There were not any more surprises during the end of year review. Glenda and her subordinates had improved his dungeon's spell inventory. She had also worked on replicating his only masterwork quality item, the augmentation spike. However, she had only made versions that could improve a unit by about half a rank, and that was by using a large ass dark crystal etched with various sigils.
Far too expensive, so Peter only had 8 of them built for the ten A tier beasts that would be fighting. Even for them, he only did so hesitantly. The dark crystals, unlike the tier 5 ebony metal the original augmentation spike was made of, were far more volatile. It was basically him adding an explosive weak point into his own units. Not something he was too thrilled about, but what were the chances of an attack hitting in the right place… Peter elected to save the original augmentation spike for further study. There was clearly more that could be discovered.
Peter did not have to wait long for his year 5 battle to be finalized. Boris immediately pointed to the blue skinned four eyed woman heading his way seconds after he appeared in the ball room. After five congregations, most dungeons should be aware and wise enough to not swoop in to step on a major faction core’s toes, so Peter guessed it was more that she could not be bothered to make the trip over to his side of the room.
“Agatha, I see you’re lovely as ever,” Peter said, crossing his arms despite himself. The four black eyes were unnerving.
“Flattery, won’t get you anywhere,” Agatha replied in a smug tone.
[Agatha, Long leg spider, 05: has challenged you to dungeon battle. Dungeons are from the same year group no multiplier applies. Dungeons within the first year group special rewards apply.]
Peter immediately got a minute timer that blinked out as soon as he accepted. Agatha’s facial features became even more predatory revealing her sharp teeth and fangs. “No way to back out of it now. See you on the field, dear Peter,” Agatha said before turning away.
“Oh, I really hope we can squash this bitch,” Delilah said in disgust.
Peter nodded. For him victory was more about the resources that he could gain and the units he needed to preserve. As far as he was concerned he had bigger fish to fry than cores his own age. Regardless, both of them had spare cores, so neither should actually be eliminated here today. Still he needed the win. It would recoup millions of essence, give him 50 new support cards, and then there was the potential to meet new battle conditions.
Peter had met multiple battle conditions including for the third and fourth battle victories while still a rookie. The first of which had given him 2 million essence. The second had given him 2.5 million essence. Win a fifth dungeon battle as a rookie and he would likely get even more, but Peter was really hoping for other conditions. With the 3 victories in a row condition he had been presented with a ‘User chose card’, which he had used to form an epic maelstrom card thereby saving 10 million essence for his first armageddon dragon maelstrom. Peter could only hope that 5 victories in a row would give him the same or better. The fourth consecutive victory had not given anything.
Upon arrival Peter found that all the members of his group were more caught up in internal dialogue making final preparations for their upcoming battles. They had been challenged according to Gabriel’s predictions, so they hopefully should all be prepared. The silence was welcome for Peter because he had his own preparations.
This year he had saved far more essence than in previous years for this battle, just over 14 million essence. The first 5 million was dedicated to using A tier design cards to summon some elites. Peter could summon them into his dungeon just fine. Delilah and others were soon waiting in the final room to give him feedback and to start getting them where they needed to go. Peter was only forced to choose 1 B tier during the 50 summons, giving him 49 extra A tier elites. Some would even be nice to have a maelstrom for, but Peter could not worry about that right now. He always had plenty of contenders for that honor. He could build some for any that survived like he had with the water mancer salamander.
Next Peter spent 3 million more essence to summon 300 B tier dragon one offs of his two S tier dragons, and another 1 million to summon 100 random B tiers using his design cards. In addition to the unit summoned from his maelstroms or previous year survivors, he would have just over 750 B tiers ready for battle. The last 5 million he used to summon 10,000 various C tier one offs.
After that he was able to sit back and enjoy some of the banquet food as his staff readied his forces. He had felt slightly nervous last year against Tombstone, despite having a bunch of holy cards he could burn to turn things around, but this was different. Agatha had not spent millions of essence battling over the last few years.
Boris had estimated what her forces would look like, and they had prepared as best they could. Numbers were not their only disadvantage. Agatha had also likely witnessed his previous battles. Since he had battled every year his forces were always on full display, while the other rookie dungeons were still a complete mystery. He would be fielding plenty of new units this year, but only a few were a core part of his dungeon. The others were basically hired muscle all things considered. He could only hope his preparations over the last year would be enough.
