Dungeon Robotics (Book 7): Collapse

by Matthew Peed

  An army, with enough soldiers that I couldn’t see the end of the lines, marched and began to cover the field in front of the border wall. What made me angry was the fact that I saw almost more Church banners than Thonaca banners being held by the soldiers.

  I could see the telltale signs of Siege spells being used in areas of the army. It would make bombardment extremely difficult, as most would be absorbed by the barriers. They must have been using them since before they were in sight of the fort.

  “Why didn’t the scouts report anything?!” I demanded, turning to the major.

  “That is the thing, Your Highness. The Church did something that allowed them to move this massive army in only a few hours. By the time we got the reports of them mobilizing, they were already at our gates.”

  Returning my gaze to the soldiers, I asked, “What’s their expected strength?” Even with a glance, I could see there were over a hundred thousand troops out there. There were only ten thousand here at the fort. Even if we pulled every soldier from the other deployments, we couldn’t hope to match that.

  “We’re only getting estimates in at the moment, but they’ve already exceeded two hundred thousand. They’re pulling soldiers from the south faster than should be possible. I can only fathom that the Church had hidden portals that they have decided to utilize.”

  “Damn it! How’s morale?” With such overwhelming force in front of them, I was sure more than a few soldiers were getting scared. I didn’t have to worry about them turning to the enemy thanks to the magical contract that they’d signed, but that didn’t include fleeing. That clause was hard to include in the magical contract since retreat was consider fleeing in some eyes.

  “Not as bad as expected. Many people here believe that Lord Regan will protect them. I do know the enemy will suffer heavy losses approaching these walls unless they can deal with the magical weapons Lord Regan left.”

  I nodded, glancing at the towers that dotted the wall every fifty meters. Regan had installed some of his turret weapons there for me. I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to them being used, but here we were. I just worried whether, with his dungeon the way it was, they would receive enough mana to operate.

  “Have the men take short naps in shifts until the enemy makes their move. They might not get another chance for a while.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  I was about to say more when Ezal came into the room. She gave me a quick salute. “Your Highness, I came as soon as I was informed. Reinforcements are mobilizing and should be here within the hour. Unfortunately, our numbers pale in comparison to theirs,” she explained.

  “I assumed as much. It is just like the church to horde magic that would allow them to do something like this. I wished they’d used it against the necromancers years ago.”

  “About that. The Grand Vicar claims to have received a message from the goddess. We have officially been branded as heretics and usurpers.”

  “How dare they!” the major roared, as did several of his officers.

  “Calm down. We knew something like this could happen. I just expected it to be closer to spring. Incorporate the reinforcements into . . .” I jerked my head to the sky as I felt a wave of . . . something wash over the fort. I noticed that Ezal seemed to be aware of it too, while the others reacted to varying degrees. If I had to describe it, I would say it was pure evil.

  “What do you think?” I asked, looking to Ezal.

  “That Lord Regan did something,” she said with a chuckle.

  “We can’t blame him for everything,” I replied, fighting to control the smile.

  “Whatever that was, I have a feeling it doesn’t like mortals,” she commented, and I nodded in agreement. The feeling had been overwhelmingly evil.

  Rubbing my shoulders to fight the goose bumps, I asked, “Have you ever felt such concentrated . . . evil?”

  Ezal just shook her head.

  I turned back to the major. “Sorry about that. As I was saying. Incorporate the new soldiers into the wall line while giving the regulars a longer break. Have everyone prepared to fight at a moment’s notice. Come morning, we could very well be at war.”

  “Yes, Your Highness!”

  With a salute, all the officers ran out of the room and got to work. I looked up to the cloud-covered night sky. It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 24

  Regan

  I debated what to do. I needed to get back to my main dungeon core. While I could tell everything was generally alright, I still wanted to check up with my cores and children. I’d only meant to leave Alara alone for a day or two at most. Now, nearly a month had passed. I couldn’t help but be worried about her. Plus, there was no telling what trouble Louella was getting herself into.

  The pathways between my dungeons were forming by the minute, but I could tell it would take a while before they formed enough for me to travel them. I stood on top of Grand Titan, overlooking the plateau and surrounding lands. I didn’t know yet if this was a large continent or an island compared to the one my main core was on, but it looked like I would have to find out.

  I hadn’t ever had a chance to really test out the limits of this body—yet. While I had fought the general, that had been more an application of force. What I wanted to test was my speed. I started by floating into the air like I normally would, by generating an antigravity field and enough air current to lift me into the air.

  I could probably have achieved planetary exit with this body alone. However, I wasn’t sure if my personal mana capacity allowed me to reach the point I would need for leaving the pull of gravity, not to mention survive reentry of the atmosphere, one of the many things I needed to test when something wasn’t trying to kill me. I shot up into the air until I reached close to thirty thousand kilometers.

  For my test, I didn’t want to channel excess mana into air resistance, so the more I could do to reduce that negative force the better. I grinned as I overlooked the world from this height. The fact that I was able to do things like that still seemed like a dream, but it had been a year. Besides, I felt enough pain to know it wasn’t a dream.

