Peter had been pretty confident about his victory since he had successfully acquired so many holy type cards and made preparations specifically for the undead. But reminiscent of how he had taken ghost core unaware last year, he could only grit his teeth in frustration when he received the challenge from someone doing the same to him.

  [Temperance, Salamander, 03: has challenged you to dungeon battle. Dungeons are from the same year group no multiplier applies. Dungeons within the first year group special rewards apply.]

  Temperance was an older heavyset woman with a large forehead. Perhaps due to her core type but it looked like hair loss had already started. What was left over was kept in a ponytail. She wore a large unadorned green dress. She only spoke briefly before and let the challenge hang there in his view.

  “Dart frog was a good friend of mine,” Temperance said, showing him her back.

  What dart frog challenged me? Not to mention it was only the second congregation. How good of friends could they have been? Couldn’t be, she was likely just using it as an excuse. For a moment Peter considered using his block challenges. It was unlikely she had a force challenge to force the issue, but he only had 1. He had just gotten rid of a bit of his safety net already with the 2 spare cores. Of course he had done so since he had been confident that he would get one back today after handily beating one of the undead dungeons that he had just obtained the kryptonite for.

  Delilah’s voice was purposely snickering through the link. It cut off when unbidden, Boris detailed what they knew about Temperance the salamander core. It was not much. “Only information we have is that she won her tutorial battle against the groundling core. A humanoid core that was later taken out during the year 1 congregation. She was hanging around with the same group that the dart frog was a part of when he challenged you and still is.”

  “Great, so if I did upset her, she is the careful type, taking a few years to prepare,” Peter stated thinking. A minute timer had appeared and was counting down. He could stand here looking like an idiot for as long as he wanted, but he did not have much longer to make a decision.

  “Master she could just want to fight someone taking the year off like most of the rookie dungeons. There were only two battles last year and two eliminations,” Boris offered.

  “And she is just using it as an excuse… That sounds quite likely,” Delilah chipped in on their private link.

  “Doesn’t matter, She was a winner from the tutorial battle so should have had a pretty good start. She also hasn’t battled since, so probably has been saving resources.”

  “So are you going to block it?” Delilah asked. The time was winding down. “Guess not,” she added as the time moved into the single digits.

  Peter sighed. He had wavered back and forth, but he could just not pull the trigger to block the challenge. “I guess we move to our backup plan. Have everyone start working on it now.. I’m thinking a bunch of low level units for the first few floors to slow them down and allow us to see what is coming and then start the real battle on the lily pad floor. Put several ballistas on the opposite side and they can cover the whole way.” Peter directed as he made his way to join his group.

  This time he got about a ten second heads up. Less than a minute after he had sat down the undead faction made their move. Five rookie core’s approached their table. The leader was a tall human with swept back black hair. His skin was pale and his eyes were piercing. He wore a long black cape. If Peter did not know better he would have thought the guy was cosplaying a vampire, but this guy was not the vampire type core. Allister, Tombstone, 03.

  To Allister’s right was Bones, Peter’s one time trading partner from the initial congregation. The guy was the same race as the lightning elemental core he had faced, gray skin and a bald head. However, Bone’s eyes had seemingly sunk back further into his head, and the guy looked decades older, almost like all the fat content had been sucked from his body.

  Peter did not need Borris to give details on any of these dungeon cores since he had half expected this. Allister the tombstone core had won two battles, his tutorial and another during their year one congregation. Bones had lost his tutorial battle against Elyra, but was the winner of the second battle held last year, eliminating another beast dungeon core.

  Putrefy was the only other tutorial battle winner. A concept type that always went to the undead faction, but he had not fought in another battle yet. The other two cores were losers, and might very well be eliminated today since it seemed they were here to pick a fight.

  “I’m sure you were expecting this,” Allister spoke as he looked down at them. A moment later his confident smile contorted in annoyance. He was looking right at Peter, who had of course sat on the opposite side of the table from where the undead normally sat. “What you are already fighting someone else.”

  “The demoness is as well,” Bones said with a clearly frustrated tone. Apparently he had been looking for a rematch with the core that had beaten him in the tutorial.

  “Me as well,” Gabriel said, holding up his hand.

  The leader directed his gaze at Putrefy. “It’s true,” Putrefy said after a moment.

  “You pick a fight and then choose to fight some weaklings, so you can avoid the consequences?” The leader asked, slightly amused. “I hope you don’t expect that you can do so, year after year.” Then his smile took on a cruel turn. “But not all of you have the coverage, eh.” His gaze shifted between the three other cores at their table. Each sank back in turn.

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  A moment later they settled on the Magic core. “You’re the only type I have any interest in. Demise you’re with me.” Magic bounced up in his seat as his eyes took on a panic’d look. “Putrefy, Bones, you take on the other. A taste of what's to come.”

  Once they were finished the undead cores turned and confidently stormed away. They did not get far before Magic became absolutely furious, “They used a gang up on me,” He turned towards Peter. “I should have never joined you guys. You started this and then weaseled out.”

  “I could not help it, I got challenged already by someone from the reptile faction,” Peter defended himself.

  “And you two. Our leader and the other guy who has actually fought another battle. You both also got challenged…” Magic was taking on a manic look.

  “Oh no, I challenge the butterfly core,” Elyra said matter of factly.

  “You what….” Magic said, gnashing his teeth. His orange tinted skin had flushed to a darker tint.

