[Floor 19]
[Mission Type - Subjugation]
[Objective - Annihilate the enemies!]
The mission window emerged as my party teleported into the middle of the Storm Soarer's town square.
I immediately addressed my battle-ready comrades.
"No assault magic and arrows for this trial attempt. No throwing spears and throwing daggers either. Those are the conditions for our mission this time."
At this point, Party 1 had frequented both the eighteenth floor and the nineteenth floor.
We were currently reattempting the trials to prepare for the twentieth floor climb.
Like how we usually prepared for a Quintal Trial, we would put restrictions to our combat tactic to manipulate the mission's difficulty, which in turn would simulate similar conditions to the major stage.
Swoosh!
An arrow from a far watchtower flew straight at my party.
Jonah swung his spear and parried the projectile effortlessly.
"Since I can't use my magic and Darius can't use his arrows, Devisha will hunt the enemy archer down. The rest of us will hold our position here."
I instructed my comrades.
Upon my order, Devisha quickly dashed to one of the roads and vanished into the environment.
More enemies quickly poured in from all directions after her departure.
[Pirate Lv.17 x40]
[War Hound Lv.15 x12]
[Pirate Captain Lv.20 x4]
"You know what to do."
I told my three comrades that remained with me.
Jonah, Darius, and Shanny quickly formed a triangle formation with me at the center. They barricaded me from the incoming hordes of enemies.
It was a suitable formation given I had been reduced to a useless scarecrow because of the restriction.
"Die!"
One of the pirates shouted as they approached us.
Responding the enemies with composed cold stare, my comrades confronted the pirates.
Three war hounds and two broadswordsmen charged at Jonah.
Undeterred by their number, the shepherd leaped forward and lanced all three beasts at once.
His speed and force were so overwhelming that the canines could not dodge the attack.
The two broadswordsmen tried to counter the shepherd with a simultaneous strike. A pair of crossbowmen nearby was also set to aid them.
Jonah, however, saw through their tactic and used it to his advantage.
Swoosh!
The shepherd thrust himself to the air and somersaulted the way a Tchakran martial artist would.
His stunt dodged him off the crossbow bolts. The projectiles proceeded to strike the broadswordsmen instead.
"Ack!"
"Urgh!"
With the pirates disoriented, Jonah swiftly disposed his opponents.
Slash! Thrust! Slash!
['Jonah (★★)'s Insight has levelled up twice to level 3!]
['Jonah (★★)'s Composure has levelled up to level 4!]
As proven time and time again, my comrades easily overwhelmed the enemies which outnumbered them.
It was almost unbelievable that two of them were originally untrained commonfolk.
The obscure power of the forged land, once again, was the main explanation of this phenomenon.
A glint of metal suddenly flashed across my eyes.
I waved my hand and casted a shield in front of me.
Clang!
An arrow bounced off the magic barrier.
Devisha's voice immediately reached me through the communication blessing.
[Sorry I couldn't prevent that arrow in time. But I've killed the archer.]
"Very well, Devisha. From your position in the watchtower, where do you suggest we move from here?"
[Enemy reinforcements have arrived from east, west, and north. The southern block is the least crowded.]
"Understood. Meet us there."
With our route settled, I turned to our swordswoman.
"We're moving south! Shanny, carve us a path!"
The woman nodded to me and turned toward the southern road.
Even from afar, I could clearly see the veins bulging in the former maid's arm as she wielded her sword.
Maintaining the firm grip, Shanny charged southward through the dense enemy ranks, unleashing flurries of strikes.
Slash! Slash! Slash!
Shanny's charge was unstoppable.
Any enemy trying to intercept her was cut down like a scythe through wheat.
Despite not being in a Berserk state, Shanny was able to easily force her way through ten enemies all by herself.
This was all thanks to her new skill, Power Charge.
It was a skill which allowed her to maintain the heightened strength and speed of her attack for a short period of time.
The skill enabled her to unleash an explosive wave of assaults similar to Berserk, but without the drawback, though the degree of power mustered was lower as well.
Shanny claimed that the skill also helps prolong the Berserk skill and mitigate its negative effects.
['Shanny (★★)'s Power Charge has levelled up to level 2!]
"Let's move!"
I instructed Darius and Jonah once Shanny secured the path south.
The four of us then dashed through the southern road and entered ourselves into the town's labyrinth section.
There were no warning signals of enemies' presence or shining arrows in the sky which pointed us the way to go.
Sigyn never used the Tactical Post when we were frequenting a trial.
Master would only aid us once during our first attempt and let us be from then on.
It had come to our understanding that Sigyn expected us to memorize the signals and instructions they gave us the first time around.
Two pikemen encountered our party as we made a turn.
Their heads flew off their shoulders as Devisha snuck behind them and swung her scimitars through their necks.
['Devisha (★★★)'s Stealthy Movement has levelled up to level 3!]
['Devisha (★★★)'s Basic Dual-Swords Technique has levelled up to level 8!]
Since our party had become whole again, I announced our next plan.
"We'll eliminate the remaining enemies in these narrow roads. Kill every patrol that we encounter. Watch out for traps."
"Understood!"
Our party proceeded to traverse through the labyrinth section of the Storm Soarer's town.
Given this was not our first time on the floor, we had no problem navigating our path nor detecting any trap.
The enemies were not that much of a challenge too. Even though we had restricted the use of my magic and my comrades' projectiles.
Our levels and skills simply had improved enough that the enemies on the sixteenth to the nineteenth floor no longer posed major threat to us.
