It wasn’t the appearance of magic shields that surprised me. I was a dungeon core, after all. I created monsters from nothing except essence.
But actually, that was why I was so surprised. The Shielded Republic soldiers had used essence to create shields. I could tell from the smell in the air, which most people wouldn’t have sensed.
Overseers Gill and Bolton joined me.
“The soldiers are human. How are they using essence?” I said.
“Since the republic clearly exists, we can only guess that the other legends surrounding them are true. The children of the Shielded Republic swallow core dust from a young age,” said Gill. “Such a practice is stupid, of course. Cores are toxic. Otherwise, there would be no need to train cores in the first place. Overseers could just forge a core, eat it, and then wield its essence themselves.”
“Then how have they managed it? Correct me if I’m wrong, but they don’t look dead to me.”
“I’d guess their practice is similar to how a poisoner ingests small doses of his poisons each day so that he can build an immunity to them. As well as that, they no doubt have a few techniques that they have never shared. They are full of surprises. After all, it was thought they had been wiped out completely in their war against the empire. But I suppose not.”
Overseer Bolton pointed across the arena. “Look at those cowards,” he said.
Tarnbuckle and the other Dungeon Core Academy overseers were escorting Aethos out of the arena and towards their portdoor. They were fleeing, even as the Shielded Republic soldiers spread through the arena, climbing into the spectator sections to corral the crowd.
I watched, barely containing my disgust within my core. Aethos was a Mid-Foundation core. Four rankings above me in core quality, which supposedly made him a much better core than me. One who was much worthier of representing the academy. And yet, here he was. Following his overseers out of the arena.
“Perhaps we should leave, too,” said Gulliver, joining the overseers and me.
“No,” I said.
“There must be fifty soldiers, and more still to come. Your portdoor is just there, Beno.”
“I might not be able to do much about my core quality. But I can choose how to respond to this. Yes, I could flee into my portdoor. I could float back to the dungeon, and then sever the link between the portdoor and my lair.”
“Then let’s do that,” said Gulliver. “I’d rather be a living coward than a dead hero.”
“What about all the spectators?” I said.
Looking at them, I saw the Shielded Republic soldiers beating some of them down with the hilts of their swords, then kicking them while they were on the floor.
“What do they want?” said Gulliver. “Why are they here?”
“There have always been rumors about the Shielded Republic,” said Bolton. “We discussed them, did we not? Now that we know the rumors were true, we can safely say whispers of their motivations are true, too. The Shielded Republic has always held a grudge against cores. It was the involvement of cores that tipped the war in the empire’s favor. Is it a surprise that they would choose to strike during the Battle of the Five Stars, when some of the most powerful cores are gathered in one place?”
“The tournament has been held every 10 years. The battle between the empire and the Shielded Republic was centuries ago,” I said. “Why haven’t they attacked a tournament before now?”
“A sensible opponent doesn’t strike in anger. They strike when they are ready.”
“Well, we aren’t going to run away like the Dungeon Core Academy.”
“Beno, you have little essence to spare, and your dungeon monsters aren’t in the best of health. There is a time when self-preservation is a noble act,” said Overseer Gill.
“Nonsense,” said Bolton. “Fleeing will always be the mark of a coward. No matter the reasons.”
I saw the pain on Gill’s face now. It probably hurt him to hear this from Bolton, given that Gill had once fled his academy after the empire purged it. It couldn’t have been nice to have the fears of his cowardice confirmed by a fellow overseer.
I didn’t see Gill as a coward. The truth was, after hearing Gill's story, I didn’t blame him for fleeing from his academy so that he could save a part of it.
But this was different. If I fled into my dungeon, I would be no better than the Dungeon Core Academy. This was my chance to show them that it didn’t matter that I was a Base core.
“We’ll stay and fight,” I said.
“You’d be signing your death warrant,” said Gulliver.
“Word will be getting round to the other cores in the tournament, and not all of them will be as cowardly. And when the city realizes what’s going on, they’ll send soldiers. We just need to keep the Shielded Republic busy until then.”
With my mind decided, I used my core voice to send a command to all my dungeon creatures.
“Leave the dungeon and come to the arena. Bring whatever weapons and portable traps you can,” I said.
Soon the portdoor opened. In flooded an army of jellies, bone guys, fire beetles.
Razensen strode out, his icy feet pounding the ground. Kainhelm prowled behind his friend, his skin cape flapping up and down.
Following them was a dragon. Twenty feet tall, scales bloodied and worn, yet still glistening under the sunlight. Some of his wounds had a strange shine to them. That must have come from some kind of alchemical lotion made by Maginhart.
Finally came Rusty, Shadow, Maginhart, Tomlin, and Wylie. Shadow’s giant dogs brought up the flanks, snarling so that their teeth showed. I felt better seeing that. I knew that the dogs would defend my kobolds with their lives.
One Shielded Republic soldier, standing behind a towering shield made from essence, pointed at my monsters.
“Look! They’ve got a bloody narkleer!”
A ripple of fear spread through them, as befitted the sight of a creature as gloriously hideous as Kainhelm.
