The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2) by Jonathan Brooks (top 10 novels txt) 📗

Home room, she chose to go with option one – because she didn’t think she’d have enough time before it was too late to matter.

The simple order to attack was the only one she needed to give as her constructs rushed forward, though she did try to get her Shears to aim for vulnerable spots like the snakes’ eyes and even their open mouths when they attacked.  Either they were extremely unlucky, or the order didn’t really translate well, because all 246 of Sandra’s remaining Small Animated Shears impacted the same place on the lower “body” of the hydra-creature.  Most of them bounced off harmlessly like they did against a turtle shell, when all of them hit the exact same spot at full speed – which even the snakes couldn’t match to try to snatch them up – they actually made a sizable hole through its tough outer skin.  Greenish blood slowly spilled out of the wound, but on the whole it looked fairly superficial.

And, unfortunately, she couldn’t communicate fast enough with her constructs to try to take advantage of the wound.  She thought it would be perfect if one of her Pythons were able to crawl inside and wreak havoc on the hydra-creature’s internal organs, but they instead just slithered toward the body and tried to eat their way in from below.  All but one of them was snatched up by the snake heads, crunched a few times, and then flung away to impact and get further destroyed by the nearby hardened dirt wall.

Her Blademasters were snatched up next and discarded just as quickly as they were bent out of shape, disappearing into their Monster Seeds even before they hit the ground.  Her Wolves and Jaguars managed to reach the body and climb up on its back, where they attempted to bite their way through the tough lower portions of the actual snake bodies – Sandra assumed it was in the hope that it would be like cutting its head off.  With all of them managing to gather around the same spot, they went to work biting and clawing through the skin and were making some impressive progress – before they started to get snatched up as well. Before long, they too were crushed and sent to join their fellow constructs who had been destroyed before.

Her Apes, on the other hand…didn’t have much luck, either.  While their hard and heavy Iron bodies resisted being crushed and tossed everywhere, they could at least be marginally picked up and released to bounce and slide away to the other side of the room.  After most of them had been picked up and shoved away, they were looking quite beat-up and even missing limbs.  Sandra despaired as almost all of her constructs were destroyed, though she did notice that her last remaining Python had managed to circle around the side of the large bulk of the hydra-thing’s body.  From what she could see, it was wedged into a small crack in the wall where it was in no danger of being crushed or picked up by the snake heads, though the bites it was inflicting still weren’t doing a lot of damage.

Given an hour or more, though…

She highly doubted it would be left alone for an hour, but it was at least a shot.  Her remaining Apes struggled to attack again, even bent all out of shape, and were picked up and flung away another time.  However, something unexpected happened; when one of the snake heads bit down on one of her Apes, its right fangs must’ve hit the hard Iron wrong, because they snapped off and flew away across the room, ending up near the room’s entrance.

The Ironclad Ape that inadvertently caused the damage was flung away with impressive strength from the snake, where it was crushed and destroyed as it impacted the far wall with tremendous force.  She was down to only two Apes now – and the hiding/biting Python, of course – and yet she began to see a glimmer of hope.

A few minutes before, while the all-out attack was just starting, the trap that had grabbed her Ape up above finally ran out of Mana and collapsed, releasing her Ape that Sandra had been forced to abandon.  She had been working it down through the dungeon, which was a whole lot easier now that there were no defending Monsters in the way, and she knew where all the traps were.  The Ape still managed to take some superficial damage from those traps that couldn’t be avoided, but overall it was largely undamaged.

She hadn’t even known that it would be released until after she started her attack, so she didn’t factor it into her plans.  Now it was going to be an integral part of a new plan; as the other damaged Apes attacked again and Sandra forced the Python out of hiding in order to provide a distraction, her undamaged Ape ran into the room from the tunnel and picked up the large upper fang that had snapped off.  Without pausing for more than a moment, it ran full-out towards the distracted hydra-variant; while the snake heads were flinging her other Apes away trying to catch her quick Python, the Ape managed to get close enough to the monstrous Dungeon Monster…and jumped.

It came down with the venomous tooth clutched tightly in its hands, plunging the sharp fang directly into the still-bleeding hole made by her Shears earlier.  The snake heads seemed to go berserk after that, knocking the Ape off its body with a snake headbutt and finally catching hold of her Python – which didn’t survive long.  The two previously damaged Apes were flung away so viciously that they were destroyed upon impact when they hit the ground, rolled, and smashed into the wall.

Sandra watched through her now-slightly-damaged remaining Ape as the snake heads on the hydra continued to flail about crazily in all directions.  Fortunately