The Shadowy Goliath was relatively unsubstantial, so the Mana Explosion hiding inside the Magisteel ball passed through the exterior of the dark form until it was lost to sight. Fortunately, Fred didn’t lose hold or even the location of his Mana Explosion he was holding tightly inside the sphere; when he estimated that it was approximately in the center of the formless mass, he let the Explosion detonate.

  The first indication that anything was actually happening was a rapid lightening of the center of the Goliath, until it looked like a lamp covered by a thick sheet. The light increased in intensity so quickly it was nearly imperceptible, until the Shadowy Defender seemed to burst apart from the inside, shards of the Magisteel ball flinging in all directions – including impaling the side of the Demon Prince a few hundred feet to the east. Luckily, none of the sharp pieces hit anyone on the wall, though they did end up somewhere deep in the city after smashing against a few buildings. As for any of the Mana that the Goliath would’ve dropped upon its death, it was consumed to fuel the explosion since it originated inside the Defender, leaving nothing for Fred to utilize later.

  The entire battlefield seemed to pause in shock – even the Dark Defenders for some reason – directly following the explosion, as both sides tried to figure out exactly what happened. Fortunately, the Humans on the wall recovered faster and started chucking every Magisteel ball they had at the remaining Dark Defenders. The remaining Goliaths were easy enough to destroy once the spheres penetrated their forms, but the others were much more difficult. The problem was that Fred had to wait and guess whether one of the balls would enter a mouth or open wound on the Demon Princes, or whether the Magisteel would slip through an opening of bones on the Bone Lords before he inserted the Mana Explosion. Finally, one got through the defenses of one of the Demons, and it slipped into an eye socket of one where he had blown out its eye – and that was enough.

  The resulting explosion blew the entire top half of the Demon Prince apart, flinging fragments of bones and flesh everywhere, knocking off a half-dozen Human defenders on the wall and unfortunately killing one of them. Soon after, a Bone Lord was destroyed when one of the Magisteel spheres managed to squeeze through two bones, and Fred barely got his Explosion inside in time. Those nearest the explosion had seen what had happened with the Demon Prince and lay flat against the wall, preventing them from being swept away by the pieces of bone flying in all directions.

  With half of the attacking Dark Defenders already down – four of the easier Shadowy Goliaths, one Demon Prince, and one Bone Lord – the situation appeared as though it could be handled without too much more loss of life. Fred tried to ignore the horrific sight of over a thousand dead or dying Adventurers and guards, and concentrated on defeating the rest of the attackers as safely as possible.

  The Demon Princes didn’t appreciate the death of one of their own, however, and they backed off a hundred feet. They weren’t retreating, though, because they immediately crouched down, opened their wings, and launched themselves into the air. Flapping their wings to gain altitude, they were quickly out of range of even the longest-distance spells – as well as Fred’s own Mana Explosions; it wasn’t for long, unfortunately, as they all dove down as if they had choreographed the move, heading straight for the walls, swords outstretched in front of them.

  Even though they were bombarded by spells, Abilities, and even a tossed Magisteel Sphere by the Human defenders, none of that mattered as the swords impacted the wall and an explosion of dark hellfire erupted from the site of the impact, killing dozens of Adventurers and blasting hundreds of others off of the wall. The Princes seemed a little dazed from their attack as they hovered where they had made an even larger dent in the wall, but unfortunately, none of those that could’ve taken advantage of that hesitation were close enough. As a result, a few seconds later, a large, flat, circular, black hole opened up below the Demon Princes, and they dropped into it after folding their wings to their backs. They immediately disappeared, emerging from what had to be another portal back on the field in front of the walls, landing lightly on their feet, safe from most other attacks from the walls.

  They didn’t move from there except to cross their swords in front of them in an oddly strange position, before thrusting both arms into the sky. Immediately, a dozen more portals – much smaller this time – appeared next to the Demon Princes, 36 in total. Nothing happened for about a second, and then a single Level 5 Pit Fiend flew out from each portal, which closed immediately behind them. The Pit Fiends weren’t extraordinarily powerful, but they were more than enough to cause confusion and panic on the walls as the Human defenders tried to rally after all of the devastation they had endured already.

