Peter finished his rapid summoning's quick enough. It left him with ten plus minutes to watch the counter slowly tick down. He had done almost everything he could. Now it only remained to see how things fell out. Peter had left 5 million essence in reserve. He used up every one of his 52 original A tier type cards including the 10 ember cards he had just traded for. In addition he had summoned 50 A tiers, but not from using his design cards. Nope, he had summoned 50 A tier dragons, leaving him with 122 dragon stock cards. The other 7.7 million essence was used mainly to bolster the number of C tiers in his army, but he had added a handful of B tiers.
Unfortunately, units like Pip the ritual summoner fairy or wraith raiser, could not start summoning before the battle began. But Boris confirmed that they had completed all the other necessary preparations. This war would be like no other. The caliber and numbers would be far more like an intermediate fight than a rookie battle. During the demon battle, they had likely come close to fielding a million units between all the cores on both sides. For this battle, it was likely there would be closer to 2 million than only a million. The other side likely would field well over a million all by themselves.
On the front screen an interface was opened to showcase the battle in all four allied dungeons. Peter had stationed some D tier iron glider flies in all their dungeons, so that he could watch it all. Similarly they had each done so for his dungeon as well. They would not be able to watch what occurred in the alternate dimension, but they would see every other facet of the battle. They would have few secrets from each other after this. A small concern for now since they first had to survive.
Simultaneously, on all four screens Pandora's box was opened. Flying insects came streaming through, as others like ants started climbing out through the sides and along the walls. All while the ground based insects rushed forward. In less than a minute the insect dungeons would likely have sent at least 2,000 units into each of their dungeons. More alarming was that they would likely continue to do so. Despite his interest in the other’s fights, his gaze honed in on his own dungeon’s screen.
For Peter, it was the woodlouse core sending in the ground troops. Dozens of what looked like rollie pollies streaked through the portal with every second. Half their number were C tiers, but the other half were B with at least 10% being A tiers. The A tiers immediately separated from the pack. Agatha’s spiders were the ones coming into his dungeon by climbing in from along the sides before spreading across the walls. Every single one of them was a B tier or higher. For the air troops, Peter got a mix of green leaf-like katydid’s and wasp’s. Many of all three forces blinked into the alternate realm as soon as they crossed the threshold.
In the physical realm all hell had broken loose. Stationed in a semi circle around the entrance were 8 pill box bunkers. Each had multiple E tier clockworks who immediately started sweeping multiple flamethrowers back and forth. Hundreds of B tier Armageddon and Saint flame dragons waited around them to aid with their void beams and flames. Eventually they would engage physically. Hundreds of spells streaked past overhead.
Hundreds of flying insects immediately started falling from the air, as hundreds of trap crystals blasted in from the sides. Each was made out of the valuable tier 5 crystal, so was more than powerful enough to kill a B tier or two with a direct hit. Even A tiers would suffer a grievous wound. Springing energy spear traps activated underneath the wood louses into their softer bellies. The traps did not kill them outright, but it slowed the advance of even the A tiers enough to bottleneck the column forcing the next waves to go in opposite directions other than straight forward triggering more of the traps. Hopefully, it would stifle the reinforcements enough
Peter was blowing a large amount of the valuable intermediate black crystals, but they were killing and wounding enemy elites, which was the best use for them. Plus it was not like he did not have more of the various intermediate level resources than all the other rookie dungeons. Likely he had several times as many.
Hundreds of insects died, but at least the ground A tiers were able to push out of the semi circle that Peter had tried to contain them all in. Already several dozen of them were engaged in combat with the B tier dragons waiting to receive them. The mages or rifle platoons could not help, their attention was on the more immediate threats along the walls. Purple and black pulses shot out into wall crawlers. Then there were the flying insects who were quickly expanding the area they had to work with purely through triggering the successive traps.
The biggest problem were the spiders, now expanding the foothold of the enemy along the walls and ceiling of the room. Some were hitting wall traps that had somehow not already been triggered by the flying insects, but even more were rushing across the stone surfaces relatively unopposed. It was not like Peter had his own wall clinger units to engage them, and his own flying forces could not make a move due to his own traps. It left only the mages and rifle platoons.
Delilah had several aides carrying the ridiculous number of one-use rifles, each containing a legendary tier 7 crystal. She took out one A tier spider after another. The hundreds of others in the rifle platoons culled the weaker B tiers. Glenda star falled an entire section of the wall, knocking down or killing a whole swath of them. Still the unceasing insects looked like they would overrun the defenses in a matter of minutes. The amount of high level insects falling was staggering. Even when he was a centennial, Peter could not picture himself expending so many all at once.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Wasteful, was probably the best word that Peter could come up with. The insect cores were entirely too wasteful. If he had the same amount of resources to spend as them, despite the non combination units being weaker as a whole, he could do far more. Still he was far from being in a position to talk down to them, his absurdly strong defenders would soon be in significant danger as was his whole dungeon.
