The Dungeon Raid

"I'll remember this," I remind Little Thirteen and several others with a message in the party chat, doing my best to just sit back and enjoy the view because I had no other choices.

Not long after arriving on the on the scene, Little Thirteen and Donna had taken over the distribution of numbers. While they left my familiar response unit all the ground units and took the aerial support for the bulwarks full-time, I myself was placed away from the battle entirely. Zekrom was also forced to join me because he could be seen or detected from over the main wall.

Hermes and Cweeper were people my own party refused to be without, testifying to the appreciation of having their firepower on the walls from the start. Imperial, though, just barely passed muster because of its strength in flight for transporting supplies or even troops.

Currently, I was sitting on the end of the cliff on the back wall of the underground city overlooking the cathedral while watching the demon troops. About a thousand yards out from the cathedral property the enemy had come to a stop well beyond the range of our equipment. Now, they were redividing their numbers into an attack force.

Half of the collective undead creatures were placed as the front line for fodder, stretching across more than a hundred yards of ground with several lines of misshapen and incongruous bodies. Behind them spread out two hundred giant bone demons in pairs with more than ten yards behind each pair so that the end pairs were flanking the front lines from the outside. They filled their role as tanks very well.

Behind this line of tanks were evenly spread the other demons in alternating lines of gecko-like reptile demons and phantoms. These physical troops looked like they were being used as shields for the phantoms, sacrificing themselves to ensure they reached the enemy lines. This distribution of forces assured me that they were the most troublesome.

At the very back of the demon troops was a rearguard line of undead as if the demons actually expected to be sneak attacked on the last leg of their journey. However, the only people that might do this were the other NPC in the manor and there were the actual outposts in between them.

They were basically reserving their fodder in that formation.

Once the enemy set in motion once again, even I received a notification that the cathedral was under attack despite the very obvious approach of the enemy. I was a little disappointed by this, it had been several hours since our arrival here but did the developers really think the professional players that get this far would really be so distracted with the skeletons that they would ignore thousands of bodies marching across barren rubble?

This, of course, seemed to be a low-leveled raid in all regards because the enemy just marched right out to us instead of dispersing and sneaking with different waves of attacks. This was something I already planned to do against the outpost since all of us were smaller. After figuring out the different kinds of loot we would get from these demons, we might just have the gear to go on the full-offensive.

Not sitting idle during this, the cathedral defenders were putting on their final touches while estimating the time of arrival before putting their buffs into play. Papi's blessings only lasted for about ten minutes and could affect a certain range of people. Using the buffs of everyone here too soon or too late would be wasteful as well as mistiming buffs that do not stack.

The cathedral's thousand-plus units were already out front and waiting for responsive organizing so it only took about a minute before everybody had taken their places. However, now was when the real strength of our numbers would be tested. Like the demons, the greater bulk of the defenders were all undead.

However, only a few hundred of them actually had combat related skills while the others were simply willing to be there. Those with skills were distributed accordingly but the front wall itself was manned by only five hundred undead whose sole purpose was to throw enchanted spears.

With their surprising Strength stats, their throw ranges exceeded one hundred yards so it was a simple matter to have them literally decimate the undead front lines before they reach the blessed obstacle course. Up until the enemy makes targets of themselves in the obstacle course, their anti-infantry effectiveness should exceed the anti-siege weapons.

After that point, many of the wall defenders would need to step down to open up the lanes of fire for the ballistae platforms.

The demons themselves were still marching briskly but were outside of the wall defender's two-hundred yard range by quite some time. The entire speed of the enemy army was limited by the speed of the leading and following undead. Even though the bone demons could jump over the front lines and jog ahead, they maintained discipline and formation.

Finally, as I was literally on the edge of my seat, the undead entered our two-hundred-yard wall range marked by a single short pile of rubble. "We may not even be needed," Zekrom remarks from behind me even before the first volley of spears were airborne. "Comparatively, the enemy undead are all lower in level than I and the demons are equal to the skeletons. Experience aside, I am sure your people can repel the attackers."

