Glenda was among the first to retreat, she was nearly in position at the back of the fiery room as the undead finished off the last of the fifth floor defenders and the feeds cut off. The enemy took several more minutes before they began their assault, likely waiting for more troops to cross over and amass. His assault force was already fighting on the opponents fourth floor, which was once again similar to the previous three.
The undead had done an excellent job at pulling back their more powerful units. They had killed thousands of undead, but very few at even the B tier. In contrast his forces had lost quite a few B tiers and C tiers. Other than the D tier dark elves that served as archers or the scout dragonflies, Peter had basically forgotten the lower unit tiers. Tombstone was proving that they still had some utility, even in melee when they occupied a fortified position and were well trained.
Peter was nearly taken aback when 10 large undead cave trolls burst through onto his sixth floor. Each of the 12 foot tall monstrosities carried a shield with the same dimensions of a set of double doors. The metal was clearly thick enough to stop anything lower than the A tier with relative ease, even ballista bolts clinked off or stuck fast. Several hundred undead boars burst out from behind their protection charging forward. Peter scowled when he analyzed them. ‘Seriously, ware pigs.’ he almost chuckled despite watching as bull sized boars charged toward the crusader shield wall.
Hundreds of archer arrows immediately rained down. Lesser B tier mages cast a litany of spells but they did little more than thin the numbers despite the boars only being C tier. “Boris sent a message. Hold nothing back,” Peter said grimacing. He had hoped to keep something in reserve, but things were not going overly well. It was clear that Tombstone had been told very fine details on his defenses. Boris quickly scribed the message before attaching it to another waiting metal glider fly. The thing could move faster than anything else, carrying the message to the front in a matter of minutes.
The red aura encompassed the herd of boars giving them the push they needed to tear right through the center of the crusader wall, although the wall closed right behind as they continued on afterwards. Hundreds of undead following close on their heels immediately fought to keep the defenses from firming. The crusaders were not able to reform the wall completely. The boar herd was splintered by the many various paths and the dark maulers immediately started to kill the beasts who reverted to pig snouted humanoids that wielded sabers.
The damage was done. The center wall was stressed to the point of breaking completely and the secondary defenses were caught. The right and left paths were left untested, but the center path would soon be in a full melee. Glenda and a handful of B tier holy mage’s were not able to overcome the hundreds of C tier undead casters working together to protect their forces.
Soon the right and left lines started an orderly retreat as the center path broke down. The crusaders clearly still had the advantage on a one on one basis, but there was an entire undead horde forcing its way through. Glenda was choosing to conserve forces, and only delay the floors fall. The crusaders on the center path would not be recovered. They fought on like lone beacons of life against a tide of undead.
The message arrived to an awaiting dark elf who immediately delivered it to Glenda well before the floor was lost completely. Glenda sent her own orders to bring up the B tier armageddon dragons as well as the original. Their own assault force was already assailing the fifth floor, which was once again the same as the prior four floors.
Tombstone’s undead trolls once again led the charge onto his seventh floor. This time however they found themselves face to face with a large black backed dragon. The first breath of void beam caught four of the powerful B tiers. All 4 of which were instantly disintegrated. Peter watched as the dragon’s void energy depleted to about half way. It took a few seconds for the dragon to commit to a second blast. The other trolls were already scattering, but 2 more were not fast enough. A line of undead beasts poured through the entrance portal, and dozens of them were also caught up in the blast. They quickly fractured as they also found themselves facing a barn sized dragon. Armageddon tore up any that got close with its claws. Physical prowess alone the dragon was above even A tier elites that were focused in that area..
Undead mages were already coming through the edges of the portal. They had been meant to protect the boars and other units from powerful magic attacks, but the large dragon had apparently distracted them enough. Glenda had a dozen orbs of white light already forming. Seconds later they streaked over the dragon's head obliterating the entire area in white energy. The armageddon dragon whipped its head back with a roar, having been caught with the edge her attack. A second later the dragon slowly winged its way back toward the rear of the room. It would join Glenda.
Seemingly they had just dominated the enemy, but then they had only killed hundreds of C tiers and a handful of B tiers. Tombstone would bring far more to bear very soon. He would have to if he wanted to take the seventh floor. Armageddon dragon would be fully recharged in a matter of minutes. Next time it would likely be targeting the A tier units, the enemy would need to display its true might to have any hope.
