by Matthew Peed
“Everyone! Hold together! Together we can get through this!” I shouted, flying along the line. I was glad that it seemed to help a few people, and their expressions lost some of their edge. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to reassure them more.
The wave struck the wall, like a wave against a cliff face. With a crashing of dirt and stone, the terra wave rippled against the wall, forming a natural second wall as it cascaded into the air. It passed a few seconds later, and the debris turned to sand. The strain had been massive, and multiple people passed out or collapsed onto their hands and knees, gasping for breath, completely spent. Of the original two thousand, only nine hundred or so remained standing.
“Another wave is coming!” an Air mage shouted as he flew back from looking over the mountain.
I turned my gaze back to the mountain, and sure enough another wave at least a meter high approached. It was the strangest thing, watching the ground buckle but not break apart from the wave’s passing. The town wall was severely weakened from the last wave, and I had no idea how many more there would be. I estimated we had five minutes before this one hit.
“Get everyone still conscious a mana potion! I’ll cover the cost!” I ordered. Air mages took off flying, quickly returning with Brine and several cases of what I hoped were potions.
“No, I’ll cover the cost!” Brine shouted with a humorous tone. Not the time to argue, I simply said thank you and started flying potions to the people who needed it. Five minutes passed in what felt like a blink of an eye.
“Incoming!” someone shouted.
Everyone focused and poured their mana into the wall. Again, the wave struck the wall and formed its spray of dirt and stone over its surface before turning to sand. At least the wall held, but as it finished passing, the number of mages left conscious wasn’t enough to maintain it and it collapsed in a grand show of mana.
“How many are left?” I asked.
“Roughly two hundred, my lady,” an Air mage answered.
“Another wave is coming!” a different Air mage reported. “It’s the largest yet, but its moving at a third of the speed. We have maybe thirty minutes.”
“Damn it! Regan, we need your help!” I mentally shouted at him, blinking when I didn’t get a reply for several long breaths. I cursed again, then turned back to the mage. “Get every mage we have here in five. Maybe if we pour enough mana into its path, the reaction will break the wave.”
“As you command!” the mage replied and flew into the air to broadcast the message.
Soon mages were seen running from every direction. When they reached the line, they began channeling their mana into the wall. Even the mages’ guildmaster showed up, and his section of the wall alone stretched nearly a hundred meters, formed of golden mana. I floated down next to him.
“Thank you for the help,” I said, bowing my head.
“What? An old man can’t protect his own home?” he asked, sounding offended.
“I meant no disrespect,” I said, waving my hands.
He laughed. “I know child! This is a very dangerous thing to attempt. If the mana isn’t channeled correctly, we could end up as a crater in the ground.”
“We have you,” I replied.
“Indeed, you do.” He smiled. Like a soldier flexing his muscles after working out, the mana in the wall started to react to his by swelling and contracting.
The mana being channeled into the wall began to connect to his, adding some stability to it. The higher-tier mages worked with the others to make sure a balance was maintained. It was a level of magic that was brought out from desperation and hope.
“It’s here!” someone shouted before what sounded like mountain collided with the wall. The few remaining Terra mages being reinforced by the other elements held off the wave as it buffeted the wall like a storm surge. A part of the wall cracked, and shards shot like arrows. Ezal and I reacted quickly by incinerating the shards before they could hurt anyone. We glanced at each other as we held the hole “closed.”
Finally, like every time before, the wave subsided. This time, the display of terra remained in place without turning to sand. It looked like a horror-scape with twisted jagged points, scorched black and smooth like glass, as well as all manner of other effects from terra and the other elements mixing.
“I think that was the last of them,” the mages’ guildmaster said, rubbing his shoulders.
“I hope so,” I replied, then grew worried about Regan. He would at least try to reply if I messaged him. I could only assume something had happened again.
Chapter 13
Regan
“Drop!” I shouted.
On the screen, the massive weapon ejected from the station. We were just inside the atmosphere, so propulsion wasn’t needed for anything other than keeping Starfall on course. But where is the fun in that? In under a minute it was already moving at Mach 10. I almost wished I had a bowl of popcorn as I watched.
Starfall hit the denser part of the atmosphere, tearing a hole in the cloud layer. The magic script activated, and the air started to swirl around the weapon into a vortex. I checked its speed and was pleased that it managed to hit Mach 20, or roughly six thousand meters per second, and it was still gaining speed.
One of the necromancers must have sensed something, and a barrier formed above the ruined castle. It had to be the thickest barrier yet at several meters. In a blink of an eye, Starfall slammed into it . . . and didn’t even slow down. The green glass-like barrier shattered as if it weren’t there.
Another blink and Starfall made impact. In an explosion of debris, a kilometer-sized crater instantly formed, the immediate area vaporized. The ruined castle vanished, erased from the world. The next ten kilometers were ripped apart from the intense force. If it wasn’t for the shield that I put up, the debris would have been thrown for hundreds of kilometers.
Boulders and chunks of land slammed into the shield, creating a hellscape of twisted shapes. Undead that had survived the initial impact were soon ripped into tiny pieces. I would be amazed if they managed to recover from that, even with their ability to reconstruct their bodies.
