As soon as the red dragon took off, Mark started the breeding process for the weevils. With 40 original units, Mark could make 2 sets of 40 that would be available in 2 and 10 minutes respectively. The goblin riders were already standing by, but started scrambling with whatever final preparations they needed to make. They would mount the weevil lings and fire spells or arrows in support. The original weevils would stay back to breed again. Mark’s intention was to keep all of the originals from entering the battle if possible, but more than likely it would come to the point where he would have to throw every asset they had to take Daniel’s dungeon.
Hopefully, their air forces would be able to complete the job this time around. Mark doubted the dragon would be so compliant as to swoop down nice and close for the ballista platforms setting up on the plateau ridges. At least not until it dealt with all of the enemies in the air. As far as tactics in bringing the big guy down, there had been a few modifications.
The bat goblins once again formed a loose clump thousands of feet into the air for the dragon to target, and the dragon made right for it without delay. The dragon quickly surpassed the bat goblins' altitude, before it entered a dive right for them. The bat goblins undeterred aimed their nocked arrows.
Moments later the dragon’s eyes snapped shut and its head bucked back involuntarily breaking its aerodynamic dive as nearly a thousand lights flared up as bright as the a thousand mini suns right in front of its face. The dragon reaction actually caused it to tumble through the air for several full rotations causing it to actually fall short and below of the bat goblin’s position. The bat goblins were already nocking a second arrow.
The dragon recovered, choosing to perform to put on g’s while it pulled back up toward the goblins, but at near the same point a wave of arrows hit its position. Hopefully a good number successfully made contact somewhere along the dragon’s body. These arrows were not the duplicating type, instead Mark counted on having a large number of archers firing for multiple hits. Instead the arrows had two other enchantments. Obviously, they still needed piercing to allow them even penetrate the dragon’s touch scale hide. The second enchantment was weight.
Destroying the dragon’s wings had not been very effective in their last bout. The webbing was by itself incredibly tough and even a standard hit would only punch a little hole through the webbing. The flame enchantment had not added much, so Mark had decided on another tactic, increasing the dragon’s weight. Each arrow would increase its weight ten fold coming out to about a pound in total.
Mark knew how crazy of an idea it was, increasing the dragon by a handful of pounds with every pass, but it was the only feasible idea he could come up with. Even airplanes had weight limits that their engines could support, and beasts were no different. Even birds have hollow bones and would evacuate their bowels to lighten their load. It should be the same for the dragon despite the fact that it was the size of a barn.
Still the weight was only one side of it. Otherwise they would never get anywhere, since their dungeon’s air forces would never survive long enough to hit the dragon enough when the dragon looked to be big enough to fly off with a pair of cows. In addition to adding weight every arrowhead had been quenched in undead eye core adding a necrotic element. Then further the arrow heads were coated in a paralytic poison. In effect every hit would increase its weight, increasing the power required to fly, while breaking down and paralyzing its muscles.
They would still take hundreds or perhaps thousands of hits to bring the dragon down entirely, but well before that point the dragon’s speed would lessen, allowing for even more arrows to land on the next volley. Like slowly raising the water’s temperature so that a frog would not jump out, hopefully the effects would also creep up on the dragon. Where the dragon did not realize that something was wrong until it was too late for it to escape.
On the second pass, the goblins staggered the flare arrows to avoid the dragon being able to adapt. Regardless it had far less effect. The dragon successfully was able to reorient on target after target. On only the second pass the dogfight started. The bat goblins were still maneuvering to try and not catch the dragon’s focus, but they were staying in the relative area, keeping the dragon corkscrewing around their position, while it frantically maneuvered to chase down the closest goblin before reorienting on the next.
Flare arrows streaked in front and at the dragon’s face quite frequently as goblins in the wrong sector of air elected to try to temporarily blind the dragon so it did not focus on them. The goblins in an advantageous position shot the actual payload. In theory, the plan was working as expected. The dragon was enthusiastically chasing down the bat goblins, while hopefully a lot of the weight enchanted arrows were landing and remaining embedded. In reality it just looked like the dragon was killing his tier 2 flyers one by one with nothing to show for thier effort.
After a few minutes the first wave of weevils with their goblin riders joined the fray. The green goblin archers shot the same weight enchanted arrows, while their weevil mounts shot bolts of lightning. The original weevils had been evolved using electric essence and had a powerful electric attack. The weevilings had a miniature version of the same, but for all Mark knew it was the equivalent of harsh static shock to the giant beast. Hopefully it was at least doing something., because the weevils were far less maneuverable and quickly became the dragon’s favorite targets. Despite being spread out, they would not last very long. In a matter of minutes the dragon was back to chasing down bat goblins until the next wave of weevils made it to the scene.
Mark's attention soon focused on the other battlefronts. The spiderlings had made it to the dungeon proper. They scrambled past a line of treants that swung tree trunk sized clubs back and forth. Several more lines of other tree units then intercepted the flow. Most of the spiderlings forced their way through headed for the primates and beasts behind. White energy blasts and primate spells lanced out culling more of their number before they all slammed into a melee.
However, the more interesting front was still being realized. Kong and the first primordial were leading groups of high tier beasts on a collision path with the ballista platforms on the two ridges. The strike force had first been noticed as they left the trees and helped themselves up onto the plateaus. A 30 foot gorilla was hard to miss after all.
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Kong was headed at their right flank and the first primordial on their left. Kong would be facing five ballista platforms and the black haze that was Lucien’s sphere of corruption. The first primordial dragon would only face the four ballista and the spider breeding zone. Unfortunately for the first primordial, a quarter wave of spiderlings had already been bred and were ready. The sunflower breeders were using their manna to breed another batch as soon as they could regenerate it, but their sunburst ability was still fair game and they were at full charge.
