Peter evaluated his forces as things came to a close in his dungeon. All 5 S tiers had fortunately survived, but he only had 14 A tiers. More than half those A tiers were his normal cast: Glenda, Michael, Merlin, Gnther, Tempest fowl, Galactic warlock, and the cologne mage, as well as the newer A (+) Stone Rhino. As far as B tiers he had just under 40. Nearly all of them were the armageddon and spirit catcher dragons that had come with the chaser army. Only a handful of the spirit catcher dragons were left from the seventh floor side of things. Delilah and them had just been able to notch out a victory.
As far as C tiers, Peter had only 52 infantry. There were still hundreds of cologne mages and galactic warlocks but all of them were spent, having pushed themselves far further than their limits.
Peter was already sending orders through his D tier iron glider flies. Glenda was slowly moving their forces toward the front of his dungeon. The C tier mages and warlocks would be left behind to guard their dungeon, and potentially join up for the assault on the second dungeon assuming they had recovered. Peter would also leave behind a thousand plus gnomes, mining apes, and dryads that were slowly moving forward from the tenth floor. It was not optimal, but Peter needed to take as many of his remaining forces forward as possible.
Glenda made it to the front of the dungeon in an hour and a half. She took another ten minutes to rest and to organize. She would have just over 8 hours to take out both dungeons. When faced with two possible targets, Peter elected to start with the one he knew best. In their last battle Allister had showcased 10 floors that were all nearly copies of one another. He had also showcased a group of about a Dozen A tier mages that retreated floor after floor along with other elites.
Peter did not know what else the tombstone type core might have concocted over the last 2 years, but he decided to try and immediately cut those retreating elites. His attack began with both flying S tiers breaking through the entrance with quick succession. Following them were gnther and nearly 50 blink, spirit catcher, and armageddon dragons. Many carried the remaining sigil master C tiers who had recovered enough to fight. They streaked across the field, even as thousands of D tiers started pouring in behind them.
Spells lanced out from the mages, every single one directed at the S tier dragons. Michael flared a massive sigil that tanked most of the spells protecting the armageddon dragon, but the pure amount of them meant a few got through. The spirit catcher dragon with only a pair of C tier sigil masters took 5 times as many. The spirit catcher dragon streaked toward the ground both sigil masters falling separately screaming.
The mages only got the one salvo, before the armageddon dragon got close enough. Magic barriers sprang up, but the void beam cut through them killing 4 A tier mages immediately. The giant dragon then slammed down on top of 3 others as they attempted to flee. They did not last too long against the giant dragon. The 8 C tier blink dragons and the 39 B tier dragons caught up to the rest. They had been fairly close to the exit to the second floor, but not so close that they could run to get there before the weaker dragons could catch up.
There were hundreds of other lesser mages, but Gnther and the tempest fowl hit them all with gale force winds that scattered them helplessly across the ground. There were thousands of undead still on the floor, but they would not stand much of a chance without support. Gnther struggled to keep the weaker mages from counter attacking as the dragons finished off the more powerful ones.
Peter had felt his heart fall when the spirit catcher dragon went down, but the dragon was still alive. The S tier holy armor dragon made it in time to do a focused heal with its aura that had easily replenished over the last 2 hours. Peter felt a knot unravel as 1 of his S tiers recovered from near death.
The floor fell in 25 minutes, but most of it was just mopping up. Peter lost hundreds of D tiers, but a lot fewer than he would have expected. As far as his more precious B tier dragons. He had lost 4. Gnther had not been able to keep the weaker mages at bay for long. Eventually he had to focus on a knot of B tier mages. It allowed the hundreds of other C and B tier mages to take a small toll. Not as many as his enemy would have liked. The dragons had quickly run them down after dealing with the 16 A tier mages. The other undead were too focused on the thousands of D tiers streaming up the gentle slope into their fortifications.
Peter was elated to find his plan had worked. The spirit catcher dragon, although healed, was out of the fight, but his dragon blitzkrieg had succeeded. He had killed all the high tier mages and hundreds of supporting mages and necromancers on floor 1. There were a handful more on floor 2 and floor 3, but far less than he would have expected. Despite his forces only consisting of a handful of elites and thousands of D tiers the floors started to fall easily. The perfect retreats conserving the undead elites did not work too well without a large amount of mage support.
Allister was likely learning a valuable lesson of relying on a single strategy, with no redundancies. Then again, if Peter had it his way the lesson would be pointless since hopefully the undead core would be gone after today.
His forces continued floor after floor. By the fourth there was not a single mage or necromancer. Nor was there a single B tier. It took seeing only that one floor, for Peter to send a message. He was instantly skeptical. He doubted he was so lucky that the tombstone core had no elites or mages left. His message was to use scouts and dragon flies with each successive floor, that the enemy was likely conserving elites to fight all at once. His messenger caught up on the sixth floor, but Glenda was already doing what he directed.
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Bones had attempted to come to his allies' aid as well as to send a decent size force to test Peter’s own dungeon. Peter was ready for both. His S tier nightmarish creation was waiting at the undead entrance along with dozens of apes and plenty of archers. Then in his own dungeon, for the first time the earth totter dryad got its chance to fight. It used its powerful earth strike ability to cut down an A tier as hundreds of gnome tinkerers fenced in the rest of the undead. He lost plenty of his support force including dozens of gnomes and mining apes, but both of Bones' attacks were repulsed.
