The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) Jonathan Brooks (me reader TXT) 📖

construct’s protection bubble was struck, it would flash with a painfully bright light and emit a small Lightstrike “spear” in the direction the attack came from, up to 5 feet away.

That wasn’t where its main offensive power came from, though; using Fire Mana, she created a field in front of the Totem that would move along with it wherever it went in the room.  When the six-armed construct punched forward, its fist would launch a small ball of fire wherever it was aiming; it wasn’t a very large ball of fire and would probably be just an annoyance to some of the undead, but then again the Martial Totem could punch fast.

She wasn’t sure how long that Fire Mana field would last under repeated blows by the construct, but it was sure to inflict some major damage before it ran out.  Even when it did, the Holy shield would likely still be operational, and the Totem could definitely dish out some major damage with its fists still.  After making sure the trigger to activate the trap was set just inside the entrance to the room – and hoping that it actually worked, since she didn’t really have a chance to test it – she turned to see what else she could do before the Undead arrived.

Unfortunately, a quick look showed that they were relatively close to her dungeon.  There weren’t a lot of Specters left after most of them had been destroyed in their suicide attack against her Rolling Forces, but those that were left immediately shot upwards towards Sandra’s AMANS when they got within 100 feet of the entrance.  The center of her Shears net was primarily her pre-Advancement ones, and hundreds of them fell out of the sky before Sandra could react, only to dissipate and drop their Copper Orb Monster Seeds before they hit the ground.

Knowing that a major source of her Mana was in jeopardy, she immediately had the rest scatter, flying to the southwest and out of range of where the Undead Core’s AOI could reach.  As a test, however, she kept a few dozen of her newer Reinforced Animated Shears and had them dive straight towards a single one of the black-robed spell casters that had so devastated her first eradication force.  It was her hope that since it stayed towards the back and out of direct physical combat that it would be more vulnerable to physical attacks.

While they might indeed have been vulnerable, her Shears never got the chance to test their resistance.  When they got within a foot of the creepy Undead casters, a shield of darkness appeared out of nowhere around the robed form, reflecting the impact from dozens of Shears like it was nothing.  Most of her constructs were destroyed when they hit the shield at full speed from above, but two of them managed to hit at an angle and were embedded in the ground.  She tried to get them to move afterwards and dig themselves out, but a black sludge seemed to coat them where they hit the caster’s shield; within seconds, they were eaten away by the mystery substance, leaving Sandra relatively blind other than a single Mechanical Jaguar she had in one of the nearby hills.

To rectify her inability to see what was happening, she took another dozen of her newer Shears and sent them high up into the air above her dungeon, where they could look down from almost a mile; the act caused the Specters to try to reach them, but they fortunately couldn’t reach that far.  It wasn’t the best view, but at least she could see in general what was happening.

She expected them to immediately stream into her dungeon entrance and she prepared herself…but they all stopped before they actually entered.  It was kind of eerie, actually; the lead elements of the Undead horde were five feet from the entrance, and yet they all seemed frozen in place.  After about half a minute approximately half of the horde broke off and started to move; Sandra thought, this is it…but all they did was rush over to the other entrance to her dungeon in the old Bearling lair connected to her workshop.  Once they were there, they stopped five feet away from that cave opening as well.

What is going on?

“What do you mean?  What happened?  Are they inside already?” Winxa asked, sounding a little more confident than just a few minutes earlier when Sandra angrily yelled at her, though she was still a bit reserved in her appearance.  The Dungeon Core explained what was happening, but the Fairy didn’t have an answer.

“Again, this is something I’m unfamiliar with.  Core on Core fighting has never been a thing before this – literally couldn’t have been a thing because of the contracts – so I’m not sure what it’s doing.”

Sandra was no strategist herself, but she was beginning to see what was happening.  First, the Undead Core had tricked her by hiding all of those skeletal rats; when she went to destroy them as they emerged, it sacrificed a portion of its horde to destroy her eradication force.  Then when it got close enough to her dungeon, it made her AMANS retreat out of range, but it also had the side-effect of reducing the amount of Mana she was receiving from them by almost a quarter because of the distance from her dungeon entrance.  Not only that, but it also cut down on her surveillance directly above her, though she could see from a significant distance away.

Lastly, the Core had obviously seen the outline of her dungeon from down below the ground and camped all of its Monsters right outside of her entrances – why would it do that?  The only explanation that made sense was one that just showed how devious the other entity really was; by guarding the only ways in and out of her dungeon, she couldn’t field an army