The battle then took a 20 minute pause. Peter could only assume that the undead were repositioning forces and preparing. Allister and Bones had witnessed several of his previous battles. They would know what was coming. Still Peter only felt more and more uneasy as the minutes ticked away. He needed them to commit to the attack at the very least. Surely the two undead dungeons would not go on the defensive. If they committed to defense, it was unlikely that Peter would be able to take out both dungeons in the allotted time.
Peter sighed with relief when the undead entered the sixth floor. There was just under 6 minutes left on his hour and a half counter. He could only hope that an hour and a half was enough time for the undead to have committed more forces.
Magic barriers sprung up near instantaneously as undead entered the floor. Muscular B tier zombies or skeletons ran in front of the mages with massive shields to guard from the ballista bolts that were already streaking their way. Then two new sets of mages started something else. Five A tier lichs and 5 green eyed skeleton mages started a coordinated casting. Peter knew exactly what they were doing. He had seen it in plenty of higher level battles. Allister had likely not perfected the capability before his last battle, but both Bones and the tombstone core had not been idle the past few years. This was a dominion ability.
The strength of Peter’s forces could be said to be his wide range of capabilities, but plenty of cores focused on only one aspect and did just fine. There was something to be said for perfecting a single way of fighting. Whereas his leaders had to work to coordinate vastly different forces, the undead could forgo that issue and focus on their strengths.
The undead magic barriers rippled and cracked as starfall along with hundreds of weaker magic attacks slammed against them but they held. In seconds the cracks started repairing themselves, even as the dominion started to take effect. The two dominions were slightly different but were likely very similar in the benefits they would provide. The lichs were raising black spires, while the skeleton mages raised tombstones. It took only a minute for a zone of death to take root.
Peter could not know the specifics of the two different dominions. Potentially Merlin might figure them out, but he would likely only learn about it post battle. What Peter did know was that they would typically strengthen units of a type, in this case death or perhaps undead. Black aura that emitted from the 6 black spires and the gray emitted from the gravestones formed quarter spheres of protection. The barriers dropped near completely. Peter watched several magic spells streak into them and fizzle out before they reached any units. His mages soon stopped firing all together, seeing that it was pointless.
More concerning was that the mages who had been creating the barriers or exchanging fire, instead worked to expand the area of their dominion. More undead started pulling themselves from the very stone as hundreds of C tier necrotic summoners cast their own spells. Strengthened by dominion the undead summoners would probably be far more effective than his own fairies, as would the C tier undead they were summoning. Allister and Bones had probably not perfected dominion to near the levels of the older dungeons, but this was clearly dangerous.
If he had the floors to waste, Peter could simply cede the floors since the dominion's effects ran out quite quickly and it could not be moved from the location that it started, but with only 10 floors in total giving up 2 more was not something he could afford. Establishing a dominion was not something to be taken lightly it was manna and resource intensive, but he could not put it out of the realm of possibility that his enemies could not just do it again. Then where would he be?
Peter’s defensive forces started falling back as the dominion spread. They were staying well ahead. Surely they would not spread it out over the whole floor. That being said even if they did that would be as far as they could spread it. One thing was for sure, his forces could not fight inside of their opponents dominion. His forces would not stand a chance fighting in the deathly aura that attacked them and potentially healed or strengthened their enemies. One step out of the dominion and the strength of the undead would already drop. Then it would continue to drop the more time they spent outside of the dominion. They would still be boosted but not like when they were being consistently marinated in the stuff.
Peter watched undead pull themselves from the ground and into existence. There would soon be at least 1,000 C tiers. The several dozen B tiers were far less prevalent. Still it did not feel good to watch as his enemies summoned new forces out of the ether. They already likely outnumbered him 3 to 1. Luckily, his own forces were making their own preparations. Pouch like grenades were being brought forward. Once activated they would emit a green life smoke that should weaken undead.
Over the last year, Khan’s herbology college had finally made some headway. The strong health and manna potions would keep his forces healed and allow his mages to replenish manna. There were what Peter called adrenaline shots that surged melee units' stamina and ferocity, allowing them to continue with even debilitating wounds. Then there were these undead smoke bombs. They would hopefully counteract and sap the deathly energy the undead were currently amassing. Peter had other projects in the works for other unit types.
Honestly, Peter had been quite disappointed with Khan’s progress over the last five years, but the various well researched plants had led to an explosive leap forward once someone capable of jumpstarting the process arrived.
His set timer was nearing a minute when the undead surged out of the dark and gray aura’s. “An estimated 1,400 C tiers and 40 B tiers were summoned,” Boris said, from his side. Peter breathed deeply. That was a substantial force. The green smoke bombs popped off nearly as one across his lines before being thrown into the open area between the forces. Green smoke quickly poured out as the pouches burnt off.
