The 5 S tiers had proceeded through Hive’s dungeon quite quickly, but it had still taken them almost 10 minutes a floor, which gave the rest of their forces a good hour and a half of rest before one final push. It was not a bad result for the allies. They ended up losing 2 of the S tiers in the process. Elyra’s bone mage had fallen almost immediately after the ether tearing dragon’s departure. The mirror soldier, pit demon, and dimensional terror had been able to fight their way forward enough to dive into the alternate dimension soon after. They had rushed after the SS tier but had still been quite a ways out when the incorporeal dragon ended things. The other loss was the ether tearing dragon, but the unit was still alive. It had merely depleted itself due to its own nature. Its energy bar was barely over 10%.
Another hundred C tiers or so and it might not have been able to make it through the swarm to finish the job. Regardless, the SS tier would be out of the fight for a while. Close to 3 hours if Peter wanted it to be back up to full health. Peter would send it in with less if things got to that point, but for now they would have to proceed without it.
“Gabriel can you have your hedge warrior lead the charge for the first few seconds. I will have Einstein come in next to freeze space allowing our other elites to gain us a foothold,” Peter suggested.
No one had a better plan, so Peter used the replicator pad to send the instructions. It took less than a minute before the walking trashcan burst through the portal. It scrambled forward as hundreds of attacks slammed down on its position. Metal chipped and fractured, but the hedge warrior stoically leveled its steel cross and started returning fire as it moved steadily forward. It only managed 2 shots before space froze all along the platform. Dozens of incoming attacks filled the air. Even more slammed into the frozen air which was as good as a physical barrier. Small explosions started blanketing the half sphere as more and more allies popped in through the portal.
Einstein’s whole body trembled, locking down that much space on his own, but it was enough to allow Glenda and other allied mages to get in and form a real magic barrier before the space mage dropped his arms wearily. A blue barrier soon held and rippled with the incoming attacks, but the barrier did not prevent the shell tipped arrows that slammed down before exploding on impact. There was nothing they could do about it. An energy shield took far more energy to maintain. The allied mages would expend themselves far too soon if they tried.
The hedge warrior and other elites immediately started proceeding out into the large cavernous room. The room was only a couple hundred feet in height, but it stretched on for what looked like the entire floor. Only sporadic stone pillars broke open the wide open room. It was short enough to prevent flying creatures from being out of reach, but tall enough to allow most ranged attacks from the back of the room. The room itself was full of defenders, and not weak ones. “One S tier, approximately 60 A tiers, and ten times as many B tiers” Boris reported, which Peter relayed through the replicator pad. It seemed that Eli was determined to stop their forces here and now.
The moment that space was unfrozen, allied elites started pouring off the entrance platform. Alternate realm units flashed over into the alternate realm, where they were immediately beset by a decent opposition. Not enough to prevent their S tiers and other elites from emerging victorious, but enough to keep them from running wild in the physical realm during the defining battle. Perhaps Eli wanted to end it all quickly for just such a reason, realizing that he would never stand a chance in a protracted battle.
The hedge warrior along with the last remnants of its one offs led the charge up the middle. All of them held steel crosses that blazed with purple energy before shooting across the room. However, the place was crawling with shrimp mages. A literal sea of blue barriers had sprung up across the cavern. Only heavy hitters like Ganon could easily blast through one. Which the dark mage was going full tilt from the start realizing that this battle would likely be the determining factor between victory and defeat. Ganon was not alone. Gabriel’s ethereal pugilist, Michael, and Wren move along with him supporting and protecting the hedge warriors as they advanced slowly forward.
Most of Elyra and Peter’s remaining forces charged up the right side. The collapsing star fiend was near instantly in the melee wreaking havoc despite the hundreds of feet between the closest defenders and the entrance platform. The fiend's target was clearly the elites toward the back of the room, but he would have to push through hundreds before he made it that far. The plasma bather was only a few seconds behind the fiend, already the lizard's skin was a brilliant white. The saint flame dragon sprayed a large hash of flames more toward the center, making it easily the most eye-catching focal point of the battle… the start of Elyra’s desired crawfish boil.
Gretchen’s dark elves took up the left flank. She had only three A tiers and the one S tier baton fighter left, but they were accompanied by at least 300 dark elf warriors and hundreds of support units. Delilah took up position behind them, and immediately began charging a legendary night crystal.