Large and brilliant flowers of fire and lightning bloomed over each other all across the enemy front lines, turning their ranks into a field of blinding magical flowers fighting for space. All of the undead who retained humanoid forms and sizes were sent flying in pieces to make room. The larger beings who were directly struck by the spears and their explosions found themselves trampled down into the ground.

The front lines of undead had become charred craters and glowing-hot cracked earth while those in the back of the front lines were protected by the buffer of bodies. However, the second volley of five hundred spears with ten-plus-yard radius explosive enchantments cleared these away as they continued pressing forward. It was as if they had no other concept of living beyond quickening their pace forward.

Some of the undead managed to get ahead of the spears or their explosions, but there were only a few dozen clusters of tens apiece left. They were downright negligible as far as numbers were concerned. As far as numbers were concerned, only a tenth of the original front line formation had survived two volleys of high-yield magic.

"I could do better," I say with in a playfully haughty manner. "Put me in the middle of the open field before the obstacles and the entire army would have to stop and fight me. Those undead are mostly aged skeletons, one full-power Spirit Wave and they would crumble like paper."

"Maybe," Zekrom allows with a patient rasp in his ghoul voice. "Maybe only the very front line would die from the initial contact while the others simply feel a push. These are mindless entities with corrupted spirits, even I could assume control over half of the front lines. However, you missed the point of aging. They've become like a fine wine and are more resilient than even our soldiers."

"You really should have mentioned that earlier," I say with a slight twitch of the corner of my mouth while watching the bone demons breaking into a run for the obstacle course.. Ignoring this potentially crucial information, I ask, "What about the demons? How would they stand up to me in a fight?"

Producing a deep 'hmm' while thoughtfully considering this, the plague lord seems to take his time while watching the third volley of spears make concentrated landings centered around the paths of the bone giants. This predictive targeting left roughly a third of the pairs unfettered but the dozens that were targeted soon found themselves surrounded by dozens of exploding spears apiece.

None of these pairs of demons actually died and many of them pulled through with a loss of only twenty percent of their newly appeared health bars. However, those who had been directly hit by enough spears lost as much as thirty percent of their health. Only after enjoying this first volley against the bone demons did Zekrom answer.

"Here alone, they have about the same defense that you do in your bigger form but at no cost to maintain it," he says to make a comparison. "As well, their actual Strength is equal or greater to my own. They could crush the front wall even more easily than you could. If it was one of them against you, though, you would overwhelm them because they're slow and unwieldy. Even surrounded by ten, you could survive, but only because they actually lack the use of magic."

"Wait, demons can't use magic?" I ask quickly, turning to actually look at the giant evolved ghoul.

Shaking his head, Zekrom says, "No, all of the other demons down there have various magic and innate abilities. However, these ascended bone fiends cannot use magic because their magic is already in use as their innate ability. Their mana is constantly circulating to make an anti-magic barrier that reduces incoming energy. Look," he adds, nodding his chin toward the battle below.

Turning towards the enemy who were all maintaining the usual undead speeds except for the bone demons, I see that the fourth volley of spears from the wall had already bloomed to fruition across the board. The already damaged demons who were lagging behind the others from the previous volley were once again staggered under a heavy barrage of high-yield attacks.

Unlike before, though, their health bars did not deplete by nearly as much as before and only a few had actually reached half-health. "Their defenses got stronger?" I ask while measuring the distance between them and the blessed obstacles to only thirty yards and shrinking. These guys were big enough to hop and skip merrily through the obstacle course with only AOE damage as a deterrent but they were all suddenly taking less damage?

"Yes, as part of their power to adapt," he replies without looking away from the enemy below. "They can even take in the bodies of their enemies like you to increase their own mass and power. Should they ever consume something like your own soul material, they would become quite terrifying creatures."

The first of these bone demons reached the obstacle course by hopping straight in, soon followed blindly by their partner. For a brief moment upon landing and breaking up their immediate area, they stopped and dumbly looked around themselves. Their health bars were steadily ticking one percent per second but there was nothing outright attacking them while others entered and did the same.