The undead ran right through the green clouds. Peter could not see the effect. Soon things were far too chaotic as hundreds of flying forms burst from the aura. His enemies still had 2 A tier vampires along with hundreds of C tiers. They expanded out. Gunther and tempest fowl sent hurricane winds their way, which had the added effect of blowing the green smoke back horizontally over the undead ground forces. However as far as the vampires, only the C tiers were blown back and they recovered quite quickly as soon as the winds stopped. The 2 A tier vampires surged toward Gnther and his mount. Hundreds of C tier vampires in their bat forms followed, but they were intersected by hundreds of Peter’s own C tier flyers and a handful of B tier armageddon dragons.
Peter’s shield walls on all 3 paths rippled with the force of the undead army, but held. Undead mages however started blasting spells there way. C tier sigil masters created barriers to stop them, but most of the magic attacks still made it through. The C tier sigils just were not powerful enough to even stop C tier undead spells when they were strengthened by the dominion.
Similarly in the alternate dimension undead were surging through. Peter had already used half his remaining essence to summon another 100 B spirit catcher dragons to strengthen Delilah’s forces, but that merely leveled the playing field. Delilah was in for a fierce battle.
Most of the cores watching the battle likely felt he was in big trouble, but the ones who tracked things more closely would know he had S tiers that had not made an appearance. Last year he had sent his own forces back into his dungeon to sandwich and eliminate the attacking army from behind. It was therefore not surprising that the two undead cores had created a strong defense to hold the initial cavern with the one pool, but they clearly had not expected what he would be attacking with.
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The first thing to emerge as the hour and half timer elapsed was the Armageddon dragon. A few seconds later the dragon was already breathing its void beam. It shot them in two swaths killing 4 of the 20 A tiers stationed in the cavern and wounding several more. Two more S tier dragons emerged to either side as did a blob of slime wearing a turquoise insect helmet. Other than his guardian spirit, Peter had kept all four of the other S tiers for what he deemed his chaser army. Along with new 4 A tier beasts he had summoned earlier in the year and a handful of the new A tiers he had just summoned, the 16 remaining A tiers and their subordinates did not stand much of a chance. The battle was over in less than two minutes.
Moments later the chaser army was rushing down the tunnel. He left the slower nightmarish creation and a few B tiers left to guard the entrance in case the other cores sent their own chaser army. His army could cover each floor in about 5 minutes if there were no enemies, so they should reach the undead forces in 15 to 20 minutes.
Already Peter was spending the remaining 1 million essence to send another 100 spirit catcher dragon one offs forward to reinforce the alternate realm. Bones and Allister had clearly invested heavily into the other realm. Peter had expected as much, but not to this level.
Ten minutes later there was an interesting picture. The 2 undead cores had indeed sent their own version of a chaser army. There were several thousand of them, but only a handful of A tiers. The nightmarish creation had quickly caught 2 of the elites. Several of his B tiers caught others. Mages and B tier dragons filled in the gaps. Still there were only a hundred of them. Peter could only hope that at least the S tier tar slime would survive.
Peter had created 4 new A tier beasts along with 5 maelstroms for each of them, early in the year. Two of the beast types along with 2 predator cores he had given him the A rank saber bear and the A (-) pit bull. Then along with the other two beast type cards, he used earth cards receiving the stone rhino (A+) and the landslide bull (A). All 4 types were fast and powerful, allowing them to keep up with the S and B tier dragons.
On the other front, Gnther and the tempest fowl beat the 2 remaining A tier vampires and the handful of armageddon dragons had allowed the rest of the air forces to triumph over the weaker vampires. It was the only thing that had gone clearly in Peter’s favor. The alternate dimension was a bloody fight. In the physical realm, his initial shield walls had been broken through and the undead had surged forward to a secondary wall. Glenda and Delilah had elected to cede the sixth floor at nearly the same time.
The remnants of Delilah’s forces would join the final freshly summoned B tiers. While Glenda would join a relatively fresh force minus the other elites retreating with her. Hundreds of friendlies were left behind on both sides of the dimensional boundary. The undead dealt with them even as others surged onto the seventh floor to find it, the initial area already saturated with the green smoke, but unlike past battles he had forces ready to fight immediately to contend the entrance. Nearly a dozen elemental or golem type A tiers fought savagely. They were the only ones that were relatively unaffected by the green smoke which was of course toxic to more than just the undead, just not as severely.
The undead assault had basically hit an iron wall. They might still be strengthened having passed through their side's dominion field, but the time outside of the dominions in conjunction with the green smoke had lowered them back toward their normal strength level. Peter lost half of these A tiers over the course of 5 minutes as they fought fiercely, but soon had to pull them back. The undead of course quickly established magic barriers while lesser undead picked up the green pouches to dispose of them in nearby lava pits. They however did not establish a new dominion, just a new foothold from which to attack the new floor from.
