Ludwig stepped back from the perimeter of the nest, his boots sinking slightly into the damp, moss-choked earth. The ground was littered with the corpses of fallen Werebats—twisted, fur-covered mounds of flesh and bone, their wings torn, their fangs still bared in death. To most, this would have been a grotesque sight, but to Ludwig, it was an opportunity. A tool, he mused, his skeletal fingers flexing. Chaos is the best distraction.
His mana reserves, bolstered by his recent upgrades, hummed beneath his undead flesh. He could summon up to thirty of these creatures now, binding them to his will with the dark arts of necromancy. And the battlefield before him offered no shortage of raw material. Over the past day, he had carved through swathes of these beasts, leaving behind a graveyard ripe for reanimation.
After what felt like an hour of methodical work—dragging corpses into hidden alcoves, muttering incantations, and watching as lifeless eyes flickered back to a sickly violet glow—Ludwig stood at the head of a small undead army. He then commanded them to move ahead.
His plan was simple: divide and conquer.
With a mental command, he sent the bulk of his undead forces surging toward the eastern flank of the Spire of Teeth. Their shambling, discordant advance was impossible to miss—deliberately so.
The Undead Werebats were loud, clamorous, and pretty obvious for the flying werebats. The great noise and the threat of incoming enemies, though they looked similar but oozed a dark and terrifying death energy. Energy foreboding enough to wake them into a full alert mode. The flyer monsters dove down, and the ones on the ground surged with incredible speed forward.
The sky darkened as winged shapes peeled away from the spire’s jagged peaks, diving toward the intruders with shrieks of fury. The undead met them head-on, their decayed limbs locking around throats, their jagged teeth sinking into fur and flesh. The living Werebats were faster, more agile, but Ludwig’s creations had the advantage of relentless, unfeeling endurance.
Thanks to the Werebats being revived as undead, they had higher stats compared to their normal living counterparts, so they were able to sustain themselves for a bit.
The live werebats would occasionally swoop in to fight off the invaders, but would fortunately be grabbed and pinned down by the Zombie Undead.
One of his zombies latched onto a diving attacker, its jaws clamping around the creature’s neck while its claws pinned two others to the ground. The ensuing struggle was a mess of flailing limbs and sprays of blackened blood. The cacophony of battle—screeches, the wet thud of impacts, the snap of bone—echoed through the ruins, growing louder as more defenders poured from the spire’s hollowed interior.
The screeches and wails of battle echoed and were loud enough to rouse even more werebats that were hiding deep inside the holes of the Spire of Teeth. The Spire leaked enemies as they poured from every nook and cranny, every opening of the spire to join their brethren in fending off the offenders.
Ludwig didn’t wait for the chaos to peak. With the enemy’s attention firmly fixed on the eastern assault, he slipped forward, three of his undead flanking him like grotesque bodyguards. The entrance to the Spire yawned before him, its threshold littered with gnawed bones and the remnants of past victims.
A notification flickered at the edge of his vision:
[You have discovered a dungeon!]
[Spire of Teeth!]
[For the next week, all creatures inside the dungeon will drop their best possible loot]
[All Soul Drops will be enhanced one stage higher.]
“Good,” he stepped inside.
Ludwig immediately walked inside and rushed through the dungeon.
The spire itself was smaller than the Rat Lord Dungeon, but that didn’t mean it was easier. The interior of the Spire was a nightmare of shadows and jagged protrusions. The walls were honeycombed with alcoves and rising tunnels, each one teeming with clinging, chittering shapes. Ludwig’s undead vision pierced the gloom, revealing clusters of Werebats hanging like grotesque fruit from the ceiling, their beady eyes glinting in the dim light.
But something was off.
Looking at the hollowed Spire from the inside gave Ludwig a strange realization, there was no Boss here, or at least that was what it looked like.
“The Boss is missing?” Thomas’s voice was a whisper in his mind, the lantern’s glow pulsing faintly.
Ludgrim’s gaze swept the cavernous space. “No,” he murmured. “If it’s not up here, it’s below us.”
