A turquoise weevil crested the far hill. Downhill were hundreds of buildings forming a small town, although at this late hour there were only a few fires lit. Still the town was darker than it should be to the weevil on the night of a full moon, but that was because the weevil was in the alternate dimension… And it was not alone.

  The creature moved back blinking back into the physical realm. Hundreds of similar beetles lay waiting at the bottom. The turquoise weevil screeched, and then they all blinked into the alternate realm. It only took them 15 minutes to descend the hill. A few minutes after that they were scrambling across the buildings in a shadowy version of the town. A wraith walked the street, a human that had only a mist like glimmer on this side. The weevil army paid it no attention.

  Soon they were ascending the far hill. Ascending toward a large 40 foot wide slit leading to their target. The weevils were not quite sapient, but they were not quite exactly dumb either. They had been sent to destroy this dungeon. They would go in and destroy the core. Then if it respawned a day later, they would destroy it again. Until the dungeon crumbled in on them. They likely would not be able to escape it in time, but their master considered it a worthwhile sacrifice. Likely none of them would return.

  They blinked into the physical realm only 15 minutes later, just as they crossed the cave's boundary. Most of the others would not have been able to stay in the alternate realm for much longer anyways. The turquoise beetle encountered a human waiting at a ramp that led down. The turquoise beetle swiped its tarsal claw forward severing the startled man into two. Then the beetle started down. It needed to go down. Down until it found the core. Luckily there was a down ramp right near the dungeons entrance.

  Peter was not sure what woke him first. The frantic knocking on the door that led to his personal space or the proximity alarm that was whining annoyingly in his mind. Peter threw open his interface.

  “Holy shit!...” Peter exclaimed, shooting from bed to his feet. He did not quite make his feet and fell down, but he was up a second later. Only seconds later he threw open the door. The E tier clockwork was knocked down as he continued passed. He only wore his boxer briefs, but it was of no concern.

  Already before him was a flurry of activity. “They are already heading down to the second floor,” one shouted. “We are at 300 and counting,” cried another.

  Boris was at the top of the room just outside of the fishbowl. The handful of E tier clockworks were manning the various stations down below toward the main screen. More clockworks were pouring in from an adjoining room with every second. Only 4 or 5 were on duty at any one time, already they were providing critical information.

  “Passing 400!” The clockwork amended its earlier estimate.

  Peter stood by for a moment watching as hundreds of beetles with long snouts poured into his dungeon. Another screen up front followed the leader, a turquoise monstrosity. Peter analysed it. Turquoise weevil A(+). Peter took one deep breath as he struggled to figure out what to do. His mind was basically overloaded, and he stared almost mesmerized.

  “That’s the last of them… I counted about 500,” the clockwork said with finality. “All appear to be A tiers," another added.

  “You… you!” Boris said pointing at two Clock works. Go wake up the elves. “You and you…” he pointed at another. “Go gather those in the battle dungeon. Bring them all to the tenth floor.” After that, Boris turned toward Peter.

  “Master, I recommend we summon all our originals and burn all our essence,” Boris said as Peter turned toward him with a glazed expression. Luckily, Boris seemed to not be affected by the doom heading their way. As a clockwork he was already making logical decisions.

  “We need to make our stand on the ninth floor otherwise we will not gain any essence at all, even after burning all our resources. We need to survive, but we can’t afford to not get anything back on top of even being penalized,” Boris concluded rationally.

  After a few seconds, Boris prodded him. “We need to act now. We never assumed our collection dungeon would be under attack by another dungeon. We have down ramps near the entrance all the way down, so adventurers can easily get to the lower floors. The only hold up will be floors 4 and 8 where they have to find and fight their way through the boss rooms.”

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  Peter watched as the turquoise beetle stumbled into another group of adventures ascending the ramp back up to the third floor. Their shocked expressions only lasted a moment before they were cut to ribbons. They were no match for the A tier insects. Luckily for most adventurers it was late at night, so there should not be too many parties currently diving. That being said, any that were would be killed with relative ease. This proved to be what Peter needed to wake up from his stupor.

  Instead of fear, he felt a boiling rage. That bastard was killing his prey… Peter’s rage abated for a moment as he realized that considering the adventuring parties his prey was pretty messed up, but the rage returned with full force. He only let himself fume for a few more seconds.

