The first wave of monsters were the goblins and kobolds from the first floor. They ran eagerly, baring their teeth as they moved, eager for blood and hungry for chaos.

Raven Town reacted to the incoming monsters by sending out adventurers and guards alike. Roberta had refused to do what William had said and take people to the back. In fact, he had not even evacuated anyone or made a single plan.

All of it was part of his plan to take the control that he wanted, and it was all working out now. After all, you needed to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

"How the hell does a dungeon break happen now?" one of the adventurers said in anger. He pulled his sword and got ready. He was not alone in that.

All around, the adventurers and town folk began pulling their weapons and whatever they had for the fight.

They had no idea of the scale of the break, and they had no time to check. But they all believed it was probably a wave-by-wave type of attack and that the first wave would be the weak monsters of the first floor.

To be honest, they were not far from the truth, but the difference that existed between what they were thinking and what was happening here was that there was no rest time between each wave.

The first wave burst out of the forest after the last running adventurers had made it out and into the town safely. A few of them had sadly fallen to their deaths in the forest as the kobolds trampled on them and ripped their flesh apart right there in the forest.

That alone had triggered them even more, and as they came out of the forest, they looked hungry and eager to attack and take down the humans.

"They are just goblins and kobolds, let’s take them down easily! For Raven Town!" one adventurer yelled, and the others responded with deep and heavy cheers and roars as they charged ahead to meet the goblins.

The clash was massive at the center of the field between the forest and the town.

Goblins leaped into the air with their teeth wide and ready to dig into flesh.

The swords and spells of the adventurers were all ready to go as well. Magical circles formed in the air and began letting off attacks.

An adventurer weaved to the side and dodged the teeth of a goblin before stabbing his blade right through its neck and killing it. He pulled his blade out with a grin on his face, but he had failed to see as a kobold lunged at his leg and its teeth sunk deep inside.

"Arghhhhh!" He screamed from the bottom of his lungs and looked down. He stabbed into the kobold and killed it, but his leg was now bleeding badly and he was unable to move. That was the opportunity a goblin took and leaped onto him, wrapping its hands around the adventurer’s neck.

The adventurer screamed and tossed, but he could not get it off until he collapsed to the ground, and the goblin immediately poked into his eyes and forced his eyeballs out in a few seconds.

The adventurer lay on the ground there screaming as more rushed at his body, and they ripped it apart in seconds. Limbs flew one way, other body parts the other way, while one man screamed until the screams suddenly stopped and he no longer moved.

A young female mage who was standing nearby and had seen the whole thing froze up. She could not move at all. Her entire body trembled like it had been doused in ice-cold water.

She stayed frozen even when a kobold lunged her way. She would have gotten marked, but her friend stepped in. She slashed at the kobold and cut through it, killing it in an instant.

"Get yourself together, Anna. This is a beast wave. You can’t stop for every death." Her friend yelled to get her back into the fight.

Anna stared at the body for a few more seconds before she forced herself to be calm and try to fight.

Scenes like this were happening all around. The brave young adventurers that had all rushed out to fight were now suffering for it. The reality that this was not a training drill or a small mission but rather a full-blown war caused their hearts to tremble.

Some had just watched their friends actually get killed and brutally ripped apart right in front of them, a wound that would never ever be healed had been pressed into their hearts in that instant.

As for the stronger adventurers, they handled this with ease and were cutting through the monsters with ease. Magic and blades shined under the setting sun, and the battle continued.

The number of goblins dropped rapidly, and very quickly the humans felt they had dealt with the first wave and would have time to get ready before anything else. But when everyone looked up and saw more eyes show in the forest, their hearts sank. Over four hundred eyes spread out and looked right at them.

"Oh shit," someone cursed. Only now did they know that they were in massive trouble. The battle they thought they had won had only just begun.

The eyes moved forward.

From the dark line of trees they came, goblins at the front wielding crude iron blades and spiked clubs, kobolds flooding in beside them with their claws scraping the dirt and their teeth already wet. They did not hesitate. They did not slow. The moment they cleared the tree line, they were already running, already screaming, a wall of teeth and rusted steel crashing forward like a tide that had no intention of stopping.

Behind them came the larger shapes.

Hobgoblins. Standing a full head taller than their smaller kin, armored in patchwork iron and leather, carrying axes and broadswords that had clearly been taken from men who no longer needed them. Their eyes were calm. Calculated. That was the part that made the stomach drop—not the rage, but the patience behind it.

The smaller monsters were the noise. The hobgoblins were the weight behind it.

Together they formed something that stopped looking like a monster wave and started looking like an army. A stampede with intention. The ground itself seemed to shake under the force of it, dust rising in thick clouds as hundreds of bodies surged forward as one.

And then, from the shadow of the tree line, a single figure stepped forward and stopped.

Kael.

He stood still at the edge of it all, hands loose at his sides, watching the battlefield he had built with quiet, unhurried eyes.