The battle started a few hours later. One by one hundreds of D tier insects popped through the entrance onto his first floor. Many of them immediately fell to water bullets from nearly 100 C tier water mancer salamanders. However the bugs continued on undeterred, while the defenders willingly gave up the ground retreating through both the water and physical tunnels.
There were only two main screens for the battle. Peter had chosen to slaughter her numerous forces in his own dungeon. If he succeeded and felt like he had the power he would go on the attack. The battle timer for year 5 rookie battles was a full 11 hours, meaning he could afford the tactic.
The other side of the battle, in the alternate dimension, was similar. Hundreds of D tier moth insects poured into the physical realm before tearing into the alternate dimension. However they found themselves beset by a much stronger resistance as hundreds of C tier blink and phantasm dragons swooped through their numbers. It was basically a one sided slaughter, but the dragons would retreat well in time to leave the first floor despite their overwhelming advantage. They would have to to prevent themselves from becoming trapped behind enemy lines as the thousands of D tier insect units marched on undeterred.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Boris had not even mentioned D tiers when making his estimates. It was pointless to do so since any rookie dungeon at this point could field hundreds of thousands of them whenever they wanted. Apparently Agatha had decided to start with them. Peter could only assume it was to prevent showing her hand. The D tiers alone would not be much of a threat even if she had a million of them. They were just too weak to harm A or S tiers. Even B tiers could wade through their numbers and likely be fine for the most part. They were generally only effective against the C tiers that made up the bulk of most dungeon’s numbers.
Peter quickly gave the order to bring forward some of the A tiers. They would retreat when Agatha brought out some real opposition, but he could not just allow her to advance for free. Neither was he willing to lose C tiers to such inconsequential units. Luckily 42 of the freshly summoned A tiers were perfect for the job. Peter had ordered them to stay near the battlefront so that he could use them when necessary. The D tier Metal dragonfly glider carried the message to the front in a matter of minutes.
The 42 A tiers came through the portal from the second floor as the water mancers fell back into the final room. The A tiers did not hesitate. They immediately ripped into the enemy, squashing them like the bugs they were. Delilah appeared ordering the water mancers to continue to retreat, so they could be fresh on the lower floors. They were not needed now. The 42 A tiers could hold the final room alone. Any D tiers that made it through would easily be dealt with by defenders on the next floor.
The one sided slaughter continued for a good 5 minutes until a host of B tiers appeared en masse to deal with the A tiers. The A tiers only bloodied the reinforcements for a moment giving Delilah enough time to go into the alternate dimension and give the order for the dragons to retreat. After half a minute, they ceded the first floor to the enemy. From a pure loss standpoint, Peter had only lost a handful while killing thousands of D tiers, but it was also true that he had given up a floor while Agatha kept the true face of her forces concealed.
The second, third, and fourth floors went much the same. Agatha kept her B tiers up close to contend with the A tiers when they came to rampage, but not so close that they were not able to kill D tiers by the hundreds before that point. By the end of the fourth floor, Peter estimated that they had killed over 20,000 of the insignificant units. Sounded like a lot, but cost wise that was only 2 million essence. Peter could call it a win since he had only lost about 25 C tiers worth 12,500 essence, but he was down 4 floors and his alternate realm dragons were exhausted. Even the A tiers and the water mancers were winded. Luckily, only the water mancers would be needed for the fifth floor.
The same as his previous battles the real resistance would begin on the final water floor. Glenda stood ready on the far platform taking over command of the defense. The defenses consisted of a couple hundred hippos and the water mancers. The hippos' high defenses would practically make them unkillable by these weak bugs, and a few were enough to hold a single stone platform. Others swam through the water below. They were not fast swimmers, but faster than non swimming units. They were stronger than most water units of even a higher tier, and could erupt out of the water on the attack, which is what a good fifty did.
