The plasma bather retreated far sooner than the collapsing star fiend, but not due to running low on plasma. The horned lizard had taken on a ton of wounds in a matter of minutes. The plasma bather barely made it back to the blind wall at the end of the tunnel. The flamethrower turrets never stopped, but they hardly affected the lizard which had near immunity to fire. With a quick hop the S tier hopped over to safety as the barrier dropped momentarily for it to do so. A few B tier wasps darted through but they would be quickly dealt with.
So far the line was held at the entrances to the puddle room. The chilled glacier turtle had frozen the underwater route with swimming beetles mid way through. The abyssal crystal construct had been pushed back, but other than broken spines it had not otherwise been damaged. The insects were not even trying anymore. Not when the other routes seemed far easier.
The other entrance to the puddle room through the original tunnel had three makeshift blinds across the span. Each had a flame turret that swept back and forth at the insects that were constantly testing the barriers. The blinds were allowed since they could be rolled into place so as not to be seen as a permanent pediment for units to advance through the dungeon.
Above the blinds and their turrets was frozen space courtesy of Einstein and his space cessation mages. Sporadically their barrier would fall for a brief moment allowing a wave of outbound magic attacks or arrows through, or to allow the return of the wounded S tier. The brief gaps in the defense were so short it made counter attacks difficult, although occasionally some would slip through. The insects had therefore decided that it was the 12 foot tall blinds that were the weak point, but the flamethrowers were powerful enough that even an A tier would have to be wary of bearing the flames for more than a few moments.
Then there was the collapsing star fiend. The SS tier was actually a critical component to maintain the stalemate. It was difficult for the opposing army to get the appropriate unit forward when something was confronting anything powerful enough to attempt brute forcing its way through. The fiend was going absolutely wild. It had taken wounds, plenty of them. It simply did not care, none of them were life threatening at least not at this point. Its rampage had been pretty short in the last battle thanks to a pair of S tiers that were well suited to counter it, but the current assault force had no such counter.
Already the battles in the other allied dungeons had moved on, down to the second floor. The battle had only been ongoing for about 15 minutes now. Peter’s entrance room had maybe held for about 3 minutes. Then there was another minute for the chaotic retreat, so most of the battle had been in the current stalemate. His allies had not been able to achieve a stalemate at all but were steadily being pushed back by the constant swarms that included far too many high tiers.
Peter’s Ether tearing dragon and its one offs had taken their toll before falling back toward the lower floors of Elyra’s dungeon. They would pass by Gnther soon, who was headed the other way. Ganon was still active in Gretchen’s dungeon, but he had slowed considerably. All his initial shadow guards as well as those of all his B tier subordinates had fallen to cover Gretchen’s retreat, but Ganon and his force were still heavily aiding at a diminished capacity.
Gabriel’s defenses had been broken entirely, resulting in severe losses including 3 of his 12 S tiers, but his defenses on the second floor were faring better, despite being pushed back steadily.
Peter could only wonder how long his defenses would manage to hold. He of course hoped it would hold firm throughout the battle, but that was clearly too much to hope for. The stalemate maybe hit the 20 minute mark when things started to slip.
It was actually the underwater passage that would allow enemies into the puddle room first. The water had all been frozen, but that just made it convenient for an industrious group of fire ants to excavate it.These were literal fire ants, not the poisonous kind. Their red glowing mandibles steamed as they cut through the ice like butter. They would be through in less than another minute. Luckily, one of the alternate realm units had noticed and brought it to the defenders attention. At least they had gotten adequate warning to prepare.
Wren and her B tiers had hundreds upon hundreds of wraiths already formed. They were soon moved outside the tunnel, alongside the chilled glacier turtle. The wraiths were actually weak to the rising temperature of the fire ants, but the ice blasts from the glacier turtles offset it causing a fog to develop. The wraiths and ants started fighting despite the low visibility, neither side seemingly impeded. The turtles on the other hand could only focus their ice blasts on the entrance to hopefully reduce the amount of friendly fire and the number of invaders that could make it in.
Wren and her wraith raisers were all soon working to replace the wraiths that had fallen. Before the skirmish they had reached an equilibrium maxing out the number of ready defenders. Luckily, they replenished them quickly, but it was still only a temporary measure. They would fail to keep up the demand required to contain the issue at some point. The never ending flow of insects could only be halted, not stopped entirely.
But for now, a new stalemate had been established, but it was clear the first point of failure would be the turtle's manna supply, since they were keeping up a steady bombardment of ice spells to kill the majority of insects trying to push their way through. However there was an answer for that as well. Soon frozen incendiaries were used to supplement the glacier turtles. Using Peter’s uncommon condensed essence cards, Merlin had managed to develop incendiaries of quite a few different types, including the ice essence that had been collected from the S tier chilled glacier turtle itself. Each of the 22 condensed essence cards had gone to make nearly 100 incendiaries a piece. Each bomb could at least effectively threaten a unit at the B tier. They were more than enough to supplement the flagging B tier turtle’s manna pools.
Peter had also sent several hundred of the incendiaries to each of his allies. It looked like all 3 of them had already burnt through them all. Peter could hardly fault them. This attack had started with thousands of B and A tiers making up a large minority of the respective assault forces. To Peter it was incredibly wasteful. How many thousands of their elites would fall in the opening salvo? But Peter could not argue against the results. He had forced a stalemate, but the defenders in the other dungeons were either being steadily pushed back or overrun entirely. Once the insects broke his choke point, he would likely be in the same situation.
