Despite Mark’s expectations, Daniel did not attack at any point during the multi-day march. While Mark had preparations in place, he was not sure it would be enough against quick hit and runs, especially from the dragon. At some points a quick line of fire could take out a good amount of their supplies and ballista platforms, since often the terrain dictated that they proceed down certain routes.

  On the morning of the attack the army only had to march for 3 hours before setting up an impromptu base camp just shy of the battlefield. Daniels dungeon was in the center of a valley between a bunch of plateaus. Like the rest of the endless bluff map the north was covered by the plateaus. The difference was that the hillside slopped up thousands of feet leaving far less sheer rock face. Some locations only had about 20 feet, making them far less of a barrier than they were throughout the rest of the map. A good thing for them since Daniel had concentrated defenses at the passes in between.

  Their attack would center around a pass that sloped up to plateaus on both sides like a saddle. Mark of course wanted to take the pass, but they would need to assault the plateaus as well. Scaling the plateaus was a simple thing for the spiders. Even the goblins did not have too much trouble free climbing such short distances. Getting the ballista platforms up would be more tricky, but Mark was not about to try to take them into the pass. They would be extremely vulnerable, only really being able to fire forward. Not to mention they needed them for dragon defense.

  Their forces proceeded up from the temporary camp unhindered, but the fight would begin as soon as they reached the top. Daniel’s forces held the pass and had of course manned the plateaus with primate archers, tree units, and mages. They would start firing on them as soon as the tree cover lessened, which would occur for about the last 500 feet. Daniel’s enchantments were on the cruder side. From what was recovered, Mark did not see anything past average quality, but then the guy only had primates to work on them. The magic gear on the higher tier units on the other hand had been top notch, leaving Mark to believe that it was from a unique reward. Regardless, fighting uphill while arrows and spells rained down would be difficult.

  Mark of course had a host of spider lings leading the charges on the plateaus. Throughout the march, Mark had continually had some bred and sent on wide ranging patrols only to have them return and die under concealment. Hopefully it had been enough to prevent Daniel from realizing the truth, that they were not real units and that Mark could breed a near endless stream of them.

  For a battle that would likely last all day, the tier 3’s could be bred multiple times resulting in thousands before it was all said and done, so it was best to conserve their true armies strength wherever they could. As far as the pass, hundreds of rock golems struggled up the hillside. Only 900 in total, they were the last of golem balls from their stockpile. Hopefully they would fare quite well against the ranged attacks and the tree units that waited ahead.

  Daniel had not really used his tree branch units in his attacks, but had maxed the units out… well at least to dungeon level 3’s cap. Now he had a good three thousand tree units comprising the bulk of his defense. While the number sounded daunting, over half were the weakest saplings that did not even break 1.0 with whatever upgrades they had.

  The arrows streaked down the cliffside right after the spider lings reached the point where the trees thinned. Most of their tips flared blue. An enchantment that allowed the archer to gather manna around the tip for a mini explosion on impact. Mark was calling it manna burst, and had gladly added it to their arsenal, but like the firecracker enchantment, they could only copy to the exact quality of what they had recovered, so their use would be limited.

  Against weaker tier 1 spider lings they were quite effective. Green ooze was flung into the air and onto the ground as legs were blown off or a fist sized chunk exploded from the spider's abdomen or thorax. Dozens of spiders died instantly, but hundreds more proceeded on undeterred. Despite the spider's speed the approach up to the cliff face was long and exposed, so they faced three more volleys losing dropping their number by 20% before they even got close. Once they reached the cliff face the cherry trees started showering their explosive cherry projectiles and the mage chimps started blasting fireballs. The spider lings continued to die in large numbers despite their resiliency.

  Still a good half of the spider lings reached the cliffside on both sides of the pass and started climbing without pause. Apes with shields and tree units stepped up to repel the climbers, but despite the spider lings having converged on the plateaus near the pass there was far too much room. Soon spider lings pushed through gaps of coverage as the apes attempted to block their way with their shields while slashing out with their halberds. The archers and mages concentrated on the following wave of goblins that had been following right on the spider ling's heels.

