The tank swatted at the swarm and lashed out blindly with a side kick that caught Logan square in the chest, tossing him aside like a rag doll. His rubbery body, however tough now, simply didn’t weigh very much. It wasn’t like he had any bones to add density. He landed with his limbs splayed out all around him.
Inga was pressing her attack, and doing a fair job, but impossible as it seemed, the tank was still fending off the attacks.
They needed an edge, and Logan thought he just might have the trick. His ace in the hole. A couple of them actually.
Logan pushed himself up onto his palms and released a pair of spiked violet spores, each about the size of a peach pit, which pulsed with a gentle light. As they drifted toward the ground, he rained down Rapid Growth spores, pumping stored-up Apothos into the purple pits. This wasn’t so different from what he’d done to Magmarty, but this time he wasn’t raising up a bunch of Opal Truffles. This time he was summoning his first real minions: Spore Wargs. Since the minions were tied to his core, at his current level he could only produce and control two of the creatures, but hopefully that would be enough.
The swirling spores burbled and morphed, expanding rapidly as they neared the floor. In seconds rudimentary limbs sprouted from the pod, followed by a snout and muzzle. In less than five seconds, the Spore Wargs were as large as bulldogs, with the same squat frame, beefy chest, and powerful limbs. Though most fungaloid minions weren’t known for being fast or agile, these beasties proved to be the exception to the rule. They were pale, their skin hairless and rubbery. They had no eyes but enormous bat-like ears that allowed them to navigate through a type of super echolocation. Best of all, their bite was highly toxic and could induce seizures or even temporary paralysis under the right circumstances.
Logan had come to learn that they were also oddly affectionate and seemed to retain crude memories even after a death-and-respawn cycle. These two he called Booker and Noodle Doodle—both named after the pups he knew he would never see again.
The deadly wargs didn’t need any instruction, but leapt forward, claws scrabbling across the floor as they launched themselves at the tank. With wicked fangs, one latched onto the tank’s ankle, while the other jumped, crunching down on the tank’s shield-bearing forearm. The tank let out a grunt of pain and tried to shake the swinging hound away, but ol’ Noodle Doodle had a bite like a bear trap. She just dangled there, legs swinging, paws scratching at armor, refusing to drop. It was an awesome distraction, and one that gave Inga the opening she needed.
She spun left in a flourish of wings and hurled another Moonlance, slashing across the tank’s exposed face and eyes. The fighter screamed and recoiled, temporarily blinded and beset by Logan’s hounds. Inga darted forward and leapt up, legs cartwheeling through the air as she flipped over the tank and landed behind her before driving a silvery sword arm through a vulnerable joint in the tank’s armor, deep into the flesh beneath. Inga pulled her arm free, covered liberally in blood, but the tank just kept right on fighting.
That Valkyrie could take a beating. She was a B-Class cultivator, though. So, even tired, she was easily ten times more powerful than any of the dungeon cores in the room.
“I have had just about enough of this!” the tank shouted with a growl. She brought her foot straight up, then slammed it down with a thud. Brown light rippled out, the stone floor underfoot quaking and creaking, razor-sharp spits of rock shutting up.
The rock lances missed Inga and the others, but poor Booker—clinging to her ankle—wasn’t so lucky. The hound took a spike through the throat that neatly decapitated him.
“And now for you,” the tank said, turning her furious face on the remaining dangling pup. She twisted at the hips and drove her sword into the creature’s torso, dispatching it with pitiful ease.
So much for that.
Marko still had the cleric ensorcelled, which was good, but they needed to find a way to take this damned tank out. Inga was giving it her all, but it didn’t seem to be enough, and with Treacle still firmly out cold, it was up to Logan to even the playing field. The question was, how? Trying to respawn the Spore Wargs wasn’t realistic—they took too much of his usable Apothos for that—but Inga’s Spike Flies had grown considerably larger since she’d first summoned them. They were now each the size of a quarter, and there were easily thirty or forty of them.
That... Now that Logan could work with.
He’d never used his Braincaps outside the simulated dungeon, but there really was no time like the present.
“Keep him dancing, Marko!” Logan called out.
The satyr laughed. “Obviously you’ve never partied with me before—I don’t ever stop! My Father used to tell me I had a real problem, but who has the problem now, huh!”
Yeah... Logan didn’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole. He put the goat man from mind and sped over to the cleric’s lantern. At the same time, he exhaled a wave of Braincap spores into the air through his frilled gills, right where Inga’s Spike Flies were coalescing, growing bigger and more fiendish.
Logan used the last of his Apothos reserve to create Rapid Growth spores, and he added them to the fungi that were already latching onto Inga’s insects. Small, ghostly green mushrooms bloomed from the back of each Spike Ffly. Exhaling and clearing his mind, Logan took control of the tiny critters. It was harder to do in real life than it had been in the simulated dungeon, but their time practicing had paid off in spades.
The flies finally reached maturity, and they looked like flying devil-head thorns—big soft-ball-sized flies with huge eyes, whirring wings, and spikes sticking out in every direction. No legs. Their attack style was simple. They dive-bombed their enemies and slammed into them, like living throwing stars. The Spike Flies then puked digestive acid onto their victims. It was gross, but effective. As a fungaloid, Logan could appreciate gross and effective.
Logan turned off the cleric’s lantern, plunging the place into darkness.
However, the Spike Flies were infected with his Braincap mushrooms. Glowing green lumps of fungal growth covered their black bodies, giving them some of Logan’s powers, including his ability to see in the dark.
Logan could also take over one of them, and suddenly, he was seeing through the eyes of a Spike Fly. It was dizzying, showing him a world of whirring movement in basic colors, but with enough clarity that he could discern the difference between a dungeon core and a dungeoneer.
The Battle Paragon was still clapping along, but it was clear he was about to try to cast a spell to light up the room. He never had the chance. Logan used the Spike Fly he was controlling and slammed it into the chest of the cleric. Half of the flies followed suit. Smack, smack, smack, the barbed insects punctured the cleric’s armor, skewering him on their thorns.
As for Inga, she, too, could see in the dark. She noiselessly moved to the side and leapt up again, wings keeping her aloft. The tank’s armor was far too thick to penetrate directly, but her face and neck were exposed. Lining up her blade, Inga dropped all of her weight down, driving the tip of her sword at an angle through the tank’s neck and deep into her chest.
With a thought, Logan directed the rest of the flies to hit the tank from the rear. The tank fell forward onto her face as dead as dead could be.
A cloud of Apothos rose from her corpse—Vita mixed in a cocktail of Mallus, Morta, and Terra. Treacle was a Mallus and Terra cultivator, so Logan focused on the Morta energy filling the room. As he’d done a thousand times before, he drew the streams of energy into his center. There, it mixed with his core, adding to the knot. He wasn’t the only one to eat. Inga’s gem glowed with a lunar light as she took her fill, though it would take some time to cultivate the sheer glut of energy.