by Matthew Peed
“Is everyone alright?!” I called out from over the fort.
“The lightning queen!” I heard someone shout, which made me blush.
“What happened?” I asked as I landed in the middle of a group of about twenty-five people.
“We don’t know! We were trying to capture one of the beasts when we found ourselves here. A moment later a blast tore through the floor,” one of the women explained with her hands over her head.
“I understand. Try to make your way outside. I’m not sure what exactly is going on, but the dungeon is under attack,” I said as I rose back into the air.
I flew down the crater to the next floor and was surprised at how much distance there was between each floor. Between the ninth and tenth floor alone, there had to be fifty or sixty meters of solid stone. Whatever was attacking the dungeon was in a realm that I felt hadn’t been seen in an age.
The shaft shook from something farther ahead. What sounded like an explosion echoed up, followed by a blast of air that buffeted me. I accelerated to reach the bottom but wasn’t sure what I could do even if I caught up. Another explosion followed by a second blast of air blew up from the shaft, the force almost sending me into the wall.
“Damn it!” I groaned as I corrected myself.
The crater was only a few dozen meters in radius by the time I reached the fifteenth floor. A weird white city met my sight. I couldn’t see any signs of combat, so the attacker must have managed to blast right past it without getting copied by that floor’s magic.
I couldn’t find any evidence that they’d made it past this floor, however. I landed on a building and scanned the area but couldn’t find the exit, let alone any damage. However, the woman was nowhere to be seen. I looked around to try to find where she might have gone.
“This is crazy. What would I even do if I found her?” I mumbled to myself while rubbing the back of my head. I had been doing that a lot the last few days, I realized. In less than two days, my valley had suffered from three different occurrences. I had the distinct feeling they were all completely separate and just happened to occur at the same time.
“Town Lord, do you want to watch the fight?” I heard from behind me, pulling me from my thoughts. I spun around to see a strange-looking fairy floating in the air. Though, she did remind me of Regan. She had see-through wings with multicolor lines running along them and silver skin. I put her around two-thirds of a meter tall but had to say she was beautiful.
“Are you Regan’s dungeon fairy?” I asked. I had never seen him with one before. I honestly thought he might have absorbed it a long time ago. He wasn’t exactly shy about doing things his own way. Being told what a dungeon is supposed to be doing by a little fairy just didn’t fit my image of Regan.
The fairy bobbed in the air. “Yes. With Father busy I have control over the dungeon right now. My name is Ignea.”
“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked, but she shook her head.
“I felt something connect to him in the north, then the link was blocked. If I had to guess, I would say he is engaging the dungeon to the north in combat.” Ignea shrugged.
“Where’s the woman who attacked the dungeon?” I asked, turning around to look about again.
“Rather than have her destroy the rest of the dungeon, I took advantage of this floor and teleported her farther in where there are opponents that can actually deal with her,” she explained as she landed on my shoulder. I felt an aura of mana form around us.
The sight in front of me changed, and we appeared in a room made out of metal. I looked out of the window and saw rocks that seemed to be floating in midair with no regard for gravity. Beams of energy were lancing toward a spot in the emptiness from a ship, or at least I assumed it was a ship. The beams struck the spot, and spheres of energy formed. I could tell they would easily destroy anything out of the normal.
A figure with orange lines and black plates covering its body flew around a spot that looked like liquid darkness. It raised its arm, and a sphere of darkness formed literally on top of the liquid darkness. The floating rocks within what looked like a hundred or so meters were pulled into the sphere. They quickly vanished as if they had never even existed.
In the distance, I saw three enormous ships, all firing beams of energy at the target, which had to be the woman. I was equally amazed that the liquid darkness was, I realized, a type of barrier that handled all the attacks being sent her way. The beams of energy lost their color as they slammed into it.
“So, are Regan’s forces winning?” I asked, unable to tell.
“It’s about even at the moment. She is taking everything we throw at her, but she isn’t able to proceed or retaliate. I assume she is waiting for us to expend most of our mana before she attempts anything.” Ignea flew around my head. Gulv nipped at her, and she smirked and stuck her tongue out at him. Yeah, she was definitely Regan’s.
Chapter 18
Regan
We stared at a large plain. It was covered with an undead army at least forty thousand strong. Specters and high-level undead moved around the floor. The strong pulse of Alara’s core vibrated in the center of it, and her avatar floated above a castle-like cathedral that reminded me of a replica of Notre Dame before it burned down. A very twisted one at that, with a black material making up the walls and what looked like real gargoyles alternating between landing and flying around the towers.
“Finally, we made it down to the bottom floor,” I said after taking it all in.
I was physically on the floor. That allowed my control over my aura to be at its strongest short of bringing a core down here. My mana reserves were about half-depleted from the assault, but I had enough to level this floor if I had to using my more Earth-like tech.
My current goal was to lure Alara out into combat so I could capture her avatar. That was the best way to save her mind. While I was prepared to shatter her core, as I had contingencies to save her that I thought could work, I really wanted to avoid it if possible. It didn’t hurt to take every precaution. Starfall had been enough of a chance already.
