Raid Dungeon Battle (11)

"… W-What the hell is this ridiculous monster!?"

The moment it became clear was when the first Undead Dungeon was destroyed.

To have not even noticed until they had pushed this far in—what a careless blunder.

A monster in full armor wearing a cloak. A Living Armor, perhaps? When it thrust its hands forward, a torrent of light burst forth, effortlessly piercing through the Zombie Wolves before it.

Most likely, that was [Judgement Ray]. A king-tier light attribute spell—one that should require a long incantation and a considerable amount of mana—but it had been used on a single Zombie Wolf.

No, that's not it. The truth was that it simply had enough mana to use such a spell on a mere Zombie Wolf. Otherwise, there's no way it could fire it off without chanting and in such rapid succession.

Reverse-engineering the situation, that meant the monster possessed a monstrous mana capacity. Just what kind of training or refinement had gone into creating such a creature…?

"Even I, called the Magic God, find unchanted use of [Judgement Ray] quite the strain…! This is above high-tier or even special-tier. It's king-tier light magic. No way something like that could be achieved in a hundred or two hundred years. Without doubt, this is one of Number 89's treasured trump cards."

She's played her ace, Number 10 Core thought, evaluating the enemy… Hm? Something caught his attention. Looking at the map of the dungeon that had been breached, he noticed the intruder already had a tag assigned.

In other words, they had met before. And seeing the tag, he understood exactly who this opponent was.

The reason Number 10 Core had been forced to flee the Holy Kingdom. The one who obliterated the artificial dungeon production district. The one who stirred up the holy city of Kuromaku, whispering unwanted ideas to the saint and the foolish citizens, ruining centuries of planning in a single night.

This being wasn't human, but that was just a disguise it had used during infiltration. The height matched and, most importantly, the tag confirmed it. There was no doubt about it.

"Kuh—kukuku, kukakakaka!! It's you! You! Ahh, I'll kill you! I'll definitely kill you!!"

Number 10 Core trembled with murderous rage, his mind igniting with fury. His battle spirit surged, mana overflowing from him without restraint.

He had known from the beginning that this scoundrel was aligned with Number 89. In fact, he had anticipated that he'd be deployed in this battle.

He issued commands to the Undead Core, setting his monsters upon the enemy. This dungeon had originally been wolf-themed, able to spawn various wolf-types, even including Werewolves.

But they were no match. Just as before, the monster was mowing them down with blatantly excessive light magic. Even when attacked from multiple directions, it countered with multi-directional volleys.

"Does this thing have infinite mana…? … Wait. That cloak—could it be!? A divine artifact?"

The excessive mana usage bothered Number 10 Core, prompting him to study the equipment. A divine item—gear created by the Dark God, the Creation God. A cloak, not for concealment… otherwise it would have just sneaked straight to the Dungeon Core without a word.

"… If not concealment, then perhaps it's for defense or healing."

Living Armors were fully armored, boasting naturally high defense. In that case, normal attacks probably wouldn't even scratch it. What about magic…? As he pondered, he realized he'd neglected the rest of the battlefield.

This monster wasn't the only enemy. The assault on his dungeon by Number 89's faction cores continued unabated. He had not expected this much trouble from Dungeon 695.

"I want to focus on that Living Armor. So be it—I'll play two trump cards. First, against Number 89's bunch… I'll deploy the Saint Undead."

Saint Undead.

In the boss room's sanctum drawers lay corpses of past saints, processed into undead. Normally, undead were weak to holy attributes—but not these. They were perfect, invulnerable undead.

In combat power, they were nearly equal to when they were alive. They couldn't use inherited skill abilities that were passed on to the following saints, but their core ability, [Resurrection], had been reproduced using dungeon magic.

Number 10 Core activated the Saint Undead, assigning them to defend the boss room and counterattack.

"As for 695… I'll send in the Dungeon Eater. The Dungeon Eater can consume a dungeon unaffected by its environment. Once it collapses the gimmicks, we'll strike again."

Dungeon Eater.

A byproduct born during the development of artificial Dungeon Cores—Undead Cores. It starts as a tiny black grub only a few centimeters long, but as it devours the dungeon, it can grow into a monster over a kilometer in size.

Its material is the same as Undead Cores—fragments of Dungeon Cores—granting it similar properties.

It can eat anything.

It consumes traps, monsters, even the walls and floors of the dungeon. A creature that devours living dungeons as if harboring a grudge—like a zombie of dungeons.

For now, he launched five of them through the enemy gate. It was a pitch-black dark zone-type dungeon, but darkness meant nothing to Dungeon Eaters. Unlike zombies, they didn't vanish the moment they entered.

Thanks to their tiny size, they must have slipped past the enemy's ultimate traps.

Seeing on his menu that they had begun munching away safely, Number 10 Core teleported directly to his nemesis, the Living Armor.