Thomas’s spectral form flickered with unease. “So, what’s the plan? If you go deeper, the ones hanging above will notice you.”
“Not really,” Ludwig replied, “Their eyesight is terrible, unless they use Echolocation, I’ll be almost invisible to them. But nevertheless, safety comes first,” Ludwig said as he gave a mental command for his three summoned creatures to protect the entrance and remain there no matter the reason.
Ludwig slowly walked down the circular wall of the hollowed spire, looking for a new entrance or exit, or a path leading down.
His eyes were peeled for any movement above him as he walked with care, making sure to pay extreme close attention to where he walked and moved.
This dungeon was actually pretty simple, though its design was definitely strange; it was supposed to be an attrition-type of dungeon, where people would come in, fight the existing werebats until either exhaustion or extermination. And only when the whole spire is empty of enemies are you allowed to fight the boss.
Ludwig’s method of sneaking in by creating a commotion was by sheer luck, but at the same time was the best method he could do to get to the boss.
“Look over there,” Thomas muttered to Ludwig, his glowing form was thankfully invisible to all other creatures.
He pointed toward a gaping fissure in the floor, its edges slick with something dark and glistening.
Ludwig crouched beside it, peering into the abyss. “That’s the boss chamber.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think it would be wise to fight here,” Ludwig finally seemed to have had enough understanding of the layout of the dungeon to realize that it was not a good idea to fight it here.
“What do you mean? The boss should be there, so why not go and kill it while its minions are occupied outside?” Thomas said.
“Then what?” Ludwig replied as he seemed hesitant on fighting right now, “If I go down and fight it, and then I win, once I try and leave the whole spire will be full of Werebats. Or worse, if I go in and it calls for help, then I’ll be in between a rock and a hard place.” Ludwig’s thinking was correct.
“But we’re already here…”
“I needed to see the dungeon layout. I’ll probably have to leave,” Ludwig turned, “Perhaps a battle of attrition is the only way out of this mess now,” he said.
The Knight King’s spectral form materialized beside them, his armored silhouette radiating disdain. “You don’t have that luxury.”
“Why not?” Ludwig asked, frowning.
The Knight King’s voice was a blade’s edge. “Because you’ve ignored your notifications. Your undead are already dead. Again.”
Only then did Ludwig take a look at the notification string and realize that the Knight King was right.
At the entrance of the Dungeon, the three Werebats that were left there entered battle a moment ago, stopping enemies from entering, but at the same time, their loud screeches notified the hanging Werebats.
He didn’t move for a second since most of the Werebats’ focus was on the entrance. But soon all three of his undead would perish, and the rest of the Werebats were bound to discover him. S,o before any of them pointed their jaws at Ludwig with their echolocation, Ludwig simply dove inside the nearby hole.
The hole itself was leading a bit too far down, and Ludwig’s sudden jump was quite… amateurish as he tumbled and scrambled a few times before he reached the bottom of the steeply curving hole.
Just then, Ludwig’s sprawl form stopped rolling He pick scamper to his feet and looked around, his weapon drawn and his eyes scanning the place.
There didn’t seem to be any enemies nearby; the cave was quite large, almost as large as the entire base of the spire above him, but at the same time, it looked quite empty.
“There really is no boss here,” Ludwig frowned, “Could it be outside?”
Only then did something thick and cold fall on Ludwig’s dirty blood soaked straps for clothes he had left on him.
Ludwig touched the substance, it was viscous and transparent.
“God damn it,” Ludwig sighed, “It’s above me isn’t it…”
Before he received a reply, a loud soul rending scream echoed through the cave.
all the werebats outside were definitely alerted now.
Looking up, Ludwig confirmed his suspicions, two massive beady and red eyes were looking at him, and the upside down form of a werebat that was at least as big as the Rat Lord was looking at him.
“Well,” ludwig said, “if you ignore the wings… this looks almost like the Rat Lord…”
And the Werebat swooped down.