“A pox on you all! A curse on your lineage!” shouted Kainhelm.
And with that, Kainhelm began using his psychic disembowelment power.
Stomachs wrenched open. Guts spilled onto the ground. The Shielded Republic soldiers screamed, terrified at seeing a monster who defied their shields of essence.
Kainhelm prowled through the ranks of the Shielded Republic soldiers, his skin cape growing as he fed upon the murder and mutilation.
Razensen stomped forward, swinging a giant axe made from mana-fixed ice. It clanged against one shield, shattered another.
Four soldiers crowded around him and stabbed at his calves, but this only made his bogan eyes glow hotter and brighter.
I knew what this meant. A warm feeling spread through my core.
This wasn’t suicide after all. The soldiers had done the worst thing possible.
If there is one thing above anything else that it is inadvisable to do…
…it is to stab a bogan until you make his eyes glow red.
A crimson glow gathered around Razensen’s trio of eyes. Anger seethed from him in hot waves.
Giving a roar that shook the whole arena, he swung his axe into a crowd of soldiers. The force was enough to lift them into the sky, sending them completely clear of the arena itself. Their screams grew quieter as they plummeted off God’s Fist and towards the ground.
I hated having to watch from the side-lines, not doing anything. I could only remind myself that it was part of being a core. Our power isn’t in swinging the sword, but in directing who should swing it and where.
It didn’t matter either way. We were winning.
One member of the Shielded Republic stepped out from the crowd. He was tall and muscular, with black-grey hair and deep-set eyes. His shield was bigger than the others, and essence crackled around it.
“Nobody will stand in the way of Vike Stonecroft, leader of the Shielded Republic. We will rise again. We will-”
“Dragon?” I said, using my core voice. “Finish this, please.
”
My new dragon prowled forward, his eyes burning red, his tail towering above his scaly body. Some of the soldiers backed away.
The dragon opened his mouth.
A gust of flames roared over Vike’s shield, burning through the essence. Black smoke gushed into the sky, and the air around the arena shimmered with heat.
When the flames ended, Vike’s shield was gone but the man was still alive.
Facing him was my giant dragon.
Vike ran his finger over the emblem on his leathers. The symbol began to illuminate, running over his armor in a current.
Before the emblem could complete, a dragon tail smashed into him. Vike’s bones crushed under the weight, and the force of the blow sent him across the arena, where he landed in a dead heap.
Next to me, Overseer Gill stood with a big smile on his belly face. He was clenching his fists.
“This is all going rather well, Beno. But what do you imagine would have happened if the bogan and the narkleer weren’t here? What if you didn’t have a dragon?”
“Well, I-”
“I’d hazard a guess that we would now be looking upon an arena strewn with dead kobolds and spectators. This should be warning in itself of how much stronger you need to become,” he said.
“Does it matter? They’re dead.”
“A core shouldn’t rest upon the strength of his monsters. We need to improve you, Beno. You are too weak. But a year with me will change that.”
“Let’s not relax too early, gentlemen. The Shielded Republic hasn’t been lax in their preparations. Look,” said Bolton.
I should have known better than to begin to relax. Beams of light shot down into the arena. Even more Shielded Republic soldiers rappelled down them, landing on the arena ground and using essence to form shields in front of them.
With their reinforcements, the soldiers numbered almost fifty. Using their shields of essence, they formed into units of four or five, each holding shields in different directions so they were protected against all attacks.
By now, Razensen’s anger had burnt itself out. As was usual after a bout of intense rage, the bogan looked fatigued. His ice axe seemed heavy in his hand.
Likewise, Kainhelm had reached the limit of his psychic disembowelment power. Without it, he was just a large, skinny creature made from bone.
“The other cores will get here soon,” I said. “We just need to hold out a little bit longer.”
“The portdoor is still open, Beno,” said Gill.
I glanced at the door. How easy would it be to flee through it and into the safety of my dungeon?
But if I did, the Shielded Republic would have nobody to fight. This would leave them free to run amok amongst the crowd, taking the spectators as prisoners. After securing the arena, they’d spill into God’s Fist. Who knew what they would do from there? If they reached the city below, they could do anything.
I racked my brains to think of something I could do with a gaggle of tired, injured monsters, and the essence points I had left.
And then I noticed that the bulk of the Shielded Republic soldiers were holding their ground on my side of the arena.
There might be something I could do.
I cycled through my list of traps, stopping when I came to a trap I had used often.
The pitfall. A hole in the ground, usually disguised so that heroes fell into it. One of the most basic traps a core could make. A trap that even a Base core could craft with ease.
On its own, a pitfall probably wouldn’t help much here.
But I had a new technique, and I had a great idea.
I gathered essence within my core and imagined a pitfall in my mind. I put my essence to work, pulsing it outside myself and into the arena, directly underneath the Republic soldiers.
But instead of stopping there, I tapped into my Essential Overload. I pulsed all the remaining essence from my core and into the pitfall. Receiving much more essence than was necessary for its construction, the pitfall grew deeper. It cut through the bowels of the arena until it reached the other side.
