Chapter 52 - Finishing the Beast

Chapter 52

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

Dungeon Factory, Command Center.

The manticore roared as it threw aside an entire squad of resurrected golems, before pouncing on the constructs, tearing them apart and reducing them to scrap, clearly realizing that nothing short of catastrophic damage was going to stop them. Then, it froze as a rumble filled the air.

Alexandra smiled.

"Oh you are so right to be afraid." She said, and a split second later the rubble blocking the entrance shook.

Suddenly the remains of the pillars erupted, throwing rocks everywhere, causing most golems to duck, and the manticore to take a step back.

And slowly, with the ponderous slams of it's armored legs punctuating it's progress, a spider tank emerged from the entrance. Then another. And another.

1ST ARMORED FORMATION: ENGAGING ENEMY.

The golems on top of the tanks took a second to line up their shot, and pressed the trigger simultaneously, and Alexandra's eyes went wide as the manticore dissolved into a blurr as it moved faster than most humans could have seen.

It didn't manage to dodge all the bolts, of course, but one of them missed entirely, another pinged off of it's hide, and only the third one penetrate, burying itself into it's shoulder, elicting a roar of pain from the beleaguered beast. Given the fact that the damned thing was the size of an orbital shuttle that was one hell of an achievement.

The manticore rallied, and faced the spider tanks, clearly recognizing the spider tanks as the greater threat, absent mindedly swiping away the undying golems with it's tail as it sized up it's opponents....And, true to form, charged them head on.

And Alexandra smiled as she gave the signal, and sprang her trap.

The spider tanks immediately flattened themselves to the ground, letting their bodies drop as they spread out their armored legs, the golems following suit ontop of the war machines, and the manticore slowed down in confusion, having learned that when something unexpected happened with the golems, it was bad news for it.

It was right. It was also far, far too late for the beast's caution to make a difference.

With a twang, the dozen or so scorpios she had ordered her golems to install behind the spider tanks, under the cover of the dust cloud thrown up by their...energetic exit, opened fire. The manticore, recognizing the sound, began dodging, even faster than earlier...But there were simply too many bolts, and thanks to the data from the spider tank they didn't need to see it to aim at it.

The manticore roared in agony, and collapsed to the ground, snapping it's jaws at the 4 bolts implanted into it's side and shoulders, before getting back up, bleeding profusely, it's eyes filled with pain fueled madness. Then, it flattened itself, and Alexandra sent the signal for the golems to disperse.

Unfortunately, most of them were too slow, as the spray of magically enhanced acid flew down the entrance, taking out most of the scorpio teams as well as their weapons, and coating two of the spider tanks. The afflicted tanks charged forwards, trying to inflict what damage they could before failing, but the acid seeped into their joints, and they quickly failed, coming apart and simply falling on the ground, continuing to transmit as much data as they could before winking out as the acid finally ate it's way through their armor and hull.

The manticore rounded on the last tank, who was now backed up by the last undying golems -less CQ, who Alexandra had simply ordered to retreat-, and started limping towards it, clearly being to seriously injured to charge. And the spider tank backed up slowly, with it's guards in front of them, it's gunners firing as fast as they could. Unfortunately they no longer had the projectile density to actually score a hit on the beast, who seemed to consider that worsening its current wounds was worth avoiding the bolts. Finally, it backed the tank and the remaining golems into the entrance, pouncing forward as it started engaging the last few constructs between it and its tormentor.

Golems fell left and right, no longer having the numbers to hold the beast off. But they didn't have to.

Alexandra turned the head of the golem she had been half possessing the entire time, one of the remnants of her original vanguard of martial golems, and nodded.

"Now would be good, captain."

Calder smiled.

"Very well. Lieutenant! Fire at will!"

The lieutenant nodded and gestured to the gun captains, who nearly simultaneously tugged on their laniards at the same time, unleashing the Alberta's fearsome broadside.

Quickly followed by the broadside of the half dozen ships accompanying it.

The manticore had a split second to realize what was happening, and tried to dodge, to avoid the attack like it had so effectively against the Sakura in the opening stages of the fight, but it was hemmed in, the pillars closest to the entrance having been left intact, effectively trapping it. The beast collided against them, breaking through....but it took it a fraction of a second.

A fraction that it didn't have.

The manticore simply exploded as no less than 100 ballista bolts and 60 cannonballs hit it simultaneously, reducing it instantly to an unpleasant stain and scattered pieces of meat, and Alexandra smiled nastily. First rule of warfare: never, ever lose sight of the bigger picture, and the wider battlefield around you.

Alexandra sighed slightly as the pressure on her influence relented, and she finally gained access to her entrance again, losing no time in absorbing the remains of the manticore. She then turned her golem towards the orc.

"Well captain, looks like this little gambit paid off. I thank you for your assistance." She said as she bowed slightly.

Calder waved off her thanks.

"It's nothing. I was hired to protect this expedition, killing this beast was part of my job. I'm just glad those hot heads on the surface had a rush of common sense."

