NOVEL WEB Chapter 12 - Attack Begins
Dungeon Day 25
Surprising him, the shard did not send out beasts to harass the bear and eagle combo, so Dan had let the duos spend the rest of that day being annoying before recalling them through the same route they had taken. Even more surprising was the fact that the shard didn't send out beasts to follow his monsters.
Luckily, the tactic had worked, and the shard had recalled even more of its troops back to the dead tree. So, Dan decided to give it a last push before he finally decided to strike with full force.
Dan sent out the same duos, but this time around, he wanted them to do more than be annoying. Additionally, in case a fight breaks out, Dan sends two gorillas and four baboons to act as reserves some further away from the dead tree.
He was going to have the bears and eagles pretend to charge the tree but not actually commit. The main reason for doing this was to see how the enemy animals would react. If the enemy retaliated, the duos were to back out, and if they did chase, they would meet up with their gorilla and baboon reserves and skirmish their way out.
Dan had also wanted to send out two doe’s and stags, one for each team, but had been advised against it by George. The gorilla had pointed out that it was better to keep the fact they had healing capabilities out of the picture for as long as possible. That way, the enemy could be surprised by the sudden recovery of troops. And after hearing George out, Dan had agreed.
Back to the fake charging, he had sent Eagle and Hawk to watch so he could then also watch, and things were looking good.
Each bear and its eagle were taking turns charging while their counterparts on the other side rested. One bear would charge from the west, and the eastern eagle would do a sweep by. Then, they would reverse and keep going back and forth.
The first charges had been the best ones as they had really spooked the animals around the tree, and they had indeed prepared for combat. However, it was weird that the shard hadn’t sent out any of the animals to attack. His bears and eagles were outnumbered like five to one, at least currently, and if the shard wanted, it could probably take them out. Still, after the first few charges, things did calm down, and though the beasts were on guard, none of them really responded to the charges after a while, so Dan eventually pulled the animals back to the camp.
After pulling them back, Dan decided to wait two more days, as he increased harassment, before pushing in and finishing the job.
Dungeon Day 26
The following day, Dan sent out the bears and eagles again, along with a panther and the gorilla and baboon reserves for each of the teams. Additionally, it was time to spook the shard even more and hopefully get it to attack.
Looking at the enemy base through Eagle’s eyes, Dan saw that pretty much all of the animals were back. In total, he counted around 70, which was 20 more than the last time he did a count. Seeing the increase in number, Dan decided to wait for a bit before starting the troop harassment. He wanted to see if the enemy had patrols going and if any more beasts arrived in the following hours. Not that he was worried; Dan matched the shard in terms of numbers and definitely outmatched it in power with the many abilities his monsters had. However, it was better to be safe than sorry.
Watching the tree didn’t give him more information, and it looked like the shard only had 70 monsters. There was a small chance it had some animals still out, but if the number didn’t increase again after tonight, then Dan was confident that was the shards maximum.
Harassment began like the previous day, with the bears and eagles doing their things. The harassment started around midday due to Dan’s watching session, but it would leave more than enough time for what Dan wanted to accomplish.
After letting the bears and eagles charge for an hour or so, Dan gave the go-ahead for Kinetic and Eagle to do their thing. Dan hated exposing two of his mini-bosses, but he needed to find where the shard was hiding. The whole operation was for naught if it wasn’t even in the tree. As such, he wanted Kinetic and Eagle to rush in there and run around for a bit while he looked through their eyes and sensed for the stupid shard.
Running was fun. Dan felt the electricity rush through Kinetic’s body as he also tapped into his earth affinity and moved into the camp before the lookouts could even raise the alarm. Running through the enemy camp while jumping on heads and bodies and dodging some swipes, Kinetic and Dan didn’t spot the shard anywhere on the ground area. There was no secret cave or hidden holes, not even in the giant rock. Honestly, Dan expected the shard to be in the base of the tree trunk or in the rock.
Switching from Kinetic to Eagle, Dan saw the enemy camp rushing towards him as the hawk dove down while everything was paying attention to the cheetah. Dan nudged the hawk to search the tree thoroughly. Luckily, that gave some results as Dan saw just a hint of blue through a small hole midway down the tree. Not long after seeing that, Dan felt as Eagle's mind got assaulted by what had to be the shard. Thankfully, his monsters had that mental resistance ability, and the hawk quickly shrugged off the influence. However, with that confirmation, Dan was finally ready to finish the war and nudged Kinetic and Eagle to back out.
