We’re fucked. Well, we’re not done for, there might be a tiny chance we can overcome what comes next, but it won’t be easy.

“Ricard’s favorite?” Laura turns to look at me. Her expression clearly shows she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. “What do you mean…?”

I grab her hand and start pulling. “There’s no time for explanations. For now, we must run away from here!”

“O-okay…”

We can’t afford to feed more souls to that thing, even if by accident. The best course of action is to take some distance and assess the situation once the monster emerges.

Since we didn’t have time to explore this area yet, I choose to return to the stairs that lead to the lower level, the ones we used to come here. Laura and our remaining support mobs follow me.

“How much energy has your Glutton accumulated?” I ask her.

I hear her voice from behind. She isn’t sure why I’m asking, but it's a very important question. It might be our only chance to defeat that thing.

“Huh…? Hmm… It’s about four hundred damage.”

Wow, that’s more than half my maximum HP! If I were to receive the Glutton’s bite right now, I would die! But…

“...it won’t be enough…” I bite my lips. “We’ll need more than this…”

I stop when I reach the stairs and turn around. All the monster’s souls have already disappeared inside the dark hole, so IT is about to emerge.

Don’t misunderstand, the glowing orb that turned into a dark orb is irrelevant. It’s just a visual effect to make everything look amazing. The real trouble and the reason I’m scared is because of what’s hidden inside of it.

Laura grabs my head and forces me to look at her.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Mad Rat. What’s going on? If you don’t explain, I can’t help to plan our next move.”

“It’s… that thing’s a Soul Eater,” I say.

Laura opens her eyes wide in shock. “A, a Soul Eater? Isn’t, this… isn’t this the monster Baldy always talks about…?”

“Yes, it is,” I nod. “He has shown me a lot of videos about its eating process, and I’m sure we’re against one.”

“B-but then, with so many dead units…” She shivers. “So this is why there were only small groups of zombies and skeletons in the rest of the dungeon. They were planning to feed the cultists to it… No, more importantly, how strong do you think it’ll be?”

I don’t want to think about it, but she deserves to know.

“I’m not an expert like Baldy, so I can’t say for sure, but it should have about three to four times my stats… or maybe even more.”

“No way… How can we deal with it? No, do we even have a chance?”

Laura quickly understands how fucked we are.

“I don’t know…”

We’re pretty exhausted after finishing a long and taxing fight. In comparison, the Soul Eater that’s about to appear will be as fresh as a daisy. Furthermore, it’ll be stronger than all of us combined.

We observe the dark hole disperse with an explosion, and a dreadful creature appears from within, illuminated by purple light.

“Shit, the core is right on top… it was inside the glowing orb all along!” I curse. “I was hoping we could avoid a fight, but we have no option now…”

If we want to end this Dungeon Battle, we have no choice but to defeat the Soul Eater. Otherwise, we won’t be able to break the core.

By the way, the reason we couldn’t see the dungeon core’s purple light until now is that we didn’t defeat all the enemies yet. Otherwise, even if it was inside the shining orb, the game wouldn’t allow the opposing team to hide the dungeon core.

After all, you can’t make it impossible for the enemy team to know where it is. The maximum you can do is hide it behind a door that opens when you defeat the monsters – which is the same as what happened with the glowing orb.

Ah, sorry. I’m sure you don’t understand what’s going on, so allow me to explain.

The Soul Eaters are one of the weirdest units in DMA because they don’t spawn as most of the other units do. For them to spawn, there must be a certain condition that must be fulfilled. It’s similar to the triggered skills, but the trigger condition is decided by the player who places them in the dungeon.

For the one in front of us, I’m sure the trigger was the death of all the cultists.

But this isn’t the weirdest thing about them. The weirdest thing is that they have all stats as zero by default, and obtain them by consuming the souls of other units thanks to the Soul Conduit skill.

Soul Conduit (Triggered innate skill)

When this unit spawns, it absorbs 10% of the stats of every dead unit within 10 meters of it, up to the maximum*. After killing a non-allied unit, it absorbs 10% of their stats.

*Soul Eaters have all stats capped at 300. HP, EP, and MP are capped at 3.000.