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Five minutes later there was a breach, although it actually occurred through the blinds instead of forces trying to break the containment outside of the underwater tunnel. The collapsing star fiend had worked its way out into the large entrance chamber of his dungeon. The SS tier was still going wild, but it was no longer able to intercept the elites entering the tunnel.
A large A tier rhinoceros beetle had made it through. Less than a minute later, it slammed into the middle blind using some sort of lunge skill causing metal to explode out to the sides. The turret exploded into a ball of flames. For its trouble, the beetle got cooked by the exploding turret and soon found itself the focus of a hundred magic spells and arrows that had been prepared to launch over the blinds, but had refocused on the A tier. It collapsed only ten feet from the makeshift wall, but only seconds afterwards insects were skittering out from between the dead body and what remained of the central blind even as the side flame turrets continued to work on their respective sides.
Several hundred B tier dragons stood there ready for such an occurrence. They surged forward to contain the flow as archers and mages continued to support them and fire volleys over the wall. The breach was sealed for now, but with enemy A tiers that could change in an instant. Glenda retreated those that were unnecessary, mainly those who had expended their mana. However this was still a better place to make a stand for now.
Another breach followed the first one not more than a minute later. This time it was an accursed black weevil. The A tier rampaged for a moment killing several B tier dragons before a black flash took it in the skull. The black weevil collapsed lifelessly. Delilah had already tossed the one used rifle aside and started charging a second. Delilah, now an S tier, was quite capable of keeping it going as long as he had enough of the legendary tier 7 night crystals that could be expended. Over the last few years, they had mined several hundred capable of being used like this. A pretty worthwhile trade if she was able to manage to kill A tiers with each of them.
Things looked to be getting out of hand, before the collapsing star fiend returned through one of the gaps. Running low on plasma the SS tier had returned as ordered. Although the fiend was in an extremely battered manner it was still in a good enough condition to take out a handful of A tiers expending the last of its plasma. The fiend only truly left the battle when it was completely empty as it had been ordered.
To think he had been in wonder when Krista killed nearly 50 A tiers over an entire battle. It was very likely that his SS tier had just killed somewhere to that amount over the course of 20 minutes. All the while the fiend had successfully fought behind enemy lines, nearly unaided for something like 20 to 25 minutes. Still with its bedraggled state, it likely needed some healing and time to replenish its plasma. He would give the order to start their own campaign soon. By the time they took a floor and made a teleportation ruin, the collapsing star fiend would be ready to go.
Peter’s attention was drawn for a moment to the battle in Gabriel’s dungeon. The battle had been pushed onto the third floor which happened to be the first wide open floor in Gabriel’s dungeon. It was the first time that Peter got a glimpse of the Hive type units at work. Tight knit formations of flying insects were working in tandem supporting each other far better than could be expected from most beast types. Even his own beast assault force was chaotic and in some ways clumsy. Peter used them for the same reason anyone else did, for their raw power. Hive’s forces however were far more organized, but no less powerful. Not to mention since the core type was an elite core, his units were probably stronger on average than the rest of the insect forces. No wonder Gabriel was struggling.
Luckily, Gabriel was no slouch. He had a force of thousands of flying units that were well equipped and well supported. It looked like the fallen core had put many of his resources forward to battle on his third floor. If he lost them all, he would likely be in a lot of trouble for the remainder of the battle.
It was also confirmed between all the allies, the insect dungeons were not putting much effort forth in the alternate dimension at all. They were still swarming the space with thousands of units, but they all were going down easy. It was the cricket core and the katydid that had seemingly been tasked with keeping the allied alternate realm forces occupied. Both were clearly infest dungeons like Agatha since they were showcasing B and C tiers of the same unit. Also like Agatha had during his last battle with her, they were only spamming the few units. They were literally being practically thrown away to keep the allied alternate realm forces busy.
Peter’s forces were able to hold the lines despite the breaches for a good 10 minutes, but the situation continued to devolve. When Glenda and the rest of the mages ran out of manna, she was forced to order the retreat. Once again hundreds of units would be left behind. There was just no other option. The insect assault just wouldn’t let up. It was the Blue diamond gravitron that halted the insect advance with a powerful application of its gravity domain near the exit giving the friendlies that had escaped time to put some distance between them and the swarms.
Peter watched the S tier’s energy bar fall fast. The gravity was so intense that it could easily halt a C tier in its tracks. B tiers might be able to slowly move forward, while most A tiers would be able to move at about half speed. The gravitron was forced to use its pincer like arms to knock them back, even as it used the opportunity to kill as many as it could.
The S tier held the first floor exit for a good 25 seconds before it suddenly broke off. Instead of going through the entrance, it rushed over toward the teleportation ruin. The Abyssal crystal construct had already rolled itself over. They were forced to fight for a bit until the ruins activated from the opposite side, bringing them to the sixth floor along with a scattering of insects.
The chilled glacier turtle was the only elite left behind. They simply did not have a way to extract it. It would fight until it fell along with all its one offs that had held the line with it. The turtle was able to hold out for several minutes as it flared its energy to sharpen its domain, but the S tier fell as soon as its reserves ran dry.
Peter’s view on the first floor winked out with the unit's loss, but Peter had only occasionally paid it any mind since he was watching the situation as his defenders retreated. The blue diamond graviton had given his forces almost half a minute, but they had swarmed through the portal immediately after. Peter used a resurrect card, if for nothing else but to keep the chilled essence that was several tiers better than the B tier one offs of the turtle. Those ice essence incendiaries had likely killed hundreds of units.