  The goblins proceeded up the hillside far slower than the spider lings, but they also had shields to protect themselves from the projectiles raining down on them. Mark watched as their forces struggled forward. A good quarter of the spider lings had reach the top, but other than causing chaos in the ape and tree unit ranks they did not do too much good on their own. Three or four spider lings were going down for every defender that died. That was until a fresh group of spider lings poured in from the side. While a thousand led the charge up both sides of the hill, a flanking group had broken off and climbed uncontested on the far end. Daniel just did not have enough forces to guard a plateau that had a near mile of cliffside facing the south alone.

  Finally, the ratios of losses decreased although it still leaned in Daniel’s favor. Not too concerning for Mark since the spider lings were free units. The losses compounded once the witch doctors got into range. Soon apes were sliding down the cliffside on their own accord, before barreling down angrily into the waiting spears of legionnaires moving to protect the witch doctors. Mark brought out all of the witch doctors early, since it was a prime time to collect more power.

  Once the apes were pushed back from the cliff side, the goblins began scaling up. They would be able to join the melee in large numbers well before the last of the spider lings died out, and another wave of spider lings was already on its way. Most would even be able to overtake the goblins as they scaled the cliffs. Mark could not keep it up indefinitely, but he could keep the waves coming for a short period of time.

  Lucien on the other hand stayed off the field. It was not time to expose trump cards yet. Even Daniel was holding both his champions back. It meant that currently, the goblin forces held air superiority. The dragon by itself would easily contest the bat goblins currently up there. There were a good hundred skyborne, and the weevils would join after Mark ordered for them to be bred. A hundred green goblins of all types stood by to be carried aloft by their weevil steeds.

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  Progress in the pass was going even more smoothly. The constructs were easily able to navigate the uneven terrain and fight. Hundreds of saplings, rambling stumps, and other lesser tree units fought to hold them off, but the constructs only held a minor disadvantage on a one on one basis, the cherry trees with their explosive arsenal, being the lone exception. Once again as far as Mark was concerned the construct losses were basically a freebie since the golem balls had only cost them resources. The same with the spiderlings. The only real losses Daniel was afflicting was on the goblins, and Mark had thousands to replace any that fell.

  Mark watched the battle wage on for a good ten minutes before the alarm went up back at their main force. Mark flipped his personnel interface back to the main camp. Goblins were scurrying to form a defense against nothing at first look. Many had confused expressions on their faces as they formed up to oppose an empty forest.

  “Make ready, scatter shots,” Lucien directed from on top of a tier 3 spider. A moment later a darkened haze erupted from him.

  The goblins were still confused, but each found the appropriate arrow as quickly as possible. Then their confusion was gone, because as soon as the darkened haze hit several hundred feet out. Cats started to uncloak with yeows of pain. Several immediately shot magic blasts of white energy from their mouths. Others rushed forward. The skirmish lasted less than a minute before the remainder of the living cavals retreated from the field. There had been a good 400 of them, but even the strongest were only at the upper 1’s. Only 80 were able to make it out of the sphere of corruption alive.

  The rest would now be fighting for Lucien. It was a nice addition, but of course Lucien would have to keep the sphere up now to keep the caval corpses from losing their reanimation, making him a prime target. However, Mark learned something new about the sphere of corruption that had not been evident until put into practice. The sphere had gotten bigger. Apparently the units that fell under Lucien’s control amplified his ability. The more he got the wider his sphere of corruption would get. A welcome surprise for sure, but Daniel would now know their commands location going forward.

  Anticipating the attack had been easy for the goblin forces. Hundreds of spiders had layered hundreds of lines of webs around their camp. Despite their ability to creep up unseen, the spiders still felt vibrations from the caval’s movements as they closed on the camp. Daniel had shown his hand about the cloaking ability in Gale’s dungeon. While Mark would normally have thought it was a unique ability for a titled unit, information from Avery had made it clear that it was not. Daniel had taken out a bunch of scouts without being counter detected. It led Mark to believe that it was a skill that his units could have.

