Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) by Alex Oakchest (book suggestions txt) 📕

had taken the worst hit. The duke fought on, but his men were dropping. Just fourteen of them remained.

“Finish it, by the gods!” cried Reginal. He raised his sword and then charged toward the duke.

Reginal took just three steps, before clutching his chest and falling to the ground.

“Darling!” cried Galatee, racing over to him.

I stared on, confused. The duke didn’t employ bowmen. There were no soldiers near Reginal. What had happened?

“It’s his heart!” shouted Galatee.

Duke Smit snatched at a beetle scurrying by him, brought it to his face, and then bit into it and began to drink from it.

“What in the name of all hells…” said Gulliver.

A similar sentence formed in my mind as I watched, too surprised for words.

The duke tossed the withered beetle husk aside and reached for another one, killing it and drinking the blood from its veins. He did this five times, until his stomach bulged.

He waved his hands over three of his dead soldiers. A red mist left his fingers, seeping into his soldiers’ noses, mouth, and eyes.

His once-dead men rose to their feet. Not as some kind of undead creatures, but fully restored to life and without any sign of their old wounds. Their uniforms were clean, completely untouched by the battle as if they had never taken part in it, with none of the blood or dust that had stained them just moments earlier. It was as if someone had turned back time for them, and only them.

I understood now. I realized what Duke Smit was.

“He’s an epochian,” I said.

“Never thought I’d see one,” said Gulliver, reaching for a book and quill from his inner coat pocket.

“He drains time from the living and can use it to bring his men back,” I said. “The bastard will raise his whole damn army!”

The duke reached for another beetle, grabbing it by the abdomen and draining it dry.

“And apparently he doesn’t get full very easily,” said Gulliver.

I looked around to see how many of my dungeon mates were still alive. Not enough. Not enough at all.

The surviving Yondersun soldiers looked at their chiefs, confused. Faced with the epochian duke, and without Reginal to command them, they were lost.

“Galatee!” I said. “You’re needed here.”

She ignored me, cradling Reginal’s head in her lap and talking to him, completely lost to anything around her.

“Gulliver, you need to take charge of Reginal’s men,” I said.

“Me? I’m a bloody scribe!”

“You’ve been in wars.”

“So? I once ran across a field, but that doesn’t make me a horse!”

“You’re right. Damn it!”

I looked at the crowd of Yondersun soldiers, searching for a familiar face.

Ah.

“Warrane!” I shouted.

A young, three-eyed, green-skinned man marched over to me, his armor covered in blood. “This one needs orders.”

“You’re going to give the orders now, Warrane. I need you to take charge of Reginal’s soldiers. Kill the duke, or we’ll end up outnumbered again and all this will have been for nothing.”

Giving similar orders to my own dungeon mates, I could only watch as the Yondersunians and my creatures charged at the duke. They were met by a line of newly-risen soldiers.

He hadn’t just healed them. As an epochian, he had completely reversed the last hour or so of their lives. They would be completely refreshed and unhurt, with no battle fatigue whatsoever. Whereas my creatures were wounded. The Yondersunians were wounded. To a man, to a kobold, we were ready to drop.

The armies met each other now, fighting on top of a layer of corpses from both sides.

Behind them, Nazenfyord charged at a slowed, injured Razensen, pointing a piece of jagged roof frame at him and running him through the left shoulder with it. The great bogan cried out, falling onto his back with a crash.

“You were stronger than our father, at least!” roared Nazenfyord, his fur coated in blood. “But still much too weak.”

“No! Pox you! Curse you!” cried Kainhelm, seeing his best friend fall.

The duke ducked to avoid a shard of glass telepathically flung at his head. He charged at the line of melded-monster bone guys and lopped the head off one, then another, and then a third. On this last attempt he struck the real bone guy, destroying their chain and killing my melded monster.

The two armies whittled each other’s numbers down, inflicting wound upon wound, creating corpse after corpse, until finally, all the soldiers were dead.

My surviving creatures, fatigued beyond belief, couldn’t help but collapse to the ground.

Only the duke and Nazenfyord remained. The weathermage was nowhere to be seen.

Nazenfyord faced us, his eyes still glowing blood red, his bogan berserker rage not satiated even after defeating Razensen.

Even if the Yondersunians and my dungeon creatures hadn’t suffered too many casualties, they were too tired to fight. They couldn’t hope to kill a bogan in a berserker rage.

After all of this, the duke would still win, and what could I do about it?

The bogan charged at us.

A beast rose from the nearby destroyed lodge. Razensen, holding the end of the giant piece of wood that had gone clean through his shoulder, charged at his brother.

The sharp end of the wood pierced Nazenfyord’s neck. His slit eyes pulsated and then lost color.

“For our parents, I send you to the ice!”

Razensen grunted, wedging the wood even deeper into his brother’s neck until the great beast crashed to the ground.

Nazenfyord was dead. The soldiers were dead.

Only the duke remained now.

CHAPTER 24

It would have been hard for most people to think straight when they looked upon a street filled with corpses. It even felt strange to me to see the aftermath of such slaughter. Now that the fighting was done, the absence of battle noise was more unsettling than the sound itself, in a way.