Ok, ok… I know what you’re thinking. ‘Absorbing stats? Isn’t that OP?’

Well… It is. But the circumstances and requirements for the Soul Eaters to spawn are so limited that it’s extremely hard to use them.

It’s possible to feed them all your units when they spawn, but it isn’t the best idea in Dungeon Battles, where you have a cp limit. Who’s the fool that feeds them lots of units only to get another unit that’s weaker than the sum of all the sacrificed ones?

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

You’re right, this doesn’t apply in the normal Dungeon Invasions, but there’s no need to rely on this kind of stuff to kill your invaders. There are too many ways to exploit the game if you desire to do so, so you don’t need a Soul Eater.

Not like it’s recommended to do so, the best approach is to make the players enjoy the experience or you’ll get bad reviews.

So, in short. Soul Eaters are OP, but they aren’t. I… I’m sure you understand what I mean.

If only we decided to lure the cultists somewhere else instead of fighting them here… the Soul Eater wouldn’t have had anything to consume and would have died as soon as it spawned, giving us a free ride to our victory!

It’s a shame we played right as the other team planned.

One of the most famous unit names in the entire game, The Reaper, is a higher version of the Soul Eater. I won’t enter into much detail, but imagine a Soul Eater that starts with high stats, even before the Soul Conduit first triggers.

Ridiculous, don’t you agree?

And the reason why Ricard loves Soul Eaters so much, despite them being difficult to use… do you remember how much he loves ‘farming souls to raise his undead army’?

He loves farming souls, and the Soul Eaters consume them to grow stronger. One plus one is two. There’s no way he wouldn’t like them. They’re destined to be together.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he were to create a Soul Eater named Matilda or whatever and marry it.

“So, what are we going to do? Do we run away and hope for the enemy team to get killed?” Laura snaps me out of my delusions.

Thank you very much! I couldn’t stop myself from imagining the scene of Ricard marrying a creepy, deformed entity with a dark hole inside its mouth…

If you hadn’t stopped me, I’m sure I would have nightmares today.

“Huh? Ah…” I refocus on the Soul Eater, standing right below the dungeon core. It doesn’t have any intention to come in our direction. “Well, that’s an option, it isn’t moving at all. But I’d rather act than wait.”

“I knew you would say this. Fufufu!” She grins, a mischievous glow inside her eyes. “Do you have any idea what to do? I don’t see any way we can defeat it without risking a wipeout…”

She’s true that, in a straight fight, we have a high chance of losing. Feeding it one or two more deaths, even if by accident, would spell certain doom for us. The current balance is too precarious to risk it.

But… when have I ever done anything in the ‘proper’ way?

I try to hold my smile and display a neutral expression to make myself look more smart, but I’m not sure if it’s a success or not. Hahaha, who am I kidding? I’m sure I’m showing a nasty smile right now.

“Did you give your Glutton any skill to avoid death?” I ask her.

“I did. I gave it God’s Intervention. It’d be a shame if it died before being able to–”

“Perfect!” I interrupt her before she finishes. “It might be the best skill you could have given it! It’s perfect! If we do it this way, I’m sure we’ll kill the Soul Eater! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

“...are you going to tell me the plan or not?”

She looks mildly annoyed at me for not explaining anything and starting to ramble, so I stop in the middle of my epic laughing and explain my plan to her.

“Hey, you undead shit! Do you think of yourself as important when the only thing you did was eat the souls of all the garbage we worked hard to kill? You’re nothing! Nothing but scum. I’ll show you how stuff is done!”

I point my finger, accusing the Soul Eater of all the random stuff that comes to mind. But as expected, it isn’t easily swayed. It stays right below the dungeon core, staring at me.

“Scared? Hahaha! So weak! If you’re not coming, then I will! Eat this! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

A burst of ice explodes right next to the Soul Eater when I finish casting Cold Blast, immediately followed by a Chaotic Beam. Then, finally, it makes a disgusting roar and comes at me.

Right now, my objective is to get its attention. Its aggro, if you prefer. It’s the first step of our plan, which, up to this point, seems to be proceeding smoothly.