  Daniel

  The defense was going far from how Daniel imagined. The caval ambush had failed spectacularly. Somehow the goblins had easily located them. The cavals had of course frozen to prevent counter detection. Vivi could move slowly and still be perfectly camouflaged, but the offspring from her lair would easily be found out if they moved even the slightest bit while someone was carefully studying the area. Then there was that black zone that had shot out. The cavals had all gone nuts as soon as they were enclosed by it. It had been difficult to even pull out a small remnant of his force. As far as Daniel could tell, his units had not caused a single casualty, meaning he had taken heavy losses for nothing.

  Daniel had of course noted the unique titled unit, the black zone had emitted from. Perhaps the leader of this army since Daniel had watched the bugbear one die during his last attack. It did not matter too much, his power rating was far too low to really be a concern. What was a concern was the seemingly endless numbers of spiders that kept assaulting the cliff face. They were fairly weak, but his forces had faced three waves over the course of the half hour it took the other dungeon to take the plateau and the pass.

  Daniel had lost over 2,000 units. The tree units were of little concern, but he had only been able to retreat about half of the primate units down into the valley. Not too terrible of a price since he had claimed twice that of his enemies, or so he had thought. Now a fourth wave of 1,400 spiders were scrambling down the mountainside toward his dungeon. Had Amelia made it to dungeon level 4… No, there was no way she could have. Her unique reward had obviously been the flying units.

  Then it finally hit him, all of these spiders were of two different types. They were also smaller versions of stronger beast units that Amelia had displayed. He had known that the constructs were not true dungeon units since he had witnessed them form out of the earth after goblins threw ball-like objects. Obviously, it was some sort of item, perhaps a unique reward, Amelia had received. Perhaps she had something that allowed her stronger beasts to spawn young. It was not only the spiders. Daniel had noticed smaller centipedes during his last attack as well. It made sense to Daniel. It was the only explanation for what he was seeing. The only real question was how often they could do it. Surely they could not do it infinitely…

  Daniel re examined his plans for defending against this attack. The first stage was already over. The plateaus and pass were naturally a good defensible position. A good place to whittle down the enemy forces with his own weaker units. Then of course he would fight the real battle against the weakened army where he was strongest, near the quadrant lairs.

  The lairs had allowed Daniel to progress like the other dungeons. They served a bunch of different purposes, taking the place of multiple core buildings the standard dungeons seemingly used. They could be used to strengthen units, give upgrades, and research other features.

  Daniel was allowed up to four lairs for his home dungeon and one for additional settlements. He had a caval lair for Vivi to pass on her unique cloaking ability to other cavals. A moon wolf lair for beasts that gave the white energy blast ability. Then Midnight’s ethereal attack lair. It was the lair his orangutans used to develop their joint ethereal creations, like the rhinoceros that destroyed Amelia’s wall in his last attack.

  The fourth lair had actually been repurposed. Initially, it had been led by Vince giving greater boosts to attributes. Now it was the only lair to be led by a non-titled beast. Daniel had gone with a girallon as soon as he saw that a primate lair would allow his units to start crafting equipment, brewing tonics, and enchanting. Vince’s lair had been useful in the first phase of the battle increasing the strength of his units even further, but better equipment was definitely a better way to round out his forces.

  Now he could cycle beasts through the various lairs to gain different aspects. Vivi’s cloaking ability, however, was not very effective for larger or clumsy units so Daniel mainly focused the ability on the cavals since they were small and graceful in their movement maximizing the gains.

  Of course the real benefit to the lairs in this attack was the additional strength units would get from fighting in their proximity. It could be said to be a home field advantage, that gave an automatic 10% bump to all beasts that could call one of the lairs their home. Deeper down in the lairs the increase became even more significant. Of course the numbers that could take advantage would decrease accordingly.

  Daniel spent another minute contemplating his next move. The wave of spiders would be in the thick of his dungeon soon. They were hardly a problem in his center of power, but if they truly were infinite then they would slowly whittle down his forces. They might be weak, but a thousand plus spiders with venomous bites and choking spores could still kill his units. Even the weaker tree units could be torn apart given enough time, not that the spiders readily engaged them when they had the option.

  Daniel sighed. It was time to get big red into the game. The vantage from the air would help him get a better picture of things. The dragon would have to fight off a hundred other flying creatures, but that should not be a problem. He would soon dominate the skies and then he could make counter plans.