Rui had to admit that his excitement was perhaps a bit distasteful. He was acting the way Zoomers back in his previous life acted when a new movie in their favorite franchise was released. A thousand Martial Squires were going to die soon, and that was certainly going to be a huge blow to the Martial Artist community, in their class conflict against states.
Still, he didn't care about such far-minded topics at the moment. All he wanted was to obtain the data that he had been pining for in order to clear the dungeon.
He watched with sharp alertness as the raid force entered the dungeon one by one, adopting an on-guard formation as they prepared themselves.
"Any preliminary sighting?" Captain Deacon asked.
"No, sir," One of the Martial Squires beside him replied as her eyes glowed. "I cannot detect a single monster as of yet."
Captain Deacon frowned, narrowing his eyes wordlessly. This was a little odd since they normally ran into monsters the second they entered floors.
They did not possess the stealth that Void Step gave Kane and Rui, thus they were always prepared to be attacked by monsters very soon after they entered the floor.
His scout, a powerful high-grade Martial Squire with complete mastery over multiple grade-nine sensory techniques usually spotted several of them even as they entered the dungeon. She was one of the extremely few Martial Squires who wasn't completely hampered to the normal sensory range that normal Martial Squires were normally restricted to. Her ability to travel the Shionel Dungeon without being completely hampered had earned her an extremely attractive contract with Deacon Industries. It was why she had willingly volunteered for the mission.
"This feels strange," She murmured. "I can vaguely sense movement and life in this dungeon, but I cannot sense anything in our immediate vicinity."
"Stay extremely alert at all times, got it?" Captain Deacon sternly instructed her. "I don't want any mistakes."
"Yes, captain,"
"Has the raid force completely boarded?"
"Just now, sir,"
He nodded, turning back as he approached extremely close to the raid force.
"My fellow adventurers!" He addressed all of them with a loud voice, amplified by his superhuman constitution. "We have arrived at the final floor of the Shionel Dungeon. We have arrived at the very foundation of this dungeon. This isn't our first rodeo. You know your roles. You know your positions. You know your duties. We will charge as a single cohesive unit into the heart of the floor, and we will not break apart. United we stand, divided we fall."
He nodded to all of them, before turning back towards the floor.
"CHARGE!!!" He bellowed loud enough for everyone to hear.
The entirety of the one-thousand-strong army rapidly began moving forward at an equal pace, which was quite impressive for Martial Squires. Speed varied to far greater among Martial Artists than it did among humans. Not even Usain Bolt could run ten times faster than the average human, but people like Kane were capable of such a feat. The specialization of superhuman prowess in Martial bodies as well as specialized Martial Art techniques that bore a great amount of affinity towards the user allowed for such vast disparities.
Thus getting a bunch of Martial Squires to charge forward at the same speed was a lot more difficult than doing the same for humans.
Suddenly, the scout Martial Artist shivered as an expression of horror sprung onto her face.
"Hm?" Captain Deacon noticed her reaction. "What is it, Fresca? What have you sens-"
His words choked in his mouth as an overwhelming sense of pressure washed over him. His eyes widened as his sense of danger spiked.
"DEFEND!!" He bellowed as he spread his arms wide, inhaling deeply before rapidly exhaling, clapping his arms together. "TEMPESTUAL WHIRLWIND SHIELD!"
A tremendous shockwave emerged expanding forward faster than the speed of sound.
Yet it did not get to expand unperturbed.
No.
A blindingly fast projectile blurred into vision, charging toward them.
BOOM!!!
An enormous explosion of wind ensued as Captain Deacon's wide area sound shield managed to negate the offensive impact of the attack, halting it in its tracks!
('Is that… a root?') His eyes widened. ('Are we fighting the dungeon itself?!')
He didn't even have time to gather his thoughts, for less than a millisecond later, the sense of danger elevated even further.
"STAND YOUR GROUND, WARRIORS!" He bellowed, trying to quash any collapse of morale. "WE ARE MARTIAL ARTISTS. WE ARE-!"
He choked on his words as something entered his field of vision, stunning him speechless.
An avalanche of roots crashed into them.
BOOM!!!!!
Captain Deacon gritted his teeth with a furious expression as a titanically powerful attack crashed into him. Each root struck with the power of a grade-ten Martial Artist.
He did not possess the ability to protect all of his Martial Artist.
"ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK!!!" He bellowed. "CUT THESE ROOTS DOWN BEFORE THEY CUT US DOWN!"
He wasn't sure how many heard him. He wasn't sure how many were even still alive, but he had to hope. They were all high-grade Martial Artists, after all, they could withstand a few attacks peak-grade Squire-level attacks.
Another wave of roots washed over the entire group from all directions.
Captain Deacon gritted his teeth as he braced himself as eight roots chose to target him out of all people. He was the only one who could withstand the root attacks, being the sole grade-ten defensive Martial Squire in the entire group.
Yet before the roots could strike him, some happened.
A gigantic inferno intercepted the roots from the right. A man appeared to his left, deflecting them aside with his palm, while a woman simply caught roots approaching Chairman Deacon from the front with her body.
"Don't lose heart!" She told Captain Deacon. "We are not weak. We can lead our force to victory!"
The several grade-ten Martial Squires, who each protected him, nodded, steeling their expressions as they took their stances
Captain Deacon grinned, feeling a warm surge of will and euphoria emerge deep from within. "WE SHALL WIN!"
