicle, sent flying. The other armored vehicles reacted quickly, revving their engines and darting around. If not for the real, bloody bodies strewn on the ground, Tasha might have said it looked like a crazy bumper car ride at an amusement park.
They raced fast and erratically, making another aerial strike nearly impossible to land accurately. But it was enough. The force and speed of that earlier blow, and the resulting assessment of the armored vehicle's approximate defenses, had already formed in Tasha's mind. Her brief glimpse inside the vehicle and the frantic movements of the others confirmed her suspicions.
She abruptly pivoted mid-air, agile as a bird. This ascent was only a few meters, making the landing point more precise and minimizing unnecessary combat damage. Though no longer as sharp as before, the spear remained hard and powerful. Its shaft thrust diagonally outward, piercing through the armored vehicle's narrow window and impaling the driver's body, pinning him to the seat.
Tasha withdrew the spear, smashing the remaining shards of glass from the window. Too small to crawl through, the window still allowed her to hear the voices inside.
"Unit 23 under attack!"
"Unit 7 providing backup!"
"Unit 12 advancing toward the two o'clock direction..."
"...Unit 23, please respond!"
Chaotic, electronically distorted voices echoed from within the armored vehicle.
The numerous similarities between Earth technology and magical technology observed thus far, combined with his current observations, allowed Tasha to make some reasonable inferences.
Tasha smiled, took flight once more, and met the oncoming armored vehicles charging toward him.
The armored vehicle that had been heading this way immediately veered off course upon seeing this. Noticing Tasha merely kicked the tank out of combat, it paid no further attention, and the other tanks temporarily ignored the immobile wreckage. Tasha maneuvered among them, waiting, until the towering steed galloped onto the battlefield.
The Beastspeaker Prima rode her spirit companion Joey, carrying the bard Jacqueline, as hooves clattered into the fray. The horse, bound by a pact with the druid, gleamed with a new, glossy sheen. Its iron hooves, as large as bowls, could crush soldiers blocking the path with a single stomp, yet it could also swerve sharply like a fish darting through water to evade the approaching armored vehicles. Following Tashan's command, they reached the abandoned armored vehicle. The horses leapt onto its hull, and Prima gently set Jacqueline down.
Her fairy heritage kept this woman in her late twenties as petite as a girl. Clutching her harp, Jacqueline squeezed through the window, her catlike flexibility allowing her to slip inside. She curled up between the corpse and the dashboard, stroking her harp.
Jacqueline certainly couldn't operate this armored vehicle, and Tasha had no intention of making her try.
"Sing, Jacqueline," Tasha said.
The driver of one vehicle seemed to sense the impending danger, charging straight toward the armored vehicle where Jacqueline was. Tasha repeated her maneuver, descending like a hawk diving for prey. The driver, pierced by a bullet, stubbornly pressed against the dashboard as the armored vehicle surged forward. Tasha drove the steel tip of her gun deep into the vehicle's tracks. The metal tracks and gun barrel screeched in a bone-chilling sound, sparks flying like iron grinding against a grinding wheel. Before the vehicle halted, Tasha ascended and plunged again, accelerating to slam into its flank.
The armored vehicle finally veered off course, rolling over in a wide arc before coming to rest on its side. The spear, having fulfilled its many missions, met its end, twisted into a heap of scrap metal. Tasha, whose body had collided with the steel beast, was flung backward by the recoil. She flapped her wings to steady herself, wiping blood from her mouth and nose. Her heart beat erratically, reminding her that even a dragon-kin body was not indestructible. Another blow like that, and this form might be beyond repair.
But the objective was achieved. The humans had lost their chance.
Jacqueline began to sing.
Her harp was plucked, her pearly teeth parted slightly, and the song rang out. Gentle, hypnotic tones drifted outward, clinging to taut nerves.
The potency of a bard's song inversely proportional to its range. To hypnotize warriors on a battlefield, tense and blood-pumping, the song's reach would be severely limited. Sound served as the medium for the bard's skill, yet battlefield clamor and soundproof armor plates caused significant disruption.
