If my armor was a bit more spikey, someone else would have instantly called me a Khorne berserker. As crimson steam hissed from my frame in a halo of mad violence.
A loud laugh tore from me as I just gave up on martial valor or skill. And with an extra long battle axe that was more than twice my own height, I just literally spun in a high speed circle as fast as I couid.
The enchanted battle axe tore through flesh, blood, and bones like they weren't there. Metal armor was sheered just the same as leather armor was carved open.
Was I getting dizzy as I spent the last couple of minutes turning into a whirlwind of death as lashing tongues of flames leapt from my axe? Hell yes I was.
But there just never an end to the Skaven in front of me. I would cut down a clan rat with actual armor and a decent spear. And then I would instantly be welcomed to the sight of a dozen skaven slaves armed with only a rock knife and spite at best.
They just never stopped coming. Another Skaven body was always in the way of my war axe's carving blade.
Finally even my own enhanced stats couldn't give me truly infinite stamina. So as I found a tunnel leading into a once great smaller mead hall I cut down the skaven in front of it. And then as a rat ogre charged at the tunnel. I just dropped a bucket of lava right in front of me.
Which gave me a momentary reprieve. Long enough for me to take out a sandwich, munch, munch, it down and then with a heavy chug I all but inhaled a large gaft of ale that was made with redstone which gave me a violent jolt of energy.
But boy, did this Redstone ale feel like I just tased myself directly in the heart. All the while tasting like licking a battery. And it was only as my energy surged and my mind pushed back the blood rage I was feeling that I realized that I had gotten a wee bit too separated from my own people.
'Whelp, that is still easily fixed, though.' I thought as I took a long, deep breath. Making sure that the ache in my bones from fighting so hard wasn't actually a wound of any kind.
And after a mobility test to make doubly sure it was the case. I whipped out a pickaxe and just tunneled through a nearby non-load-bearing wall.
Loud rumbles rang out as I carefully carved a new thin tunnel that led into another large atrium. Where I quickly saw the Slayer King Ungrim Ironfist and his warriors putting in the good work.
Ungrim roared with glee as his rune-enchanted battle axe carved into a rat ogre's chest. Shattering its chest and carving open it's internal organs as he ripped it out of the much larger monster.
But a mere size difference was nothing to a proper dawi warrior! And I called out in our native tongue in a war cry to the Ansector God of War before I charged in to share in the violence.
Soon enough, even the Skaven couldn't field infinite bodies in the face of rune-enhancement-heavy armored dwarves. These skaven slaves and clan rat's simply couldn't get past the master work armor to harm these dwarves at all.
And even the Skaven didn't even want to tangle with the half-naked Slayers who threw themselves in a blood fury at all opponents. In the search for their honorable death in battle.
"Haha Kharn! You look good dressed in the blood of your enemies! You make your clan proud, young warrior!" Ungrim cheered as he slammed a heavy hand on my shoulder in pride at my glory.
I grinned even though the Slayer King couldn't see me under my helmet. But then I said more seriously, as the fighting had a sort of lull with how the heavily armored dwarves were holding the entrances.
"Where is the Beacon I made? And the rest of the Centurions? I got seperated in the fighting."
Ungrim snorted and said. "Aye, your machines are putting in their good work in the main halls. Most of our kin are with the High King as they reinforce and rebuild your portal."
Then Ungrim's face darkened before he said. "The sounds of our fighting is undoubtedly drawing the wretched ears of the greenskins that are above as well. So making thrice sure our supply line remains strong is the most important thing."
Looking through my mental map of Karak Eight Peaks. Despite this hall being desecrated with skaven filth. I recognized it as a hall to the ancestor goddess of the hearth.
Which was connected to the main hall and where my nether portal was by a only a single long grand hall that stretched a half mile.
If we could control this hall, and the connecting grand hall. Along with where my nether portal was. Then we had a good chance of truly fortifying this place a damned good bit.
But even as I was thinking that. I could hear rumbles from above. The terrible green skins were clearly at work, trying to get at the fighting they could sense below.
I frowned at the thoughts of the greenskins breaking in through the roofs. So I turned to Ungrim and I said firmly. "I won't be able to fight for a while. I am planning to just reinforce the surrounding area so the skaven and greenskins can't shiv us in the dark."
Ungrim gave a nod of understanding as he knew what I was going to do after the months of work on the tunnel in the Nether whenever we hit open area's.
When we did hit open areas in the Nether I would just make new tunnel work out of stone and local netherite.
And besides just mining all the time, I did gather a very particular resource that would be useful in this case as we certainly had to remove a metric fuck load of lava that got in our way.
With a heavy repetitive clunking noise, I got to work putting blocks of obsidian across the walls of this once great hall. Turning it's walls and ceiling in a black wall of meter thick stupidly dense and hard obsidian.
