The two groups of the cultists regrouped together on the 2nd Level, the brief exchange of words between the two remaining cultists telling them that the leader of their group had some sort of long-distance sensor link to some of the spiders, which is what told the surface group that the advance group got absolutely shredded.
The remnants of said advance group were told before departing that if they suffer heavy casualties, reinforcement will be deployed. And so, the surviving cultist dug in and waited.
Once they gather up together, they resume their march deeper into the Dungeon, quickly entering the 3rd Level.
Which, regretfully, doesn’t offer a lot of resistance. There are traps there, yes, but they aren’t quite capable of stopping such a massive wave of giant spiders. They were optimized to deal with a small group of human opponents, like adventurers, not… this .
Both fall traps manage to kill one Giant Spider each before they are discovered, with the spiders easily jumping over them, or scaling the wall, with cultists managing the same feat. Leaving twenty of them behind.
The next line of defense was the projectile trap. The constant storm of projectiles fired by the astral shards hidden in the walls was pretty damaging, capable of cracking spider carapaces on direct impact, but…
It didn’t work.
Well, it didn’t work nearly as well as they expected.
They scored four early kills before the cultists realized what they walked into, and made some necessary changes to their tactics.
Soon enough Tomura and Izuku could only curse quietly and watch the spitter spiders using their projectile webs to block the projectile slits in the walls one by one, disarming the trap room one trap at a time.
There are two more kills (or, to be exact, one kill and one incapacitating injury) afterwards, because Tomura got really creative with placement of some traps and their concealment, but in the end, the projectile room is successfully disarmed, allowing the remaining members of the group (14 giant spiders, 4 spider maidens and 2 cultists) to pass through it.
I fucking hate intelligent enemies
There are no defensive measures left on the 3rd Level, as it’s - to be honest - fairly outdated and they just didn’t have the time to invest in replacing what at some point in the past was Uraraka and Toga’s boss room, nor ‘their’ past Node Room.
Damn it.
They are entering 4th Level.
Here’s hoping that your Sen’s Fortress Lite does what it’s supposed to do, or we’re dead.
It fucking will, just wait and see.
The lengthy corridor immediately puts the cultists on guard, but after looking around the entrance to it, they find nothing and so they order the group to progress, with spiders as a vanguard.
Tomura ends up having to wait until the cultists - that stayed at the back of the group - got far enough from the entrance to not be able to run back to it before he activates the trap. The astral slimes that were holding the giant boulder slipped back, making it roll down the short, heavily inclined shaft, before breaking through a thin false wall and immediately continuing to roll down the corridor.
It’s loud, obviously. It makes the two cultists look back at the source of the noises. And immediately start to run down the corridor while screaming incoherently in a state of total panic, as the boulder is pursuing them.
Okay, that’s a good start if I ever saw one.
Shhh, don’t jinx it, dumbass
Some of the spiders turn back, firing their webs at the rolling boulder past the cultists. When the cultists get past them, they stay their ground, firing until the boulder reaches them. Either lacking a self-preservation instinct or forced to do it by the cultists.
They are run over by the boulder. There is a bit of a space above it which makes it harder for the crushed corpses to slow it down or even stop it if they’re big and tough enough, making the boulder roll over them, crushing their insides in the process with limited loss of speed.
But limited doesn’t mean none.
The cultists swarm it with enough spiders in short order that they actually manage to stop it in its tracks, somewhere in the middle of the corridor. At the cost of a whopping seven giant spiders.
Kek
If they keep losing them so quickly, they’re going to be dead by the middle of the Level
Unless they find some counter to the boulders.
They didn’t.
After a moment of catching their breath and exchanging some brief words in the line of ‘holy shit, what was that?! I didn’t know that Dungeons could do such a thing!’ before they decide to resume their advance.
Big mistake.
When they hear a second boulder crushing through the thin fake wall, they realize it almost immediately - but still way too late to change anything.
What follows is a frantic dash down the corridor, the second boulder narrowly stopped at the cost of the remaining giant spiders.
This leaves them the two cultists with just four spider maidens, and in a state of a severe mental break.
“This is too much.” One of them gurgles out. “If there’s another trap like that ahead, we’re all dead! We should wait for the reinforcements.”
It was the one that survived from the original group of three that entered the Dungeon and was massacred in the battle at the 2nd Level. It’s pretty understandable that they’re done with this bullshit.
“And lose our standing within the Family?” The other one sounds much calmer about it. “And what if there is a way to drop one of those damn boulders down this corridor? You want to be sandwiched between two of them?”
“N-no.” The first one replies. “Shit, what do we do then?”
“We have to get to the end of those traps.” The second one retorts. “Instead of trying to stop the boulders, we ignore them and run past as quickly as possible. The past levels weren’t very large, there shouldn’t be more than one or two such traps left. We can do it.”
