Once again, 01R led the monster team as they marched towards the Stormy Veil. The forest around them gave way to open field as the ground began to slope up towards the mountain. 01R took a deep breath. Once they exited the forest, the Stormy Veil’s monsters would spot them and the fight would begin again.

He peered up at the mountain shrouded in storm clouds. He could still see spots of light in the distance as Lightning Elementals streamed from the mountain and spread across the countryside.

“Is everyone ready-prepared?”

He had a list of his subordinates present in his UI. Green check marks appeared next to each as they all confirmed their status. 01R nodded.

“Begin-execute the operation.”

And then he turned around and dove into a small hole in the ground. Meanwhile, a fleet of flying drone-golems, modeled after flying war-machines from Earth, flew high overhead. They unleashed a barrage of missiles, which flew forward at incredible speed. As the missiles approached they began to turn and curl, each heading towards a different elemental. After all, these were no normal missiles.

The High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile, or HARM, was a weapon designed to target radar sites by locking onto their electronic emissions. It turned out that Lightning Elementals also gave off a great deal of electronic emissions, so it had been a simple matter for Melion to adapt the missiles to lock-on to them. As such, the missiles each flew directly into an elemental, and then exploded.

The Lighting Elementals screeched and faded away. The creatures formed of pure energy were hard to damage with physical attacks, but Melion had adapted the missile’s warheads as well, replacing them with mana cores rigged to explode into mana shockwaves. The Lighting Elementals could not prevent physical missiles from passing into their bodies, and could not survive a mana blast exploding out from the inside.

R watched from the hole as the sparks of light in the distance began to turn towards the drones and missiles continued streaming across the sky. He smiled, and then dove down into the hole.

“Phase one is complete-successful. Initiate phase two.”

Further down, the hole opened into a massive underground tunnel. 01R activated his repulsors and boosted through the tunnel in the direction of the mountain. Soon, he caught up to the rest of the cyborgs. All of the monster team was running or flying behind the key unit in the operation.

EW, the Earth-Eater Worm turned Mecha-Adamant Bull Worm, was tearing through rock and stone at frightening speeds. Its metal crushing fangs were mounted on rotating bits, forming into drills that could crush all but the hardest of materials in seconds, and supported by lasers, plasma drills, and shaped explosives to boost the efficiency even further. As such, the cyborg worm could travel through the ground almost as quickly as other units could fly through the air.

And since it was physically crushing the ground ahead instead of swimming through it via Earth Magic, it left a giant tunnel that the rest of the team could follow. The monster team had long conversions about how to approach the dungeon. They discussed attribute match-ups, formations, unit rotations. They discussed weapon development, spell choices, and different skills. But, eventually, one of them came up with an idea. An extremely simple, and yet, extremely efficient idea.

Why not just go around the enemy? Or under them, as the case was.

The idea…didn’t sit well with 01R at first. He wanted to defeat the enemy, not evade them. To take them head on, to clash with their might and overcome it. To prove to them and the world the strength of the Wise-Mighty-Gracious Boss-Queen’s army!

But he had put such feelings aside, and considered the idea’s merits. In another dungeon, it wouldn’t have been possible, given the singular path forward and the narrow hallways. But the group hadn’t even arrived at the dungeon proper last time before being engaged by its forces on open ground. As such, there was considerably more room to maneuver. And ultimately, the Wise-Mighty-Gracious Boss-Queen’s instructions were to purify the dungeon, not to terminate the horde of monsters. So, if 01R and the others could simply bypass the horde and reach the dungeon, they could save a lot of time, effort, and risk.

It would be…more efficient. And therefore, the Wise-Mighty-Gracious Boss-Queen would approve.

Of course, the monster horde would still attack them if they were noticed. Which was why they sent a wave of drone-golems to attack from above, and draw the enemy’s attention. And it worked. The horde of monsters was not listening to anyone’s command at present, and so was simply spreading out and attacking anything they encountered. They could easily be drawn away if presented with an obvious target.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

And so the cyborgs were able to tunnel through the mountain completely unopposed.

But 01R resisted the urge to smile, and focused his attention. The first phase had succeeded, but this mission had only just begun.

Ultimately, the group was able to travel about halfway up the mountain when they hit a snag. 00EW was suddenly unable to tunnel any further forward. The ground appeared no different from before, yet they were unable to interact with it in any way.

Which mean, they had run into a dungeon wall, and arrived at the dungeon proper. And a Lightning dungeon had no interest in allowing subterranean combat. The only direction they could move was towards the surface.