It took several minutes before the undead leader seemed to realize that things had failed. Thousands of C and B tier undead had mindlessly poured into the room and slammed into the crusader shield wall that held firm. The defenders were taking relatively few casualties as the undead died before them. When the counter came… it came hard. Tombstone’s leader had apparently elected to hit them full force. Apparently they had no intention of allowing the armageddon dragon to recharge its powerful attack.
The charge was led by 30 some A tiers, and to Peter’s surprise Tombstone had brought his own S tier. The S tier was a large unit standing 12 feet tall. It was a blue skinned humanoid with long thin arms, and was called a Shrieking ghoul. It immediately lived up to its name letting out reverberating shriek. The cry was some sort of mental attack. The entire floor of defenders faltered. Even Glenda looked visibly panicked although it could just as likely be due to the appearance of so many high tier enemies. Behind the S tier Shrieking ghouls poured a good 100 B tier copies of it among hundreds of other undead reinforcements.
Glenda recovered in seconds and started calling out orders. They had 2 S tiers compared to the enemies 1, but they were outnumbered when it came to A tiers. Peter had used all 3 of Emma’s ember originals as well as 2 Ape originals. They were still outnumbered by about 3 to 1 when only considering the A and S tiers.
However, Glenda had sent for it all including the 109 Armageddon B tiers and everything else. Either they would win it here or Peter would be forced to burn through a lot of A tier cards to stop the assault. The enemy powerhouses burst right through the shield wall and their own struggling subordinates. Three A tiers went down immediately despite their best attempts to block the void blasts that came in rapid succession. It had to be pretty humbling to lose A tier units so easily, but then Armageddon’s attack was SS or two tiers above them. The older dungeons watching would probably not miss that fact, but that was not something he could worry about now.
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Delilah appeared to the side along with the spectral armor and the ghastly soldier. The alternate dimension fight was hardly worth staying out of the deciding battle for. The two A tier abyss units could hold it down. She loosed an arrow that struck some undead spider like combination thing with such incredible force that the thing faltered a step. She was using their best +3 luminous enchanted arrows which would bring up the power by about a rank. Not enough but to cause more than a wound for powerful A tiers.
The spectral armor and holy armored dragon stepped forward to meet the rush. The ghastly soldier used its zoom ability to intercept an enemy wraith that had bypassed them on its way toward Glenda. The two sides slammed together. The large undead spider was the first thing that did not fall back when it collided with the S rank defense of the holy armor dragon.
The two colossal beasts were soon wrapped up with one another. The undead spider tried to rip furrows with its fangs or its legs. Most of which merely scratched the golden metal of the dragon’s armor, but sometimes they found gaps. The dragon ripped at the spider with its front claws and teeth. At first look the two might seem equally matched, but the dragon was a holy entity. The only question was how long the spider could hold out, but since there were more powerful opponents occupying one of the S tiers might be enough of a contribution for the monstrous A tier.
The armageddon dragon found itself in melee against four other large A tiers and a host of B tiers, although its own B tier dragons moved in to even the numbers. Little void beams flashed every few seconds. The shrieking ghoul B tier targets were not killed outright, but were so heavily wounded they might as well be. It was clear that even the B tier void beams were pretty overpowered for their tier. Peter could not help but to hide his face in his hands. They were putting up such an obvious display of capability. Hopefully the Void millennial would not take offense.
Still each B tier dragon could only do it once until their energy recharged which likely would not happen very quickly as they fought in the melee. Soon it was just a mass of bodies struggling for dominance
More A tiers or not the two sides were about even since the enemy was fighting behind enemy lines and the B tiers on the defending side were clearly superior. That could change any minute, if the crusader line broke allowing the hordes of C tiers back which was seemingly more likely each moment. However there was an answer for this as all 600 of this year’s spawned turtle warriors arrived as reinforcements. They could help keep the line from collapsing at least for another couple minutes.
The holy armor dragon emerged victorious from its confrontation with the spider and immediately set into a group of A tier undead that despite working together fell back against the S tier. The B tier holy armor dragons were also winning their own confrontations when on an even footing. There were only about 50 of them, but they were 1 for 1 better than the Armageddon dragons at least in this confrontation. They just needed to stay alive long enough for their holy energy to do the job, which was quite a bit easier since they could heal their own wounds as well as their high defense.