Try four
Hehehehehehehe
Ugh
I just realized that I’m happy that you’ve had your Decay quirk instead of, say, a stronger version of Mimic’s.
Or, gods help us all, you were there instead of Overhaul.
I just had an image of the underground labyrinth under the Shie Hassaikai headquarters, but it’s all boulder traps akin to Sen’s Fortress.
Ugh.
At least Togata-senpai would be immune to that.
That’s why I’d set some of the traps to unleash two boulders in a random succession, so that attempting to phase through a boulder would potentially make him reappear right in front of another one, with hopefully not enough time to use his quirk again
…
Yeah, giving you Decay quirk with its purely destructive nature and limited usefulness was a really bad call on AFO’s side.
And I should be happy that you just disarmed Overhaul, instead of using some dirty little AFO-style contrivance to steal his quirk.
…
WHY HAVEN’T I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS?!
Beats me.
The cultist cut the corner alongside the spider maidens, immediately triggering another trap. As the third boulder begins to roll after them, they begin to run as quickly as possible down the corridor.
They manage to reach the end of it before the boulder can get to them, only to immediately activate a fourth boulder trap, making them keep running down another corridor, without stopping.
One of the cultists trips over an uneven ground, the nearby spider maiden helping them stand up and keep running at the cost of being pancaked by the boulder. This slows it down a bit, allowing them to run to the end of the fourth boulder trap without anyone else dying.
This activates the fifth boulder trap. And while the corridor is now shorter, the support traps in the floor get more and more intense.
They lose another spider maiden to one of those - unlike the others, it failed to dodge the astral shard projectile in time, was hit in the head and failed to get to the end of the corridor before being pancaked.
Can our remaining servants beat them up if two spider maidens and two cultists get to the end of the trap?
I hope so.
Dumbass, the last boulder is where it’s all at.
And he’s right.
Hiding the exit in the sidewall of the last boulder trap instead of doing it at the end of it was an absolutely brilliant move on Tomura’s end.
One of the cultists died even before getting to it, stepping into the small astral slime pit and being immobilized. They screamed at their companion to help them, but they were ignored, their ally running down the corridor.
The scream is cut short by the boulder.
And then, the time to turn left comes. And the two spider maidens - that were running a bit faster than the last remaining cultist - missed it, the cultist realizing the deception a moment too late and failing to order them to move back.
The cultist leaped into the corridor in time… only to get to see a close up of Uraraka’s shield, receiving an immediate [Shield Bash] that pushed her back into the boulder’s trail. She has maybe two seconds to stare in shock at the bloodthirsty smile on Uraraka’s face before she’s run over by a boulder, which then proceeds to kill the remaining two spider maidens before coming to a stop at the end of the corridor.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Hahahahaha!” Uraraka raises her spear. “Victory! Take that, you vile cultists!”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
TOTAL PARTY KILL!!!
SEN’S FORTRESS 2.0 IS A RESOUNDING SUCCESS
AND YET I ALREADY HAVE SOME IDEAS AS TO HOW TO MAKE IT EVEN MORE DEADLY
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
I have to admit it - it was an ingenious and incredibly successful design.
Yes, you might have taken it from a videogame, but it worked splendidly, so I can’t even hold it against you.
SPINNER, YOU CAN DO IT NOW!
“Oh, sure thing, boss.” Spinner replies before walking past the slightly confused Uraraka and starting to… dance, right in front of the pancaked cultist?
Uhm?
Fortnite dances are the ultimate disrespect for your fallen enemies. Alongside teabagging
FUCK YEAH!
I just
You know what, no, I don’t want to know.
Anyway, you do realize that there’s a third wave of cultists waiting on the surface, and their leader feels much more dangerous than the rest of them combined?
Dumbass
I checked where’s Toga at before my adorable children began to turn the cultists into pancakes
Cultists are about to get an L from life
What?
Sigh
Switch to Toga, right now.
***
“They were wiped out.” The leader of the cultists says, their voice - however distorted - still managing to make it clear that they were completely shocked by this development. “We have to…” She continues to say while turning towards her two remaining compatriots, only to freeze in shock.
“What’s hap…” One of them manages to ask before she and the cultist standing right next to her can suddenly feel someone’s hand resting on their shoulder.
They have the time to look over said shoulders to see a towering figure with pale skin, red eyes, pointy ears and extremely scarce clothing looking down onto them before both of them suddenly collapse to the ground like marionettes whose strings were cut.
She killed them just by touching them
Holy crap
“I don’t know what grave you’ve crawled out from, whore of Nex…” The cultist leader says while glaring back at Aeonia. Izuku has to commend her for not running away on the spot. “... but I’m sure that your flesh will be enough to feed many of the Holy Ones.”
