BXBX NOVEL Chapter 168
“Is that even fair, that monster’s clearly upper C-rank.” Gobuske had nothing that could compete with such a monster, even grouping all his D-ranks together might prove ineffective.
“Father’s not mentioned anything so I guess it’s fine, besides if I didn’t have Findlay this battle would clearly be advantageous to you given your specialties.” Frost responded with a shrug. True he did have an over powered monster known as Findlay but he himself couldn’t take part in the battles which was where his skills truly lay. Gobuske’s abilities however focused on his monsters not him, clearly advantageous in the current contest.
Gobuske’s lips twitched unable to refute Frost’s logic. He sighed before ending the communication, he’d just have to either stop Findlay with numbers or focus on reaching Frost’s core first.
With first blood drawn on either side, the battle started to pick up the pace with each groups offensive teams quickly traversing each other’s dungeons. Frost utilised his ambushes strategies several times, this time however increasing the numbers of ambushers. This bore good results, but the offensive team seemed never ending and his own losses weren’t anything to sneeze at.
His prized frost goblins even with their new weapons were no match one on one against Gobuske’s. It was really frustrating to say the least, he held great pride in his frost goblins yet before Gobuske he was but an amateur.
Gobuske’s goblins worked like a well trained army, even without the oversight of the hob goblin commanders. They were always on guard, kept formation and reacted very quickly, plus after the first couple ambushes they became more alert to such strikes. This did however force the invading force to slow down, taking more time to inspect the snow beneath their feet. Thus overall, it could be considered a success.
Another benefit that was seen was the effect of the near freezing temperature. Although it had no bearing on Frost’s monsters it certainly did on Gobuske’s. Regular goblin archetypes didn’t have resistance to the cold as they usually live in warm or tepid climates. Even with the goblin mages utilising lifestyle magic, they couldn’t cover the entire offensive team plus as time went on the more the cold effected them. The low level G-rank goblins were especially prone to the effects of the weather. Their reactions and body strength weakened as time went on, benefitting Frost’s defensive army.
This situation would likely only get worse as time went on, Frost’s entire dungeon was focused on the cold and although the castle ruins environment was a little warmer it still carried a significant chill. This situation caused many of the onlooking dungeon cores to ponder. When they have wars amongst one another in future they’d have to take environments into consideration. Some extreme examples would be the water based dungeon cores such as Aqua. The majority of her dungeon was actually underwater given its location, monsters, and usual clientele (the oceanic kingdom races). Fighting a war against her would be impossible for most other cores even if she wasn’t the eldest sister and 2nd on the leader boards.
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There was magic and devices that could allow underwater breathing but supplying that to monsters would like be like a drop in a lake, endless as well as really expensive. She would also likely have some trouble in attacking, given that her monsters would require water to breath. It was something Dark would probably have to look into for the future. However, for now there were a few other dungeon based underwater that she could war with.
Pyro’s dungeon was similar to Frost’s though his was high on the temperature scale. He was even based within a giant volcano, far too hot for the regular groups of monsters. Yami’s on the other hand though pretty much any monster could enter and fight, unless they were aligned with darkness would feel their bodies being sucked of their strength as they traversed the dungeon. Though adventurers in the area usually had techniques to allow safe(ish) exploration of such deadly climates the same couldn’t be said of monsters.
Luckily since Gobuske’s environments were rather tepid in climate, Frost’s monsters didn’t suffer from any negative effects. A bonus that helped to combat his number disadvantage and overall weakness amongst the lower ranked monsters.
In Gobuske’s first section, Findlay continued to lead his forces deeper into the forest, occasionally hunting down enemy goblins that attacked from behind the trees or even sometimes from above them. Defence wise Gobuske’s forces were weaker than Frost’s, taking a lot less effort to deal with and with a lot less casualties. Findlay although he brought a large amount of frost goblins with him, he also brought the frost wolves and frost dwarves. His scouting/clearing parties always contained at least one E-rank monster making their losses quite low.
The gyrfalcons were quickly scouting the room, being more careful given the ambush from earlier yet still they mapped out the forest far quicker than the ground forces. So well in fact that Gobuske lamented the fact that he didn’t have access to any flying monsters, a severe limitation.
Frost, Nanna, and Loki were still seated in the private space with snack and drinks by their sides, courtesy of Maya. They were keeping an eye on the progress of both Gobuske’s invading force and their own invading force.
“Gobuske’s forces are quite well maintained and are slowly pushing us back to the second section but it’s all within manageable levels. Nanna pull back some of the ambushers, start retreating to the winter forest, Loki you do the same.” Frost gave his orders to the two phoenix kin who replied with enthusiasm.
“Yes master,” they nodded before ordering their teams to slowly pull back. The real battle would take place in the second section where the defences were incredibly built up and most of the monsters currently resided. And unlike Frost, Gobuske’s forces would have to slowly march through the room without any overhead support. Many times, the gyrfalcons or snow owls spotted ambushes in advance, alerting Findlay and his team.
“Master the gyrfalcons have discovered the entrance to the next room.” Loki’s reported the situation once he noticed the change in the map. Around 70% of the first section had been mapped out and towards the upper right the gyrfalcons had discovered the entrance to the next room.
“Perfect, looks like we were faster, Findlay the gyrfalcons have found the next room. It’s at the top right, have the gyrfalcons lead you.” Frost smiled with triumph, he rubbed Loki’s head in praise before alerting Findlay.
“Understood master,” Findlay replied and obeyed, leading his forces in the direction stated, he could roughly see some gyrfalcons on their way back. Though there was still some of the room to investigate, the gyrfalcons would be joining them in the next room to perform aerial scouting.
“Move out!” Findlay ordered his forces with a booming voice, he summoned back all the scouting forces and they regrouped just outside the entrance to the next room with still 90% of their numbers intact. Though Gobuske’s invading force wasn’t too far behind, their superior numbers gave them an edge, but Frost, Nanna and Loki had successfully cut their numbers down to perhaps 85%, likely 80 when they finally reach the next room.
Overall, it looked like Frost was in the lead, his invading force was a little stronger due to Findlay and the aerial corps, their defences were about equal, in the first room anyway.
Findlay along with his large entourage entered the second room with him at the forefront, ready to take on whatever lay next. His strength was so high that there was very little that could harm as of yet. The first room contained mainly G and F-rank goblins along with an occasional hobgoblin dotted around. Their weapons could barely even pierce his skin it was so tough, and he couldn’t help but feel cocky but kept his wits about him, his creator was watching after all.
In terms of traps, though a fair few were present in Gobuske’s forest room, they were either poorly hidden or non-lethal and only managed to hurt a couple goblins who got careless. Others were pulled up by their feet in some sort of snare trap but given that they weren’t alone, they were quickly cut down.
On Frost’s side however, the traps were quite a bit more effective. Being hidden under the snow, quite a few goblins were lost to the spiked pitfalls or had their legs clamped by the bear traps. A few ambushers even set up around the frost mines, choosing to attack the moment it was activated. Overall, they successfully delayed and even thinned out a few of Gobuske’s forces.
It took around 40 minutes for Findlay to reach the second room, and the moment he saw what was in front he frowned, as did Frost once he was informed. It was a cave environment, dark, humid, and full of twists and turns. Not a problem for most of his forces but it was for his aerial assault team and Findlay who was a bit too large to be able to fight well. Even the tallest goblins, the hob goblin commanders were under 2 metres after all. No need for the caves to be 5 metres high. Of course, there’d likely be open caverns deeper in that would allow him to stand up straight but for the majority it looked as though Findlay would have to crouch. He was more than a little annoyed but this.