Chapter 10 – The Divided Battle
The pack of different tiered graug made their way into my domain. The largest of them was just small enough to fit in. I had a look at the pack, there were about 100 of them. Contrary to what the giant's memories told me there were no feral graug. The lowest of the intruders started at tier 2.
They looked just like the feral ones just larger and stronger. Adding to that was their rundown look. As If they never cared for themselves and every illness and injury they had didn't heal and just remained.
Mixed in were some Tier-3 graugs, they looked like mismatched Tier-2 ones. With one too many limbs. They had the same not healing attribute as their Tier-2 ancestors but looked more horrendous.
Leading the pack was a very large graug, I assumed him to be tier-4. He looked quite different from his tier-3 originators. He looked like he had already died and just forgot that he was dead. Running on all fours he was the most powerful one and leached the life out of the surrounding vegetation.
The weakest members of the pack were the first to reach the mice kingdom. They didn't even stop to appreciate the beauty or defend themselves against their attacks. Just continuing on to the second zone. The higher-tiered creatures behind the front followed them, not doing anything.
Though when the tier-4 graug entered, he stopped for a second. At this time all of the zones inhabitants attacked him at once. The creature waited once everyone was upon him and then sucked their lives out. It was clear that it was growing stronger and lessening its exhaustion. All of the tier 0 creatures died, only the mice royalty and the guardian survived. Only to be killed the next second.
In the meanwhile, the pack had continued on into the snaking tunnels. Savagely and unorderly killing and preying upon the snakes. Some of the stronger ones stood some resemblance of a chance against them. But their enemies overwhelming numbers of high-tier individuals made their defeat inevitable.
Once the whole pack went through the zone and continued on to the third I received a report from the faraway battlefield.
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They had started the attack but sadly weren't able to surprise the giants. The enemies had already expected an attack and build up a defensive wall. The foot troops were the first to meet the enemy, they leaned their ladders on the fortifications. With the intention of climb over.
While some of them surely succeded, a large part of the ladders were pushed off the ledge and fell down into the grass. The aggrand soldiers relentlessly continued their assault and the narcullians supported them.
Scouting out optimal ladder placement and occupying the stupid giants, so the footsoldiers could take the wall. The more powerful narculians flew around killing the aby giants.
To my troop's misfortune, the giants' leader, the ephyn, and his council, quickly took control of their people.
They ordered them into a neat battleline and micromanaged the fight. This increased the assault's difficulty, but my forces still had the upper hand. The Narcullian leader flew around the battlefield abducting and killing the normal giants. Seeing this the ephyn was enraged and send two of his council members to stop the flying monstrosity.
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This is where the report ended and I couldn't wait to receive the next one wanting to know of the outcome of the narcullians' fight.
But I had a challenge to deal with myself. I cured my decision to send my whole attackers somewhere else. Sadly I couldn't even call them back. Not only would they take too long but the giants would follow them, making a bad situation even worse.
The pack had reached my third zone and finally saw their first casualties. They weren't as intelligent as the spiders and were very arrogant. The tier 2 wretched graug ran into the three caverns and some were picked off in the resulting battle.
It was true that the graug was a very powerful creature. But when they just charged into something without a care in the world, things would get hurt. But sadly the graugs were stronger. One after another my defenders fell and the guardians let their life to protect me.
To my dismay, the clever key strategy, I hoped to overwhelm the graugs' simple brain with, was solved. Once the Tier-4 creature had arrived it simply looked at the devastation, took the three keys, and opened the door into the next zone.
I waited in fear for what was to come next when I received the next report.
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The narculian had won the fight against the council, using its speed and lateral movement to outmaneuver the enemy. The two ettins fled the fight, covered in blood and deep wounds. Now that the narcullian wasn't occupied it instead returned to picking off the giants and destroyed the barrier.
It ordered some of its flying squads to support it, they took the pre-collected boulders and smashed them against the barricade. The giants stood there unable to do anything against the narcullians. But this wasn't because they did not have ranged weapons.
