(Clone Warrior) Chapter 43: Contemplation

It was a disaster; the landing site of the dungeon was obliterated. The district that had the misfortune of being targeted, simply gone. Not a single stone of the buildings remained, the red light or just the sheer impact strength of the dungeon disintegrated everything into dust.

The land had buckled, forming a lip like hill around the impact site. It was a vantage point that gave prime view to the crater that had formed below. The dungeon was easy to spot by following a deep crag that it had made. The dungeon was blazing with lava and malignant light, sporadically lighting up the pot marked surface, no doubt from the bombardment it had received prior to landing. It was the size of a two-story building, easily standing out among the barren surface.

From its side, tendrils of red created monsters from the bone up. It was a variety, from prey to predators, from little snakes to big yaks. It was as if it didn’t really have any idea on what it was doing or what monster it liked, generally spewing out everything on a whim. Perhaps this was the temperament of newly made dungeons.

Older dungeons, like the one that had made the black grass plains, had a distinctive type of monsters that they preferred to produce. They also had permanent effects on their environment, transforming their resting place to fit their needs.

Currently the seven clones were crouching on the lip of the crater, and they were marvelling at the mages that were in a heated battle with the aerial enemies. While the mages, especially those from the colleges, had superior firepower, they couldn’t advance further towards the dungeon. The monsters were too many, and the dungeon kept producing more monsters than they could kill.

Sooner the mages would tire, may it be because of their magic bullshit running out or regular old exhaustion from battle. Even from the clones' inexperienced eyes, they could spot the slowness of the mages raising a head, the brief instant in which they didn’t react, the gradual lowering altitude with their flying magic. It was not a fatal disadvantage, but if this progresses further, their fate will be gruesome if they refuse to flee.

The reinforcements weren’t going to come, they had confirmed it. They were being boggled down by enemies coming from the walls, and any advance they took came with a heavy price in both men and equipment. The army was also too cumbersome, they had to clear out every block, every house and every alleyway to advance even a district. If they did not, they would be slowly picked off, and by the time they reached the dungeon, they would be more a liability than assistance.

It was a grim situation, but Alex and his clones knew one thing about grim situations, is that there is always a path out of it. It just took sacrifice.

Alex feared one thing and that was the possibility of his mom getting hurt. Yes, Father Orkon was blessed by Mercy, he wasn’t an all-powerful god. If the monsters had their way, they would encircle the forces inside the city, slaughtering them from within and without. And even the shields erected around the church do not have the ability to resist a horde of monsters, lest it not be said that the people that inhabit the church are just meat sacks to the power of the monsters.

He would rather die than let that future come true, and with the dungeon in the clones’ sight, that future was dimmer and dimmer. The clones had a long distance to travel to reach the dungeon and the path was ridden with monsters ferrying out of the crater to destroy Mercy’s children.

They notice gaps in the spawning system, where the dungeon spent a bit of its capacity to spew out a few more aerial monsters to fight the mages. For that duration, the crater was empty of all monsters and they weren’t going to be spawning new ones. That still wasn’t good, the time was too short, they would barely reach halfway to the dungeon before the dungeon resumed its normal activities.

What they needed was a distraction that would give them the time to reach the dungeon and hit it until it stops working.

“One of us should act as a distraction.”

It was the only choice, bar using an actual human being as a distraction. There was the other option, which was to coordinate with the mages. Yet the clones had a distinct feeling that they wouldn’t listen or they would be too weakened to help.

They were alone, to do what must be done to stay alive, like it always has been. Some would say the stakes would be bigger, with all the women and children in danger of being killed, yet Alex knew that the stakes were the same every time. His mother was in danger, again, and he needed to find a way to keep her alive. The other people were just a little sparkling on top, an unintended consequence.

Heroism exists only in stories. He was proof, a thousand other people were proof. If heroes truly existed, they wouldn’t have let an empire such as this one, which makes everything so fucking difficult for those less fortunate, continue to exist. It truly highlighted a truth in Alex’s mind, that no one gave a shit about you other than your family and friends. They would rather take a dying man’s coin pouch than help him, he had seen such a thing happen in the streets already to a lesser extent. A drunken woman being abused, a child begging yet not a single soul gave a shit.

He would not be that kind of monster, he did help and give, but he would never do it if it risked him losing something.

It was a true irony then that he had destroyed a war hero’s statue.

The bait clone, one of the rookies, gave a solemn wave to the others. The duration had just started and the bait clone ran like a mad man towards the dungeon. The other clones just behind him, ready to split the moment the dungeon was busy with the clone.