Both mini-bosses were out of the enemy camp just as fast as they had arrived, and some of the beasts even chased them, but not being able to keep up, they quickly gave up. Heck, not wanting the riled-up beast to switch targets, Dan decided to pull everyone back in preparation for the next day when he was finally going to absorb his first shard.
Dungeon Day 27
Dan left the cave. His thoughts were that he didn't want anyone or anything to find the cave to the actual world and possibly escape. So, he decided to seal off the cave and leave with his entire entourage towards the tree. However, he wouldn't be stupid and just march his whole army there.
The plan was to split his forces into five teams while he kept the bosses. Each team would consist of a bear, gorilla, stag, doe, eagle, jaguar, and two baboons. Each team would approach the dead tree from different directions, and when they were all ready to go, Dan would send his bosses in. Initially, he was worried about leaving the cave but figured he was the safest with his monsters, and by participating in the fight, he could absorb the shard faster.
So, around noon, his five teams were approaching the dead tree from each cardinal direction, with another one coming from the northeast opposite where Dan was approaching. The teams began a slow encroachment into the lands of the shard. They didn’t all go at once, and it was mainly the eagles and bears showing themselves, getting the attention of the beasts at the tree.
As the attention was focused on the bears and eagles, the rest of the teams slowly approached. Dan did have one final addition to each team, giving each a cheetah or panther, with the furthest teams from his position gaining an additional jaguar as well. The big cats would be used as skirmishers or placed back to ensure no beasts snuck out of the dead tree.
In terms of bosses, well, Hawk, Eagle, and the last two hawks were on high air patrol, making sure no birds escaped if they got past the five eagles. Then, Ingot and George were the battering ram that would fully breach a path into the shard and even bring down the tree. Xinos was going to be Dan’s hidden guard. The jaguar would follow behind Dan and make sure no beast got past Fur, who would escort Dan along with Fir.
Finally, with everything planned, Dan nudged all his monsters to begin the fight.
It began with the five teams approaching the dead tree. The eagles were the first to arrive and engaged in combat with the weaker flying beasts. The eagles outmatched crows or any other non-apex predator except for the large raven, who began harassing them. The damn raven even took one of his eagles down before Dan told Eagle to deal with the dam thing and the hawk dove from her high vantage point.
After the eagles had engaged, the bears arrived almost simultaneously at an already panicked site. Two bears used their Earth Entomb ability from a semi-safe distance, causing two walls to appear out of the ground and crunch the trees and vines, giving them an easy way into the enemy fort. Meanwhile, the other three bears used their Earth Slams on laying tree trunks and forced their way in.
George devised that strategy to force the enemy beasts to prioritize the three slamming bears and ease up on one side. This would then let the two entomb teams enter much more easily into the enemy site. And sure enough, it worked.
Dan knew the shard had decent mental abilities, but it could only deal with so many situations at once. And, of course, it had chosen the closest targets, which were the slamming bears.
The shard had around ten normal bears, five elks, five moose, 15 wolves, 15 crows, and the one raven with an additional giant snake. The rest of the beasts were smaller flying birds, foxes, bunnies, boars, etc. So, when the attack hit, the shard left one bear for each of the entombing teams, along with an elk and three wolves. The rest were sent to rush at the three slamming teams, which was a good strategy as they would be highly outnumbered.
Dan’s bears met the moose and were quickly surrounded, but their Resilience let them stay afloat until their help arrived. Each gorilla began tossing about smaller beasts before leaving it to the baboons as they engaged the elks and wolves. Then, the jaguars began slashing things with their metal claws as the doe waited to do their thing behind the stags.
With the addition of the new beasts, the slamming teams managed to stabilize the fight but were still outnumbered, and it was only a matter of time before the tides turned again. However, thankfully for them, the plan began to work.
The two entombing teams, meeting less resistance, began to make quick work of their opponents. Meanwhile, Eagle had arrived in the aerial fight. The hawk had wind control, and though it couldn’t be used for incredible offensive attacks, it let her be even faster as she removed some wind resistance in her dive. Thus, the raven didn’t even know what hit it as it was struck at an insane speed and landed dead on the ground a few seconds later, with its body missing.