The weapon drilled down into thirty floors like they were butter. Twisted forest floors, a maze, and similar floors flashed by, all turned to rumble. I grimaced as I thought about the pain Alara must be going through, but I had no other alternative if I wanted to reach her core as quickly as possible. Her being separated so thoroughly from her core would dampen the pain, but not much. I would just have to do everything in my power to make it up to her.
Another ten floors were soon torn apart. Monsters and I think even a few necromancers were crushed from the collapsing ceilings and blasts of superheated air. Starfall turned everything it went through into a smooth-bored shaft surrounded by a ridiculous amount of destruction.
Finally, either Alara was ordered to fight back or her own self-defense instincts kicked in, but Starfall collided with what appeared an almost unmovable force, coming to a dead stop. The intense mana built up in Starfall and shattered the osmium shell, which in turn detonated, turning the forty-five-floor-deep hole into a twenty-kilometer crater, with the deepest point being nearly six kilometers down where the mithril core of Starfall remained embedded in the ground.
I didn’t anticipate what happened next. Terra mana of a level I couldn’t absorb surged out from the impact point. Much like a sound when a gong is hit, it spread in a perfect circle, traveling in every direction equally. I was able to absorb part of the wave that traveled in the direction of the town, but I only managed to reduce it by half.
The wave struck the shield, and before I could do anything, the feeder satellites exploded, then the entire shield collapsed. The wave passed my forces, but we only suffered minimal damages. Once I was sure the wave was harmless, I turned my attention back to Alara. Alpha moved above the giant crater.
Before I could react, I felt my aura snap to something. Outside my control, it quickly filled the area. It calmed down after t
he crater, and about two kilometers in a sphere around Alpha were claimed. I smacked my forehead and scolded myself. I should have consulted Ignea before reaching another core.
A moment later, I vaguely felt Alara’s mind on the edge of my consciousness. An immense amount of pain was coming from her. I tried to connect with her, but nothing happened. I did my best to send calming thoughts to her. I could only imagine the stress Starfall would cause to a being like a dungeon core.
“Just a bit longer,” I murmured to both myself and her.
According to Alara, she had ninety-eight floors. I’d just ploughed my way through forty-five. That left fifty-three floors to go. I just hoped that Alara wasn’t as creative as I was, or this might take a while.
With the shield down, my forces worked their way over to the center of the crater. Some of the large vehicles were carving a path to it for the smaller forces to walk through. There was just so much destruction that the surface around the crater looked even more like it had just been nuked.
I found something interesting. Namely, I couldn’t affect the ground. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I could only assume that it was some form of combat designed for dungeons. With our auras linked like this, I would normally be able to have an open dialogue with Alara right now. As dungeon cores were notoriously hard to kill, according to Ignea, this could be more a form of sport. But everything was best guess, as I really didn’t have anyone to ask. Then a light bulb went off—I didn’t have a dungeon to ask, but I did know where to find a dungeon researcher.
I mentally sent my mind to find Vern, but when I reached the edge of the aura, it felt like I had collided with something. I tried to connect to the station but was also met with a wall. I went to the comms section of the bridge and was happy to see that it still showed feeds from space. I sent an order for the station crew to maintain a link with everyone. Unfortunately, I hadn’t expected to have my mind cut off like this. So, my main core was unconnected from the entire “network” since I was so used to teleporting in and out easily.
I cracked my metal knuckles. That just meant I needed to save Alara as soon as possible so we could figure out what the cause of this was. I was pretty sure it was supposed to be a form of communication, or since the necromancers were forcing Alara to stand against me, then it was because we were enemies.
“Orders, sir?” asked one of the automata.
“Continue as planned. If the necromancers send out Alara to counter us, then I’ll head out to deal with her,” I ordered.
It wasn’t chivalry that caused that order. As a dungeon host, I could either battle Alara to a standstill or even defeat her. It would be my first time fighting another host, so I couldn’t say I was prepared, but it was better than sending hundreds of my minions at her just to die from the overwhelming amount of mana she would have at her command.
Alright, maybe there was a little chivalry in it as well. I also couldn’t stand the thought of someone fighting her. I decided to just blame it on my dungeon instincts for now.
The crew worked fast as several sections under Alpha opened. Constructs began falling to the surface under us. I really liked these. I’d taken the idea from an old movie I remembered from Earth, where, ironically enough, machines were trying to reach the core of a human settlement. If it worked for them, it should work for me.
Giant drills dropped to the surface. They landed and stabilized themselves with four mechanical arms and some minor thrusters. They were almost as long as Starfall but fell short at only twenty-five meters. The mithril alloy, which I named Iruthril, shot sparks as they began to bore into Alara’s dungeon surface. I grinned when they began to make progress.
That was the only thing that would have forced me to change my plan. As it required mana to protect the dungeon from “breaking,” having one large force such as Starfall make impact would burn a decent chunk of her mana. The drills were smaller but had multiple points of force. Thus Alara would be hard-pressed to resist all of them at once. If she did so, she would burn through all her mana in a matter of hours.
