The influx of fresh air was what the earth magic beast needed. It continually drilled through the stone to create enough of an entrance for it, the boss, and the CO2-drunk water beast to escape. They all breathed in heavily as they laid down on the ground, their stamina depleted and their health in shambles.
The boss expanded its compressed body and flopped on the ground, displaying how draining and harrowing their escape was. It didn’t seem to realize that it had lost three magic beasts from its party, though maybe it didn’t care. It used its magic to help itself recover before it looked around it.
While the most important minion it had, the earth beast, was still with him, it had sustained substantial strain on both its body, mind, and mana. The only other one that remained was the water beast, the weakest and least useful of its group. They were in a dire state.
Jacob couldn’t help but be relieved. This wave was in its final breaths; there wasn’t much the boss could do to recover its own strength, much less the strength of its minions.
There was a chance that the boss would try to escape from the dungeon. It was rare, but it did happen occasionally back in the game. Even if it wanted to, it couldn’t. It didn’t know where the dungeon entrance was. For it to happen, it required a complete mental collapse, something that was hard to do for its minions, much less a creature of that caliber.
It was time to end this. He needed to move forward and start growing and improving the dungeon, and for that to happen he needed to end this wave and get the massive amount of soul points from the quest. It was only then that he would have enough to finance a sustainable layer and monsters and have enough space to heal the dungeon core.
The boss started to heal the earth magic beast, sparing some mana for the water magic beast, and it kept looking back. Jacob wasn’t sure if it had a resurrection spell or the mana to perform it, but even if it did, would it?
It was best to not give it the chance to do so. He instructed the dungeon fairy to begin carving a path from this area to the ants, as transporting each and every one of them was impractical. He wasn’t going to take the chance of putting his more valuable assets, the deer and the bear, in danger fighting against the boss. He had been burned way too many times in the past by his hubris.
However, he did need something to stall the situation. Out of his minions, the bear was the one with the [Reinforcement] spell, improving its defense enough to be able to hold out for a little bit. He debated whether it was worth bringing the deer in, but he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t tested how well the bear was at defending the deer, so it was best to not gamble on it.
He marked for the bear to appear within the tunnel that the remaining invaders had escaped from. It was a bit difficult, as the boss had created small spots of domain that interfered or outright cut off the dungeon system, but he managed to find a spot near where the ice and fire beasts were killed to help guard it.
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The tunnel led to another small chasm, meaning that the earth beast would be needed to go to any other tunnel than where the bear was guarding. The boss monster sensed it and seemed to cower a little, growling a command to the water and earth beast. They all struggled to get up and put up their guard as they stared at the tunnel.
The bear didn’t do anything except guard the corpses. Meanwhile, the dungeon fairy was busy carving a small path through the stone and over unused chasms for the ants to march through to deliver the final battle. The deer was commanded to join the ants as they followed the dungeon fairy slowly manipulating stone.
The boss seemed to realize that it was being cornered, that the forces of the dungeon were coming for it. This was going to be their final stand, and all it had were two magic beasts and minimal mana between all of them.
It roared and expended what little mana it had left to create one final domain. During a fight, it would help heal and recover mana for itself and the magic beast it controlled while also debuffing the dungeon’s forces. It would be a problem, if the monster had more mana to make the domain large enough to house more than itself.
It and the two other monsters tried their best to cram together to get the domain’s benefits, but all it did was turn them into sitting ducks. They seemed to realize it, and the water magic beast was the one forced out. It had conserved its mana more than the others, and hadn’t lost too much health.
The dungeon fairy made its slow progress towards them, and the wait seemed to drive the magic beasts insane. The one to begin cracking first was the earth magic beast as it started panicking with dilated eyes. The boss used some of its power to calm it down and forced it to focus back on the fight.
The dungeon fairy finished creating the path to them, and the ants swarmed in. While most of them were defective, ants born too late to culled, there was strength in numbers as they soaked up spells and damage from them. The ones with stronger exoskeletons were used to defend and tank for the ones with sharp pincers.
The bear drew the attention of the boss and the deer provided support. Combined with the few ants with both crucial characteristics, it was a slaughter.
The tutorial had ended, now it was time for the real game.
The king of the Aseth forest felt its blood spill as many different insect mouths began tearing into its flesh. Despair drowned it as it slowly fell into darkness. It had tried its best, but its old age had crippled its power and mind much more than it realized.
If only more magic beasts hadn’t fled. If only the previous forces it had sent into the dungeon had succeeded. If only the gods hadn’t lied about the eradication of the dungeons.
It was too late for regrets. It could only pray one last time to the mortals of the realm, for them to have hope and do what he couldn’t.
It prayed for them with the last thoughts of its dying mind.