The field of view was soon lost in a rolling cloud of steam. The dragon and plasma bather were still doing their thing, but hundreds of aquamancers were now opposing their efforts. The result was an obscuring wave of steam that quickly swallowed the whole battlefield. The only good visibility that Peter had was inside the mage barrier at the entrance platform. Outside was a haze with near constant flashes of various colors as attacks sailed between both sides. The only constant were the hundreds of small blue barriers that looked like round blue bubble chains.
Krista and a few archangels streaked through the entrance portal, so Peter pulled up a top down view of her feed since he knew she would go deep behind enemy lines. Sure enough she soon became engaged in combat with some dark smoke elemental. Her celestial sword flashed with white as it cut into the incorporeal creature. The elemental was a giant of a unit completely dwarfing the archangel that winged around it avoiding the colossal black fists. Unlike the insect cores, Eli seemingly found no issue with using units of other types.
On another screen a new line of dark blue mage barriers started popping up away from the entrance platform. The new line was created by the sanguine rose fairies, of which there were still 300 left. The pressure on the entrance platform dropped and the mages began to spread out along the back wall before they started firing attack spells. The remainder of the allies started to pour through the portal. Less than 2,000 C tiers, but they were still needed in this battle, even if only to reduce the enemy's far numerical superiority. They surged forward into the haze.
At the very end of the line were the ritual summoner fairies who spread themselves out along the back wall as well, before they began their rituals. A rule Peter had not known until this battle was that summoned creatures could not move past no man’s land. Peter had been beyond frustrated, when Ganon first lost his entire shadow guard after the first conquest he participated in was completed. The dark mage, Wren, the ritual summoners, and others could only start anew each time. But with the intensity of the battle before them, Peter had to wonder if the fairies would even get a chance to contribute. Apparently, Pip and the others had thought the same, because they each summoned lower tier units than they normally did. One B tier and hundreds of D tiers soon rushed forward into the haze. In a minute they would send another wave.
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They never disappeared entirely since the steam was starting to clear. Less than a minute later, Peter could start to make out the full picture. Their forces were already pushing forward on all fronts. It sounded good, but only the ranged elites were currently partaking in the fight, and the battle line was pushing back towards them, so it would not be long now before the melee elites joined in.
Peter would have thought that the dark elves would be struggling the most since they were likely the weakest portion of the allied advance, but they actually seemed to have very few losses since all the eyecatching elites were either in the center or on the right side of the room. They were proceeding forward seemingly ignored by all but those except those in the immediate area.
Gabriel’s hedge warrior, the mages behind him, Peter’s Saint flame dragon, and plasma bather were all under heavy fire. Peter was hardly surprised when his S tier dragon became the first casualty. The S tier dragon had always been a bit squishy. The plasma bather followed only fifteen seconds later. Peter wavered for a moment, but finally he made his decision. He let them both go. He only had 3 resurrects left. There was a good chance he would lose more valuable units than these. Plus he had 4 maelstroms for the dragon and 2 for the bather, so they would not be completely lost. It was just an undeniable fact that he could not continually revive every S tier throughout the years. He would have to let many of them go.
It took less than a minute for Peter to feel validated about his decision. After defeating the black elemental cloud, Krista had fought a few others before she naturally migrated to the most dangerous enemy, Eli’s S tier. The elite was a giant silver mantis shrimp that had several dozen wiry tentacles attached to the back of its head and neck. Each of the tentacles were at least as long as the creature’s 40 foot body.
Krista tried to swoop in to attack the head, since the shrimp was not facing toward her, but she was forced to break off when five tentacles intercepted her. Krista attacked with her celestial sword, but the tentacles seemingly absorbed the hits. The rubbery tentacles were hardly damaged, which did not bode well for the S tier who had likely thought that she would be able to cut her way through them. Krista immediately decided to escape. One of the shrimp’s front sickles slashed toward her, but she easily dodged as she continued to get clear, however the tentacles started to elongate even as they formed a cage that started to restrict her movements.
Krista found her escape route cut off, so decided to force her way back through the mantis or finish the job. She weaved in and out as the tentacles jabbed or swung in, but she was not quick enough to dodge for long. Once she was caught it was over with one sickle slice. This time Peter did not hesitate to use a resurrect card. She was far too valuable to lose.
