Danmachi: The Multiverse Portal

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Early in the morning.

August wasted no time pulling heavy excavation machines from his [Spatial Backpack].

He got to work paving, building, and clearing the land.

He didn't care about preserving the mystical plants here. Instead, he began reshaping the landscape.

Old bows and arrows, left from past battles, were quickly crushed under the tracks of modern bulldozers.

As the base camp transformed, the vanguard moved ahead.

A hundred-man reconnaissance squad mobilized toward the ruins deep within the Elsos Ruins.

Hestia, Artemis, and Hermes stayed behind to hold down the command center. Rethusa and the Artemis Familia took the point, guiding the soldiers through the dense foliage. August and Liliruca Arde trailed close behind.

Dressed in deep-green combat gear, the hundred soldiers moved with precision.

"Fan out. Multiple vectors," the order went down.

They hadn't even reached the ruins when the Labyrinth's native creatures attacked. August and Lili had only gone a short distance when the radio crackled.

"This is Squad Three. Hostiles sighted. Requesting permission to engage." The forward scouts had made contact.

"Weapons free," Commander James's voice buzzed through the comms from the command tent. "If radio signals drop, deploy flares immediately."

"Copy that."

Moments later, bursts of gunfire echoed through the jungle. Squad Three was clearing their area.

August saw Squad One's soldiers tense up when they heard the distant gunfire. They weren't scared of dying. They were uneasy because they hadn't run into any monsters on their path yet.

August ignored their restless movements. He knew young soldiers always craved action and recognition. The squads' routes were carefully planned, with four groups heading deep into the forest to meet near the ruins.

"Squad Four reporting," the radio buzzed again. This was the ranged support unit guided by Asfi Al Andromeda, composed mostly of snipers. "Spotters confirm a massive monster surge deep in Sector 13. Looks like the gunfire triggered a stampede."

The monsters near the ruins heard the noise and rushed to the edge. A full swarm was gathering.

"All units, execute standard squad-level tactical assaults," Chief of Staff Thomas ordered.

"Squad Two, solid."

"Squad Three, copy."

"Squad Four, locked in."

The Adventurers from Artemis and Hermes Familias were only there as guides. They would only fight if they had to. The modern soldiers needed to face this challenge themselves. August, Lili, and the half-elf Lante quickly hid behind a huge tree root.

"Incoming!"

"Airborne hostiles!"

There were only a few footsteps on the forest floor, but suddenly the treetops burst with movement. Winged monsters from the Dungeon swooped down through the branches.

Squad One stayed calm and held their formation. They raised their rifles and fired together. As soon as their guns went off, the whole Elsos Ruins filled with deafening gunfire.

"Get off me!"

A winged beast broke through the suppressing fire, diving from the canopy and sinking its fangs into a young soldier's shoulder.

His heavy tactical plating absorbed the worst of the bite, buying him a critical second. The soldier didn't freeze. He dropped his rifle, yanked a combat knife from his chest rig, and lunged.

A line of twenty-five men couldn't make a perfect wall of bullets like August's artillery could. Some enemies were sure to get through.

"JOHN!" A squadmate yelled, drawing his own blade to help.

"Back off! I've got this bastard!" the pinned soldier roared.

Adrenaline rushed through him. He wasn't scared of the monster—he was angry. He stabbed the combat knife deep into the beast's chest and twisted it hard. The monster couldn't survive the blow and turned to ash, leaving a rough Magic Stone in the dirt.

"Good kill!" the Squad One captain barked, hyped to see his man win a close-quarters brawl. "You all saw that! They bleed just like anything else! Hold the line and keep firing!"

More bullets tore through another monster. These creatures had learned to survive above ground, using the thick jungle canopy for cover. This was true guerrilla fighting, nothing like the close battles in the Dungeon tunnels.

—•——•——•——•——•——•—

'Such determination,' Lante thought as she watched the fight from the side.

She could sense the soldiers' intense drive. When she fought her first monster, she had been shaking so much she could hardly hold her bow. But these men from another world fought with teamwork, always watching out for each other. Their unity was impressive.

"Still… something is wrong," Lante muttered, her eyes darting around.

The monsters weren't strong—most were only [Level 1] threats. The soldiers defeated them easily. Still, Lante was uneasy about their numbers. The stronger beasts in this forest had been wiped out long ago, and anything above [Level 2] was rare.

Yet all four squads were fighting hard at once. There were simply too many monsters.

"There's a monster sleeping in there with a threat level of at least [Level 5]," Lili interjected, her eyes fixed on the distant ruins. "Taking it down would normally require a raid team of elite First-Tier Adventurers."

"And as Lord August said, anything so dangerous that ancient heroes had to seal it away instead of killing it shouldn't be taken lightly." The situation ahead looked grim.

"You're right," Lante nodded, thoroughly convinced by the Pallum's logic.

If the legendary heroes and Great Spirits of the past couldn't destroy this creature, then it was no ordinary beast. If lower-level Adventurers like them got too close, they would be wiped out instantly. Even a simple recon mission was extremely risky.

"A monster of that caliber is essentially a Floor Boss," Lili analyzed. "It probably has an innate ability to summon and control lesser creatures. Everything wandering this forest is being dragged toward the ruins to act as a meat shield."

"That makes things harder," Lante said with a frown.

Her captain, Rethusa, had passed on August's warning to Artemis: if their Familia had tried this quest alone, it would have been suicide. This wasn't just a normal Adventurer defeat. The beast in the ruins could even kill Gods for good.