I swap between casting more Cold Blasts and randomly swinging my staff around, though my main focus is on evading its attacks for now.

I don’t use more powerful spells because I need to save some MP for later.

“Phase two!” I shout, as soon as I’m sure the Soul Eater won’t attack anybody else.

Laura casts Hellfire and both I and the Soul Eater start taking continuous damage, plus the damage from the initial burst.

At the same time, she sends the Glutton to help me in the fight. She doesn’t join the fight because it’ll be too dangerous.

The Glutton comes inside the Hellfire range and unleashes a barrage of attacks on the Soul Eater. For how big and slow it looks, it’s surprising it can move around so fast.

The dark aura surrounding the Soul Eater added to the Hellfire is draining my HP incredibly fast. I make sure to keep a close eye on my stats, I don’t want to die due to a mistake.

I wait until my HP goes below 150 and then activate my Grand Finale. The three seconds of invulnerability start and I start shining as light condenses around me.

“Three, two…” Since the Hellfire and the Soul Eater’s Dark Aura are obscuring the area, I shout the countdown for Laura. “...one, NOW!”

This is the critical moment. The moment that will decide if we win or lose. A slight delay and the Soul Eater will kill me and the Glutton, right after the explosion, and absorb our stats. Then, it’ll get too powerful for the rest of the team to deal with.

The Grand Finale finishes charging and the light explosion covers the area, momentarily hiding everything inside, including the other area effects.

At the same time, I hear Laura shouting. “Glutton, use bite, now!”

…’use bite’? Why does this sound weirdly familiar…? No, Andreu, no! Focus on the battle! Leave the weird stuff for later.

As the light disperses, I see the Glutton covered in a white film and opening its stomach’s mouth. The Soul Eater swings its arm at me, but before can kill me, the Glutton bites it.

A disgusting crunching sound happens, and the Soul Eater makes a cry. Then, it explodes in a cloud of dust, leaving nothing but a tiny mountain of ashes to attest to its existence.

“Yes! Yes!” I shout, jumping around. “We did it! My plan worked! Fufufu! Hahaha!” Laura is too late to cancel Hellfire, so I die and continue celebrating in my phantasmal shape. “Hahaha! I knew it would work if we timed it properly…! Good job, Lily. Amazing timing.”

Laura runs, stopping in front of my corpse. She’s wearing a smile, but at the same time, she looks kind of sorry. “Uuups, I’m sorry, I forgot about Hellfire and you ended up dead…”

I know she can’t see or hear me right now, so I continue celebrating as if nothing happened. I don’t care that I’m dead. The only thing I care about is that my plan worked flawlessly.

“Fufufu! Hahaha! We achieved the impossible! We’re unstoppable!”

“Hmmm… I can’t see you or hug you to celebrate, but… Good job, Mad Rat. You know what? This is really awkward, so I’ll destroy the dungeon core and we can celebrate outside, ok?”

She reaches for the dungeon core and breaks it. I ignore the victory message and continue celebrating.

What was our plan, you ask? It was really simple. No, I’m not kidding. The only problem is that it was hard to execute. Delaying any of its parts would allow the Soul Eater to survive and start killing us one by one.

The plan was this: accumulate as much damage on the Soul Eater and feed the Glutton at the same time. Then, I’d blow myself up, dealing a large amount of damage to the Soul Eater, and feed the Glutton a part of the damage. Instead of dying, the Glutton would receive the invulnerability, and with the Gluttony skill fed as much as possible, it’d go and finish the Soul Eater before it killed me off.

“Hey, now that I’ve calmed down…” Before teleporting outside the dungeon, Laura says, “...wouldn’t it have been easier to feed the Glutton as much as possible before the fight, and have it finish the Soul Eater with a single attack?”

“That’s…” My brain stops working.

Why didn’t I think about it before risking everything on this crazy and stupid plan!? Maybe… just maybe… no way…! Do I actually enjoy blowing myself up?

[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]

“The best part of this Dungeon Battle was watching the replay from the opponents’ side. There was so much bickering and complaining that they barely achieved anything. The suffering at the end, when one was dead, criticizing everything, while the other was despairing, was exquisite.”