“Monarch, all resistance on the upper floors has virtually ceased. I think they are pooling their mana for the coming confrontation,” Queen said, bowing behind me.
I glanced at her and chuckled. I knew she was making a show for the enemy. Alara was looking at me every now and then. I didn’t hate the display, so I just played along. In the future, I was sure there would be plenty of people who would want to bow to me thanks to the gnomes. The others were playing along with her, and all bowed in a line next to her.
Behind them were my forces all arrayed in a defensive line and ready to commence the attack as well. All the forces and even several batches of reinforcements that had arrived since the assault began were all present except for the bare minimum needed to protect the rear lines. While it was risky, if I took Alara’s core, the conflict would basically come to an end.
The foot soldiers, end-tier-two automata, stood in a perfect line that stretched six hundred meters. They formed a line that was five deep and armed to the teeth in a variety of energy and physical weapons. Their armor could stop tier two attacks all day long and could handle several steps into tier three as well. These were machines built for only one purpose and that was war.
Arrayed behind them was a variety of machines and vehicles. The most notable were the mechs piloted by goblins that had mastered the machines. I wasn’t sure why, but they were even better pilots than automata that I’d created especially for piloting the mechs. It was one of the mysteries I planned to investigate when I got a bit of free time.
Most of the mechs were humanoid or quadrupedal. It seemed the goblins had varying preferences when it came to the mode of walking. Not to mention the massive number of weapons that each mech was packed with. The goblins didn’t seem able to resist.
The hover tanks made up a good chunk of the rest of the armor division. As mobile weapons platforms, they would drop legs and deploy their turrets.
Every hover tank was accompanied by a squad of foot soldiers, as they were weak at close range. They were armored more heavily than the mechs, but I didn’t want to test it out unless I had to.
Finally, there was the command staff and the maintenance division. Queen controlled the maintenance division while the command were all the named automata that I had created. They were each linked to central command via comms, and I could issue orders without having to move a muscle if need be. Not that I planned for that to happen. I wanted to be on the front line for this.
“Good. One less thing I must concentrate on. The undead still haven’t attacked?” I asked. It was an obvious question, considering the undead had formed a line roughly a kilometer away.
“Yes, it is as if they are waiting for something to happen,” Anubis said.
“Any signs of the specter queen?”
Jarvis answered this time. “Signs of battle are present around the castle, but there are no signs of the specter queen. The specters are much weaker than those on the previous floor.”
“So, we should assume she was defeated or captured,” I said, tapping my chin. That was too bad if either was the case.
Queen nodded. “That would be best. What would you like us to do?”
“We need to lure Alara out. That means we have to convince the necromancer controlling her that they can’t win without sending her—” I was cut off by an intense pain.
The pain was something I had never experienced since coming to this world. It was like someone had torn my arm off and was beating me with it. I dropped to one knee, grabbing my head as pain lanced through me. I was sure that I would be bleeding everywhere if I could. As it was, tears of oil laced with mana were leaking from my eyes and mouth.
“Monarch!” Queen shouted and was quickly followed by everyone else shouting out in surprise.
I held up a hand. The pain was already passing. I did a mental check on myself and everything in my aura. Nothing was wrong in my aura around Alpha. Looking deeper, I found the pain radiating from one of the links to my other dungeons. It was the thickest of the three, so it was my main core.
“I’m alright!” I said, standing back up. “Something is paying my main dungeon a visit. We don’t have time to play games anymore! Finish this!” I ordered, raising my voice.
“As you command!” they all echoed, then rushed to their various ships and positions.
The pain still echoed throughout my body. I frowned when I considered that was probably what Alara was feeling every time I broke through a floor. I was going to have a lot of making up to do. I needed to make the necromancers pay for this trouble.
Mentally connecting to one of the ion cannons in space, I had it begin to charge. It was on standby, so it only took a moment for it to reach critical. Leaving the target blank, I forcibly opened a portal connecting the floor I was on and the spot right in front of the cannon. I pointed the portal toward the castle. The strain of keeping the portal, even within my aura, from inside Alara’s dungeon was causing my arm to spark from the mana flowing through it.
A moment later the cannon fired. The massive beam of energy collided with the portal, which acted like a magnifying glass. The beam exited the portal in the dungeon much smaller but on another level of intensity. I groaned as I felt another jolt of pain from the source in the distance. The white-blue energy beam sliced clean through the entirety of the floor.
When I saw the splash of energy from it colliding with the back wall, I channeled more mana to the other side of the portal to force it to change angle. It felt like moving a mountain, but eventually the portal started to turn, the beam of energy with it. The undead were fleeing from the beam as their necromancer masters tried to save their forces.
Finally, the beam struck the left wall, and the ion cannon in space exploded at nearly the same time. I quickly closed the portal to guard against any debris that headed in the direction of the portal. Looking at the damage I’d managed to wreak, I felt it was good enough to force the necromancers to send out Alara to fight me.