However, between each armored vehicle existed a device akin to a walkie-talkie or broadcast system.
The enchanted song resonated within one armored vehicle, then, aided by magical technology, transmitted precisely to every other armored vehicle's interior. This technology, which had once helped humanity stay connected, now faithfully served its purpose—even as it aided humanity's enemies. The demonic melody filled the confined space, becoming an inescapable whisper. Drivers' eyes widened in terror before their eyelids grew heavy. Their bodies swayed, then collapsed.
Not even the impact of their heads hitting the dashboard could rouse them.
Crashes finally erupted between the armored vehicles. The sleeping drivers caused one after another to rear-end each other, smash into trees, or veer off the battlefield. Those who survived the collisions and awoke found no time to react before the song at their ears lulled them back to sleep. Tasha chose one stranded in the middle of the battlefield and unleashed the skill attached to her Bard.
[Volume Up]:Turn up the volume! Speed up the rhythm! Louder! Stronger! Further! You can amplify the effect of something hundreds or thousands of times over, getting so hyped you can't stop! Anything alive can be amplified to bursting! Even dead things can be amplified for you to see!
Come to think of it, this skill was practically tailor-made for the Bard.
The broadcast amplified dramatically. The song pierced through steel plates, echoing across the battlefield, lulling everyone nearby into drowsiness. The polyphonic melody intensified wave after wave through the broadcast, its sonic waves washing over the entire wilderness, gradually silencing the once fiercely contested battlefield. The battle cries ceased. The clash of weapons fell silent. Warriors fought to keep their eyes open against overwhelming drowsiness, only to stumble and collapse, falling asleep alongside the enemies they had just fought to the death.
The scene was utterly spectacular.
Every ordinary soldier on the battlefield had fallen asleep. Those still able to move acted swiftly. The powerful spirit beasts that had just entered the fray (the arena's beast cages had provided the Beastspeakers with many formidable allies) and the druids who could transform into brown bears and lions hurriedly pushed the armored vehicle, now under the influence of Tarsha's skill, a safe distance off the battlefield. Then the goblins created a collapse, while the Tree-Speaker's vines buried it layer by layer. The pushers and beasts scrambled away. Seconds after they fled, the armored vehicle erupted in a violent explosion.
Amid the roar, the fallen remained in their eternal slumber.
The battle ended sooner than anyone had anticipated.
[Volume Up]Another one-time skill capable of causing an explosion. Even with the cushioning of earth and vines, the shockwave still knocked the cart-pushers to the ground. Could this technique be used as an offensive skill in the future? Tashan's thoughts drifted briefly before he quickly dismissed the idea with regret. The greater the energy, the more devastating the explosion. Small items proved useless, and enhancing enemy weapons risked doing more harm than good. Such magical expenditure was better spent crafting bombs; this was merely passable for emergency use.
The adventurers swiftly cleared the battlefield, binding enemies and rescuing their own—those affected by the lullaby could sleep for a full day and night, provided they suffered no injury. Druid and Mavis, who could barely be considered spellcasters, examined the dragon-catching net atop the last vehicle. They stared at each other blankly, unable to devise a solution.
The dragon and dragon rider lay unconscious. The magic array hummed silently. The armored vehicle functioned as a single unit—its runes impervious to cutting or dismantling, even the tracks immovable. Tasha attempted to collapse or bulge the structure, causing the two long rails to flex up and down as a single unit—yet they remained unbroken.
"You can't figure it out either?" Tasha looked at Victor.
"All I know is it kinda resembles a magic lock... Why should I be the one to solve it?" Victor retorted immediately. "I've never seen this thing before either!"
"I thought a Grand Demon would at least have sufficient insight," Tashan remarked.
"Does seeing something mean you can handle it? Did you learn blacksmithing just by watching dwarves forge?" Victor protested.
"Indeed." Tashan replied.