  Fred couldn’t even help them, because he was concentrating on finishing off the last of the Bone Lords; two lucky Magisteel spheres managed to make it inside the “bodies” of the Dark Defenders made of bones, and two more of the monstrous creatures were destroyed. The third and last Lord was being difficult, however, and was staying far enough away that it would just dart in and slam its club down on the wall, killing dozens each time before withdrawing it. Finally, just as the Pit Fiends attacked the other sections near the Demon Princes, one brave Adventurer jumped on the tip of the bone club after it crashed down near him, holding a Magisteel ball in his arms.

  The Bone Lord didn’t notice, and raised its club back into the air. When the club was upright over the Bone Lord’s “shoulder”, the Human dropped from the club and plummeted 150 down to the Lord below, his back cracking painfully as he landed awkwardly on what Fred would consider the head of the Lord. Whether or not he was dead already, the Dungeon Core didn’t know; what he did know was that the Magisteel sphere managed to fall directly through one of the gaps in the bone form of the Lord. While the brave Adventurer was falling, Fred had already prepped the ball with a Mana Explosion, in the hopes that the man would succeed in implanting the Magisteel within the Bone Lord. If the Adventurer did not succeed, Fred hoped, at least, that where the ball fell would be far enough away that the explosion would not kill everyone still alive on the nearby wall.

  Fred didn’t have to worry about that, fortunately, as he successfully detonated the sphere inside of the Bone Lord, sending bone shards everywhere. Three chunks of bone luckily managed to hit Pit Fiends as they were swooping down to attack the wall, killing them instantly, but the other pieces flew off harmlessly elsewhere.

  Elated, Fred felt triumphant as he turned back to see what could be done to help the surviving Adventurers against the Pit Fiends and the again-encroaching Demon Princes…but the rest of the gigantic Defenders from the Fire, Water, Nature, Earth, Light, and Air factions arrived.

  Chapter 23

  “Deecy…uh…things aren’t going so well up here.”

  What Fred Communicated to his Fire and Water Shard was a bit of an understatement.

  When the other factions arrived at Allroads, Fred immediately set to work delaying them so that the Human defenders could help get the Magisteel spheres where they needed to go. He could tell that they had been watching the battle along the northeastern wall with more than a little worry and trepidation; now, however, they had also seen that the monstrous Defenders could be defeated – though with a heavy toll.

  Unfortunately, the Dungeon Cores had been keeping an eye on the competition as well, and they didn’t give the people of Allroads many chances to deliver the surprise package in the form of heavy balls. Not only that, but those that could attack from afar stayed just outside of Fred’s territory, meaning that he couldn’t even use any of his special techniques on them, even without the Magisteel delivery system.

  From the north, the Treehemoths stayed away, using their long root systems to sweep Adventurers off of the wall, crushing them against the stone as they slammed their 150-foot-long appendages down on the relatively helpless massed defenders. The Mega Hydra, the larger, twelve-headed older brother of the Azure Hydra that Fred had seen inside of his dungeon, shot out powerful jets of water from the northwest; only the strongest of tank-Classed Adventurers could withstand the jets of water, while the rest were knocked backwards off the wall.

  To the west, The Gravelers that seemed much larger than their previous brethren were actually the same size – they just liked to travel stretched out, for some reason. When they arrived at the territory border, they started chucking their individual rocks at the Adventurers on the wall with unerring accuracy. It wasn’t as deadly as at the other parts of the wall, at least not once the tanks got out front and blocked most of the missiles with their bodies or shields, though it also prevented anyone from attacking back. Whenever someone would pop their head up to aim a spell at one of the Rock Giants or King Crabs scuttling closer, a rock would ricochet off their head a second or two later.