Even so, we still thought we were not ready yet for the twentieth floor.
Not quite ready for the fourth Quintal Trial.
[Stage Clear!]
['Serafina (★★★★)', 'Darius (★★★)', 'Devisha (★★★)' levelled up!]
[MVP – 'Shanny (★★)']
[Reward – 45,000G, Iron Ore (A) x3]
It had been three weeks since the nineteenth floor was first cleared.
Three weeks since Master first scouted the twentieth floor with the heroes from the Evaluation Center.
Needless to say that the Scout Squad did not manage to send the full five parties into the twentieth floor.
All the initial vanguard parties that were sent were immediately wiped out upon their entry.
Given the constant failures, Master stopped their scouting effort after they sent the eighth vanguard to their deaths.
Eight parties…
Forty scouts…
Forty heroes…
Forty pawns sacrificed before Master decided the endeavor was futile.
Since then, Sigyn halted the scouting on the fourth Quintal Trial and made the Raid Team frequenting the eighteenth and the nineteenth floor.
Both the Main and the Reserve Forces were sent repeatedly by Master to level up and improve.
All to prepare us for the fourth Quintal Trial which we had known nothing about so far.
None of the sacrificed vanguard parties were able to provide us useable information on the twentieth floor.
Or at least, Master had not been relaying any information that I could perceive.
All we could do now was to keep on training and prepare.
As of now in Party 1, I had levelled up to level 16, Darius and Devisha at 17, and Jonah and Shanny at 19.
Given the rate we were going, if Master would let us frequent the nineteenth floor for a couple more weeks, Darius, Devisha, and I could still level up once more before we plateaued.
Unfortunately, Jonah and Shanny would definitely be stuck at level 19 until we cleared the twentieth floor.
The two had plateaued in level progress at this point in the climb.
It was very likely we would not be able to promote them to 3-star before the fourth Quintal Trial, which the fairy claimed would happen on a 2-star's 20th level.
That likelihood was slightly discouraging.
But Jonah and Shanny were already on par with our 3-star heroes.
They actually surpassed most of them, in fact.
So we should not worry of the 2-stars lacking in power during the mission.
Would their power be enough to challenge the Quintal Trial, though?
Would all of our powers be enough?
[Party 27, enter the rift now!]
Alam's voice awoke me from my wondering.
A group of 2-stars passed us by as we left the rift and poured into the first floor square.
[Main Dungeon, the current challenge floor is the 18th Floor.]
[The doors will open after ten seconds. Get ready!]
Six other parties were also waiting by the square, each hero ready with their armors and weapons.
They were all waiting to be deployed to the Main Dungeon as only one party at a time could try the regular floors.
These parties were not the weak makeshift ones composed of the failed trainees from the Evaluation Center.
They were all members of the Reserve Forces.
Full-fledged raiders of the Raid Team. Parties consisted of 2-star heroes that had climbed at least the sixteenth floor of the Main Dungeon.
Sigyn had been diligently building up the Reserve Forces, especially after we cleared the nineteenth floor for the first time.
We now possessed 28 parties in the Raid Team as a whole.
5 in the Main Forces.
23 in the Reserve Forces.
140 raiders in total currently residing on the third floor of the lobby.
And judging from the amount of Sigyn's attention to the remaining second floor trainees lately, that number would only be increasing.
"We are starting to look like a real army."
Darius commented as he observed the Reserve Forces parties.
Devisha nodded.
"With this amount of heroes, Master could challenge the twentieth floor five times if they needed to."
"Should the Main Forces fail in our attempt, then Master will surely have more than enough heroes to immediately resume the climb effort."
The middle-aged archer added.
Shanny clicked her tongue upon his words.
"Why do you speak about our deaths so lightly like that? I don't intend to die on the twentieth floor!"
"Well, it is always a possibility. And that is probably why Master set up the Reserve Forces. So that they could replace us if we—"
"Argh! Listen, old man! I'm not going to—"
As the two continued with their argument, Alam flew over to me.
[Serafina! There's something you need to see!]
"What is it?"
[Master made these orders while you're in the mission. Here, have a look!]
The fairy said as she manifested a series of system logs in front of me.
I scrutinized the writings on the hovering windows with an intense glare.
Eventually I heard Jonah chuckling at the end of Shanny's banter with Darius.
"Don't worry! The Main Forces will clear the Quintal Trial on our first try that the Reserve Forces won't have anything to do."
He turned to me with a confident look.
"Isn't that right, Fina?"
No reply came from me.
My attention was still attached to the system logs.
"Fina, what's wrong?"
Jonah asked, concern was staining his voice now.
Instead of responding him, I shifted my troubled gaze to the rainbow sky of the forged land and voiced,
"So you really are that…resourceful."
[Forming 'Raid Squad 1' (small).]
[Renaming 'Raid Squad 1' into 'First Advanced Scouts'.]
[Party Configuration – Party 21, Party 22, Party 23, Party 24, Party 25]
[Total Heroes – 25]
[Raid Leader – 'Dhavine (★★)']
-
-
-
[Forming 'Second Advanced Scouts'.]
[Party Configuration – Party 16, Party 17, Party 18, Party 19, Party 20]
[Total Heroes – 25]
[….]
-
-
-
[Forming 'Third Advanced Scouts'.]
[Party Configuration – Party 11, Party 12, Party 13, Party 14, Party 15]
[….]
-
-
-
[Forming 'Fourth Advanced Scouts'.]
[…..]