  “Not me,” Gabriel said once again, holding his hand up. “I was challenged by somebody from the demon faction. Hahhaha.” Gabriel had tried to calm the other down, but he could not contain his laughter. They all just looked at him. “Sorry, I can’t believe it's only our second year together, but we have opened things up with four of the millennial factions.”

  “What… you think this is all funny?” Magic said, clearly about to blow a gasket. Predator was also smiling. Multiple was more contemplative. “You better all trade at least 2 for 1 with me today to help me get through this.” with that Magic stormed off.

  “There is no way I’m going to make that deal,” Elyra said, even before he got out of earshot. He turned to glare at her, she just looked back at him coldly. He turned and continued away.

  “Wow, what a wanker. I got challenged the same as him, Don’t see me belly aching about it,” Predator said in a condescending tone.

  “Probably because you only have to fight off one other dungeon,” Multiple said, his face scrunched up like he was calculating things.

  “You got ganged up on as well,” Peter asked with concern. He felt extremely bad about having potentially brought this calamity down on perhaps the weakest 3 dungeons in their group. He had not thought that other dungeons in their year group would have gang up cards. Then again if he could trade spare cores, which were epic rarity cards then why couldn’t someone else obtain a different epic card from someone in their faction.

  “Yeah, don’t worry I’m more frustrated because I think I will have to fully focus on defense. I doubt there is any chance that I can then turn things around to conquer even one dungeon, let alone both,” Multiple said disappointed.

  They did not talk too much longer as they became self absorbed in battle preparations. Peter felt guilty. The fact that they were getting ganged up on was his fault. They had likely acquired the epic gang up card for use against him. Would the holy cards he had obtained be enough in that case? Guess it did not matter now. While he felt bad, he was not exactly in a position to offer any help or handouts. Based on his self imposed restrictions, the battle he would be in today would already be pretty difficult.

  Peter spent another million on one for one trades getting 3 more magic cards, 2 fallen, 2 predator, and 2 multiple. Elyra did not seem interested in granting him a deal, but with the ghost cards he did not really feel the need.

  Peter continued with his plan on using all 50 B tier holy cards despite not facing an undead dungeon. Delilah, Borris, and Glenda were going through the choices one by one on his behalf. They would pick out healers and other helpful support and attackers based on who their enemy was for the day. For stock options, his holy B tier stock broke the 200 mark at 201. He had 12 rerolls in the first round and 3 in the second round. He would have to buy them, but they would be good to have in his back pocket.

  Peter started on the other hand focused on the champion units. He chose electricity, predator, and design for his first triplification. The best choice was readily apparent. He used both the design increase and a support card to boost the units special attack.

  Lightning shrike A(+): ATT: A, DEF: A(+), SPE: A (+)

  It was a large carnivorous bird with lightning attacks. Peter already had a new assault plan to fall back on. Rookie cores were still basically in their infancy so they would have gaps in their capabilities. Against a older dungeon an all air attack would never work. Flying units normally had a weaker defense, attack, etcetera… they were a useful addition to a force, but few older dungeons used them exclusively. The only exception he was aware of were of course dragon types, who usually had great attributes, but even then dragon forces had non flying dragons as well.

  Peter already had a bunch of D tier iron glider flies from two maelstroms he had made to spam the scout units. He would have them map out the levels and then the lightning shrike and others would zoom through the air along with hundreds of its C tier versions as well whatever other flying creatures he could manage. If Temperance tried the same strategy that dart frog had of slowing his assault with a water floor filled with a bunch of weak units she had another thing coming.

  Next Peter used a triplification with air, design, and magic, and looked at his choices. Not quite what he had been picturing but he quickly made a selection. Once again he used an extra increase card to boost the units special.

  Sky wizard gnome A: ATT: A, DEF: A, SPE: A

  The male gnome was a short blue skinned humanoid that could not fly on his own. Regardless he had been his best choice of the three. Maybe the gnome could ride on the shrike or something else, Peter mused for a moment before continuing on. He got 3 air stock cards and made 3 more A tier triplifications for his assault force. Only 1 was at the level of the lightning shrike.

  Flame sparrow A(+): ATT: A(-), DEF: S, SPE: A

  It was a small bird only a few feet wide, but it had a S in defense. I was clearly based on the unit's speed. A good addition to his makeshift through the air Blitzkrieg attack idea, but it would go down if hit by almost anything. The only saving grace was that the unit was probably fast enough to outrun even wide area attacks. It easily replaced the B tier iron glider fly as the fastest unit in the dungeon.

  After that Peter focused on using B tier design cards. Anything that gave a flight based choice he added to the assault force. Anything else he chose as best as he could for them to incorporate into the defensive plan. He had only 2 million essence to work with, so he spent half a million on B tiers getting 7 capable of flight out of 50 summons. Another 12 were added from the 50 Holy B tiers used. He used the rest of his essence to buy one offs for his various assault champions including spamming several thousand D tiers off of some of the stronger B tiers that he had gotten.

  They would not be solely reliant on his little air force that maybe cost a few million to build. He would have the planned assault force moving through the alternate dimension as well, although they would be proceed forward far less quickly.

  For defense, his subordinates had spent 300,000 essence spamming random D tier design units to occupy the first four floors. The 3,000 D tier units probably would not kill too many units but they would kill some, as well as sap the strength of others, delay, and allow Peter’s headquarters to come up with a game plan for their fifth floor defense.