  To the east, the wall was being devastated by the Blaze Elementals, who were apparently able to throw streams of super-hot flames from hundreds of feet away, diminishing their size in the process. Hundreds burned to death in the first few seconds of the fight, until the few living Adventurers were able to cast some sort of blanket protection spell that reduced the severity of the damage coming from the flames. It was still unbearably hot, though, and dozens collapsed from heat exhaustion or oxygen deprivation as the flames continued to blaze over their positions.

  The Light and Air factions did, indeed, send their own friends to play with, which Fred hadn’t really gotten a good look at until they rounded the mountain range. From the Light Dungeon Cores, there were 4 more Celestial Orbs, bigger and more dangerous looking than the one he had seen on the border; strange Reflective Constructs, which were comprised of thousands of mirror-like objects, constantly rotating around a central pulsing light; and 4 Crystalline Atrocities, which essentially were a taller and wider version of the Crystal Golem.

  Both the Celestial Orb and the Reflective Constructs stayed outside of Fred’s territory, attacking from afar. The Orb shot out wide beams of concentrated light – which were probably its Sunray attack – which blinded everyone unlucky to be looking in its direction. The Reflective Constructs stopped their constant rotation of mirrors, and half of them formed into a complex, half-spherical arrangement, facing towards the central, pulsing light; the other half were arranged almost like a tube – with mirrored sides facing inwards – connected to the spherical arrangement, and pointed towards the walls. As Fred watched, the light inside of the formation pulsed brighter, reflecting off of the half-sphere of mirrors thousands of times, growing stronger, somehow, as it bounced around; at some unknown signal, a subtle shift in the mirrors caused a large beam of the concentrated light to fire out the tube.

  Every living thing the beams of light touched burst into flames almost instantly, which turned out to be thousands of Adventurers who had been blinded by the Celestial Orb. The beams only lasted about ten seconds before they shut down, but it was enough to ruin the defenses up on the walls.

  Arriving through the sky to the southeast, the forces of Air made a dramatic entrance. First there were 4 Twisting Tornadoes, which were 500-foot-tall funnels of circulating storm clouds, complete with thunder and lightning inside their cyclonic revolutions; they touched down outside of the walls and steadily made their way towards the Human defenders, throwing up dirt and grass as it was ripped up from the ground. They were accompanied by a flock of 4 Roc Queens, which were 75-foot-long monstrous birds with 300-foot wingspans; they swooped down on the walls in a dive so quick that the Adventurers didn’t really have time to react as dozens were scooped up in their giant beaks. Fred could hear crunching as the beaks closed on legs and other body parts, before they were basically spat out when the Rocs climbed to about 1,000 feet in the air. Not many of those who fell survived the drop, unfortunately, as they crashed into the buildings below.

  The last Defender from the Air faction stayed across the territory border and attacked from long range. The Djinnish Champion was something Fred had never heard of before, and it was quite possible that many of the Adventurers hadn’t either; it appeared to be a large fluffy white cloud ridden by the upper half of a blue-skinned humanoid-shaped figure. The figure had a head and two arms, but there was no face or other distinguishing features – it was, Fred decided, a bit creepy-looking. Deadly, too, as the arms of the Champion raised, pointing at the defenders on the wall, and lightning bolts shot of its shapeless “hands”; they slammed into the wall, blasting small chunks of it away despite the Unconverted Mana strengthening it, and the bolts traveled along the walkway, electrocuting anyone within twenty feet.

  Most didn’t die from the electrocution, but for the most part, they were rendered unconscious; the bolts of lightning were then replaced by horizontal, condensed, crescent-shaped slices of hardened air, 30 feet wide, which flew through the air at those who had fallen, slicing most of them apart when struck by the Wind Sickle attacks from the Djinnish Champion.

  People were dying by the hundreds upon the walls, and there wasn’t much that Fred could do about the invaders staying out of his territory. Those only comprised about a third of the ones attacking the city, however, and he contributed to fending off the attacks of those he could reach – and killing some of them, as well.