Allister apparently had elected to make his stand on the ninth floor, giving him one floor to fall back to. On the plus side, there were less than 10 A tiers, but there were a good fifty B tiers along with all the weaker mages from the prior 5 floors. Then there was one more familiar figure. Peter was not that lucky. Allister had resurrected the one S tier he had showcased and lost in their previous battle, the shrieking ghoul. This attack would cost him. Peter was fairly sure that his forces would prevail, but would he have the strength to contend with Bones…?
Glenda elected to start the attack with a wave of the remaining C tier beasts and D tiers as she threw up a magical barrier around the entrance herself. Her magical barrier flickered and cracked as dozens of magical attacks slammed into it. A surviving paladin shielded her from the hundred arrows that started to rain all around her. Michael soon took over shielding the entrance as hundreds of D tiers continued to pour through.
It only took half a minute for the C tier beasts to crest the hill and hop over the defenses. They would not last long, but they caused enough chaos to allow the D tiers to do the same. The weak undead mages were blasting them, and culling high numbers of the weaker units, but Glenda would rather have that than them targeting the few elites she had left. The ghoul shriek caused the wave of weak units to stop and units to even retreat a bit before they regained presence of mind. It was like they had been hit by an invisible force. Peter’s Elites were already moving forward now that the focus of the undead had been taken.
Armageddon dragon crested the hill in only fifteen seconds. It sent its full swath of void energy at the S tier ghoul. A magic barrier flipped into view from an undead mage, but it broke within a few seconds. The ghoul held out its arm, intercepting the energy. Peter watched eagerly as the dust settled, but the enemy S tier was still on its feet. Its arm was gone and its side was seared black, but it was able to shriek again. Peter’s forces once again reared back. Peter practically saw the wave. Even the S tier dragons dipped their heads for a second. The weaker D tiers were frozen once again. Hundreds more got slaughtered while they were nearly defenseless.
Allister was not using it too terribly well, but Peter could imagine how effective these high tier mental attacks could be. A few seconds of distracting enemies or potentially halting a wave of attackers… Peter could only be thankful the tombstone core was not capitalizing more. After a few seconds his forces were once again able to move forward. Gnther and tempest fowl threw the ranks into chaos allowing his forces to continue for several seconds unmolested. All the fired arrows were blown away allowing his D tiers to make it to the second line of defenses.
Undead mages berated their ranks. Peter saw a likely freshly-summoned A tier, cast a green fog over a half dozen D tiers before ripping their skeletons from their bodies in a matter of seconds. The skeletons then proceeded to join the defenders and the A tier did it again. Peter analyzed it, Soul reaper wraith A (+). Peter had seen plenty of similar abilities through the battle, but nothing as strong as that. He eyed it gingerly as his elites closed in.
Glenda star falled an entire section of undead archers and mages. The B tier and below magic barriers were crushed under the blast and several hundred undead died, although 90% of them were only D tiers. The 2 remaining S tier dragons ripped into a pack of awaiting A tiers. By this point the worst of their wounds had healed over, so the 2 were fighting at least 80% mainly due to weariness of battle and moving across floors. In this fight however, they were still the toughest units on the field. Random single card type A tiers fell under their onslaught.
The B tier dragons had engaged the enemy B tiers. Several dozen smaller void beams right at the beginning had equalized things quite substantially, so the two sides were near even as they clashed together and whittled each other down. Peter could only watch as his force was further reduced. Victory still seemed probable as things ground down, unless Allister had a big surprise on the tenth floor, but how could he think about challenging Bones’ dungeon afterwards.
The shrieking ghoul got out one last call, staggering his forces resulting in even more losses, before the armageddon dragon waded through several A tiers to finish off the enemy S tier. The dragon’s sides were savaged, but that was nothing compared to what happened to the holy armor dragon. The other S tier dragon was covered in wounds, its golden armor was chipped and streaked with gore. Its aura was weak. It was probably why the S tier could only struggle for about 10 seconds as the soul reaper wraith ripped its dragon skeleton straight out of its body. The non bone remains of the S tier fell in chunks. Peter could only watch in horror.
Only a second too late, the stone rhino bore the soul reaper wraith to the ground. Once it was on top of the undead, the large pachyderm stomped the half corporeal wraith into a paste, but it was once again too late. A green glowing skeleton of his dragon had already formed. Peter’s stomach turned, as he analyzed the thing. He had just lost an S tier for good, and his enemy had put its skeleton on the board. It was not very consoling, that the dragon had dropped 2 ranks from S (-) down to A. Glenda hit the dragon 4 seconds later with another concentrated star fall. The bone dragon was blasted with ribs and an arm detaching but it soon surged forward to fight the stone rhino.
The dragon bore it down pinning it to the ground as its bone claws worked to rip furrows on the rhino’s back. The thick plating was extremely strong, but it could not save the rhino. Seconds later Glenda hit the skeleton with another starfall depleting the last of her manna, but it was too late. Just like his infantry, it looked like his beast force elites would likely need to be replaced regularly.
The fighting continued until the last defender. By the end Peter was down from 14 to 8 A tiers, He had lost every single B tier that had been brought into the battle. He only had 4,132 D tiers and a handful of C tiers left. He did not know whether to feel annoyed or relieved when his scouts peaked through to the tenth floor. There were thousands of undead, but they all appeared to be D and C tiers. Definitely not enough to stop his forces, but he was already finding it hard to stomach the losses he had. Once more the clock was ticking. They had 5 and a half hours left, but his forces were worn out and bedraggled. It would take an hour and a half just to exit Allister’s dungeon after he destroyed the core. Taking out Bones was seeming less feasible by the minute.
