The assault force moved on to the woodlouse dungeon after the springtail core fell. One more core eliminated for good. The assault on the woodlouse dungeon proved to be only marginally more difficult, but only because of the generally higher natural defenses of the lower tier units. Still the wood louse dungeon fell in about the same amount of time,l right before the battle reached the 21 hour mark.
By all accounts, they were doing far better than expected. Already the battle had gone from a 9 on 4 down to a 5 on 4 battle. The enemy cores now barely outnumbered the concept cores. Also the enemy cores, other than Eli, had seemingly exhausted most of their heavy hitters, but from another perspective the allied forces were also pretty drained. The assault force was already being supplemented by what remained of the rescue force.
Fighting through tens of thousands in each dungeon would only result in more losses, replicating the result five more times promised to be a difficult feat to complete. Even the seemingly unkillable SS tiers like the collapsing star fiend or the Abyssal crystal construct would eventually run out of steam. It would be especially true since Peter and his allies expected the remaining cores to put up more of a fight than the others had. Eli for one should have plenty of elites leftover, but they also expected greater showings from the other cores remaining. Dunge beetle, their current target, was already proving a notch more difficult.
Dung beetle’s forces were continually rolling boulder sized balls that filled the entirety of the tunnels they were in. Even an A tier had moved a ball as solid as stone down the main tunnel, and it was allowed since the attack was formed by the unit. Others were shot through the smaller tunnels like cannon balls. They easily had enough force to kill several B tiers or a dozen C tiers before the force dissipated and the balls dissipated. Tunnels were booby trapped with poison fog clouds, or insects that sprang out of the ground or roof.
It was honestly the best showing of dungeon capabilities by far. Even the dung beetle shooting catapults in the katydid core’s dungeon had seemingly been a result of the type. It made Peter wonder whether the dung beetle units were just naturally more intelligent than other insect types, or perhaps the core had just worked harder at it. Not a difficult bar to go over since the other insect core capabilities had been simply atrocious. Even Elyra had been more impressive before the group had prodded her to improve things.
Still the dung beetle core could not resist the combined assault force. They took heavy losses, but it had been a foregone conclusion since the beginning. The problem would be on how they would take down the final four cores. They had already agreed that fire ant would be the next target as they had decided to work from weakest to strongest. The idea was to knock out as many cores as possible so there would be less cores capable of mounting a surprise attack on one of their dungeons. Already they were each pulling some of their defenders to supplement the next assault. Thankfully, they were also starting to get a fresh infusion of freshly resurrected elites.
Peter had Chilled glacier turtle, Nightmarish creation and berserker ape standing by already as things wrapped up in the dung beetle’s dungeon, and the ether tearing dragon would make it back on the scene if the battle lasted long enough. Gabriel had 6 S tiers that would be resurrected although he was still waiting on two of them to respawn. Elyra and Gretchen each had 2 coming back.
“I think we need to change tactics for our next assault. We should slow down our advance, putting defensive units in the main tunnel while our own units fight to expand through all the run off tunnels,” Gabriel suggested.
“I got the perfect thing for the main tunnel. I will just need a few support units like my dark mage. Think things that can shoot through a bunch of obstructions,” Peter said.
“Oh only an SS tier for support,” Elyra snorted, but then she added. “My S tier healer can stay in the main tunnel in support. My S tier dimensional terror can also support the main push from the alternate dimension.”
“That should be good. I’ll cover the rest. The rest of our elites can work through the tunnels in teams or guard the entrance,” Peter decided. Elyra’s healer would not be too helpful for the abyssal crystal construct since it was not a living being, but it should be a nice central location for the healer to operate from.
As for the dimensional terror, it was perhaps one of the scariest units Peter had seen. It was some sort of human sized mangy rabbit that wore a black mask over its mouth. Its eyes were pure black with small red pinpoints in the center. Elyra had made it from phase, nightshade, and a terror type card combination. It was not quite as dangerous as the mirror soldier in a straight up fight, but had a zoom type skill like Peter’s ghastly soldiers. It could move through the dimensional boundary and past defenses and strike out with poisonous claws. The thing also had a terror domain that affected any enemy that saw it causing a vertigo like terror making it difficult for opponents to fight back. It would be the perfect unit to assassinate units threatening the push, if there was even anything left that could even harm the abyssal crystal construct.