The group attacking Squad One wasn't huge—about thirty monsters had been drawn by the gunfire. For well-armed modern soldiers, defeating them was routine.

Once the shooting stopped, the unit commanders initiated roll call. As always, there was good news and bad news.

"Squad Three reporting. Three men down. Injuries are stabilized, but they are combat ineffective. Requesting medevac."

Squad Three had fired first, on purpose, to draw most of the monsters' attention. Taking casualties was unavoidable.

'Three men down in the first wave?' The Squad One captain clenched his jaw. Losing three soldiers so early was a harsh reminder of the risks. Still, Squad Three had acted as bait, taking most of the attack to shield the other squads.

The captain glanced at August.

August gave a brief nod. "Your men, your call."

He was here as an advisor. Tactical battlefield decisions belonged to the unit commanders.

"Squad Three, this is Squad One. Do you need us to converge on your position?" the captain asked over the radio.

"Negative, Squad One," the Squad Three commander replied. He checked his three wounded men. Thanks to the healing potions August had given them, they weren't bleeding out, but blood loss had left them unable to fight. "Medevac chopper is inbound. We'll secure the LZ, load the wounded, and keep moving. Stay on your route."

"Squads One and Two, continue your advance," Commander James's authoritative voice cut through the comms. "Squad Four, shift your vector to cover Squad Three until extraction is complete, then double-time it to the objective. Rendezvous point remains the ruins' perimeter."

"Copy that."

The four squads adjusted quickly. Squads One and Two advanced further into the forest. In the distance, the steady thump of helicopter blades echoed over the trees as a chopper came to pick up the wounded.

After their first victory, the soldiers knew how to deal with these monsters. August stayed nearby, not wanting to leave the front lines.

—•——•——•——•——•——•—

As they moved forward, the vegetation started to thin out.

Suddenly, August raised a closed fist.

"Squad One halting advance. Advisor's signal," the captain instantly relayed.

"Squad Two, holding position," came the response.

Both vanguard units stopped. August walked up to a nearby tree. Unlike the healthy green plants behind them, this tree's bark was cracked and oozed with rot. It looked like it was dying.

"The environment is shifting," Lante noted, stepping up beside him. "The trees are decaying."

She plucked a leaf from a low-hanging branch. Half of it was a vibrant green—the other half was a diseased, bloody purple.

"Command, this is Squad One. We have breached the outer boundary of the anomaly. Confirming widespread environmental corruption and rot," the captain radioed. He switched to the local squad frequency. "Stay sharp. Watch your sectors. We are in the belly of the beast."

"Squad Two, tracking."

"Squad Three, copy."

The other squads tightened their formations, surprised the vanguard had already reached the anomaly zone. Staying as quiet as possible, the troops moved slowly into the decaying wasteland.

The farther they walked into the blight, the heavier the air became.

"Cap… something feels wrong," a point man whispered.

This wasn't the rush of battle. A suffocating feeling filled the air. Even the newest recruits could feel a strong, invisible pressure on their chests.

"The target is a biological weapon designed to kill Gods," the Squad One captain reminded his men. He had read the briefing files. "It emits an ambient energy field that actively destroys living ecosystems. The closer we get, the worse the rot becomes."

If Gods represented eternal life, then the creature in these ruins was the ultimate killer. The dying land showed how dangerous it was. Still, these were elite recon soldiers. They wouldn't turn back just because the place felt strange.

Oddly, the deeper they went into the dead zone, the fewer monsters they saw.

"Advisor August," the captain whispered, sweeping his rifle across the dead woods. "Did we already wipe out the local garrison? It's a ghost town out here."

"No. They're all inside the ruins," August replied quietly. "Monsters operate on a strict hierarchy. The weak submit to the strong. Antares has a high level of intelligence. It knows we're coming."

He pointed toward the stone structures barely visible through the mist.

"The ones you fought before were just the outer guards. The group inside will be much tougher, even if they look the same. The strongest monsters always keep the best defenders close."

August was dead right.

They had barely pushed halfway through the blighted zone before they were forced to halt.

Through the rotting trees, they spotted the massive stone architecture of the Elsos Ruins.

Hundreds of terrifying beasts prowled around the old pillars and fallen arches. These monsters hadn't been drawn out by the earlier gunfire. They were disciplined, holding their ground and letting the weaker ones fight first.

"Command, Squad One has visual on the ruins," the captain whispered into his radio, peering through his military binoculars. "Advance is blocked. Confirming a hostile presence concentrated around the main entrance and outer perimeter. Estimating several hundred targets."

The beasts paced restlessly, bound to the ruins by the dark will of the master below.

"Inner sanctum numbers are unknown. Recommending drone deployment for deep recon. Requesting orders to fall back."

—•——•——•——•——•——•—

Back at the command tent, Chief of Staff Thomas and Commander James watched the live video feeds. The recon mission had gone well. Sending infantry into a monster fortress would have been suicide and against all their training.

Thomas traced a finger over the freshly drawn topographical map. "Initiate full withdrawal. Once the infantry clears the blast radius, we launch the drone swarm for a comprehensive scan."

Commander James relayed the order. "All units, mission accomplished. Fall back to the designated rally point."

After the order to pull out, the four squads quickly broke contact and began their retreat. Their job was done. Now the heavy equipment would take over.

The Adventurers from Artemis and Hermes Familias quietly followed the soldiers out.

For them, a group of [Level 1] monsters was no real challenge. But they knew this modern army didn't rely on adrenaline or swords. These soldiers used careful planning and overwhelming force.

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