I had aimed straight down the center of the floor. The castle in the center now possessed a massive hole that went clean through it. Then there was the ragged damage from where the beam sliced it basically in half. As I watched, the left side of the castle started to collapse. We were a good distance away, so it wasn’t as spectacular for us as I was sure it was for any necromancers that were present.
The right side and the upper part of the castle, though barely still connected, maintained their shape. With how the upper part was basically floating, I figured Alara’s core must be inside. It could be thought of as a completely separate floor by itself. I glanced up to where Alara floated but she hadn’t moved yet, so I checked the rest of the damage I’d caused. The left side of the floor was reduced to slag. I couldn’t make out anything moving in the debris. The right side shuffled forward without pause, though, since they were undead. I wondered if they could feel fear.
“Now what, Monarch?” Queen asked. I sensed awe in her voice, but it could have just been my imagination.
“We wait for them to make the next move. But, let’s help them make it.” I grinned sinisterly. “Begin bombardment!”
The undead began charging the defense line. The hover tanks and mechs in the army all raised their cannons. There was a moment of silence, followed by a flash as several hundred cannons fired, causing streaks of light as the rounds flew into the enemy. Explosive rounds impacted the first hundred meters of the enemy lines, blasting everything to pieces. The first volley managed to destroy roughly five or six hundred.
Even with half the floor turned to ash, there had to have been ten to twenty thousand undead left to contend with. My artillery couldn’t aim for the back lines, though, or the roof of the cavern would be struck by the weapons fire. Explosions rang out almost constantly. Even with that, the undead quickly closed the gap between the two forces.
The foot soldiers raised their weapons. A moment later it started to rain bullet shells. I mentally looked down on the battle. It looked like a waterfall as the streaks of light from the fired rounds arced toward the undead. The weapons fire reduced the zombies and regular skeletons to pulp and bone meal.
The skeleton knights rushed to the front of the line and raised their shields. I was impressed when I saw they were able to withstand the rounds fired from my weapons. But they didn’t survive long, as once a spot was struck five or six times, it would be destroyed. But it gave the undead breathing room.
“One hundred meters until contact!” shouted one of the command automata.
“Melee weapons!” Anubis ordered as he rushed to join the front. He was followed closely by Vetur.
The frontline foot soldiers activated their shields just before the undead wave collided with them. The skeleton knights’ metal shields threw up sparks from the energy grinding against them. The foot soldiers with melee weapons began slicing into the undead line with machine precision. Short-range weapons like shotguns also made an appearance as they ripped apart the undead.
Anubis and his soldiers moved through the lines like shadows, acting like grim reapers to the undead. Rotting body parts and black blood went flying as the two forces fought. Benjamin commanded his crew from the air to use energy weapons to fire on anything that could bulldoze through the defense line into target practice. They were rather ruthless.
My forces weren’t without casualties. No matter how coordinated they worked together, the massive number of undead slamming against the line was just too much. In areas, they were literally crawling over each other, managing to go over the line. The target was quickly turned into a paste by the next line, but they still managed to achieve some damage.
Queen’s girls would pull the damaged unit out and quickly perform repairs. Even with them repairing them as fast as they were getting damaged, I was still taking loses. Still, though, once enough parts added up, a new unit could be recreated from them and would join the line.
Under normal
circumstances, I had no doubt this battle could be quite endless. I just hoped that the necromancers felt pressured enough to put out the big guns. Without them making a move, this would be annoying.
The battle raged for the better part of two hours before something changed. The undead that were charging almost relentlessly stopped dead in their tracks. The undead that were near the defense line were quickly ripped apart, but that only lasted a few seconds. Suddenly, they all turned around and started to run back toward the castle.
When I saw the change, I quickly scanned the area to find the cause. Sure enough, Alara was constructing some sort of monstrosity in front of the castle. Before I even ordered them to start bombardment, the necromancers threw up a barrier around the site. I knew I could blast my way through it, but the construct would be done long before we breached it.
My forces were in better shape than I anticipated. I had factored in a certain percentage being destroyed and was prepared to take the loss. The fact that my forces performed better than I expected was good news to me. I must have only lost a three hundred or so foot soldiers. Queen was commanding her girls with such finesse that they were managing their mana to a half a point margin. I was quite honestly impressed.
“Everyone be prepared. We are about to get a very nasty present from our neighbors!” I sent to all the forces.
I laced my hands behind my back as I watched the show, interested in what Alara could be creating. A virtual vortex of energy flowed into the creature under her. Not only unholy mana, but almost every other mana was present. The other undead collapsed into dust as their energy was ripped from their bodies and pulled into the monster.
“That thing . . . it has a soul,” Julie said with serious eyes.
“It might have a soul, but it should not exist,” Anubis said.
He tightened his grip on his scythe. If Anubis was worried about it, then all the more reason that I needed to keep my guard up. Suddenly, a wave of mana rolled over the entrenchment. It was dense enough to possess physical force. Surely, they weren’t making her pour all her remaining mana into a single creature.