The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) by Jonathan Brooks (ebook reader with android os TXT) 📗

to his feet quickly, though, despite his exhaustion, just in time to avoid a hammer that slammed down where he was just standing, only to take a sawblade to his upper left arm.  Sandra’s Fortification was quick, but the Warlord was still quicker; after only digging into his skin about an inch, he twitched out of the way, reached up to the arm holding the sawblade, and ripped it off at the joint.  The blade immediately stopped spinning, but the Orc just used it as a weapon then, knocking aside another sawblade that came at him as he flung himself backwards to avoid another slam by the hammer.

The Warlord tripped and fell on his back, but he was able to strike back at another sawblade arm that came down for him with his makeshift weapon, before rolling to the side to avoid the hammer again.  On his front now, he jumped up with amazing athleticism and ran away toward the entrance of the room.  Sandra briefly thought, who’s the coward now?, but realizing his run was only a ploy to approach one of the legs again, where he launched himself off the ground again, this time aiming for one of the swinging swords.  His timing was impeccable as he landed on the upper portion of the sword connecting it to the leg unharmed, and then used the sawblade arm in his hand to shear the sword off, before jumping down to the floor with his new weapon in his hand.

Now armed with a giant sword nearly as large as he was, the Warlord jumped again and caught a hold of the leg and pulled himself up.  He started to run across the leg, likely looking to repeat his performance from before and smash apart the power source of the Mobile Fortification.  The construct tried to move around to knock him off, but the Orc was too agile to be lose his footing so easily because he easily stayed on top of the thin beam that made up the construct’s leg.  When he was a few feet away from the central platform where the power source was located – but hidden behind some barriers from his position – he forced the last dregs of his energy into his muscles and jumped 40 feet nearly straight up into the air.

At the apex of his jump’s arc, he threw the sword straight down, which hit the power source below him with such force that it was destroyed, causing another explosion that destroyed the construct and barely even reached him other than a shockwave that pushed him further in the air.

Where he was caught by 5,000 Reinforced Animated Shears that Sandra had brought in from her Net above the wastelands and through her Roc tunnel.  They hit him with the force of acceleration from almost a mile of straight tunnel, slamming into him all within a second of each other.  Individually, they probably wouldn’t have done much to the powerful Orc other than be an annoyance.  However, with his weakened state and use of pretty much all of his energy, after the first 200 or so hit him and bounced off his toughened and enhanced skin, the rest penetrated deep enough that his body practically disappeared under their onslaught.  When he hit the ground, half of them were destroyed from the impact, but they were also pushed in deeper.

Sandra only stopped the other 10,000 Shears she had brought inside when she felt the Mana from his death infuse her Core, and she was surprised at how much it was; it was enough to fill up her entire maximum Mana at least 6 times, which was nearly unbelievable.  It only made her want more.

The bloodlust that had infused her entire Core faded slightly at the death of the Warlord, but it was so infused in her mind that she couldn’t think of anything else but sending her constructs towards the other Cores and destroying them all, taking their Monster Seeds and the shards of their destroyed Cores to make her stronger.  Expanding from there, she wanted revenge for the loss of one of her mercenaries, and the deaths of so many barely slaked her thirst for vengeance; it wasn’t just the Orcs that had participated in her slaughter, but the Elves as well.  For all she knew the Dwarves and Gnomes were responsible somehow, and if they were, she would find out eventually.

She ignored all of the voices reaching out to her and calling her name, intent on the only thing that made sense to her.  She needed to protect what was hers – be it her dungeon, her Area of Influence, or her Bonded people – and the only way to do that was to take the fight directly to them and end them once and for all.

It was the only way to see through the darkness that had shadowed her view of the world, and she would do almost anything to get there.  Let’s see if they like it when I come barging in their back door…

 

*         *         *

 

Winxa fluttered around Sandra’s Home room, frantically trying to reach out to the Core but failing to get a response.  Ever since the Orcish “mercenary” Sandra had employed was killed, the Dungeon Fairy couldn’t get through to her.  This wasn’t the first time that Winxa hadn’t been able to coax a Core back from the edge, and memories of her experience of Wester flashed through her mind.

He had been such a joy to work with at first, because he seemed so curious and exploratory rather than instantly murderous like most of the other Cores she had worked with.  He reveled in the creation of his dungeon, the development of his Dungeon Monsters, and the cultivation of his Advancements over time.  Sure, he expanded his AOI and attacked natural creatures and all of the Orcs, Dwarves, Elves, and Gnomes that culled his small