Preparations

As quickly as they left, the monsters all rushed back into the meeting room.

"Five. What happened? I felt something," asked Harriet with a panicked expression. All the monsters were equally worried; it was the first time they were experiencing this feeling.

Five wore a serious expression. "We are being challenged by another dungeon master. At the auction, there was an item called the Challenger Gauntlet. When used, it would forcefully teleport the user and another player to a different realm with their dungeon. There, they would fight each other."

Harriet frowned. "A Challenger Gauntlet? These are very rare; they only appear at the auctions. The alliances would often fight each other to obtain them because of its effect. It could isolate someone, almost guarantying the victory of the user. The situation does not look good. It is possible that they have already planned this!"

"I have more than seven million DP in my inventory but I cannot use them at all. What should we do now?" asked Five.

"I don't know. It is the first time I am involved in a battle between dungeon masters."

At that moment, Five heard a faint jingle and soon, a series of system prompts appeared:

[System prompt: You have been officially challenged by the player 'Farsight'. The official battle will begin in thirty minutes.]

[System prompt: You have been teleported in a different realm devoid of life forms. A distance of 1km has been set between the two parties' respective dungeon. The rules of this realm are identical; the players and monsters will still suffer from the same penalties in case of death. The ordinary monsters killed will not be respawned as usual.]

[System prompt: The rules are as follows:

The players shall only use the entities already summoned or available in the dungeon. The dungeon shop and all other functions are locked for the duration of the battle.

The battle will last for a maximum of 24 hours. If no winner has been decided upon reaching the time limit, the battle will be concluded as a draw and no penalties or rewards shall be awarded.

To win, the player needs to either kill all the opposite party's monsters or destroy the opposite dungeon core.

The reward of the winner will strip the loser of all the entities of his dungeon, including the dungeon core. The loser will no longer be able to continue his adventure in the game.

Additional note: Since the third trial is still ongoing, the winner shall also be awarded Destruction Points.]

[System prompt: The battle will start in thirty minutes. The monsters are not allowed to leave the dungeon until then. Please use this buffer period to rearrange your monsters and plan your strategy. Good luck!]

As Five was listening to the system, a hologram was also being projected in front of him. He saw the different floors of his dungeon; it was very similar to the map of the dungeon interface. Then, the camera zoomed out, showing the land around the dungeon. The area was devoid of any plants; it looked like they were in a desert.

There were hills of sands hiding the landscape but thanks to the hologram, Five could see a large tower in the distance. It was Farsight's dungeon.

"Master? Are you alright?" asked Dreidus. He knew Five was currently receiving the instructions from the system.

"Yes. It's fine. It's just I did not expect us to get drag into a battle so suddenly. The person who did that must have been targeting us. Why would they select me if that was not the case? But, we don't have time to think about this. We only have thirty minutes before the battle begins. Our opponent will wish that we waste time in meaningless discussion."

Five rapidly shared the information he obtained from the system prompts with the monsters. The situation did not look too good. They had no information about the dungeon they were facing but hopefully, it should not be as hard as attacking a barbarian tribe.

This time, Five did not have time to summon any monsters; he did not have an army of disposable skeletons. He will have to rely on his available monsters and it was very likely that many would perish.

Dreidus was quick to think on his feet. "Let us divide ourselves then. I believe it would not be a good idea to wait here for our opponent to attack. If they have some information about us, it is very likely that they are already prepared."

"There is nothing in the landscape that can be used to hide but we can still go under. The Armadillos can attack from below but we also need to be careful about being attacked. I will suggest to split ourselves in half. What about one team to defend the dungeon and one team to attack? This is what we have always done," said Harriet.

While the monsters were urgently discussing their strategy, the other monsters left to inform the others of the situation. Many monsters were panicking, including the Flame Sisters. They have just managed from their horrible situation but were already facing an even worse scenario. They felt like they jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.

"May I make a suggestion?" For the first time, the Elder Dwarf, Thundoc Runehand spoke. "Use the Undead Monsters to protect the dungeon while the others go on the offense. The Undead are more suitable for defense and although only Dreidus is at a very high level, we can make up for it in numbers. You do not have much low-level Undead to sacrifice, but we do have the mechs!"