The fifty C tier quarter off hippos ripped into the weaker D tier bugs with their tusk like teeth. They worked together slamming their bodies toward one another crushing anything caught in between. Fangs and needle-like pincers sought to breach their thick rubbery skin, but few had any luck creating even a nick. The hippos could likely hold the line for a long time until they became too weary to continue.
However, likely from having watched his prior battles Agatha had known about the room. Hundreds of black balls rolled through before unfurling. Peter analyzed them, finding they were called a curl up beetle. They were all at C or B tier. They were apparently aquatic because they leapt up over the line of hippos and dived into the water. They also were not the fastest of swimmers although slightly faster than the hippos, who immediately engaged them in an underwater brawl.
The hippos thick blubbery hide and damage dampening helped them maintain the advantage despite being soon outnumbered, but the far platform was lost as more B tiers poured into the room and the hippos retreated into the water. Soon more B tiers and even a handful of A tiers joined them in the water. However the Half off hippo and another freshly summoned A tier were down there to take on the higher caliber opponents.
The A Tier hippo found itself in battle against an aquatic spider, who sank its fangs into its blubbery hide. The elite hippo shrugged it off, ripping the other A tier away with its own bite. In a matter of seconds the skirmish was over as the half off hippo moved to find more opponents. The hippo was seemingly unaffected by whatever venom had likely been injected into it.
Peter watched as his elite fought one A tier after another. Tier for tier the hippo seemingly had no equal. At least in the water where units were generally not as strong as their land based peers. Still after killing four other A tiers the hippo was full of wounds, most looked purely superficial, but the hippo elite was clearly struggling, likely due to the accumulated venom.
Peter’s attention was soon redirected as hundreds of C and B tier wasps started pouring onto the floor. Peter had used a handful of original cards including the 2 A tier ember originals which had given him the fire mage to replace flame flinger that he had been wanting. Several hundred C tier one offs immediately filled the air with flame attacks. Wasps fell from the air, some in smoldering ruins of what they once were. Others were just too damaged to fly, so they glided down into the water. However, there were hundreds more that immediately covered half the floor before a second attack of flames met them. They were only hundreds of feet away when the third volley crashed through their ranks
Then there were dozens of white lights that had just finished expanding. Glenda’s star fall attack reaped 4 or 5 times as many units as any of the previous volleys. Hundreds of wasps were obliterated before the energy attack continued toward and exploded on the opposite platform killing several hundred more advancing insects. If it happened to his forces, Peter would have considered it a catastrophic loss to his forces, but it hardly seemed to phase the insect army that just continued to surge forward.
“Unbelievable,” Khan commented beside him. Peter was just as flabbergasted. How could Agatha stomach those losses? Glenda had just killed like 1,000 units, half of which were at least at the C tier. He knew it was not their specialty but surely she had mages and other specialized units that she could have used to prevent the attack from being so successful, but instead the insects just marched on.
Glenda had retreated the mages and the other supporting units other than the hippos and the water mancers leaving them to their fate. The wasps had immediately swarmed back over the expanse and engaged the water mancers who retreated into the water to take pot shots at the flying insects. The wasp units started diving into the water, sometimes up to 10 feet deep in order to hit their target. Although they apparently had been ordered not to proceed onward to the next floor. Soon even the hippos holding the stone platforms were forced into the water under their onslaught. The damage from the venom was too intense despite being dampened.
The underwater fight continued even as other A tiers started to cross over unencumbered. Agatha was done holding back her forces. Through the detached aerial view over one of his hippo units Peter started counting and analyzing dozens of A tiers as they prepared. Only a quarter of them were actually spiders, with the rest being made up of other insect or other arachnid species. The same was true of most of the insect faction dungeons who all seemed to not care about their identify
The last view of the fifth floor was the A tier blink dragon blinking into the water closing its talons onto the half off hippo. A few seconds later the two reappeared half way across the sixth floor. The hippo was covered in wounds. Peter quickly accessed the data his E tier clock works had compiled on the fight. His forces had killed 9 A tiers on the fifth floor. The other A tier had only killed 1, all 8 of the others were attributed to the nearly unkillable hippo elite. Peter had been right to ensure the hippo was saved by the blink dragon. The hippo would soon be behind friendly lines and out of harm's way for the rest of the battle if Peter could have it his way.