  “Good, prepare things for a ninth floor stand,” Peter commanded as his mind whirled on what else he could do. “You!” he pointed at a E tier that did not seem to be doing anything else. "Throw every dungeon beast into their way.” Peter’s verbal command gave it the authority to do what he had commanded. Immediately the fourth floor beasts started converging onto the beetle army instead of just meandering about, even as other floors started congregating together. Honestly, they would be lucky if all these C tier’s and below could even kill 1 A tier. Unlikely, but it would hopefully by them time, even if only a few minutes.

  With that Peter started summoning. He did not need to count since he had a total for his available type cards on his home page. He had 131 A tier originals. That was everything including his dragon, abyss, and even the 5 moon elf original cards. He could not worry about that for now. The other core would not be able to watch the attack so would only know if a unit survived to report. Already, he was up against 500 A tiers. He had 5 million essence, but that would only mean up to 50 more A tiers, leaving him with less than even half of the enemies numbers. He would have to summon some B tiers to even things out.

  Still hope was not entirely lost. The enemy did not have S tiers. They were also summoned from likely only 1 A tier type card, and not combinations. Which meant they would be more basic and more often than not on the weaker side for their tier. Most would likely not even have abilities, other than simple physical augmentation. His elites might be outnumbered 3 to 1, but at least some of his would be of a higher caliber.

  It felt like a kick to the gonads, but Peter started summoning A tiers. He just had to hope that he got a lot of stock cards from this endeavor, since he would use them all. Even ones like the diamond type which he had paid such a premium for. Peter needed numbers so he could not afford any combinations, so he was wasting a lot of opportunities here. He stifled the feeling of loss with his rage.

  He could only sigh as he summoned each time giving a quick glance to the resultant stock options. Dragon ended with 175 and Abyss with 170. Plenty to use, but he would have to pay for the privilege from now on. Peter nearly developed a tick when both diamond and emerald only got 2 options a piece. He had paid 1.5 million for those two alone. The worst however was the statue that only got 1. Psychic also did fairly bad with 3, but he felt like he could get more of them later.

  As far as what he summoned, the units were as varied as the card types he had used, although abyss and dragons made up nearly half of their number. Peter could not really focus on the details. He did not have time. Already the weevil army had pushed onto the fifth floor having found and quickly dealt with his old porcupine guardian room. The ramp down to the sixth, seventh, and eighth were not quite as easy to get to as the first few floors so they would take a bit longer. Still he could only chide himself not putting them at opposite ends, buying himself 4 or 5 times the amount of time.

  Peter once again focused on the weevil army. “What do we know about the weevil core,” he asked his aid. Boris was simply flipping several screens monitoring as his clockwork subordinates gathered his dungeon forces.

  “Not much, he is from year group 35. One of the noted units from the first floor of our neighboring dungeon was a weevil…” Boris commented.

  “So our neighbor came to pay us a visit,” Peter said, still contemplating. Already he could see Delilah and others scrambling as they started to organize and move the A tiers. Peter felt a pang of guilt. Hopefully nothing happened to her, he doubted they would get a chance to talk before things began. The A tier floated nearby her, apparently already starting his ritual summon. They might only have a bit more than 10 minutes. Apes poured out of the magic mine. The 20 plus B tiers might not make a big difference but he needed numbers.

  With that consideration, Peter finally made his decision. He would use all his essence to summon 500 B tiers, mostly armageddon dragons and nightmarish creation slimes. At least he could have greater numbers than his opponent. They could do some damage and buy time so that his higher caliber units could have time to recover manna, stamina, etcetera…

  Peter’s mind continued to blaze as he considered a strategy. He thought of an idea. He knew the ninth floor pretty intimately, just like all his other floors. He pulled up an area on his screen and explained his plan real quickly to Boris. A minute later the clockwork took off. His presence was needed to help direct things now that things had been established at headquarters.

  The weevils were already well onto exploring the eighth floor when his units started moving onto the ninth themselves. It looked like they would get into place just in time. However this battle would be more of a brutal melee than a well organized battle. It likely would not last too long either way.