If not for their casual appearance before the next volley struck home, I would have mistakenly believed they were in pain. After the next volley struck, though, the blessed terrain suddenly showed its true strength. As if their natural defenses were being nullified, all of the bone demons targeted by the fifth volley soaked up insane hits that looked like crits from the drops in the health.

This volley had been timed and spread evenly as if targeting the undead, so even the demons who had yet to be damaged were pummeled with exploding spears of fire and lightning. They were the only demons to have more than half-health and the others were all closer to thirty percent. However, they were quickly in motion all over again while the ranks of demons behind them were now approaching the obstacle field unfettered.

Five volleys had been all the first wave spears supplied to the troops on the walls and of the same spears there was only one second wave. However, these weapons could not be used within the walls and thus were considered disposable in this fight. The only issue lay in the fact that the bone demons were crossing the field in the time it took for the skeleton NPC to be resupplied.

As if summoned by my thoughts, two massive crescents of myriad energies suddenly rushed out from the middle of the cathedral wall and bloomed to encompass over a hundred yards of terrain. Even the bone demons who had more than fifty percent of their health left were stopped in their tracks while the demon ranks behind were pushed back. Once the waves of energy that seemed to pass through space itself had faded from view, all of the bone demons simply fell to pieces.

The demon ranks behind had put up some fight, proving the worth of the thin-skinned gecko demons. Their response to the swiftly traveling magic reaching beyond the bone demons was for the entire front line to throw up a massive wall of pure mana. The wall almost managed to block the skills.

However, the walls were breached and the very front line of gecko demons ate the rest of the attacks. The entire front line was dropped to half-health on the spot and the advance of the following troops had been stopped in its tracks. "What do you think their biggest mistake was?" Zekrom suddenly asks as the time spent stopped helps compensate for the resupplying of the wall as the ballistae on the towers come into play.

Even before the sixth volley of spears was airborne, twenty nine-foot spears with massive explosive heads were launched almost straight out from the towers to naturally drop across the front lines of demons still standing beyond at the edge of the obstacle field.

The reach and yield of these elemental explosions compared to the previous spears was like comparing grenades and mortar shells. I was honestly terrified by the idea of seeing the damage that the trebuchet could release with their different cannonballs.

This one volley of early ballistic weapons cracked out on magic was enough to simply remove the front two lines of gecko demons and phantoms while the others hid behind numerous layers of shields. Due to the difference in attacks, the penetrative power of purposely fragile exploding spearheads was not great enough to breach the first wall and damage the next line of gecko demons.

The cutting essence of the Mana Slash skills used by Cweeper and Hermes, though, were merely reduced by the mana walls. However, now that the ballistae were in use the next four volleys from the NPC would play a new role. One volley of five hundred grenades would shatter the defenses of the gecko demons so a volley of mortars could eat set after another.

"They lack ranged ability," I reply thoughtfully after watching the enemy tank their way through the seventh volley and step over ruined terrain and bodies on their path back to the obstacle field. "Since the attackers are lacking, though, the enemy's defenders will be like attacking ourselves. Plus, they have more fodder."

"Good, I am glad that you are thinking ahead," Zekrom commends me. "Although, you missed something. Their fodder can become my fodder. Your fodder. As well… I have seen the opportunistic nature of many species and I am also aware of the ingenuity of your groups. These demons, or what remain of them, will only serve to make you stronger."

The fight could already be said to be over. The attacking forces were committed to the approach but were constantly stalled and pushed back even as they gained ground entering the obstacle field. With no signs of retreating, the eighth volley of hand spears not only shattered their intended mana wall but also splashed damage onto the enemy.

The blessing of the field was making the attacks stronger once again. The next volley from the ballistae completely removed two sets of ranks. "Even without ranged tactics, they could have dispersed themselves," I add thoughtfully. Just like when facing my own plague beasts during initial stages of spreading, dispersed troops soak up less damage.

After watching half of the demonic ranks being crushed only thirty yards into the obstacle field, I stand up and say, "Go and claim what you can from their rearguard. We can use them to take an outpost."

Considering that we would need to find materials to make more of those spears for the NPC, taking an outpost would be considerably harder than defending our own stronghold.

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