No, they were actually constantly bombarding the narculinas with small rocks. But those small rocks weren't able to significantly wound the large and agile narcullians. With the wall finally, either having been crossed or in some sections completely destroyed, the two forces stood face to face.
The army of aggrand foot soldiers and the narcullians on one side against the huge giants and their leaders on the other.
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This was where the report of the narcullian scout ended and I again concentrated on the forces invading my domain. They had at last run down the long tunnel and reached the opening to the fourth floor.
Even they were lightly stunned but didn't really care for beauty or aesthetics. They continued their run through the cavern, seeing as they thought there weren't any enemies to fight. This time the moss turned blood red once they reached the halfway point.
Misty warriors arose from the rivers below and made their way up the steep cliff. On their way they awoke the ancient warriors from their battle, fighting in another timeframe. Reaching the ledge of the cliff they jumped over and stood before the graug.
They themselves had just watched my defenders ascend and waited for them while barking and hooting. With a loud bellow from their leader, the fight began in earnest. Liquid bodies were poked open and mist was slashed apart.
On the other side, graugs were being kicked off the cliff and others were cut open from thousands of slashes. The graugs lowest fighters were decimated. The wretched graug and my tier-2 mist warriors killed each other in a fair fight.
I also learned the name of their third evolution, when a mass of enemies swarmed one of the abominable graugs and plunged with him into the depths below. The graug leader, enraged by a high member of his tribe dying introduced himself into the fight. He threw off hundreds of tier-one defenders and ravaged the battlefield.
In the end, the graugs won the fight, they greedily drank the mana-rich water of the mist warriors. And once their leader, I now knew to be called a peek tier-4 weak Maldraxxi, roared at them, they continued further into my domain.
Entering the bear's den were the remaining forces. Though this time the bear wouldn't fall this easily, having learned his lesson from the last fight and since then gingerly trained.
The bear now stood equal in strength to a tier four creature and was sure to challenge the intruders.
He was also the strongest monster remaining in my dungeon, the coming bosses were sadly slightly weaker than him. This was because they weren't alpha guardians and only a guardian pair.
I again got a glimpse at the faraway fight through an exhausted and bloodied narculian, that died when it reached my domain.
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The main battle had started and troops started dying left and right, tens got killed in minutes and the corpses were littering the field. Fallen giants created mounds of flesh, behind which wounded aggrand were cared for. The corpse of two ettins divided the battlefield into two.
On one side were the aggrand footsoldiers and their generals fighting against the normal giant variants. The other side's battle would decide the true outcome of the war. Fighting were the narcullian tier 4 and two narcullian squads against the remaining three ettins and the ephyn.
Slashes gouged furrows in the grounds and debris flew around like droplets in the rain. Blood was covering the ground and creating a veritable lake out of it. The high Narcullian held an ettin in his claws and was just biting off its head when it was attacked by the ephyn.
Luckily a pair of narcullians blocked the punch with their lives, otherwise, the outcome of the battle would have already been decided.
The soldier who reported this was hit during its scouting mission and had to fly back prematurely.
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I was now again able to follow the graugs battle against the bear. The fight had just started and already all of tier 2 and even some tier 3 graug lay dead on the ground. My alpha guardian wasn't yet even hurt. Though I cursed that thought really quickly when one of the abominable graug hit the bear really bad and slashed open its side.
In retaliation, the furred giant reeled up. A group of graug wanted to use this opportunity to hit its underside but were lured into a trap. The solar bear hit the earth with a stunning rumble and incapacitated the attacking abominable graug squad.
Wanting to save the squad another came to their rescue. Though just when they thought they had saved them a beam of light came down from the top. A ray of pure sun essence descended from the heavens, bathing the clearing in light and blinding everyone. 6 abominable graug at the bear's feet were heavily injured and weren't able to fight for the coming future.
Having learned from his last time, the bear used the blinding ray to sneak behind a group of tier 3 graug. They were stumbling around, their noses not being good enough to pick out the bear's smell.
He fell upon them in a savage dance of limbs, they were outmaneuvered but managed to heavily wound the attacking bear. In the end, the maldraxxi stood behind my most powerful guardian and bit deep into its neck, and ripping out the spine.