Because the arena was an extension of God’s Fist, it must have been hundreds of feet in the air. This gave the Republic soldiers little chance when the pitfall appeared under their feet.
They plunged down through it, waving their shields and their arms as they fell hundreds of feet, soon splatting on the terrain below.
But my pitfall wasn’t done there. The extra essence I had pulsed into it using Essential Overload hadn’t just made it deeper.
It had given my basic pitfall another effect. Something I had never seen before.
I watched, utterly amazed.
The surplus essence I had pulsed using Essential Overload gathered inside the pitfall and swirled in a circle.
The pitfall began to suck surrounding the soldiers towards it, like a whirlpool dragging a helpless swimmer to its depths. Soldier after soldier fell through the pitfall and into the screaming abyss. They plunged down from God’s Fist and through the air, towards the deaths.
The remaining soldiers were clever enough to back away from the pull of the pitfall now, but that didn’t matter.
“Beno! Look!” shouted Cynthia.
Portdoors all around the arena were flung open. Cores and overseers from other academies flooded out. Joining them were their monsters, and soon the arena was swarming with kobolds and yetis and undead warriors.
Seeing this, the remaining Republic soldiers dropped their shields and cowered back against the arena walls. Some appealed for mercy, others fell to their knees and waited for death. One by one, their essence shields blinked out.
Chapter 28
Following the battle of the Shielded Republic, the arenas in God’s Fist were closed. Consequently, the remaining quarter-final fights had to be postponed. The tournament organizers huddled together in their star lodge, finally emerging a day later.
When they announced the tournament was over, a wave of disappointment crashed through the people of Heaven’s Peak. Through the residents whose livelihoods rested on the tournament. Through the people who’d journeyed for miles on crammed, smelly carriages just to watch the fights. Through the academies and cores who had come here looking for glory.
Shortly after, the empire diverted soldiers to Heaven’s Peak. A battalion of metal-armored soldiers arrived, and they closed off the city. Foreign merchants were told to pack up their stalls and return home. Travelers were escorted out of the city gates.
Despite their frustration, everyone understood. Nobody had expected the Shielded Republic to still exist, let alone to have scores of armed fighters. The empire had underestimated them once and would be stupid to do so again. The soldiers would stay in Heaven’s Peak in case the Republic were planning a second attack.
No matter their reasoning, the result was the same.
The Battle of the Five Stars was over. There would be no winner this decade.
“Cheer up, Beno,” said Gulliver. “This means you have ten years to get ready for the next.”
My friend had meant it as a joke, but the thought had already come to me.
Ten years. Who knew what I could accomplish in that time with hard work and some guidance? Did I plan to still be a Base core with only one type of essence inside me in a decade?
No way. I wouldn’t let that happen. With Overseer Gill’s help, I was ready to work and unlock my potential. If entering the tournament taught me one thing, it was that I had become way too lax after leaving the Dungeon Core Academy.
Yes, I had fought heroes and I had leveled up plenty of times, but that wasn’t enough. I had stopped learning. Stopped growing. I thought I was better than I really was. I’d decided in my head that nobody had anything to teach me. In truth, my education was only beginning.
“So long, Heaven’s Peak. See you in ten years.”
Just as I was going to sever the link between my dungeon and the portdoor in God’s Fist, someone knocked on it.
When I answered, a li
ttle goblin was standing there. I recognized him as one of the tournament orderlies.
“Your presence is requested at the star lodge, Core Beno,” he said.
I was surprised at the tone of respect in his voice. Throughout the tournament, the orderlies had treated me with barely hidden disdain.
When I arrived at the star lodge, Brenda, the owl lady, was waiting. Unlike every other time I had visited her office, she looked pleased to see me.
Spreading her wings wide, she said, “Core Beno! What a pleasure it is. I watched all of your fights, you know. You carried yourself admirably. I even got an emblem of your academy made so that I can hang it in my office.”
She nodded at a frame on her wall, inside which was a tapestry of white wool, so that it looked blank.
“That’s a…uh…first draft. I’ll send you a tapestry of our new emblem for free.”
“Wonderful! Now, I suppose you’re wondering why I wanted to see you?”
“Is there a tournament fee that I have missed paying? Something else? Please don’t tell me that one of my kobolds caused trouble in the city. They get lairy when they drink beer. I made the mistake of giving my miners the day off, and they wanted to visit the city…”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Brenda. “In fact, you will be happy with what I have to tell you. As you know, the tournament was called off. This means we do not have a winner. As such, there is nobody to claim the lovely Revered Trinkets we had saved until the end.”
This got my attention.
“Is the tournament being rescheduled?”
She shook her head. “Impossible. The logistics involved make such a feat tremendously difficult. It will be another decade, I am afraid. Until then, I have been asked to present you with something.”
She opened a drawer in her desk and took out a key that was almost as long as her wing. She floated up from her desk and out of the room, into the atrium of the lodge.
“Come on then. I do have a job to do, you know.”
I followed Brenda through the lodge until we came to what looked like a disused pantry. Brenda grabbed a pile of wooden pallets using her talons and shoved them to one side, revealing a hatch in the floor. She put the key in the lock and turned it.
Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Page 149