No matter how mysteriously the artisan dwarves described it, to Tashan, forging machinery was no different than assembling furniture from instructions—memorize the steps and you could complete it. With her now-exceptional memory and dragon-kin body resilient to heat, swinging a hammer was manageable. Even if she'd never become a master who crafted masterpieces through instinct and experience, Tasha felt perfectly capable of being a craftsman. She simply had no interest in it—no reason to waste time.
Victor choked on his words before adding, "So you can speak any language just by hearing it?"
"Yes." Tasha replied, recalling how she'd taught herself a foreign language during a business trip.
"...Well, good for you. Applause for you." Victor said dryly. "Anyway, I can't do it, so you go ahead. Something like a magic lock will vanish once its energy runs out. You can just wait it out."
To think one could calmly wait for it to expire in this situation was downright reckless.
All attempts to cut or destroy it failed. Finally, the artisan dwarves devised a solution. Instead of tampering with the tracks or dismantling the armored vehicle's plates, they used their magic stone smelting technique to weld new runes onto the existing ones. The magic array, like a faulty circuit with haphazardly added wires, flickered a few times before melting into the air.
The dragon crashed down, crushing the armored vehicle's roof. The dragon, which had struggled violently moments before, now lay utterly still. Its eyes were tightly shut, unconscious, its scales dull and lifeless. Dragon Rider Douglas rolled off its back, equally drained. He couldn't stand on his own, yet his mind remained clear.
"This thing is definitely targeting dragons," Douglas said, his brow furrowed. "Otherwise, I shouldn't be the one awake."
Tasha's hand lightly touched the shattered magic circle, her fingers tingling faintly as if touching dry ice. She sensed nothing more—whether because this element-extracted body wasn't pure dragonkin, or because the magic circle had been destroyed.
The good news was that the tracks had become significantly weaker when the magic circle vanished, allowing the goblins to destroy them. Tasha guided the goblins along the tracks, overturning and flattening the laid rails as they went. Those nearby could be salvaged; distant ones were simply destroyed. The goblins themselves required little magic to create, so their destruction posed no great loss.
This battle yielded plenty of salvageable materials.
Most of the mechanical birds had been blown to shreds. Fortunately, the dungeon's drone development program had already established its own direction; identical mechanical birds were now solely used for raw material recovery. Lullaby preserved the remaining armored vehicles as intact as possible. Those that stalled mid-battle were like meat cans delivered to hungry mouths—no matter how thick the metal, it couldn't withstand the diners' slow dismantling.
The best-preserved armored vehicle had only its doors pried off, and even its driver was captured alive.
The Dwarf Artisans' workshop celebrated a bountiful harvest, their craftsmen itching to tinker with their new toys. Tasha instructed them to set aside the vehicle bodies for now and prioritize studying the armored vehicles' communication systems. If they could reverse-engineer those loudspeaker systems, the dragons could stage a few Jacqueline concerts in human settlements. Who knows? It might resolve several major battles without a single drop of blood spilled.
"Do you really think this will work?" Victor poured cold water on the idea. "A bard's skills rely on sound as a medium. Just because sound can be transmitted doesn't mean it solves every problem."
Tasha understood this well.
She still struggled to grasp how spells functioned, but she could sense the fluctuations of magic. What truly took effect wasn't the singing itself—just as Mavis' potions didn't work through scent. Sound, smell, color—all were merely external manifestations of some intricate mechanism at work.
But the broadcasting here utilized magitech, a technology powered by magic stones.
Tasha instinctively believed some synergy could exist between the two. Even if this "intuition" wasn't foolproof, it wasn't entirely without basis. Tasha felt her grasp of Erian's laws resembled how Earth humans understood scientific principles during the Dark Ages—unable to pinpoint the underlying mechanisms yet able to observe patterns, resorting to mysticism to comprehend the world. Mysticism, however, was notoriously unreliable, working sometimes and failing others.
"Worth a shot," Tasha said.
Armored vehicles were piled everywhere in the factory, while the hospital overflowed with wounded. While the hospital's treatment capacity had made significant strides, the number of casualties this time had also surged dramatically: beyond their own wounded, enemy casualties had been brought back as well.
