This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

A dense hail of arrows and destructive spells slammed into the bulk of the armored puji, shrapnel of rock-like carapace spewing and fracturing.

At last, another arrow struck the already-riddled shell. The armored puji wobbled twice and, with a dull crash, toppled to the ground.

But the fall of that armored puji was only the beginning.

From the wreckage swarmed a mass of suicide puji, surging into the demon ranks.

Despite surviving arrow storms and magical barrages, a few fortunate spheres punched through the fire zones and dove straight into the mages’ formations.

“Sir!” the adjutant cried, anxious as casualties began to appear in the rear. He glanced toward Sigmund; his left arm hung unnaturally limp — the price paid earlier to cover the blood knights’ withdrawal.

“Keep calm!” Sigmund snapped. “Panic solves nothing on a battlefield that changes by the second.”

He respected the adjutant’s ability and loyalty, but the man still needed tempering to learn how to remain composed.

Sigmund’s eyes never left the field as he analyzed the puji’s near-fanatical tactics.

A style of combat that treats self-destruction as the objective — even an old commander like him had never truly seen it in this scale.

And what did his soldiers gain for their blood? Mostly the elimination of “magical pets.”

Though the replenishment rate of these fungi-creatures was unclear, judging by the vast numbers, it couldn’t be slow.

That grotesque, asymmetric attrition turned his stomach.

Still, the battle remained under control.

He issued new orders to redirect some mages’ fire toward the wings — not aimed at Lin Jun’s elite puji, but at the ragged mass controlled by lesser Puji Masters.

Those mages shifted to wide-coverage spells; lower power was acceptable, and even friendly fire could be tolerated — the flimsy fodder puji would fall before his troops did.

After suppressing the wing fodder, he reallocated forces to deal with the harder targets: the elite puji.

His strategy was unflashy but effective; under his steady command the army’s movements became precise and orderly.

Lin Jun’s puji still inflicted casualties from time to time, but they couldn’t tear open the demon line or expand a localized advantage.

Under Sigmund’s steady countermeasures the two sides settled into a grinding tug-of-war.

Except that after a long while the Puji Masters were near exhaustion — yet the puji themselves didn’t seem to suffer significant losses.

At this moment, Lin Jun directly controlled roughly 8,300 elite puji.

It was becoming unbearably frustrating.

That feeling of being constrained gnawed at him; he squeezed a few hundred extra control slots from the rear. New puji rose from the central mycelium carpet and quickly filled the front lines.

Lin Jun felt cornered — his first field deployment outside his home base was bewildering.

The hastily dug underground tunnels were nowhere near enough; he couldn’t, like in the northern stronghold, make puji erupt from every direction for surprise assaults.

And Sigmund’s army was like an ancient tortoise within its hard shell.

Any small gap opened by a suicide puji or an elite assault was immediately sealed by follow-up troops; the whole line was so stable it made Lin Jun despair.

If the battle relied purely on attrition, he could eventually win — puji could be replenished almost infinitely.

But that would be tantamount to openly revealing to Sigmund that they were “cheating,” wouldn’t it?

Worse, Lin Jun, who knew Sigmund’s troop deployments and maneuvers almost intimately, still couldn’t snag a single advantage during the fight. If not for the constant supply of mana to spawn puji and sustain the frontline, defeat would already be visible.

That soured the mood of the originally confident Lin Jun, who had planned to replicate the crushing victory he’d pulled off in the north.

Why was it like this?

After thinking, modest Lin Jun decided he needed “a pro” to look at the problem and point out what he’d been missing.

…

“Keep to cover! Move! Don’t stop!” Louisa barked as a company of Puji Fort troops darted between shelters, changing positions and inching forward.

“On the battlefield, you commanders of puji squads are the most obvious targets to the enemy. If you don’t want to die for no reason, learn how to survive in complex terrain!”

Under Louisa’s harsh drill the half-demons, lizards, and humans present all grumbled, but with the generous contribution-point rewards they bit their tongues and endured.

Then Louisa broke off and, uncharacteristically, announced: “Training over for today. Gather an hour earlier tomorrow.”

The soldiers nearly cheered at the early dismissal — until their brutal instructor turned and left.

Louisa hurried to a secluded corner and, via the mycelium net, asked respectfully: “Boss, you summoned me suddenly — what’s the urgent matter?”

“Of course it’s important. Piglet, come help me look — why can’t we punch through? Why is it so unsatisfying?” Lin Jun complained, feeding the real-time battlefield view into Louisa’s mind.

At the instant she viewed the scenes, Louisa’s breath hitched and an excited edge crept into her thought: “Boss, this is…?!”

“Ignore a small scuffle down south with your old employer for now. Help me analyze why I can’t break their line.”

“Got it!”

Louisa focused and scanned the images quickly, her mind racing through tactical permutations.

She didn’t keep Lin Jun waiting long. She pointed out a demon unit — one that had just fought storm elementals hard, taken heavy casualties, and was now withdrawing to rotate with fresh divisions.

“This is the chance! Throw your fastest suicide puji at that unit to disrupt them at all costs. Get armored puji to hold the gap, artillery puji follow through for fire harassment.”

Then she rapidly identified several other tiny flaws and gave a series of concrete tactical adjustments.

“Oh! Right! Do it that way! By the way, he’s reinforcing here,” Lin Jun exclaimed, enlightened, and immediately implemented Louisa’s suggestions while simultaneously creating a fake order to trick Sigmund’s intelligence…

…

On the battlefield Sigmund watched a withdrawing unit — the remnants of the third division — collapse under a sudden strike. He frowned.

Was it an accident? How had they suddenly seized that fleeting vulnerability?