This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

It had to be said: Sigmund’s veteran troops were elite even by demon-empire standards.

Despite the terrifying onrush of storm elementals with their howling winds and crackling lightning, two demon divisions obeyed orders and met them head-on.

The heavy infantry roared in unison, driving rune-etched giant shields into the earth. The runes flared, linking into a dim energy barrier. Soldiers behind thrust spears through the gaps; battle techniques and the elementals’ bursting lightning combined into a deafening cacophony.

Flesh-and-blood met pure elemental constructs. Under the initial impact the demon line buckled and suffered casualties, but through discipline and feral determination they managed—bloody and battered—to blunt the storm’s momentum.

At almost the same moment the front clashed, the demon mages behind completed their chants.

Blood-arrows, fireballs, ice blades—spells flew over the frontline and rained down on the storm elementals.

Mana surged against elemental shells. Under the concentrated magical bombardment, many elementals let out silent shrieks and collapsed into uncontrolled currents of wind and stray electricity.

If this continued, Sigmund might well take these powerful storm spirits at only a small cost.

But the humans weren’t going to stand idle.

Under the adjutant’s orders, two thousand puji masters split into wings, each leading ten thousand or so puji. Like two white tides, they swept around the area where the storm elementals and demon vanguard clashed, striking the demon army’s flanks—because storm elementals won’t distinguish friend from foe in the chaos.

At the same time the adjutant shouted into the armored puji’s hollow belly where Inanna hid: “Commander! Issue the attack order!”

“Understood!” came a muffled reply from within the rock-plate carapace.

The adjutant was a little annoyed—after leaving the chaos zone the commander had inexplicably crawled into a heavy armored puji. Though the adjutant was the actual commander of the field, morale still took a hit when the nominal leader cowered inside a shell.

He didn’t know the arrangements were Lin Jun’s orders. Lin Jun didn’t want Sigmund to see Inanna’s pink puji and make the connection to himself.

For Lin Jun, winning this battle was almost trivial—borderline too easy. He could have directly seized control of Sigmund’s body and, at close range, stabbed Velaris fatally to end the fight on the spot.

But that would make Lin Jun just doing unpaid work for humanity. And based on his read of Sigmund, that man would rather die with him than submit if suddenly forced. Sigmund was too valuable to casually drive to suicide.

So Lin Jun’s real challenge was to quietly leverage his advantage without alerting Sigmund, helping Inanna at least push the battle toward parity. After all, Sigmund commanded a full, disciplined demon army—winning outright without pulling in the north’s reserves would be unrealistic.

Still… Sigmund had called them a rabble.

Eight thousand puji began to move.

The two Puji Master wings slammed into the demon units they’d been assigned to. After a sparse volley of arrows and mushroom artillery, the frontlines collided and the battle dissolved into chaotic close-quarters fighting.

Every kind of bizarre attack erupted across the field.

Suicide puji detonated inside demon ranks, releasing sticky poisonous mists from their caps; jumping arcs of electricity leapt across metal armor; corrosive fluids sizzled on shields.

The demon troops, unprepared for such variety, quickly lost formation and suffered heavy losses.

After leaving many casualties behind, the damaged demon divisions retreated in disorder. Only concentrated arrow volleys from the rear allowed them to stabilize and disengage.

The humans’ initial success sent Puji Master morale skyrocketing—but Sigmund’s brow tightened.

One of his veteran divisions had been pushed back by an enemy relying mainly on magical pets? Preposterous.

He knew, however, that cowardice wasn’t to blame. The puji’s strange, varied attacks had simply flummoxed troops lacking experience against them.

The seasoned commander didn’t panic. From a single exchange he identified the Puji Masters’ weakness and adjusted the deployment.

The fresh demon divisions stopped trying to rush into close combat with the puji. They held the line. Meanwhile, archers in the rear were buffed by magic and rained down dense volleys upon the puji threatening to close.

With whistling as they cut the air, countless arrows fell and pinned swathes of puji to the ground. If the Puji Masters wanted to drive their creatures forward, they would have to accept terrible losses.

That wasn’t all.

A five-hundred-strong corps of blood knights, led by Sigmund’s adjutant, maneuvered around the storm elementals and puji to strike the Puji Masters’ flank.

The fighting ground outside the pass was relatively flat—a terrain unfavorable to puji tactics. Sigmund’s two countermeasures put the Puji Masters in a bind.

They could not force a breakthrough without throwing massive numbers into the arrow storm; yet if they committed their main force, the blood knights would rip them apart—five hundred blood knights could shatter a thousand puji in a single decisive charge.

“Looks like that’s all they can do,” Sigmund sneered.

Then the battle suddenly shifted.

A wave of Lin Jun’s controlled suicide puji burst from behind the Puji Master ranks.

Unlike the throwaway fodder seen earlier, these elite suicide puji were encased in hard chitin, body curled into dense spheres. With Acceleration LV9 they rocketed toward the blood knights at astonishing speed.

Sigmund’s adjutant reacted quickly, reining in his mounts and shouting orders for an evasive maneuver while organizing a counter: “Blood-arrows! Fire!”

Concentrated crimson arrows formed from condensed blood tore through the air, aimed at the rolling puji flood.

But the result was worse than expected.

The puji’s incredible speed was one factor, but crucially their unified chitin shell—Chitinous Carapace LV10—gave them far greater defense than ordinary puji.

Unless a blood-arrow struck perfectly, it would at best make a rolling puji skid a few turns; it could not reliably stop the charge. This was completely different from the cheap puji being mown down by arrow storms elsewhere.

“Cease the attack! Full retreat to the main line!” Seeing the counter barely effective and the spheres closing fast, the adjutant decided to pull back and abandon the flank.

But it was too late. The puji’s short-range burst speed outpaced the mounts.

With chained explosions and a rising cloud of dust, the shockwave swallowed the trailing knights.

In the end that elite five-hundred cavalry force staggered back with barely two hundred survivors—saved only because the adjutant personally held the rear and bought time.

Many of the lost knights weren’t killed outright; their mounts had lost legs or been blown from under them and the riders were trapped isolated on the flank. Cut off and facing more rolling suicide puji, their fate was sealed.

Blood knights were not easily replaced. Losing nearly three hundred to a probing flank cut deeply.

“Seems this rabble isn’t so easy to handle,” the voice in Sigmund’s head gloated, which only stung him further.

Sigmund’s contempt evaporated. He mobilized more reserve formations; he intended to teach these Puji Masters exactly what they were up against.