The first primordial took a full broadside of 20 sunbursts to its face and right shoulder. The beams faltered after only a few seconds, but the first primordial was still standing. The giant earth dragon had half of its face and right shoulder scored and charred with several spots even showing exposed bone. The earth dragon had straight up tanked the sunburst abilities. Something it could not duplicate with the following ballista bolts that were all aimed on the giant beast. The left flank was far from settled, however, the accompanying beasts swarmed right by their fallen leader to meet the onrushing spiderlings. Goblin arrows rained down on them all.
Things on the right flank however went awry nearly immediately. Kong sprinted ahead of his fellow beasts at a pace that only a 30 foot giant could accomplish. His lopping gait closed on the goblin forces far too quickly. The ballista fired in quick succession, but Kong would have none of it. He slammed his open palms together right in front of its body. The shockwave sent the ballista bolts headed his way and the wave of arrows coming down from a high arc tumbling away. Only one lone ballista bolt made it through, and only because it had followed a second after the others. It sailed right below the ape’s hands and into the giant ape’s lower gut.
Kong slammed back down on the ground, roaring in defiance. The gorilla only took a second to recover and start charging forward again. The goblins were working furiously to reload the ballista, and the ants underneath were marching to open more distance, but both efforts were far from enough.
Kong took a bunch of smaller arrows into its face and chest as it slammed its palm down smashing the platform and ants into splinters and goo. The goblins had jumped to escape but Kong's second palm swung in from the side like a giant fly swatter making sure everything to do with the first ballasta met the same end. Kong followed up on the second and third in rapid succession, despite the fact that Mark had spaced them hundreds of feet away from each other.
Then Kong took the first set of spells and curses. The champion was raked with multiple debuffs as it took a dozen magic lances and thunder strike spells to its head and main body. A couple witch doctors even performed the shrunken head spell. The two witch doctors on the ground were promptly caught and flattened. The bat goblin witch doctors on the other hand were working to put as much distance between themselves and the giant ape as possible.
Mark had laughed maniacally like an evil villain when he realized he could give the flying units the class. This was his special measure to deal with the ape champion. The curse would break if the witch doctor got separated by too much distance, but if a unit could take to the skies then it should never be caught. It would not work against the dragon since the dragon would easily run a bat goblin down, but Kong could not fly.
The tactic was only partially successful in that it grabbed the champion’s full attention. Kong, determined to show that there was nothing outside of his reach, slapped both palms on the ground and pulled up balls of earth the size of a wrecking ball. The process took a couple of seconds, but the projectiles had all the speed of meteors once thrown. They rocketed with deadly precision at their targets. One bat goblin was able to narrowly dodge. The second became a pancake against the rock that looked like it would fly for miles.
However the second bat goblin continued to open the distance between them, seemingly having forgotten the command to stay within a certain distance from its target. Fortunately, the witch doctor did not need to be aware, Kong was already bounding after it at full speed.
The champion had left the battle on its own accord. The accompanying beasts however were just now arriving at the scene, and the goblin forces were far from prepared, having focused their full attention on the ferocious ape. The goblins at the edge of the flank near the first few platforms were already falling back. The slower were quickly caught up in the oncoming stamped that included 4 earth dragons, a dozen garillons, and hundreds of others sweeping in from the side.
But a rallying point had already been forming near the last two ballista. The goblin heavy infantry formed a shield and spear wall behind a trench that opened in front of them thanks to dozens of earth shaper enchantments. Goblin archers and mages were already getting in position in the back ranks, and the black haze encompassed them all.
The ballista fired, claiming one of the earth dragons immediately. The other beasts rushed forward heedless of the goblin defenses. The beasts came right over the trench slamming into the goblins, however the momentum stopped there. Quite a few beasts were killed instantly as they were impaled by multiple spears. Others were held firmly in place, by the good quality spears that refused to break off easily. Beasts that did make it through the line soon found themselves engaged by the bugbear and gnarled wood goblin elite, who came out on top more often than due to being hemmed in by enemies on nearly all sides.
But Mark only had 500 legionnaires so the heavy infantry wall supported by green goblins holding additional spears was only a few hundred feet in length. Inevitably beasts started flowing around the right flank. The left flank was protected by a good 40 foot drop, so all of them headed around to the right. Hundreds of more green and horned goblins stood ready to guard the flank, but they were far less effective. The mages however targeted the area almost exclusively, preventing the beasts from sweeping right through. It would all fall apart however if the ape champion returned. Mark flipped the view, and saw that the ape was still headed in the wrong direction, but how long could the bat goblin evade the furious pursuit.
The answer was barely a half minute, before Kong was able to turn around. But the giant ape would find it did not have as much support as he expected when he returned. Two thirds of the legionnaires had died in the effort, but dozens of massive beast forms also lay unmoving. The other beasts trying to flank in from the right had fared poorly as well. Their charge momentum broken, they easily fell prey to the powerful enchanted arrows and spells. The only holdouts were the garillons, since they had metal plates covering most of their vitals. The rest might were falling quite quickly to the concentrated fire.
Kong came back on the scene roaring about a minute after he had left. The two remaining ballista waited till the giant ape was in close before they both fired. The bolts both caught the ape center mass, despite a late effort to swat them out of the air. Even the champion could not react fast enough when he was this close in. The goblins had waited as long as possible knowing they would only get one shot. Kong destroyed both ballista and hundreds of surrounding goblins as the rest scattered and continued to pepper him from the flanks.
Kong seemingly ignored them, looking around for a second before its gaze settled on the only viable threat left. The ape once again surged forward, on a collison course with Lucien. Where dozens of goblin grenadiers made their succession battle day view. The ape had only completed two of its lumbering bounds before meeting a chorus of explosions that seemingly encompassed its chest and head.