  I concentrated and turned toward the direction the sensation of my main dungeon was coming from. With little effort, I weaved a spell around my avatar and shot toward it, easily passing Mach 5 in seconds and still continuing to gain velocity as the land passed beneath me.

  When I hit Mach 10, my acceleration stopped. I could have gone faster, but I had only my personal mana pool when I was this far from one of my cores. Said pool might still have been in the millions, but this level of magic used hundreds of thousands in minutes. I could already think of ways to improve fuel efficiency.

  The scenery changed in blinks of an eye. It appeared this continent possessed every kind of environment short of tundra. In less than three minutes, acceleration and deceleration included, I reached the edge of the content. I wasn’t surprised to see the maelstrom a ways off the coast. Even after nearly six thousand kilometers, I didn’t see anything that resembled civilization.

  There were, however, plenty of monster hordes that put the one that had attacked the valley to shame. That monster horde was child’s play compared to the hordes on this continent. Some neared the million mark. For one, I was impressed that the ecosystem could support that many monsters. Secondly, when I examined one of the monsters after I came to a stop, I could clearly sense dungeon magic in its aura.

  Judging by how the dungeon magic was operating, these had left the dungeon centuries ago and had since become a hybrid of a free monster and a dungeon monster. What that meant at the moment, I wasn’t sure, but I filed it away just to be safe. You never knew if the parent dungeon might take control of them when it woke up.

  Moving over to the maelstrom, I saw that it was in fact the same storm. For something like that to rage across the entire globe signaled that it was definitely not natural. Natural forces were keeping it going, but someone from who knew how many lifetimes ago had created it. The questio
n now was: Why?

  I wanted to test a few things on the other side of the planet-sized event but didn’t have the mana to waste. I shook my head, then turned and started around the continent. While my body was made of metal, I was glad I could still feel. Though, given that I was flying nearly above the air, I couldn’t experience the wind on my skin. With a chuckle, I accelerated.

  ~~~

  I judged that I was almost back to the starting point after going around the continent. I was flying lower at the moment since I was about to head back to my core. I wanted to get a little better visual of the environments and resources available. As it was a magical world, there might have been things that only grew or could be found there.

  I was going around Mach 3 when a red shape appeared in front of me. I didn’t have time to stop and slammed into the object with quite a bit of force. I realized it was a monster only after it gave a roar that shook the nearby trees. We rolled end over end in the air until we collided with the ground, gouging out a nice-sized ditch.

  I stood up, separating myself from the creature, and saw it was a dragon of all things. I also realized it was much stronger than Zuthon and could probably have given Nova a run for his money. With a large amount of thrashing, the dragon corrected itself, then turned to glare at me.

  “I didn’t mean to run into you. I might not look like it, but I have a lot of dragon friends,” I said but held my ground. Wouldn’t want him to think I was a pushover.

  The dragon either couldn’t speak, couldn’t speak the language I used, or didn’t want to speak, and instead he roared angrily. I sensed a surge of mana, then a burst of flame was expelled with the roar, forcing me quickly into the air to dodge the attack. I whistled as the flame managed to turn everything it hit into ash and charred glass. That was impressive, considering we were in the middle of a forest.

  I dodged three more such attacks, as I hoped the beast would calm down, but it only seemed to make him angrier. With another surge of mana, fire started to line its body, then the dragon shot into the air. I worried that if the creature got any hotter, the hydrogen in the air might start reacting.

  I waited as the dragon charged directly at me, feeling the heat from several dozen meters away. I was sure no mortal would be able to survive the aura skill. Well, Ezal would probably enjoy it. When the dragon was only a few meters from me, I twisted in the air and brought my heel down on his head.

  With a shock wave, his head was shoved straight down, and he tumbled to the ground. I was impressed that he had even survived the blow. My feet were made out of adamantium, after all. He should have felt like a castle had dropped on his head.

  With a boom, the dragon collided with the forest floor and formed a nice crater. He lay there for several moments before rousing and stumbling to his feet as if he were drunk. I couldn’t help it and started clapping. I was impressed that he still wanted to fight, given the blow he had just received.

  I flew down, taking a cross-legged pose just before landing on the dragon’s back like a ton of bricks, enough force to make the crater five meters deeper. Even if his scales could take it, the organs inside must feel like they’d gone through a blender. The dragon lay there, breathing heavily but still alive.

  “Listen, this is fun, but like I said, I have a few dragon friends. I really don’t want to kill you,” I said, looking at the dragon to make sure my Dungeon Language skill produced the correct language. I was being honest. In fact, I should have been the one to apologize, as I was the one who ran into him. If he hadn’t gotten angry, we could have been having a friendly chat right then.

  We sat there in silence for probably an hour. I just lay back, staring at the sky from the back of the dragon. As my form was nearly five meters tall, the thirty-meter-long dragon made a good seat. Not that I would have told him that.

  Finally, I heard a deep gust of air from the dragon sighing. “Very well. I accept defeat. I will submit and be your mate,” a very feminine voice said, catching me off guard.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s quite alright,” I said, waving my hands as I rose into the air.

  “You dare deny me?! After laying claim to me for over an hour!” she roared at me, getting angry all over again.

  “Look. I’m sure you’re a very nice lady . . . dragon, but I’m not exactly in the market for a mate. Isn’t there a way we can just put this behind us?”

  “Sure,” she said, and hope grew for a few seconds. “If I can kill you, then our mating pact will be annulled.”

  “WHY?!” I shouted, putting my head in my hands at the ridiculousness of it. Fucking dragons. I mean sure, I’d thought it was fine when Morka and Nova had entered this pact, but they were both fucking dragons!

  “What should I call you, husband?” she asked as she flew up next to me.

  “Not that!” I was just picturing a certain dungeon core when I managed to get back to the other continent. Well, the image brought a smile to my face, but that was beside the point. I sighed and looked back to the dragon. “Call me Regan. What is your name?”

  “Soza, husband,” she replied with a toothy grin.

  I could already feel the headache forming from this.

