Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Seth was alone on this one. Tatzel and Puffles were following other groups as support. The blacksmith was going to get his souls by ambushing the resting chambers of the dragonflies. Following his golem through the damp net of tunnels had Seth thinking. These dungeons were just the upper layer.

It was rumored that things became stronger and more dangerous the deeper one came. That even stuff like the hive, the orcs, and even the Maestro were pushed to the surface. What would dungeons in the depths be like?

There was almost no change between the parts that belonged to the dungeon and the tunnels that had yet to be transformed. Only the fluorescent mushrooms and moss that enveloped the place in dim lighting were an indicator.

The blacksmith had been quite surprised when he found out about the resting chambers. Ordinary insects did not really sleep as humans did. They would usually rest during dangerous times like the night, or in winter to save energy. This was also somewhat the same for this massive swarm.

When reading fantasy stories, one seldom thought of the logistics behind massive armies. This was technically a stationary locust swarm, but a locust swarm had to move to sustain itself. Even if the whole nest was run on dungeon energy instead of food, it was hard to fathom how much it would cost. How did the hive solve this problem?

The answer was resting chambers. When not needed these lower-ranking units and drones would spend their time in a dormant state in freezing-cold dungeon rooms that would only be warmed up when they were needed to be sent out. He knew from Buzz that only a small part of the army they had seen outside was always active. If not woken for a big offensive, they would be stored away like robots.

This way the hive saved a lot of energy. It also gave Seth and the people of Minas Mar the chance to launch a "night raid", a dungeon break-in so to say. He followed the golem into the remnants of a different dungeon. While the insects didn't bother with embellishment, this section looked more like a medieval ruin.

All kinds of remnants of activated traps and dried blood decorated the corridors. The corpses had been brought away, but it was obvious that there was a heavy fight in the past. The hive didn't seem to be bothered by losing a lot of cannon fodder to traps.

He followed the dragonfly several layers up the stairs. It was kind of refreshing to be able to just tour a destroyed dungeon, even though it was assimilated into the hive. Seth could tell that they got closer to the surface,

Finally, they reached a massive entrance hall with a high ceiling carried by dozen of massive columns. It reminded Seth of dwarven craftsmanship. Inside were rows upon rows of dragonflies of different sized, it was like a plane hangar.

The room was cold enough for him to see his breath. Leading away from the entrance hall he saw several, wide, comparatively crude passages, leading to more hangars. The dragonflies in their state of torpor were absolutely motionless and showed no reaction to the unexpected visitor. It was almost eerie. Seeing his helpless victims, Seth had many ways to kill them. Burning them would have caught too much attention. Chopping each of their heads off was tedious The blacksmith came up with a more elegant way. His initial plan was to use <Earth Magic> to close off the sleeping chambers of the dragonflies from the rest of the nest and use a chamber, firewood, and the draconic titan flame to generate Carbon Monoxide to silently kill the dormant insects.

This was his original plan, but it was thrown out the window when Seth finally saw the room with his own eyes. The sight cast a smile on his face. The dormant insects were actually in a state close to death and the spirit blacksmith found their soul only hanging on by a thread.

He already had experience with similar kinds of situations, such as the Sarkists he met which felt like a long time ago. The connections between the insect's bodies and their souls were still stronger than a Zarkists, or someone close to death, but Seth had also grown since those times.

Especially his equipment gave him much better support now. With a gleeful smile, he brought out the demonic harp. If he could steal the insect's souls with a song, why would he bother with scientific gimmicks?

Demons had the skills and magic to outright steal souls, even without a deal. One to be mentioned here for example was Vine, who also lent this power through demonic ballads, however, the cost was always a percentage of the souls gathered this way.

Seth was not willing to pay that prize at the moment, which was why he did not go this route. Since their connections were weak, he had another option. There were other songs like Soul Shock that worked with the concept of harming an opponent's soul, which could weaken the bond enough for the passive collection effect of <Soul Capture> to break it.

The blacksmith decided to use the most soul-harrowing song he could remember. He could have also used his anvil, but this also had a high chance of alarming the surrounding, which was why he opted for something more covert.

The demonic lyre and panpipes started an almost bright and cheerful tune.

"We're no strangers to love~ You know the rules, and so do I!..."

Filling the wide hangar, the demonic tune started seeping into the cold bodies of the dormant dragonflies. The frozen insects could do nothing, as the disgustingly sweet demonic power seeped into their bodies wrenching away their souls

"I'm never gonna give you up! Never gonna let you go! Never let you run away and escape me~"

Helplessly, the dragonfly could only suffer in silence as the connections of their souls and bodies were eroded away. As the bard belched his hypnotic harmony, one by one, the small orbs of souls started detaching from the stiff bodies and flew to the bard.

Hundreds of souls were collected by <Soul Capture> and the counter in his status window was roaring as the numbers shot up. Watching the number of souls at his disposal shot up like this was exhilarating.

It gave a certain spring to his step, as he pranced and danced through the resting chambers, followed by the floating lyre and panpipes floating beside him. A singing, soul-robbing shadow, dancing with glee through the rows of frozen dragonflies.

Finally, after some time he heard a notification.

<Ding! Skill: Soul Capture lv.7 has become Soul Capture lv.8!>

It had been a long time since one of his class skills leveled up. As far as he could judge <Soul Infusion> should have also been close to leveling up, too. He didn't stop to check the skill, he was going to suck all the resting chambers dry.

He didn't check, but he could feel that the souls were collecting quicker than before. He had no idea how long he had been performing for, but at some point, he found his path blocked. Seth had harvested the last hangar of dragonflies.

Looking at the counter in his status, he almost choked. There were 4000 Quick Scout's Souls from the Zygoptera Scouts and 2300 Aerial Striker Souls from units called Anisoptera Hunters.

< Aerial Striker Souls (Uncommon, Medium)

The soul of a being born to be an airborne hunter with incredible eyesight and speed. Skills: Air Combat, Aerial Assault. Trait: Dynamic Vision>

Although the latter had the same ratings as the Quick Scout's Souls, Seth could tell from the appearance that they were several times the size from experience. Seth's measurement for the size of a soul was a rough estimate of the mana a soul would offer after infusion. Medium ranged between 100 and 1000.

When the scout souls were at the lower end, then the striker souls were and the upper end of this spectrum, close to being big souls. This meant he had just earned over 2000 almost-big souls! It didn't end there.

Obviously, each soul also came with a body. After finishing his harvest, Seth started packing away as many of the bodies as he could. It was the first time that he felt that the stack size of 99 in his inventory was constricting.

There was no way to take all the bodies. Despite having close to 100 slots now, he had only freed up about 20 before coming here. So he filled his inventory with one stack of the smaller scouts while getting 20 stacks of the hunters. He also put a bunch more into Legion, and even filled the Golem Forge, taking as many as possible of the unharmed bodies with him as he could.

Seth had always been of the opinion that they lacked in aerial units.