It was a frustrating result, but hopefully the mantis shrimp would face retribution soon. The strongest enemy, the collapsing star fiend, was already moving in mantis shrimp’s direction. It only took a minute before the fiend could burst through the last few A tiers. Immediately, the SS tier closed in on the shrimp. Tentacles darted in, but unlike the celestial sword the plasma fueled slashes and teeth had no problem ripping right through them. The only problem was that there were far too many of them and they wiggled around the fiend’s guard.
However the shrimp realized it would not be able to restrain its enemy for long, so the mantis shrimp moved in to finish the fiend off, but this time the quick moving sickle only cut deep into the fiend’s side before it jerked to a stop. The SS tier shrieked. Its mouth twisted back catching the sickle in its pulsing white jaws. That is when the second sickle came in, cutting into the other side, but it also failed to cleave all the way through. The mantis shrimp started pulling the fiend in toward its wide open maw.
The fiend only wriggled and struggled as it flared its plasma in every horn, tooth, or claw. Before the fiend made it halfway towards the mouth, the sickle in its jaws shattered leaving a jagged piece still attached to shrimp's front arm. Due to the loss, the shrimp could not hold onto the fiend which wiggled free of the other. The fiend fell jerked to a stop as it hung there oddly from a few tentacles for a second, before it cut its way free from them as well. The SS tier seemingly bounced off the ground as it dodged another swipe from the damaged sickle.
A second later it was inside the shrimp’s guard and attacking the softer underbelly as the bottom legs scrambled to try and back up. However, once the SS tier was clear of the tentacles and sickle arms it could not be stopped.
The battle was still far from decided despite the loss of the only enemy S tier. Gabriel’s hedge warrior finally went down when a large knot of enemies surged forward all at once. The ethereal pugilist, Ganon, Wren, and Michael were now in the thick of it. Michael tried to protect them with golden sigils as wraiths and shadow guards expanded out to hold the line. Gabriel’s commander tried to cover the gaps, sending a ghost fist towards anything that tried to close in on their group, but they were quickly losing ground against the counter assault.
The four stood relatively alone since most of the lesser units had flowed to the two sides where progression was far faster and there was more open ground. Glenda’s starfall rained just beyond their position, but barriers sprung up to protect the counter assault. A dark flash however took out one of the A tiers down easing the pressure if only slightly.
Shadow guards and wraiths continued to be killed, as things continued to devolve. Then all at once mirror soldier, the dimensional terror, and Gabriel’s pit fiend were there to help out. Moments late, units from the lower tiers started blinking into existence to help out, as the ally forces abandoned the alternate realm all together. The counter offensive failed near instantly upon their arrival. The enemies followed suit, but they could make a lot less difference than their counterparts.
The fight that had seemed to be teetering on the edge, able to go either way, solidified. The S tiers were just too difficult to counter. It might have been a different matter entirely if they had lost even half the support they had carried into his dungeon, proving that it would have been difficult to close things out if they had sustained heavy losses in Hive’s dungeon.
Peter would have been quite pleased with the result if his mind was not already considering the implications for the next battle he would be in. Eli’s defense seemed pretty solid for what the guy had access to, yet his defenses could not hold against an overwhelming force. In two year’s time, he might be on the other end of something like this. He had no doubt that intermediate dungeons would be more difficult than the insect cores had been.
It was a sombering thought. Peter had tried to build as many maelstroms as possible to crank out B tiers in high numbers. It was the only way he could think to counter enemies with decades or centuries more resources than his own, yet here was an example where a weary bedraggled attacking army was winning purely through its superior elites. What would he do when he faced someone who had thousands of A tiers and dozens of S tiers and actually knew how to use them unlike the idiot insect core rookies. This might very well be the last fight in a long while, where he had the advantage in the upper tiers.
Peter soon dismissed the thought as a later concern. For now it was time to enjoy the thought of what things might be like for Eli as the allies continued to tighten the noose. Elyra was already voicing some choice words for the crustacean core, that he would unfortunately, never get to hear. The interface really should allow some sort of channel for smack talk
As things started collapsing on Eli’s first floor it became clear that Eli had put all his major forces for an all or nothing stop on the first floor. The second floor was still heavily defended, but it was mostly lower tier units. The third floor was the same. The allied armies had no problem taking their time and working their way forward. The fourth floor and on were nearly empty. Eli had truly hoped to stop them at the beginning. Finally on the tenth floor Elyra’s dimensional terror ended the now 2 day battle.
