Red smiled as he looked at the progress he had made in such a short amount of time, finding that it was perfect for the task ahead. In his previous attempt at the raid with the zombies, he had only changed around the leadership and what they would focus on during the battle. This time around, with a small bit of experimenting he realized that he just needed to shift his mind into the Build Mode as he looked at his troops. He felt a slight burning sensation behind his eyes as he used mana in his War Mode, but that was worth it for what he had arranged.
The entirety of his troops were rearranged now as a full army between the [Raid Boss] and the Alchemical Oak. It was the only way to ensure that the beast didn’t get its way to the massive tree and cause it permanent damage. Red had no idea what would happen if his dungeon was ruined during a raid battle, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. So it was better to protect the tree than risk the spawner being destroyed and multiple fairy lives being lost in the process.
“Alright, so we’ve got the [Holy] tagged creatures in those squads over there, and with Glut defending… Does that mean they get [Demonic] added onto their attacks? That won’t cancel out right?” He asked the air, looking around to see that there was no system notification to tell him if it would lean one way or another. He hoped deep in his heart that it meant there was no problem with one tag being added to the same attack as its counter.
He refocused on his troops as he looked at all of what he had assembled. Those with holy magic were in a tight formation together in the back on either side of the creature’s direct path. It was not a lot, but Red guessed that it was still more than a dungeon normally produced. Each squad was a handful of three or four fairies and two crawdads. Red was unsure if the crawdads would actually be able to bring down holy fury, but he had no reason to deny his creatures the opportunity to use their tags.
What remained of the soldier fae were now in a strict regiment in the direct path of the golem. Behind the bucket helmeted soldiers was Arabella, her ranged attacks best suited for being behind a wall of muscle. He had no confidence that the men would be able to last long against the golem, but that was why his strongest were out in the front of the group, standing proud and ready for combat. Glut stood with Snips resting carefully on his head, making it to where the duo would be able to stack their leadership buffs. It was important that they drew as much of the aggression as possible, making it to where the flesh golem would focus its attacks on the two tankiest creatures he had.
Lotus was flying high above the ground with her fairies in tow. The whole plot was that they would rain down disorienting strikes on the golem to at least make it to where it couldn’t focus or use its abilities against the larger groups. He had learned from the previous battle that the smaller fairies were not meant to be damage dealers. They could do minor amounts of damage, and even cause some debuffs if their natural tags came with it such as the molasses fairy being able to cause slowness. “I’d arrange things more cleanly for the fairies to cause massive debuffs or distraction, but I think I'm at the limits of either my mana or what the system will allow.” He muttered as he rubbed his eyes, feeling like they were going to melt out of his head if he tried to move more than a single other troop.
He had also had every fairy carry a single crawdad with them, which was just enough after separating the [Holy] tagged ones from the group. The crawdads were small and easy to kill with a single attack, and Snips was right in the fact that he needed assistance to participate in the battle. So following a gilded page from the lobster’s book, he decided that he would have all of his crawdads fall on the creature and begin eating its undead flesh. Lotus herself was carrying the remaining lobsters both metal and rock, figuring that she would be the only one capable of carrying them.
“Alright, and now it's time for the cherry on top.” He said with a smile as he looked at his singular ordinary slime, moving it next to the foot of the enemy. He got down to where his head and hands sat on the ground, looking directly into the featureless frame of the slime. “I know that this is a dangerous thing for you to do. You will probably die from the pressure, but you need to get under its foot and make it trip. If you can do that, then we could easily get a lot more hits in on the creature. I promise that I will find a way to make you something sweet and let you dissolve it if you do so.” He said softly as he looked at the slime, hoping that it would listen to him and actually try to do the task at hand. He understood that all his creatures were intelligent, even if they don't technically have ‘self’ as defined by how different Arabella felt before and after her name.
With the forces amassed in a much more coherent method, and his orders whispered to them as they stood frozen, Red checked in on his last hail mary play. Far behind the golem was Archimedes, the vampiric raven that still did not have a spawner to return from the dead. His task was to drink the golem dry if things got any worse than they already were. Red had no idea if the blood in the beast’s body did anything, but he had hope that the carrion defenders of his dungeon might be able to reduce it to worthless bones from his actions.
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“Round two everyone! You got this! Show some hustle out there!” He clapped his hands before they exploded into mana along with his head. It seemed that the excessive use of mana meant that he was not lulled slowly into sleep this time. Rather he was gone within a moment, his rally from the previous round having remained.