Alexandra nodded as the memories of the...Somewhat tense discussions on the adventurer side came back to her. Handling the deployment of her troops, talking to Emilia and trying to convince a bunch of jumpy adventurers that she was here to help had been...Interesting. Fortunately before anyone could do anything stupid, a ridiculous looking orc wearing a top hat and a monocle of all things had parted the crowd, apparently on his way back to his ship, and had taken one of her golems with him. The discussion had been terse, if only because Alexandra was far too busy for anything else, even her enhanced capabilities pushed to the limit with the amount of coordination and on the fly reprogramming she had to contend with. Fortunately Calder had manifestly been military at some point, and a brief summary had been all he needed to get what she wanted him to do. No doubt reasoning that even if her plan to try to pin down the manticore didn't work he could shoot at the beast regardless, and that hacking off the dungeon his bosses were dependant on was a bad idea, he'd readily accepted to help her, and had used his seemingly significant status and seniority to rope the most heavily armed ships into an impromptu squadron to help in the stratagem. Which had worked surprisingly well all things considered.

"Well, at least the situation appears to be resolved now." She looked over the ship's railing, leaning on it and looking nostalgically at the tiny persons scurrying under her. She missed flying. Seeing the lights of Europe as she rose through the atmosphere in a shuttle had been a sight she always tried to etch into her memory when going into a deep space deployment, knowing that she wouldn't see her home for months, or even years. "There are groups of soldiers coming back from the other camp, and the worst of the fighting appears to have died down."

Calder nodded, looking at the small knot of figures making it's way through the milling adventurers.

"That indeed seems to be the case. I will still conduct a sweep just to be sure."

Alexandra shrugged.

"Knock yourself out. If you need me, shake the golem. Right now I need to assess the damage."

"Of course."

Alexandra jumped out of the golem, reintegrating her avatar with a small sigh of relief -if nothing else, it was much more comfortable to inhabit than her constructs-, before freezing as she heard Emilia clear her throat, and turned towards her advisor, who was slowly tapping her foot on the floor.

"Alex. Would you care to explain what just happened?" Said Emilia in a light, and way, way too sweet tone.

Oh shit, was all that Alexandra could think.

"W-Well, I can explain!"

"Oh I certainly hope so!"

*****

Allya dropped on her chair in her office, and sighed, deeply, looking at the rather large crowd she had gathered here, which was her whole council, as well as Calder and Starvak.

"So, to summarize. The caravan lost around 1 out of 5 of it's people, around 50 persons all told. We lost around 30 adventurers as well in the fighting there, and around 10% of those are gone, permanently, either because they got devoured or the healers got to them too late because they were buried under rubble. And the only reason why our camp wasn't turned into a charnel pit, complete with crashed ships, is because the dungeon decided to net itself a giant monster for whatever reason, or took pity on us, as we had sent all of our forces to deal with the caravan issues."

Anders licked his lips.

"I wouldn't quite phrase it this way, but essentially, yes milady."

Allya looked at him, and sighed.

"Don't look so distraught captain. You were only following orders. I'm the one that fucked up here."

"If I may, you most definitely did not." Everyone looked at Willard, who shrugged. "Believe me lady Allya, my family has experienced it's fair share of wasteland monster attacks, you could even say it's something of a specialty of ours. And you did everything right, with the resources you had available. You simply couldn't plan for a monster like a manticore violating all of it's normal hunting patterns to pounce on such an attack, and be smart enough to circumvent the caravan."

"Right. Speaking of which, does anyone knows why this thing did that?"

Everyone shook their head, except for Starvak.

"I have some experience with beasts, and I might have a theory milady."

Allya rose an eyebrow, and Starvak smiled.

"The dungeon."

The baroness sighed audibly.

"The mana, you mean."

"In short, yes. The huge problem with conquering a mana oasis is that those monsters use them to feed on the liquid mana. Dungeons are much the same, although they usually don't so soon. However, the dungeon we have here seems to be growing particularly quickly, and producing mana at a nearly unprecedented rate, which probably explained how a monster of this power was attracted here in the first place. It was probably waiting on the outskirts, praying on the lesser monsters trying to attack us, and basking in the ambient mana."

"That...Sounds very plausible. Still, without Crystal's timely intervention, and captain Calder's initiative." She nodded at the orc, who simply nodded back. "It would have turned out much, much worse." She rubbed her eyes. "Captain Anders, I want you to start recruiting large monster hunters. Not necessarily many, a single party should do. And look into getting us some artillery, anti air, hybrid if possible."

"Yes milady!"

"As for you Pyn, I want you to erect some fortified watchtowers as soon as the essential buildings are down and we have enough housing for everyone. Put them on the mesas, where we planned the fortified towers. They'll serve as a haven for our archers and crossbowmen to harass whatever tries to attack us, hopefully before they engage a ship and we risk harming out friends more than the enemy. And lastly....Lastly, I want you to clear your schedule tomorrow." She looked around. "Under the circumstances, I think personally coming to thank our deliverer is the least I could do. If you would be so kind as to warn Crystal that we would like an audience tomorrow afternoon, guildmaster Starvak?"

"It would be my pleasure."

"Excellent! Then dismissed, we all have more productive things to do than sit around and talk."