The Lullaby had delivered a massive influx of prisoners of war to the dungeon, nearly filling the pre-prepared POW camps to capacity. The decision not to massacre the prisoners brought relief to many humans with mixed feelings toward the enemy, but it also drew some discontent.
"Many orderlies wonder why we must care for the enemy," Mavis sighed. "The young men and women aren't malicious, but after tending to our own comrades torn to pieces, it's hard not to feel anger toward the enemy. I only hope we can dissuade all the impulsive ones—doctors save lives, they don't take them."
"Beasts have no tradition of taking prisoners," Marion said. "Still, many orcs believe a defeated army should die on the battlefield. Captivity is shameful and pitiful—though some are glad to hear it, eager to know if we'll soon have human slaves." " Marion said. "Many still believe defeated soldiers should die on the battlefield—capture is shameful and pitiful. Though some are actually pleased, wondering if we'll soon have human slaves."
Marion tried to keep her tone neutral and objective, but at the end she still stuck out her tongue and made a helplessly exasperated face. "We won't have any slaves here!" Mavis laughed, shaking her head. Tasha nodded. "Nor are there eternal enemies."
By Geneva Convention standards, Tasha's actions were already quite inhumane. The gravely wounded enemies were abandoned, medical resources prioritized for their own people. But for the young, able-bodied men with only minor, non-disabling injuries, Tasha saw no reason to abandon or spare them.
They saw enemies; Tasha saw resources.
"Including these ones we encountered?" Marion frowned, as if recalling something. "They're... hard to persuade."
"How are Samuel and the others doing?" Tasha asked.
"Not bad," Marion replied.
"Then let them continue," Tasha smiled. "We have time."
The Holy Son of Saros was no longer a lone commander.
The white-robed figures shuttled between hospitals and prisoner camps. This sect, founded on the ideals of light and justice, still bore Saros's name—though it might be unlike any previous iteration of the Saros faith. Among its followers were humans, artisan dwarves, and orcs. The new Saros faith gradually took shape through Samuel's exploration.
Saros's priests appeared at various charitable events, caring equally for enemies whom medical staff refused to tend, performing rites for all the dead, administering last confessions to the dying, and praying for grieving relatives. They told parables to children and the uninitiated, championed virtuous deeds, comforted the lonely, and counseled the depressed. Possessing unparalleled patience and a willingness to endure insults without retaliation, they proclaimed, "The God loves every soul equally; all who seek goodness may be saved."
Over the past days, these Salo followers, growing like a snowball, had become the dungeon's voice to the outside world, much like the newspapers of the southeast corner.
Every blow and every death witnessed made the Salo Holy Son grow. In this regard, Samuel truly possessed a unique advantage. What kind of person would he ultimately become? Tasha waited to see.
The final gain from this battle seemed the most insignificant at first glance.
The mechanical birds and airships had exploded over the wilderness between Lake Rebe and the Southeast Corner, while the armored vehicles had been shattered to pieces here. The metal wreckage of both was collected, though most of their energy dissipated into the air.
This was not a loss.
Blending with the lingering residue from the last airship, the magic in the air grew more comfortable for Tasha. Whether it was illusion or not, flying felt easier than before.
"The magic environment has indeed improved significantly, though this change is rather extravagant," Victor confirmed her suspicion about the magic fluctuations. "For a long time, the magic on the ground was as thin as a dead magic zone. Now, the air around here is barely comparable to what it was hundreds of years ago. "
Perhaps it was more than that.
By the following evening, tiny violet berries appeared on the battlefield.
Fairy lanterns—unremarkable plants, neither beneficial nor harmful—had emerged. Their sudden appearance last time had caused little stir (aside from coaxing an amusing old tale from Victor), but Mavis seemed quite delighted. "Ah, it's you! " the half-elf exclaimed cheerfully. "It doesn't have much flavor, but Mother used it for garnish—such a rare, elegant purple. I only ate it a few times as a child; after that, it stopped growing in the forest."