Time slowly began to move again, the denizens of the dungeon blinking as they all realized they were in places that they had not been before. A slight wave of nausea hitting the majority of them as their inner ears tried to adjust from the sudden shift that came with the movement. It took only a moment for them to recover, but by that point the golem had brought about its first move in this dance between forces.
The slobbering abomination leaned on its arms that aided in its movement, pushing its legs up into the air and propelling itself forward. The slime that had been excitedly waiting to follow its first ever command stiffened in shock as it was passed over. It quickly began to roll on its membrane so that it could try and get under the golem’s strange flat foot once again.
“Now!” Lotus shouted as the fairies began to release their bombastic payloads, crawdads and lobsters raining from the sky and onto the massive golem. The multitude of crustaceans began to slash at the flesh of the golem, the creature not built for a melee aerial assault. Their claws sliced through the tough hide of the creature, meat being ripped out and shoved into chittering mouths that wished to feast on the torn flesh. The most surprising of players on the head of the golem was the GemCraw, which had not begun to eat the fetid meat. Instead it empowered its claw with fire magic and began to cut large swaths of the shoulders with its crystalline sharp claws. The smell of cooking pork was beginning to become prevalent wherever the tiny creature cut.
The golem let out a loud horrific scream as a multitude of vocal cords tried to work in tandem with one another. Its hideous mouth gnashing as it tried to attack the tiny creatures that had begun to feast on its head. It was when a crawdad had pierced an eye like a grape and began to burrow that the beast lost its mind and charged at the opposing group. A fist raised high as its remaining eyes glowed blue, aiming straight at the slime and lobster that had shown their skills in the previous fight.
“You can do it Glut! I believe in you!” Snips shouted as he activated Inspiring Presence, giving Glut an extra edge of health as the golem came in for an attack. Glut roared, the sound reverberating through his slime like a scream through a cavern. He changed both of his pseudopods into long tower shields to take on the attack. The appendages liquified upon impact, the slime spraying against the fist and making it sizzle with the burning [Demonic] energy held within. The golem roared in agony, the burns digging deep into its fist, exposing some of the twisted bone within. The beast’s eyes glowed with rage as the flesh around its hand began to liquify and refill the missing parts. The muscles of the damaged arm shrank as the material was moved around, but the creature did not seem to care.
“Go! Golden Lobster!” Glut shouted as he used Flesh Weapon to change a newly grown Pseudopod into a slingshot, pulling it back with Snips being a payload that would be jettisoned. “For Red!” Snips chittered in fury as he raised his claw, aiming at the creature with the certainty that he might die from this attack alone. He activated his ability as the slingshot pushed him forward, Free as a Bird sending him even faster through the air by [Force].
Combo Attack Detected!
Components: Flesh Weapon, Free as a Bird
Name: Free as a Blade
Effect: Damage is stacked based on the speed of the attacker
Once again Snips was thankful to live in a world that was so kind as to give him everything he needed to defend his home. He felt the force of the combo attack pulling at his heavy shell, but he was certain that it would do a great deal of damage to the golem. He would close his eyes if the spheres had any sort of lid, instead he elected to focus on his love of Red. The man was a good one, and there was no reason he could think not to give his very life for both the Dungeon and the dungeon.
The golden blur flew threw the air like an arrow, piercing through the recently diminished arm of the golem. At first it seemed like Snips would only be using the force of his own slashing attack against the monster, but in the split second before he hit the golem, unholy fire erupted around his claw. Bulwark of the Damned had activated. A slashing sound filled the air as Snips passed over the arm, not slowing down for a moment despite successfully landing the hit. The lobster crashed against the wall behind the golem, impaled by thousands of brambles and branches that created the perimeter of the garden.
It felt like time was once again frozen, but this time the individuals within the battle were aware of it. Before anything could be said, thick sprays of blood came from the shoulder of the golem. It let out another keening roar of agony, the arm falling to the ground and beginning to rapidly rot from the demonic energy that was flowing through it. The blackened bones useless, brittle and crumbling as the high damage attack it had dealt to Glut was refocused onto itself through the skill. The roar was met with the scream of the dungeon, everyone feeling empowered by their leadership performing such a dangerous gambit. They had the spirit to win, but now it was time for the armies to see if they had the skill to match it.