  ~~~

  An hour later, I found myself back at my core on the continent. It was roughly the size of four North Americas put together. Everything from scorching deserts to snowcapped mountains made its home here on this continent. As I neared my core, my mana pool instantly recharged, and I felt the massive power that came from being a dungeon core.

  I glanced over to the village, the only race of mortals I’d found on the continent. I didn’t even find elves, who were known to be able to live in the forest with monsters. The mountains were missing the dwarves. This place was a perfect example of what could happen if monsters were able to reach too high in numbers.

  The people of the village had mostly returned to normal. Or at least, I thought it was normal for them. They farmed, hunted the small game on the top of the plateau, and mainly carried on as humans who lived in a secluded spot would. It honestly made me think about the little, well not so little, village that Ren was running for me in my dungeon.

  I shook my head, clearing the idle thoughts. I had work to do.

  As if on cue, Soza landed on the surface of Grand Titan and collapsed, breathing heavily. “Too bad, husband. I managed to catch up,” she said, wrapping her tail around me.

  I moved the tail easily and stepped away from her. “I’ll put up with this for now, but I don’t accept it. There has to be a non-death way to get out of this pact,” I said, looking into her eyes.

  She gave me another toothy grin before flames wrapped around her, shrinking her until she was the same size as me.

  The flame vanished and a tall elven woman who still had large leathery wings and two horns curling around her head like a crown appeared. Her skin tone was white-as-snow, but her hair was a living flame. She was completely nude, showing off goods that many mortal females would have killed to have. Unlike Alara, she didn’t affect me more than if I were looking at a beautiful painting. I formed a gown made of red silk and handed it to her.

  “A gift, husband? I will treasure it,” Soza said, taking it and easily slipping it on. The question of how she knew about cloth made me raise an eyebrow, but I would get to that later.

  Heading back inside while rubbing my forehead, I made my way to my core. I had to consider whether I was going to leave the core or stay. I could not do either with a powerful enemy directly beneath this core. They were behaving for now, but I doubted that would last for long. I glanced behind me to see Soza tagging along as if she owned the place. Frankly, I was too tired to deal with her.

  Chapter 25

  Alara

  I brought my blade down, slicing the arm from the passing creature. It crashed into the tall tree that was directly behind me, coming to an abrupt stop in its charge. I swung my sword, clearing the blade of the blue blood. The creature wasn’t from the undead sections of the dungeon. It had
appeared out of nowhere and started wreaking havoc on the floor.

  I turned to face the creature as it pulled itself up. The beast had a massive horn on the front of its snout and head. It moved on two legs but had dropped down to four limbs when it charged. I frankly didn’t care as long as it wasn’t undead. I had no issues fighting it.

  Holding my hand out, I channeled nature mana into the area around the beast. Vines shot out and wrapped around it. They were laced with steel, making them much stronger. While it was unable to move, I shot forward and buried my blade in its head. It slowly collapsed to the ground.

  When the last signs of life left it, I started to absorb it. Something else pulled at the creature, but I managed to get nearly half absorbed. I cleaned my blade again, letting the dungeon take in the blood while I studied the mana patterns that were flowing through my head from the partially absorbed creature.

  While I couldn’t make anything out of mana patterns, Regan or one of his children might have been able to put them to use. I didn’t even consider trying to summon something based off this creature. I knew almost instinctively that I wouldn’t have been able to control it.

  Lena appeared next to me. “Another one on the seventieth floor.”

  I nodded and moved above that floor. A creature that was easily ten meters tall was making its way through the forest. It didn’t have a face, only a white faceplate that appeared to be bone. There were dozens of tentacles coming from its back that were tearing my forest apart. I angled my body, then fell straight down.

  Just before I hit the monster, a blue barrier appeared. I impacted the barrier with my sword but didn’t make it more than a few centimeters through before the force was gone. A dozen tentacles shot toward me, and I jumped back, dodging them.

  With a wave of my hand, vines burst from the ground and wrapped around the monster’s legs. The monster struggled to free itself while its tentacles tried to reach me as I flew around it. When a tentacle got close, I would swing my sword, slicing it clean through. It burst into black particles and vanished.