“Sir! Given the rate the drills are cutting, we’ll complete this level in ten minutes,” a crew member reported.
“Excellent. Anything else?” These automata were modeled after Jarvis, so they were superb at data and information gathering and processing.
“The terra wave that we caused has dropped significantly, but it appears the ambient mana is allowing it to maintain its current form. We can’t be sure what will happen if it contacts a source of terra mana,” another said, looking at a large readout.
“Anything of ours in its path?” I asked.
The town was over the mountain. It should be safe, as the mountains acted like a wall for almost all mana that tried to pass them. With the wave being terra, they should absorb it without too much difficulty.
“Only the outpost, but I’ve already sent a message to the force there. They are taking cover until it passes.”
“Good work. Make sure to send Darr and her forces a message. It wouldn’t be good if the old general thought we were attacking him,” I ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
I turned back to the screen. “Your move.”
~~~
“Floor fifty-nine has been breached! Estimated time until floor sixty breach, twenty-two minutes. Drills are receiving heavy resistance from internal dungeon monsters! Necromancer sighting confirmed. Number is to be determined,” the comms automaton shouted.
“Get a fresh squad down there! I want the generator station set up in ten minutes. How long until the linkup?” I shouted, standing in the middle of the bridge.
It had been nearly seven hours since the attack began. The upper floors were easy to breach. However, once we hit floor fifty, that changed. It looked like someone had ordered Alara to bring all her monsters into the projected path of the drills. Even if the necromancers couldn’t tell where that was, Alara could. Each time the drills broke past a floor, there would be a horde of monsters waiting for them.
I had already lost one drill on floor fifty-seven. That left seven more while the first was being repaired. My forces were a match for the monsters being thrown at us so far. I was basically having to build a power line down to the active floor. The unholy miasma was to the point that I was surprised even the necromancers could live in it. Anything living that entered it soon rotted and withered. My automata could hold out for a few minutes, but even the metal rusted or corroded before they could react.
Anubis and his corps were the spearhead of this operation. They would ride the lead drill to protect it from the miasma. Once a new floor was breached, they would span out and slaughter anything that moved in front of them. I was sure their necromancer kill count had already exceeded thirty.
Speaking of the necromancers, there were two moods present among them. Some were in full panic mode. It was as if they never could have imagined that someone could actually manage to attack them. The other half seemed to have lost all methods of thinking. They would use mana until their bodies collapsed. Then the undead would turn them into one of their own, and they’d get back up to continue fighting.
At the moment, Anubis was able to handle it, but he had already filled three of this unholy mana batteries. His soldiers were doing well in supporting him. They weren’t able to siphon off the unholy mana as easily as Anubis, but they took shifts while some would swap out a new battery on their armor. I could only imagine that the miasma would become worse the farther we went.
“Two minutes until breach!”
“Keep it up. I want to dive this dungeon in record time,” I ordered. “Be prepared for the boss!”
The enemy forces quickly retreated since the drills were about to break through. I noticed they were able to teleport to an extent. They had to be over three hundred meters from any of my minions, so I didn’t have to worry about sneak attacks, but I had to maintain a guard on floors that we’d already passed. I was getting new automata from the gate every few hours, but it w
as still costly troop-wise.
The drills finally broke through to the next floor. There was a large cavern ahead, so Anubis jumped in with the rest of his corps. The regular automata waited for twenty seconds, then followed after them. The pitch-black cavern was soon lit up as my forces flooded onto the floor. Thousands of green flames popped to life as the drill struck the ground, crushing a couple dozen of the undead under it.
What reminded me of the terracotta army appeared before me. Undead knights in lines, adding up to two thousand three hundred and forty undead, stood as floor sixty’s boss. In the center of the massive undead army was a two-headed undead troll-like creature decked out with more armor than I honestly thought was necessary. It wielded a massive two-handed sword that was seven or eight meters by itself. Its eyes, which were a deep green flames that made the other undead in the room look like candles, opened.
With an earth-shaking roar, it pointed at my gathering forces on the floor. The undead moved as one mass and charged. Anubis roared back, then there was an explosion of darkness.
“JUDGEMENT!”
Chapter 14
Regan
The darkness filled every centimeter of the floor. The sensors on the drills were able to pierce through, as they were calibrated mainly for unholy and dark mana. The undead swarm had literally stopped in its tracks. Many fell over from the strange positions they ended up in. The drills resumed their drilling, throwing up sparks that illuminated the darkness almost like a horror game from Earth.
It was maybe thirty seconds before something changed. One of the forerunners of the undead horde crumbled into dust. Then like a wave, all the undead behind it burst into ash, smoke, and dust. I could feel bursts of mana every time one of them exploded. After a minute the army was reduced to half its size.
“Get the mechanics down there! I want some fortifications in place within two minutes.”
I knew from experience that the longer you were in judgement, the higher your chance of being able to escape it. I wasn’t sure how it affected undead that were created by a dungeon. Did they even have souls to judge?