Peter quickly glanced over his allies' battles, but they were all pretty much the same. All four of them were in danger of having their initial defenses overrun. Elyra was doing the worst, and that was with the ether tearing dragon and its one offs going to work and taking out enemy elites. What would things be like for her when the SS tier had to pull back due to being low energy.
“Boris, we need to send some help to Elyra. I’m thinking Gnther and a good chunk of his forces,” Peter ordered.
The clockwork aid immediately sent an E tier clock work out on the tenth floor. Gunther and his forces were luckily already there. Still it would take 30 minutes for them to be of any help. Gabriel looked to be the next worse off. His defenses were struggling but holding for now. Gretchen’s situation looked more grim than it was. Her defenses were bedraggled, but already Ganon was hard at work.
In under two minutes he had likely killed dozens of enemies. He already had 3 A tiers of dark guards formed, and was in work to finish another. The guy was absurd. Not only was he killing enemies, but he was using their energy to create A tiers. Unlike with wraith raiser, there was not really much of a limit other than the guy's mana reserves, which according to his status was still well over half full. In five minutes the guy would have a good 10 shadow guards. Sure his mana would be bottomed, but the SSS(-) special ranked attribute recovered mana quite quickly. Besides, Peter had sent the only masterwork interface provided mana potion with the SS tier. According to Merlin, it should recoup a good half of the mage’s mana, meaning 5 more guards.
To Gannon’s sides were dozens of B tiers doing the same thing, although they were at a far lower level. Still hundreds of expendable C tiers was nothing to sneeze at. Plus their dark magic was also claiming lives. Peter would feel far more secure if they were all in his dungeon, but it was more important to keep his allies in the battle. If even one fell, victory would become exponentially more difficult.
Glenda had already initiated the retreat after only a few minutes. All the weaker mages and members of the rifle platoons had quickly expended most of their mana, and retreated to fight again later in the battle. Now it was time for the heavy hitters. Wren and her one offs had hundreds of wraiths that would cover the retreat with a wall of wraiths. Several hundred B tier dragons and those manning the flamethrowers would be left behind. There was just simply no way to pull them out.
The spiders quickly ripped apart the wraiths as they struggled to follow after. The wraith raisers could form them quickly, but they were not as strong as Peter had hoped. Only Wren’s own wraiths lasted more than a few seconds in a fight at this level although he watched as one lost a one on one battle with an A tier spider. Ganon was everything Peter had dreamed he would be, but Wren and her subordinates could only mass produce fodder wraiths. Still they were enough to ensure a successful retreat for Delilah and Glenda.
Still spiders and flying insects were hot on their heels. Glenda and Delilah barely made it past an unassuming truck sized urchin in the left tunnel. The insects and spiders were far quicker, and were closing in for the kill. Only for the massive truck sized bean to raise in the air as its spine’s extended pushing it off the floor. More of the spine’s shot out, closing the whole tunnel. Flying insects and spiders were pinned to the wall. Others were skewered as they hit the extended spines at full speed. The insects immediately tried to cut their way through, but the abyssal crystal construct’s SSS rank defenses proved too much. Even the A tiers would have to work to break through the thin spines that extended in all directions. The insect force’s momentum in the tunnel was stopped in its tracks.
In the other tunnels The Saint flame dragon poured its flame across the tunnel, even the A tier spiders wilted under the attack. For nearly a minute all progress in invading through the right tunnel was stopped as well. During which large explosions racked the entrance cavern as each of the bunkers exploded. The last thing the E tier clockworks were instructed to do was to set off the stockpile of extra resources when it was clear they were about to be breached. Seven of the bunkers had at least 1 E tier able to trigger the detonations. Hundreds of insects were consumed in the explosions although many of the stronger were merely wounded.
The saint flame dragon started retreating as soon as its fire was done. Once again it would preserve itself to fight again later once it had recovered its special ability. The insects flooded the tunnel as soon as the flames stopped. The dragon was lumbering away, but there were several units gleefully fluttering forward to run it down.
Initially Peter had wanted to send the collapsing star fiend with his assault force, but he could always teleport it there after they had taken a floor and inscribed a teleportation ruin. For now he would use it to cull the elites. Peter was interested to see if there was really anything capable of hurting the SS tier. The stone golem core had managed it, but that was thanks to two powerful S tiers wounding it grievously enough for it to fall to the A tiers the demon stupidly ran after. The insect cores however would have a far more difficult time bringing down something with such fierce resistances.
Accompanying the fiend was the plasma bather. The reddish orange horned lizard immediately began channeling the plasma to the rest of its body. The two went absolutely ballistic slamming into an endless tide of oncoming insects. The collapsing star fiend easily ripped its way through, and the plasma bather was also weathering the confrontation extremely well. Insects were continuing past them, but the two were stopping everything in their paths. Both had orders to retreat before their plasma bars bottomed out, but until then they would bring destruction to the tide of insects.