When asked about its origins, Mavis couldn't say. As for why it vanished, she had no clue. No one knew why the fairy lanterns vanished in the first place, nor why they reappeared in the Angars Forest centuries later.
And now?
The fairy lanterns spread silently, quietly blanketing the wilderness between Lake Rebe and the southeast corner. Once confined solely to the Angars Forest, how had this plant spread here in a single day? It bore no flowers, only fruit. It possessed no roots or leaves, only slender, inconspicuous vines. Tashar, whose eyes watched the battlefield, witnessed their growth process. To the naked eye, it appeared without warning—droplet-like specks rapidly swelling, as swift as the blooming of a night-blooming cereus.
But Tashar, who could sense the flow of magic, perceived more as they grew.
"Are fairies magical creatures?" Tashar asked. "Do they shed dust?"
"Yes," Victor replied. "Fairies produce fairy dust from their wings to conceal their tracks—a peculiar magical ingredient. The moment you see it, you forget its existence. Only those of fairy lineage can perceive it; even the most skilled mages require magical arrays to collect it." He muttered under his breath, "Your description sounds like you're talking about a bird shedding feathers."
Tasha suddenly understood.
The dungeon swiftly consumed a fairy lantern, deconstructing and analyzing it. The findings astonished Tasha: if one were to classify fairy lanterns, they likely belonged not to plants but to fungi.
Fairy lanterns lived in symbiosis with fairies. Invisible spores mingled with fairy dust, appearing in places where fairies frequently roamed. Yet even when the fairies vanished, the fairy lanterns did not disappear.
Just as burdock seeds spread by hitching rides on deer, the departure of deer did not eradicate burdock. For what truly nurtured burdock was water and soil. The fairy lantern spores persisted in the world, like seeds in the desert awaiting the rainy season. When the parched land, resembling a realm of death, once again becomes imbued with magic, these wondrous creatures, vanished for years, flourish anew.
It is not without purpose. This fungus, symbiotic with pure magical beings, possesses a peculiar trait.
The fairy lantern is an exceptional conductor of magic.
No, it is not that it could become some extraordinary magical ingredient—otherwise, mages of the past would have discovered its use long ago. The fairy lantern's "magic conductor" property only benefits itself, allowing it to unconsciously seek the most suitable place to grow. But as a dungeon, Tashan, much like how it devoured soil and trees before, consumes soulless creatures. While this doesn't please the Abyss, it enables her to perfectly mimic similar creations.
She can possess the fairy lantern's abilities and perspective.
The dungeon version of the fairy lantern was born in the magic pool. Under Tashan's urging, spores invisible to the naked eye drifted toward the surface. They swayed along the currents of magic in the air, heading toward the heavily guarded Lake Rebe.
Lake Rebe's magic was insufficient to sustain fairy lantern growth, yet the magical array on the armored vehicle—once powerful enough to confine a dragon—had formed a vast magic circuit with the railroad tracks. Even amidst the tracks dismantled by goblins, traces of potent magic flow still lingered. The fairy lantern spores clung to the rail surface, drifting upstream, instinctively seeking areas with richer magical currents.
What lay beyond the tracks was precisely what Tasha most desired to know.
Her perception followed the tiny spores on their journey, moving with terrifying speed—after all, this was a species capable of spreading across the entire Angars Forest within a single day. Tasha vaguely sensed the scenery on both sides being stretched into vibrant patches. The world felt immense through the fairy lantern's senses. Forward, ever forward—then something enormous, a massive surge of magic, collided with them! The fairy lantern seemed to sense its destination nearing and lunged forward at breakneck speed. At that moment, Tasha activated the [Amplify Volume] skill on one of the spores.
Her narrow, blurred vision expanded and sharpened a thousandfold, allowing Tasha to glimpse the object before her for a fleeting instant.
This colossal machine, spewing thick white mist and roaring as it barreled down the tracks toward them... Was it a train?