  The Ruby Dragons coming from the Fire faction swooped down over the city, ignoring the defenders on the walls completely, and started bathing the entire city in flames. Fred wasn’t sure if it was luck or not that most of the people of Allroads were huddling safely inside their homes, so very few were burned up in the attack; his upkeep on the building protected them from being directly destroyed by the powerful flames, but it didn’t prevent the environment from heating up. Soon enough, portions of the city were as hot as The Oven inside of Fred’s dungeon, and tens of thousands died from being cooked alive in their homes or businesses.

  The Emerald Dragons from the Nature faction looked ready to join in on the fun inside the city, which would literally be explosive if they decided to breathe their poisonous – and highly flammable – breath attack. The Adventurers and guards along the wall were being systematically taken down by long-range attacks; the massive Defenders that couldn’t attack from a distance were closing in on the depleted fortifications; and from his hasty count, there were less than a dozen Magisteel balls in the hands of those who could actually use them.

  That was when he contacted Deecy.

  “Well then, you have a choice; you can either let them all die, or you can do something about it.”

  “Thanks, it wasn’t like that was obvious or anything.” He couldn’t blame the Dire Wolf for her flippant response, because she – like everyone else helping to defend his dungeon – was constantly fighting to keep the flow of increasingly difficult invaders from overwhelming them. The good part of that was that they were succeeding and hadn’t been too stressed yet, though the day was still young; Fred still had confidence in them, that they would be able to succeed, with or without his direct intervention. Unfortunately, the battle for the city above was a whole other story; despite it only starting a couple of minutes ago, they were already losing. Badly.

  I guess, like Deecy said, I better do something about it before it’s too late.

  If he didn’t do something now, the rest of the city would be destroyed, and all of its inhabitants killed; from there, it wouldn’t be long until the massive Defenders dug down to his dungeon. He had already seen that they could chip away at his Mana-enhanced upkeep of the city, so it would only be a matter of time before they reached his Core Room below and destroy his Core. Not to mention his Shards and Core Power Guild.

  So, Fred did something that he had not been planning on doing, because it was entirely too dangerous, before; but now, there wasn’t a reason to hesitate. Taking 25 units of the Water Mana he had been conserving from the destruction of his dungeon’s invaders, he combined that with 250 units of Unconverted Mana and created a Mana Implosion right in front of one of the swooping Ruby Dragons, 200 feet above the city (which was just about the limit that he could reach inside his territory)…and he let it activate.

  As he had hoped, the Implosion started small and rapidly expanded to a relatively safe 50 feet across, just as the Fire-based Dragon flew headfirst into it, unable to stop itself in mid-flight. In less than a second, the head and a good portion of the upper half of the Ruby Dragon were consumed, killing the massive flying Defender. As the Mana was released from its death, it too was sucked up into the Implosion, almost immediately, giving Fred no time to try to move it away or absorb it into his Core.

  What he feared would happen occurred then, though it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. The Fire Mana consumed by the Implosion was so great, and it expanded the diameter so quickly, that one of the Emerald Dragons starting to swoop above the city was caught by the now-100-foot-wide Implosion; half of the green Dragon was basically eaten up by the blue-colored reverse explosion, killing it. When that Defender dissolved into green Nature Mana, that, in turn, was consumed; the Implosion grew exponentially larger, as if the combination of different types of Mana had a doubling effect. The Implosion grew to almost 200 feet across in the matter of a couple of seconds, until it caught a second, unsuspecting Ruby Dragon that was just finishing its latest Firebreath attack on the city and was starting to rise again.

  The addition of another source of Mana doubled the size of the Implosion again, though this time it took much longer to expand; the ten seconds that it required to expand to 400 feet across gave the rest of the Dragons, and other massive Defenders trying to attack the city directly, time to vacate the area. Unfortunately, the building underneath the Implosion couldn’t move, and his out-of-control technique started to consume the Unconverted Mana infused inside of the structures. The massive, spherical-shaped Implosion expanded another 20 feet, taking a few top stories of buildings with it – though fortunately without anyone in them – before it stopped growing.

 

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