The tier 4 graug then threw the bear into the center of the clearing, towards the other dead abominable graug. What surprised me was what actually killed them. Normally the tier 3 graug would have been able to survive and be ready to fight again after some rest.
The maldraxxi though just went to one after the other and bit deep into their bodies gouging out their cores. And just as with the bear the wrong-looking giant consumed them, growing stronger.
I got to take a peek at the giants' battlefield again after a narcullian reached my domain.
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The aggrands had won a pyrrhic victory over the normal giants, only taking some of them hostage. On the other side, the battles final was being fought. The narcullian squad had eliminated itself while killing the ettins.
Now only the two-tier fours remained. Both of them were bloodied and quite talented in terraforming. The small hill oasis they stood on before was completely destroyed. Remaining was a blood-red lake on a minuscule mound.
Rivers of live-giving liquid ran down into the dry lands from the overflowing river of blood.
The high narcullian tier 4 and the ephyn were exchanging their last hits. With an unbelievable tremor, the giant ephyn fell to the floor. A dam broke free of the red sea and a flood of diluted blood ran over the battlefield.
It looked horrid. In a sea of deep red blood, hundreds of corpses were strewn around. Only a few remained living. My narcullian, the aggrand chief, and some of the last aggrands. The mana density of the area was even higher than in my core room. All the dead creatures' mana was flowing around the area and the surviving member greedily absorbed it.
Once they had infused themselves with the mana and healed their injuries they made their way to me as quickly as possible. Having heard of my dilemma and being desperate to save myself.
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The report ended and I send every creature I had remaining into my last zone. The maldraxxi was slowly making his way there.
I knew this wouldn't go out well for me and the maldraxxi only reinforced my thoughts. He lumbered inside the tall cylinder. Immediately sending all my remaining defenders at him the whole cavern began to move. Holes dotted the ground around the maldraxxi and the floor began to glow a hot red.
The giant though wasn't bothered, how would he be. He was at the peak of tier four close to breaking through to tier 5. My most powerful defenders were only peak tier 3 and tried their best to protect me. They all were just squished under the creature's foot and punched to mush with an unmotivated move.
The maldraxxi slowly made his way to the center of the zone and sat down in a meditative position. He sat there for a whole hour and I was already hoping my saving force would be able to reach him.
Though it wasn't to be, in one extremely powerful wave the whole mana of the zone got sucked into the creature. My already injured defenders fell quickly and provided the last needed mana. In my own domain, I first saw a creature's evolution to the 5th tier.
The core, found in every evolved creature glowed a brilliant kaleidoscope of colors.
A creature's core would evolve once they were tier-1 and grow from there on out. Steadily infusing the body with mana.
But now a system of vessels developed inside the weak maldraxxis body circulating the mana around. This was what it meant to break to tier 5. Tier 0 to Tier 1 was the core-forming and tier 4 to tier 5 was the dantian forming. Together with the breakthrough, a wave of energy flew of the creature, similar to a wave of mana, but different.
The giant went out of his meditation and with a splintering roar proved his dominance to me. He was now a colossal and all-powerful tier-5 pure maldraxxi. Just then I sensed my last defenders enter my domain, the peak tier four narcullian made his way into my dungeon.
It was exhausted from its long flight but desperate to save its master and originator.
I hopped that its strength would be enough and it was able to defeat the monstrosity. Optimism flowed through my core because I could sense that the giant was low on mana right after its evolution.
But it was all never meant to be, the giant reached my core room first. The narcullian had just reached the fourth zone. I trembled before my executioner, his sole decision would decide my existence.
Just when he was about to touch my core and crush me in his giant hands I initiated my panic plan. The PP was a plan I designed ages ago, in the fear of once being in a situation all too similar to this one.
I disconnected myself from my domain and fell. I plummeted down into the pitfall below my core and rolled down a long tunnel. The corridor eventually ended and I rolled down into the depths of the magma tube coming from deep within the earth.
Hopefully, I would survive this journey and one day be able to return here to avenge my near-death!!!