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The construct had healed itself over time replacing its spines and closing the few cracks in its main body. The plan was to basically just have it roll down the main tunnel. They already had an idea on what Fire ant’s dungeon was like since Gretchen had fought the core to a draw years earlier.
The assault on fire ant’s dungeon began only a few minutes after dung beetle was eliminated. The abyssal construct started rolling right through the dungeon entrance. Fire balls and acid balls shot out from every angle. Every inch of the tunnel, floors, walls, and ceiling beyond the entrance platform, were covered in ants. Hundreds of attacks hit nearly every second, but the construct just rolled on. There were a dozen B tiers and even a few A tiers among the throng of ants, but the construct slowly rolled forward toward them all; its spines pierced into the stone as it went, elongating the spines behind itself to push itself forward.
Fire ant had apparently elected to have only the main tunnel and none of the typical offshoots at least near his dungeon’s entrance. It was backfiring spectacularly since the ants had nowhere to go and the construct did not slow. Soon the amount of attacks coming in was reduced by more than half as a mad scramble started with ants trying to scurry over one another to get out of the way.
Ganon and other supporting mages were the next to come through the portal. The construct was already at the edge of the initial platform. They quickly realized the situation and moved in to support however they could. The construct however did not need much support, and soon allies started bunching up, resulting in orders to reduce reinforcements to a mere trickle so that their enemies could not wrest control of the entrance from them.
It took several hundred yards before the construct started rolling over some ants, but that was more due to the fact that some sturdy high ranking ants moved in to try to physically attack the construct. The rest were nearly clogging the tunnel as they worked to retreat over one another. Only one A tier ant managed to cause any damage. Its powerful mandibles were able to crunch through multiple spines before it backed out of range. However, the construct easily caught it during its second charge. A launched spine pinned it to the wall. Not near enough to kill it, but the pinned elite could not escape in time before the SS tier rolled on over it, piercing it through a dozen times over.
For the other weaker ants the construct hardly bothered. It would catch up to them sooner or later. The ants were able to clear out of the way surprisingly fast despite the fact that they had packed the tunnel surfaces, so the construct was only slowly closing on the receding tunnel clog of squirming bodies. Eventually however it caught up, then just like what the dung beetles had done to some of his units it started rolling through them in mass. Of course the abyssal construct just pierced them all through at least a half dozen times leaving just as many alive as dead. The survivors were dispatched easily enough as Ganon and the sanguine fairies used them to increase their power.
Hundreds upon hundreds met the same fate, with the abyssal crystal construct seemingly untouched. The SS tier had taken some extensive damage far earlier in the battle when it had been used to stem the tide at the katydid core’s dungeon entrance, but that had been against a horde of A and B tiers. How could the SSS rank defense of a construct be whittled away so easily against a bunch of weaklings.
The good times would not last however, the fire ant core had at least prepared its own strategy as hundreds of B tier stone ants bore through the main tunnel. Soon all the offshoot tunnels that had not existed were suddenly there, but it was not like the allied forces had not expected something like this. Plus there were over a dozen S tiers waiting to get in the action. The B tiers were handled soon enough. The following C tier ants found it difficult to make much headway when they could only attack from small tunnels one by one. Things would only get more difficult as the construct continued to move forward allowing the ants to create that many more offshoots to attack from.
Not that they would get the chance. The collapsing star fiend had instantly dived into one of the offshoots. It ripped its way through half a dozen ants before reaching a long bladder-like tunnel filled to the brim with units awaiting their chance to join the ambush. There were thousands of them, and there would not be much of a fight. The fox was in the henhouse, and there was nothing these C tiers could do to fight back.
Things continued to go surprisingly in their favor as they moved from floor to floor. The abyssal construct continued to roll forward as a group of units continued to support the push, while bands of elites fought to keep them from being attacked from behind. By the third floor they had given up on clearing out all the enemies on the floors. Instead the core of elites just pushed forward behind the construct. The ants left behind either attacked the elites or moved back to attack the well defended entrance. The fire ant dungeon conquest proceeded far too smoothly.