"Honestly... This obsidian is 'brittle' like a fucking diamond. But good luck to the skaven trying to dig through solid crystal basically with a drill" I muttered as I knew that such drill bit's that were meant to go through stone. Would just worthlessly rub and grind against the walls.
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Ungrim also realized that me blocking off the walls and other points of entry for skaven shit heels with their weird, shoddy inventions was the right move. So even after I cleared this area, they followed and cleared the ever-present Skaven out of the next room so that I could again replace and cover the walls of the ruined halls.
So that it would become a herculean effort to pound through a meter-thick obsidian wall. And the longer we remained here? There would be nothing stopping me from making our side truly impregnable as I could put layer's of lava between layer's of obsidian.
So that even if a Skaven, Drill Digger went through a wall... Well, even Skaven bullshit technology woudn't react well to being held for any amount of time within lava.
"Kharn! Ye quit shootin them explodin arrows at the poison wind globadier! It's too fuckin funny seeing them kill all their foul kin around themselves haha!" Ungrim laughed like a bear roaring just barely able to be heard.
As the screams of skaven whose lungs were turning into cancerous pus bags drowned out all noise for a good distance. As who knew... That carrying glass grenades made them fragile and easily explodable via explosive arrows???
And in the distance more of my kin caught the backline of the skaven as we surged to meet one another. All the while, when I wasn't lobbing explosive arrows at packs of skaven. I was busy boarding up the walls and the roof of the rooms we were in.
A very interesting thing to note. The Dwemer Centurion's I 'cheaped' out on and used warpstone dust instead of bloodstone, made up of ground-up rubies and magically enriched blood to make their cores. Had a special ability I noticed all to quickly.
When those centurions that had warpstone cores got close to more warpstone, the core would be supercharged, making the centurion faster, its steam hotter and toxic with warpstone fumes.
So when a centurion charged into a squad of those poison wind bomb throwers and made a mess. It just made itself an even worse problem for all the skaven around it. As it became a carrier of warpstone, toxic steam billowed from its form.
Seeing one of the commanders of the High King's own forces as the I and the Slayer King's own detachment met. I quickly went over and asked the most important question. "How is the fortification going? And how are these automatons doing?"
The commander gave the raging warpstone-enhanced centurion a dark look. The look a stubborn old dwarf gave some beardless whelps blasted invention that was against everything he stood for.
But I couldn't help but admit it did a damn good job at killing whatever it was pointed at. "The centurion's with the warpstone cores are an issue for any kin following behind... Some were wounded badly before they managed to get some healing potions as well, but they were killin' good, and they can take a rat ogre and win."
He then paused before he said with a slight frown. "But the Thaggoraki aren't stupid... They have already figured out that there mobility isn't the greatest. If they just drop a large boulder on it, they can't get up on their own."
He shook his head and said firmly. "The most useful thing so far has been the balista and sphere kin you made, lad. They have good mobility, and they can kill things from a distance before the rats can truly get close."
I nodded in understanding before I asked a few more hurried questions, even as I passed over a tankard of ale I brought out of my inventory to the commander for him to drink.
Such questions as. How was the beacon tank doing? Of which it was following Thorgrim the High King into the thickest of fighting. And how was the fortification of where the nether portal was.
And hearing the answers I sought. I realized that I should probably get back to the nether portal to reinforce it as well. After all, there was a very important fact that no one could actually re-ignite it besides me.
As I had already tested it greatly beforehand. No one could open a portal without the very specific 'Minecraft' brand Flint and steel that I had.
So with this area secured... For the most part. I quickly made my way back to the nether portal area, which had already been heavily reinforced with stone materials moved through the nether portal.
"Kharn! You got any more healing and poison resistance potions on you? We are running low already with all the poison wind globadiers we had to face as we found and attacked their factories for such filth." A priestess of Valaya spoke as she quickly made her way over.
'Hmm, no wonder those poison bomb throwers seemed so frantic. The kin have already fucked up their base of operations.' I thought before I nodded and handed off most of my healing and poison resistance potions.
Then I told the priestess of Valaya. "I am going to reinforce this room especially. Tell a couple other hand maidens to follow me and keep other's from bugging me. And I will need them to help me move materials so I can make more potions en masse."
I obviously needed to set up a new 'automated' potion line using droppers and item pipes to move the materials and potions en masse here. As the supply line was too slow for battle field conditions, if I wanted to save as many dawi lives as possible.
And as I got to work, reinforcing the extremely important landing zone of this entire invasion. I couldn't help but wonder what that overly proud dragon woman was up to? Our grudge was settled, and my annoyance with her stupid human follower's antics wore away with time.
Still, I was curious as to what she was doing with the machines I had left behind, as I knew she was having Cathay mages enhance them further.