Well, the Wise-Mighty-Gracious Boss-Queen had apparently managed to break through unbreakable dungeon walls, and had recorded a protocol for the feat. But such a task was not as simple as casting the right spell. It required an incredible amount of accurate data to aim the Spatial Angling correctly and cancel out the spatial protection on the walls, data that could only be acquired via the Wise-Mighty-Gracious Boss-Queen’s Dungeon Field Generator. And it also required an incredible amount of super-dense mana to directly overpower the dungeon core in its own domain.

In other words, no one other than the Wise-Mighty-Gracious Boss-Queen was capable of such a feat, even if she explained in detail how she did it. So the cyborgs had no choice but to play fair.

And that meant they could not avoid a fight.

R took a deep breath.

“Is everyone ready-prepared?”

The cyborgs all signaled they were.

“Let’s go-attack!”

EW turned towards the surface of the mountain, and quickly broke through. The group was close to the storm clouds now, and lightning occasionally struck the ground all around them. The air was buzzing with atmospheric electrical currents, and 01R’s sensors and communications began to distort.

But they had prepared for this.

The spider monsters went around connecting a cable to each of the cyborgs, and the communications stabilized. An insulated wire now connected the cyborgs, allowing them a protected method of communication. 001S focused on cable management, preventing the cyborgs from getting tangled together. This method would restrict their mobility, but 01R considered the tradeoff worthwhile.

Mainly, because it would allow the cyborgs to continue sharing senses, and so address the other type of interference. The easy answer to their distorted cybernetic sensors was simply not to rely on them in the first place. Each of the cyborg monsters had an organic half as well, and each of those organic halves had diverse and powerful senses of their own. Whether keen sight, sensitive hearing, powerful noses, vibration detection, or the ability to feel mana directly, they had a wealth of options to choose from that wouldn't be vulnerable to electronic disruption at all. So if they layered these senses together with insulated communications, they could produce a comprehensive picture of their surroundings.

And just as well, a group of Lightning monsters quickly noticed and approached them. 01R narrowed his eyes. Now was the moment where their planning would truly be put to the test. 01R gave the command.

Sylvan stepped forward and placed their hands on the ground. All around the air, trees with metal lining their bark began to sprout out of the ground, rising into the air. 04S, the Arcane Weaver, led the magically-oriented spiders in stringing up mana-conductive webs in between the trees. Shortly after, the enemy arrived and a wave of lightning bolts streamed towards the cyborgs.

The metal trees drew and blocked some of the lightning, with 00Sylvan channeling an electric current within them to add to the effect. Of course, magical lightning was directed via mana and so not as easy to redirect as the mundane physical phenomenon, and many of the bolts continued past. But this is where the magical webs came into play, barriers forming between them whenever the lightning approached. 00B and Lilussees stood on standby, but not a bolt made it through.

This was the other reason for the cable communication set-up. Upon reviewing the first battle, the group came to the conclusion that a high-mobility, evasion style battle wasn’t ideal against the fast and precise lightning attacks, especially with the EMP effects disrupting communications and situational awareness. So they prepared a more direct defensive setup that would block the attacks outright. If all went well, movement would not be required in this battle at all.

And so far, it worked. 00Sylvan’s trees conducted the lighting harmlessly into the ground, significantly cutting the power of the barrage. And Lightning attacks, while fast and powerful, were very mana intensive, and so came in large bursts before the Stormy Veil’s monsters had to recover. That gave the spiders ample opportunity to reapply the webs, and 00Sylvan to regrow any damaged trees. Other cyborgs, including 00WE, helped by transferring mana to 00Sylvan and the spiders, ensuring they never ran low.

Of course, the cyborgs also returned fire. More HARM missiles blasted out of panels and launchers, while the magically oriented responded with spells of their own. One by one, the Lightning monsters fell, while not a single cyborg suffered harm.

And 01R…watched idly by. Or rather, this was his role. The aggressive, high-mobility combat style he utilized wasn’t effective here, and neither did he have the magical prowess and mana reserves to support in the defense. Likewise, his small size restricted the size of his mundane arsenal, so he couldn’t contribute much to the ranged combat either. So, instead, he focused on observing the battle as a whole. He held himself back, and watched the ebb and flow of combat, keeping track of the overall situation and watching for any issues.

It was grating as a warrior. But it was his duty as a commander, and the job which he was best suited for in this operation.

He nodded as he watched the battle. By his calculations…they could keep this up for a long time, against more numerous and more powerful foes. So he gave the order.

“My comrades, servants of the Wise-Mighty-Gracious Boss-Queen, advance-attack, yes yes!”