Dungeon Novel: Chapter Twenty Eight (Patreon)

Unbound didn’t know what to do with that knowledge, it would be unlikely for Beda to care with her own personality but the other three, who were currently in their own rooms, would likely wish to warn the kingdoms.

Unbound would probably try to warn them as well if he were still a lumberjack, but now as a Dungeon core, he did not care as much. The kingdoms had a habit of enslaving Dungeon cores and using them as resource farms, but they also provided a large number of concentrated resources for him in the form of their citizens.

As a Dungeon he needed to gather enough Shop points to help him grow and gather the necessary skills for his life, without them he would likely go insane as the immense amounts of time passed. Without the shop, many Dungeons would die long before managing to grow properly.

Unbound put that to the side, for now, making sure to keep an eye out for any of the stronger variants of Heroic variant Undead. If he could strengthen them in his Dungeon, they would be a serious benefit to any Undead themed floor he created.

He turned his attention back to the nine necromancers and ninety-seven skeletons walking through the third floor, Unbound couldn’t help but feel impressed. As they encountered a trap or defender, and it took some of their numbers before they adapted their tactics to fight more effectively.

After their first encounters with the elementals where they tried their usual overwhelming tactics did, they change to send only two or three skeletons to attract the elemental’s attention whilst the necromancers blasted the elemental with spells.

The earth and wind elementals fell alongside the animals, Unbound’s attempts to strengthen the animals had yet to bear fruit, and they fell with less of a struggle upon the invader's part. They were about to cross the river with only eighty-nine of the skeletons left. Most of them having fallen to having their skulls shattered underneath the stony fists of earthen elementals.

Like Beda they had gone round the left and had reached the ruined bridge that Unbound had created, it stretched across the river with segments missing and made of creaking, rotten wood. Despite this, the bridge was the best way to cross the river with an exceptionally strong current and they would otherwise be swept away quite easily.

The squad of Undead slowly went across the bridge, jumping the gap in the middle, a few at a time to prevent the bridge from crumbling beneath them. They inched across a few at a time and continued to move towards the left along the edge, moving closer and closer to the third-floor boss.

The Undead and their necromantic controllers eventually reached the open cavern that led down into the forest cave that held the boss. They only lost one more skeleton to an assault by a wind elemental that scattered the bones that made up the skeleton’s body.

That defender was destroyed by a focused blast of various magics as the necromancers worked together to break the threat.

They entered the cave very cautiously, sending a group of three Undead at once to check for and trigger any traps that impeded the group's path. After the skeletons walked in and returned to the main group one of the necromancers gathered their own Undead and proceeded into the cavern.

The rest of the group, making sure to not group up with more than one necromancer, and they all arranged themselves in the massive hall that made up the boss chamber. With the dim light and the great pillars of stone obscuring large parts of the room all of the shadows would play tricks on anyone who looked for a foe.

As they looked around for their invisible foe a large stony arm punched out, shattering the skull of a skeleton and a necromancer. The death of the necromancer loosed eight other skeletons to become rogue Undead and with the others temporarily taken aback at the death of their comrade they were unable to react as the skeletons attacked everything around them.

Two of the controlled Undead were decapitated by the rogue Undead as another necromancer was disemboweled by the rogues. The boss struck again in the confusion, a pillar of stone erupting beneath another necromancer and forcing their spine out the top of their head.

The remaining six necromancers ordered their own Undead to assault the boss even as they reasserted their control over the rogue eight. The bunched-up Undead was extremely easy for the boss to dispatch in large numbers and it killed twenty-one of them before the necromancers change tactics.

Sixty-four skeletons dodged the heavy blows of the boss as they lashed out with their own swords and maces, the steel weaponry clanging against the tough stone of the boss elemental. The swords left white lines on the stone and the heavier maces and hammers left small cracks in the stone as they attacked.

The necromancers joined in with their spells as they splashed the magic against the earthen form of the boss. Spells to weaken the stone and buff the strength of their own forces even as the boss shattered twelve more skeletal bodies.

As the boss’s form was eventually brought down to the relentless blows of the Undead and necromancers it had taken out one more necromancer and five more skeletons, leaving only five necromancers remaining with fifty-two Undead arranged around them.

Unbound was full of joy at the sight, his third boss was as strong as could be expected, and whilst he didn’t have a fourth-floor boss it was likely the invaders would all die long before they reached the final Void elemental defender.

Even as the Dungeon’s spirit watched on the group of necromancers descended to the fourth and final floor of the Legendary Void Dungeon.