Empire Builder 1: Breed, Populate, Conquer Dante King (i read books txt) 📖

Lexi had her chain spear in one hand, swishing it back and forth with lightning speed. Her other hand had grown talons, bigger than those of an eagle. She slashed her hand in perfectly synchronized time with the weapon in her other hand, tearing the monster heads inside out.

Ben almost felt admiration for her as she fought. Seeing her taloned hand made him wonder what it would look like to see her transform into a hawk, as Adremor had said she could.

She was totally calm during the battle. One of her soldiers had his arm nearly torn off by a vine monster, the limb hanging by a thread, the soldier’s shoulder reduced to messy gore. She hardly slowed her pace as she held out her left hand toward his savaged limb and cast an aura of glowing yellow light.

The flesh knitted together again in seconds, and the soldier’s arm was perfectly restored.

So healing is another one of her talents.

Ben realized she would need to be taken out soon or the fighting might go on forever.

With Uzax roasting the monsters and seemingly never running out of mana, it wasn’t long before the vine monsters were all dead.

The mages looked about, their chests heaving with exertion.

“Not exactly the meal I expected to be served,” Adremor muttered wryly.

Ben put his hands out toward the controls again. “Then it’s time for the main course.”

Sir Gallant chuckled in his ear. “That was a good one, your majesty.”

Ben’s mana had only been drained by about a third when he summoned the vine monsters. He had enough to summon a full complement of gravel ghouls—thirty-three—with some mana to spare. The thirty-three gravel ghouls would take up his entire control limit of a hundred, since each of them were worth three points.

Ben activated the control on the screen to absorb all the vine monster corpses. He wasn’t sure if anything could be absorbed from the corpses of the two dead footsoldiers, but there were no options on this screen, and he didn’t want to sidetrack Sir Gallant the Younger right now.

“What sorcery is this?” Uzax hissed as the fleshy plant matter disappeared into the floor.

“This is dark magic indeed,” Lexi exclaimed, her wide eyes betraying fear, despite her battle-ready stance.

“This upstart will pay dearly if he ever lets us out of this room,” Adremor muttered.

Ben watched as his control limit returned to one hundred. Time for round two.

He placed all the gravel ghouls tightly around the room. Thirty-three stone giants was enough to fill the space between the table and the walls. He confirmed the locations. His mana dropped sharply, leaving him with a very low level. Gravel ghouls evidently cost a lot more.

The obsidian floor rumbled as space was made for the colossal monsters to emerge. As the statues started to rise, they pushed aside the carpet, and the smashed remains of broken or smoldering chairs.

The mages and their soldiers tensed, watching the stony forms rise out of the floor. This time they didn’t wait to be attacked. Lexi let out a battle cry and smashed her spear into the torso of the nearest statue. The foot soldiers followed her lead, battering the monsters with their swords.

But the weapons bounced off the stone armor, just chipping off a few fragments. Evidently the Greater Stoneskin made them more resilient to weapons, much more so than the regular gravel ghouls Ben had fought inside the dungeons.

Ben made a note to himself that these monsters were vulnerable while ascending out of the floor. In future, it would be best to have some diversion.

Then the ghouls reached full height. As one, they awakened, their glowing red eyes opening, and their limbs crunching, stone on stone.

The hall thundered as stone feet pounded on the obsidian floor. The ghouls marched menacingly toward their foes. Ben set them all to aggressive, which in such a small room meant they instantly attacked.

Adremor set his face grimly and drew the two swords from his back. The curved blades gleamed in the dying sunlight, and the air shimmered around them. The blades reminded Ben of his own scimitar, but bigger and meaner. A small fang of steel protruded from the middle of the inner curve, the tips of the blades so sharp that Ben could almost feel how sharply they’d cut into flesh. The blades were inscribed with runes that glowed with a faint, blue light. The hilts curved downward around Adremor’s hands like elegant claws, the handles a deep gold and the pommel round, a gorgeous, azure gem seated in the center of it.

The Force Wizard stepped toward the nearest gravel ghoul and swung both swords down in an arc, hitting the monster’s shoulders. The blades sliced the giant’s arms off with the clean singing of sharpened steel.

Ben wondered if the blades were enchanted. His suspicion was confirmed when Adremor sliced the monster’s head off like he was cutting carrots.

“Aim for the joints,” the Force Wizard cried.

He had a point. Though the weapons of the other soldiers did not cut nearly so cleanly, and required repeated hacking, the soldiers were able to take down some of the gravel ghouls by slicing at the joints where limbs and heads met bodies.

Uzax began throwing fireballs at the ghouls. Ben smiled to himself, suspecting how this would turn out.

The fireballs splashed against the stone armor and dissipated, doing no noticeable damage to the monsters. Uzax’s face crinkled in confusion, then frustration.

Sir Gallant the Younger jumped up and down on Ben’s shoulder in excitement. “You have no chance, snot-nosed fire-flinger!”

“Hey, cut that out,” Ben said, halting the statue from bouncing his stony feet on his shoulder.

“Oh sorry, does that hurt?”

“A lesser man might experience pain from that. It distracts me from directing the monsters where I need to.”

“I suppose I can refrain.” The stone homunculus sat impatiently on Ben’s shoulder again, avidly watching the screen.

Uzax generated a more powerful fireball, holding it in his hands until it was the size