The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) by Jonathan Brooks (e book reading free txt) 📕

Chapter 30

Fortunately, the interruption was only 2 of the Dungeon Cores sending out an army of their Dungeon Monsters at the same time.  The Goblin and Golem-Classification Cores were still preternaturally quiet and unmoving, but the Beast and Slime-Classification dungeons practically exploded with their Monsters out of their secondary entrances.  The Elves were prepared for the eventuality, though after waiting for so long without knowing exactly when it was coming they were slow to respond.  It was a good thing that Sandra was paying attention with a score of Shears floating above each entrance in case something was spotted.

* Chryla!  They’re breaking out of the larger entrance! *

“Which one?” the young Ranger asked, immediately snatching up her bow from where she had left it next to her.  She was currently watching the main entrance to the Slime-based dungeon and nothing was coming from there, so she was unaware of everything happening.

* Both.  You may need to reinforce the others near you, as it appears as though they are all concentrating on the secondary entrance.  I’ll leave that for you to decide, however, but I’m passing the word to everyone. *

It didn’t take long for Sandra to alert everyone not directly watching each entrance, and she left the decision on whether or not they wanted to abandon their posts to reinforce to them.  Whether or not there was a strategy to attack them from behind when they moved from the main entrance was unknown, and she didn’t want to be the one to make that mistake – as shallow as that sounded.  The Dungeon Core had already made those kinds of errors when she was fighting the Undead forces, but that had been with just her constructs and other Dungeon Monsters; this was involving people now that were defending their own homes, and she was there more as support rather than leadership.

She also let the Dwarven Shieldmen know what was happening just as a precaution, because it was a possibility that they would have a breakout sometime soon as well.  Though, when Sandra thought about it, she realized that the way both Elven Cores had decided to attack at the same time was a bit odd.  Their attack wasn’t just close to being at the same time, but at the exact same time; she got alerts from both groups of Shears together, which meant that they initiated their charge out of the dungeon with uncanny precision.

Winxa, are you absolutely sure that these other Cores can’t communicate?

“They shouldn’t be able to.  Why?  What’s happening?”

In a quick as explanation as she could, Sandra explained the timing of the simultaneous attacks even as she watched the Elves respond to each.  Initially, the first wave of Dungeon Monsters was eradicated quickly; the Beast Core sent out charging boars that were cut down by bolts fired by the 10 Elves that were set up in wait for them, but then came a second wave of large wolves, Bearlings, and hunting cats that rushed out with the sole purpose of destroying the Elves in their hiding places 100 feet out from the entrance.  The 40 Roaring Blademasters stationed there went to work, swooping in as directed by one of the Elves to surround and completely slice apart 3 of the Bearlings, losing two of their number in the process.

Half of the other Beasts were peppered with more bolts, though many of them took at least 3 or 4 expertly shot projectiles to go down.  The Wyvines with the Rangers were called in to work then, effortlessly gliding forward to attack the other half of the wave from their invisible and muffled approach, taking down the rest with minimal injuries, especially when they were backed up by their Elven partners.

But the waves just kept coming, with the third wave consisting of Crocatiles accompanied by something that appeared to be an Elk, though with a set of razor-sharp antlers and hooves that dripped some sort of viscous green substance.  Explosions rocked the secondary entrance as explosive bolts slammed into the Crocatiles, doing enormous damage, but the Elk beasts were a different problem.  They practically bounded ahead, changing directions unexpectedly and the Rangers were finding them difficult to target to shoot.  Half of the Wyvines went after them because they were fast enough to catch the quick Beasts, but the Elk were deadlier than Sandra expected.

Antlers like swords tore into three of the Wyvines when the Elk were tackled by the larger Shadow Beasts, tearing through their scaled hide with ease.  Sandra’s Dungeon Monsters didn’t go without a fight and managed to slice their own way into the vital areas of the Elk, killing them even as they died from the horrific wounds they sustained.  A fourth Wyvine managed to be struck by a hoof, which was apparently coated with something extremely poisonous, because the Wyvine staggered back to the Elven line before collapsing in a heap and dissolving into a Monster Seed moments later.

The Blademasters helped to finish off the rest of the Crocatiles, only to be caught up in the next wave of Beasts that spawned forth from the dungeon.  Massive elephant-like beasts with six bone-like tusks thundered out and started to smack their facial weapons into the Blademasters, significantly damaging their tusks in the process; it was apparently a worthy tradeoff, because every construct they hit was knocked out of the air, bent in half with most of their blades destroyed.  Seconds after they hit the ground, they too disappeared.  Only a dozen managed to get away before they were finished off, where they hovered above the battle waiting for more orders.

The explosive-tipped bolts slammed into the Elephant Beasts, but only 2 of the massive pachyderms had enough damage done to their lower limbs to stop moving; their heads and bodies seemed to have a layer of hard bone protecting them like armor,