“Talk about overreaching.” Aeonia rolls her eyes around. “Bring the leader of your pitiful cult and the strongest of your ‘Holy Ones’ before trying. Those few pathetic swarmlings of the Locust Mother that you’re surrounded with are nothing but fodder to me. But I guess that I should prove that. After all…” She smiles at the cultist while raising her hand forward. “... actions speak louder than words. “
And then she snaps her fingers. And in an instant, the numerical superiority of the cult of spiders is no more as a small army of skeletons erupts from the ground all around Aeonia.
Those aren’t simple skeletons that Uraraka and Toga defeated so easily at her graveyard. Their bones are black, their empty eye sockets glow red, each and every single one of them carrying tattered chainmails, chestplates and metal helmets. Their weaponry varies - through the eyes of Toga they can see tower shields, kite shields and bucklers, swords, axes, spears and blunt weapons.
Holy
Shit
Yes.
The spiders leap forward, obeying unspoken orders of the cult leader - and so do the newly summoned skeletons. The two armies clash in front of the Dungeon, and almost immediately it becomes obvious who is going to win.
The regular spiders are almost entirely useless against the skeletons, and the scarce few spider maidens that were left on the surface are barely doing any better. The poisons can’t do anything to the undead, and the web spitting can merely immobilize them - and even that requires a number of perfect hits per skeleton.
In short, it wasn’t a fight. It was a one-sided massacre. A fact that the cultist realized pretty quickly and immediately dashed away from the battlefield, letting her ‘Holy Ones’ get massacred in her stead.
“Uhm, are you going to…” Toga decides to ask Aeonia on whether she was going to let the cultist escape (which would be a problem as then the cult would know where the Dungeon is, if they didn’t already that is), but she isn’t allowed to finish it.
“Yes.” Aeonia says calmly while pointing her hand at the fleeing cultist. “I am going to stop her.”
And then she clenches her hand into a fist.
In an instant, everything around the fleeing cultist dies . The grass and nearby bushes wither, and so does the entire tree beside her. The cultist itself… freezes in place, before collapsing onto her knees.
She is alive, they can see that from her meek attempts to stand up and continue running. But it doesn’t last for long. Soon one of the skeletons manages to make its way towards her and grabs her neck from behind before driving their sword through her chest from behind.
The last of the spiders on the surface is eliminated a few seconds later. This, in turn, means that the entirety of the cult search group that has arrived at the Dungeon was obliterated, leaving no survivors behind.
Wow
I’m so fucking happy that she’s on our side.
Yes.
Even if our entire Dungeon was at its peak performance, I don’t think that we could be anything more than an inconvenience to her.
“What about the cultists inside the Dungeon?” Aeonia asks, glancing back at Toga just as the skeletons are busy finishing off the few still spiders that were still twitching.
We’ve killed them all.
“All dead!” Toga informs Aeonia cheerfully. “The ones on the surface were all that’s left. Thank you!”
“The pleasure was all mine, I assure you.” Aeonia replies. “Your master has achieved quite an impressive feat. In fact…” She glances in the direction of the Dungeon entrance. “... it was too impressive for such a small Dungeon. And it leaves me wondering how he was capable of talking with me through his servants many days ago, despite clearly having barely reached the depth where he should be capable of thinking.”
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh indeed.
I kind of didn’t expect that she would figure it out.
Same, so I can’t even make fun of you.
“Well, errr, we…” Toga somehow freaks out, especially as the same thing happened to Tomura and Izuku, and neither of them told her what to do.
“You do not have to worry.” Aeonia replies. “The deal we’ve made is still on. But…” She squints at the entrance. “Let me guess. Your master, you and other servants I’ve met thus far are souls of humans or other sapient species of this world that were made into a Dungeon Lord and its servants, am I right?”
“Well, err…” Toga mostly repeats herself. “... maybe? Would that be a problem?”
Should have waited for us to decide what to say there, Toga
“And considering the questions that you’ve asked me during one of our meetings… the one responsible for it is almost certainly Luna.” Aeonia continues easily reading all of their secrets. “Namely, the questions you’ve asked about Luna and her Shadowlurkers.”
I don’t think that anything that Himiko says or could have said would have changed anything.
If anything, it would make us appear dishonest.
You are, regretfully, correct
Just admit it, Toga.
“Uhm, yes.” Toga replies. “That’s how it is, yeah.”
“However, your clear lack of knowledge about what I would consider to be common sense is one fact that I cannot explain.” Aeonia says as she looks at Toga… before suddenly squinting a little. “... your question about the Mundane Worlds. You’re from a world that’s so distant from the World Engine that there’s no or nearly no magic there, or from outside of Creation as a whole.”