The monsters' eyes lit up. "That's right. We never used the mechs so far. After so many days, you should have manufactured quite a few models."

The crafting team expanded considerably since its creation. There were now more than one hundred craftsmen actively working on the mechs. Tinyland already had a population of six hundred individuals. Five did not even need to summon these monsters anymore as they would slowly reproduce and increase their number by themselves.

"How many mechs do you have?" asked Five. His interest was piqued.

"As you requested, we manufactured many mechs to account for the upcoming trade with the players. We currently have 563 Alpha-13 and 92 Alpha-14. They are the basic mechs that we showed the players. Aside from the models Alpha, we also have 282 Beta-8 which are larger and more resistant to damage and 140 Gamma-11 that are equipped with long-distance cannons. We are also working on a flying model but it is not ready yet. We are already on the eighth iteration but we have not tested it yet, it's our model Delta-8."

Five froze. "How many? You have all these mechs? How much did it cost to make all of them?"

"Cough Cough. Considering the research taken. I would say it cost us about 2.2 million DP. They are not cheap but the current models all have the strength of a level 30 character. They are stronger than goblins and almost our equal," said the Elder Dwarf.

'In just one month the crafting department used that much DP?' thought Five. He did not know if this was a good thing or not; the crafting department was really just a bottomless pit. Nevertheless, if the crafting department did not spend so much, they would not have these mechs to supplement their army. The situation would have been much worse.

"I don't know the effectiveness of the mechs but they will definitely be useful," said Dreidus. Their plan was slowly taking shape. Soon, the monsters all had a rough idea of what they needed to do; the message was quickly passed to the rest of the monsters.

The best move would be to go on the offensive. They should not look to prolong the battle. Since their opponent should have prepared for the battle, the opposing dungeon master would surely have more resources to spend. Playing the long game could only be detrimental to them, the monsters needed to end the battle as quickly as possible. They chose to be as aggressive as possible with Harriet leading the way with the beasts.

Dreidus would stay in the dungeon to coordinate the Undead Monsters. Out of the living monsters, only the Flame Belle and the Flame Sisters would remain in the dungeon. They were all clearly too weak and lacked experience in combat. As for Five, he was even weaker than the Flame Sisters. He would stay in the dungeon and provide support from the back.

The monsters quickly moved to the crafting area. There, the dwarves, gnomes, and goblins were busy booting up the mechs. The Bonesmen controlled the Living Corpses and brought them to the armory in an orderly fashion.

For the first time, the monsters were getting their own weapons. The dwarves have been preparing for this day since they were summoned. They created weapons day after day and finally, it was time to put them to use.

In normal circumstances, it was pointless to give weapons to the monsters. They would all end up dying and would drop the weapon. Giving them powerful items would be equivalent to gifting them to the barbarians but now, the situation was different.

All the harpies were given a Harpy's Blood. The Nosferatu received a Vampire Fang. The Flame Scarabs replaced their spears with long and heavy halberds. The Living Corpses grabbed whatever remained in the armory.

Furthermore, the armory did not contain only physical weapons. The dungeon did not have any enchanters or meisters but it could still trade with the Musclewood Tribe. With their deal, the armory had enough magic staffs to equip the liches. There were also a few pieces of leather armor and cloaks that were shared among the monsters.

With their new equipment, the monsters were now more powerful than they had ever been. Nevertheless, the feelings of fear and anxiety never left the heart of the monsters. Even the monsters were scared to die but they needed to protect their home.

Five did not notice it at first but unexpectedly, the Cobalt Eagle, who spent its time at the Musclewood Village, had also been summoned with the dungeon. It did not cause any trouble; on the contrary, it quietly joined the other beasts, landing next to the Purple-eyed Vulture. Over the past few days, the Cobalt Eagle has had the opportunity to observe the tribe's relationship with the dungeon. It was clear to him that the fate of the tribe was intrinsically linked to that of the dungeon.

Time flew by quickly with everyone being so busy and soon, the battle started.

[System prompt: Thiry minutes have passed. The battle has officially begun!]

Five looked at the confident harpy queen. She was the strongest monster of the dungeon and the key to his victory. "It is time. Do your best, Harriet. Lead us to victory!"