Peter had 42 of his new 80 A tiers that had been summoned just prior to the battle, but that number would drop further here. He had already lost the pale ghast and the skeletal wraith knight, so it was basically just Delilah, her elves, and a bunch of B tiers left in the alternate dimension. They had killed most of the enemy A tiers, but they were clearly outnumbered. The undead had dozens of B tiers and several A tiers left along with the hundreds of C tiers.
Peter also would potentially lose the paladin here since it was making its stand along with hundreds of its C tier one offs. Once again he would likely have to replace his infantry completely after the battle, not really a surprise.
Flaming stone launched as dozens of undead A and B tiers poured out of the magically protected area around the entrance. Peter would have thought that the two undead core’s had pulled out all the stops to try and finish off his dungeon before the chaser army arrived to hit them from behind. If… his chaser army had not also arrived at the final room on the fourth floor to find an elite force ready to take them on.
Peter forced himself to breathe heavily. His headquarters was a bit chaotic now. The number of A tiers waiting for his chaser army were 30 in number. The spirit chaser dragon S tier was facing 5 in the alternate realm with some B tier support, luckily 4 of them were incorporeal spirits. His S tier nightmarish creation had fallen back to hold the tunnel as the mages launched spells over it, into hundreds of C tiers running it down. Had he bitten off more than he could chew, taking on 2 other cores?
For several minutes, Peter felt faint as his headquarters scrambled and the battles raged. Then the conclusions seemingly started happening rapid fire. The undead and Delilah’s forces had pretty much ground each other down until there were only a few remaining on both sides. The spirit catcher dragon had eliminated the 5 A tiers alongside its B tier one offs and joined in the physical realm. His losses had been severe, but all his S tiers were still standing. With potions they could recover some before storming the fifth floor.
The undead forces had set up to defend his fifth floor on the far platform, but Peter had expected this. All it took was the accompanying C tier causality wizard’s to trigger a line of energy that traveled the length of the room the opposite end platform exploded in green smoke and shrapnel. All the ballista the undead had been preparing to use against his forces became wooden splinters. It was the last trap, in his dungeon, but allowed his forces to take the fifth floor quite easily. Wouldn’t it be terrible if the enemy used his own defenses against him…?
When his S tier dragons made it to the fifth floor they found themselves without peers. Just ten thousand plus C tiers and less than a hundred B tiers waiting to be slaughtered. The dragons left the hundreds of remaining C tier beasts to surge into the enemy. The warlocks and mages were still countered by the weaker undead mages, but the dominion was long gone, having been dropped to allow the more powerful mages to go help the front.
All that was left was for the two armies to grind one another down. His chaser army was doing just fine, but the battle on the seventh floor was extremely fierce. Peter had nearly 300 B tiers and 50 A tiers stationed on the floor, but the undead had fielded higher numbers for both tiers although he did not have a solid number on either. Elites from both sides were falling practically by the second, as the chaotic storm started to settle. Bodies were strewn across the rocks along the lava pits and the path through the center. C tiers fought in small patches on top of the piles. Only a handful of elites stood throughout the floor. The mages were all spent, and many of the physical units were too tired to bring the fight to the enemy.
The undead still outnumbered his forces, but as always the defense had the advantage. The ballista were now concentrating on undead clusters of elites. It had to be grating that ballista were taking down A tiers, but the +5 enchanted bolts hit with such power that it was possible usually after only a few hits. In the future, Peter hoped to have bolts all made of a higher tier metal like cobalt, but he just did not have enough of the resource. Most of it was used for the catapult scoops required to launch the enriched magnesium. The flaming rock had killed hundreds of C tiers along with injuring or weakening others who were normally at least slightly vulnerable to heat and flame.
The one good news was that his nightmarish creation had survived along with a handful of his mages on the first floor. They had wiped out hundreds of C tiers that had tried to overwhelm them. Likely they had lost their commander early and were just attacking without abandon despite the fact that damaging or getting through the S tier tar was impossible for non mages as weak as them. His nightmarish creation and the others were falling back in case the other dungeons sent out another army.
The bad news was that his chaser army had run out of steam. Now it was just hundreds of C tier beasts supporting the 4 S tiers and half dozen A tiers as they shredded skeletons and zombies by the dozens. His army on the seventh floor was also decimated, although it appeared they would eek out a defensive victory. It left him only one army… his 10,000 D tier fodder he had summoned before the battle. Numbers wise that was a lot, but with how few elites he would have to support them, Peter was not sure if it would be enough. He could only hope that the other 2 cores had nearly emptied their dungeons to attack his own.
Somehow he highly doubted it. If he was fighting with an ally wouldn’t he want to conserve his forces as much as possible. Surely they would each still have dozens of A tiers if not more. The only other note of good news was that it looked like things would wrap up before even 3 hours had elapsed. That would at least give him time.