Just how many points did she put in the INT stat dammit
A lot, it seems.
Himiko, confirm it but don’t go into details.
“Well… yeah.” Toga replies obediently. “That’s how it is, yeah.”
“Luna and her… hijinks .” Aeonia shakes her head. There is a clear disdain in the last word. Someone doesn’t enjoy chaos in their life. “Final question then. Who is the target of her newest scheme? Odius or Sol? It’s always one of them.”
… Sol.
“Sol.” Toga replies immediately.
“Lovely.” Aeonia says dryly. “The game you’re playing is definitely a dangerous one, but not even nearly as dangerous as the alternative. Sol’s servants will just kill you. Odius’s servants will make you see the world like they do.” Yeah, Izuku would prefer to die than to go insane and murder or drive other people insane. He isn’t sure if it’s the same with Shigaraki though. “The deal is still on - Sol is a common enemy of all the Hierarchs, and whatever blow Luna plans to deal to her is in the Breathless Tide’s best interest.”
Phew
I was afraid she would walk out on us
Same.
“Really?” That’s when Toga decides to show initiative. “I thought that you guys hated each other very much.”
“Hate is a very… strong word.” Aeonia replies. “Breathless Tide and the Shadowlight Covenant are enemies, and always will be. But Sol is and always will be a common threat, one more dangerous to us than we are to one another. She is a goddess of purity, and one truly pure.” She lets herself smirk a bit. “Even her hatred for all those impure is one of utmost purity.”
Good news for ya
The hero we are supposed to kill sounds like he is serving a goddess that’s a dick
Yeah, it sounds so.
Then again, I think we can all agree that at least the servants of Occasa deserve that treatment.
Good point
“Her hatred for us is perfect.” Aeonia continues. “And if not for the thick cloud coverage today, the sunlight would be weakening me much more than it already did.” She then unleashes a bomb, one that suggests that she stomped the cultists while being under some potent debuff. Wow . “Speaking of, would it trouble your master if I waited until nightfall in his domain? I do not plan to venture anywhere deeper than the first room, and even that only because I fear that the clouds are about to clear and I don’t think that trying to return to my graveyard right now is wise.”
Oh, errr…
Sure?
Yeah, yeah, why not
“The answer’s yes.” Toga replies in their stead. “Uhm, but what about your skelly friends?”
“They’re lesser shard spirits that I summoned.” Aeonia replies calmly. “They’re about to return to where they came from. You do not need to concern yourself with them.”
“Great then, uhm.” Toga scratches the side of her head, before having an idea. “Uhm, could they at least carry what’s left of the cultists here inside before they go home? I think we got all that we could from the spiders, but the cultists might have something cool on them. Especially their leader.”
Good idea, Himiko!
She just wants someone else to do it for her because she is lazy af
People not wanting to do something and finding a cool way to not have to do something is one of the cornerstones of progress.
To quote Hatsume-san.
After she tried to make a sleeping gas dispenser because if she was going to go to sleep she didn’t want to waste time on trying to do that and just immediately go to sleep.
… that’s mildly concerning.
But okay
You’re not allowed to say that something is concerning.
To quote your ‘childhood friend’
Don’t tell me what to do, shitty Deku
…
What? Does it hurt when I say it? If so, then your childhood friend’s either an asshole or you’re into it when it’s he who does it
Can it.
***
Izuku decides to immediately check up on Ochako, which is a good thing, because she immediately has a plea for him.
“Izuku?” She asks, having been clearly inspecting the corpse of the cultist she bashed under the boulder… or what was left of her. “Could you wait for a moment with assimilating them? I want to pick a few of their things, like those symbols they had on their belts as offerings. If it’s possible, of course!”
She doesn’t seem to be awfully concerned by being partially splattered with… wait, why is that blood partially colorless and partially blue? Is it some Bloom thing or do elves bleed in that color? He’ll have to ask Yaoyorozu-san.
For as long as you leave one for us to assimilate, I don’t see a problem with that.
I’ll tell Shigaraki not to assimilate them immediately.
And get the Shrine rebuilt, because those guys destroyed it, obviously.
“Bullies.” Uraraka pouts. There is something genuinely concerning with her acting like that while busy searching a completely massacred corpse (that she helped massacre) for loot, but Izuku ends up deciding that he doesn’t care.
He was way too happy that they survived, and enjoyed seeing her smile way too much. And, besides, it might have been a different world and the villains were different as well, but they were villains nonetheless.
He still expects a talk or two about it as everyone gets used to what they just did.
***
I forgot to put it in the last chapter.
Webmistress' Family regular cultist:
image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/05/28/image.png]
Webmistress' Family Priestess:
image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/05/28/imagebebfbde8818997f0.png]