Still his side was taking losses. Dozens of B tiers had been shredded or broken. Both the ape A tiers went down early. The ember A tiers followed one by one. Then one of his true champions fell. The ghastly soldier had dealt with the wraith, but had been forced to confront the S tier ghoul. Unsurprisingly the light armored warrior died quite quickly, its bone frame ripped in two. The A tier crusader who had also engaged the S tier soon after fell as the ghoul ripped the raised shield down with one arm before going over and around with its other set of claws ripping right through the backplate with its other. An easy feat for the creature that stood nearly twice as tall as the elite crusader.
It was actually Glenda who finally dealt with the S tier. Likely due to her small stature she had not been heavily targeted, at least not by the A tiers who were literally swarming the two S tier dragons and other larger defenders. The ghoul took a full power S rank star fall magic blast right to its chest. The S tier was sent staggering back, one of its arms spinning free in the air. Its chest was a ruined mess, but the thing still stood staggering back and forth aimlessly. The thing was stunned.
Peter did not actually see who dealt the final blow. His forces had turned things around overall. A good 8 enemy A tiers along with three times as many B tiers broke off realizing that they were losing the confrontation. However his higher tiers were far from being in a state to pursue. The Armageddon dragon was covered in wounds. The dragon looked like a wounded animal ready to hunker down in a secluded area before it died.
The holy armor dragon and Glenda were better, but the former had a limp and the latter was out of magic. It did not prevent the B tier dragons that still had plenty of fight from pursuing the enemies. Eventually the enemy B tiers were forced to form a rearguard as the true elites escaped. Only one more enemy A tier went down from Delilah’s arrow to the back of its skull. The large skeleton carrying a meat cleaver collapsed to the ground.
Their defense all but guaranteed, Peter soon found himself watching their own assault which was faltering as the difficulty ramped up exponentially on the sixth floor. Having realized that their own forces were taking unsustainable losses N’tuma was now proceeding more cautiously in the physical realm. The fighting in the alternate dimension was about the same, although 2 A tier dragons had fallen. The enemy had thrown everything at them on this floor and only managed to bring two of them down. It was clear the undead forces did not have much else to throw at them in the alternate realm.
Peter had known about the possibility, but seeing it put into practice was another thing. The undead assault force that Peter had thought had only fallen back to regroup was full on retreating, potentially having realized that they could not achieve victory. Just like the undead defenders, they were proving quite adept at retreating their hordes quite quickly and efficiently.
It took Glenda several minutes to realize what was happening. She immediately ordered for them to pursue, but it was too late. Only thousands of weaker undead were left to forestall them on the sixth floor. The majority of the undead were already crossing over the stone platforms of the fifth floor. Once the b tier dragons and charging crusaders ripped through the undead fodder left behind. They found the undead set up on the fifth floor. Not all of them, but a strong enough force to make taking it difficult.
“Dammit,” Peter cursed. The rest of the undead assault force was heading back to their own dungeon. By the time his forces retook the fifth floor they would likely be well ahead. His own assault force would be in severe trouble.
Weren’t story antagonists like Tombstone supposed to be hot blooded idiots that would fight on till the end. What was this? Peter immediately opened his interface and looked at his type cards. All his elites were seriously wounded. He had no choice but to summon more. It already looked like his attack force would have a difficult time to achieve victory with the way the undead had preserved their true forces all while whittling down his assault force, and he had no doubt that Tombstone would also be able to pull out another 30 A tiers if he had to.
Peter immediately spent all 5 original salamander cards, his last ape original, and 2 fallen originals. He used up the million essence he had kept in his pocket to summon 50 more holy B tier cards. The 58 units spawned one by one from the core room. It would take them a while to even reach the fifth floor of his own dungeon. By then the fight would likely all be in Tombstone’s dungeon by that point. Hopefully this was just overkill, but Peter had the feeling that it wasn’t.
The same oversized mummy with the scepter, had summoned a fresh set of 5 B tiers to fight from the water. The prior 5 had disappeared at some point during the last 45 minutes, so the limit of the scepter seemed to be time based. Peter had already included orders to snatch the treasure if at all possible.
