Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 1070: Innovative Additions

Fifteen thousand points each. From his throne in the palace, Kaiden watched the Arcane Lance Battery recharge in the catalog preview.

Last time, he had worried over an eight-hundred-point creature upgrade. Now he was choosing where to put four of these magnificent things, imagining an intruder struggling along an exposed ledge only to find that barrel turning toward them.

Nyx reached past him to indicate the far end of a shelf.

”What about here, Kai? They’d have to cross the whole shelf while it’s looking at them. Plenty of time to regret coming~”

The firing lane reached over the Monolith station and down the climb, where his defenders could hold enemies while the weapon recharged.

”Sounds good,” he told her, saving the placement.

He wanted to keep those guns intact, too. Beside the battery’s entry waited an Aegis Pylon, its three curved arms spreading a transparent dome in the preview.

”Kai, could that cover the defenders as well?” Alexandra asked, returning from the palace doors.

”Yes. Here, look.”

The coverage display showed the dome reaching beyond the tower to enclose its defenders. Alexandra let out a pleased breath.

”Oh, that’s perfect. I’ll feel much better knowing they have that over them.”

Four pylons joined the plan, one beside each of the new weapons.

Kaiden returned to the completed chasm on the map and opened its creature assignments. Beneath the battery Nyx had chosen, a descending shelf led toward the Monolith’s broad landing.

”Could you put a Quakelord up here too?” Luna asked, pointing to a ledge behind the larger creature. ”Let it shake the approach while the big bastard keeps them busy.”

”Yep.”

He assigned one to the ledge. Its shockwaves could reach the approach without either creature leaving its station, though the enemy would still have plenty of rough stone to brace against.

Kaiden opened the Common Creatures tab. These ones were different from his abyssal monsters, commonly found in many dungeons.

Luna watched a translucent blob replace the armored giant above the map.

”Kai. Your army’s just become fucking terrifying. Why are we looking at jelly?”

”Because a great army should be supplemented by the right utility.”

”Big Brother has PTSD,” Alice declared sagely, making Kaiden grin wryly.

He had barely put his foot down before the slime-coated slope sent him toward his own magma pool. Creation Mode had spared him an exceptionally embarrassing death that day.

Three hundred slimes joined the order. He marked the existing descending shelves for their coating, stopping well short of the defenders’ positions and leaving a dry strip along the inner wall for his own people.

Calypso leaned over him for a better look.

”Oh, that’s horrible. Can we make the slime harder to see?”

”The Nightshrouds can hide it in their darkness.”

”And if they clear the coating?” Yunohana asked. ”Fire would do it.”

”Then they’ve spent time clearing a shelf while the Gunners shoot at them. I’d be happy with that too.”

He was still smiling when Bastet touched his wrist, stopping him on a brown spider farther down the catalog.

”Master, may I see that one’s silk?”

[Loom Spider.]

[Cost: 5 DMP.]

In the preview, the palm-sized creature rested in a hollow with one leg against its silk. When a beetle caught the strand, it turned toward the disturbance and drummed its legs against the wood.

Nyx leaned closer.

”Could we have those beside the climbing routes? Someone snaps a thread, and the Gunner above them hears the little darling having a fit~”

”Away from the Quakelords,” Calypso added. ”Unless we want to hear that every time they swing.”

Kaiden added forty spiders and chose sheltered crevices beside the defenders’ posts, beyond the bridges his Quakelords would be shaking. The threads would break easily; the warning would give his Gunners somewhere to aim.

”Could we collect some of the silk too, Master?” Bastet asked. ”I’d like to see how it takes a weave.”

”Sure. I’ll keep a few at the settlement for you and the Dungeon-Born craftspeople. They can raise them for silk.”

Her ears lifted with pleasure as he set those spiders aside from the cliff assignments.

Back in the utility catalog, the next entry made him pause for a different reason.

[Gravitic Transit.]

[Guideway: 5,000 DMP per kilometre. Passenger and freight carriages included.]

The preview showed a carriage suspended over a crystal guideway, its floor staying level as the track curved up a cliff. Kaiden watched it twice. He had made his family walk through enough miserable tunnels.

”Oh, we’re getting one of these.”

Aria leaned over his shoulder to see the interior. Cushioned seats lined the carriage beneath broad windows, with enough space between them to stand comfortably.

”Mm... I could get very comfortable there.” She squeezed his shoulder.

”Six kilometres to start,” he said, tracing a route from the palace toward the Japanese approach. ”We can ride over the chasm. Freight carriages can take equipment to the defensive stations.”

”And wounded people back,” Alexandra added.

”Yeah. We could have a carriage ready to collect them while you treat them.”

The line would need defended stations, and its supports would be exposed above the chasm. He moved the planned stops into the positions already covered by his weapons, checking that the large freight platforms had room to unload.

Then he opened the requirements for the next rank before buying anything else.

[Rank 6 minimum domain area: 50 km2.]

”Fifty,” he read aloud.

Luna bent over the map, checking the space around the palace.

”We can afford another thirty, can’t we? Unless you’re saving up for an even bigger fucking gun.”

”Yep. I’ll start with the land around our home.”

He opened a purchase outline along the forest’s outer edge. In the preview, the palace and existing trees stayed in place as empty ground appeared beyond them, ready for him to choose what would fill it.

”Semi-Creation Mode lets me shape whatever land I’ve just bought,” he explained, showing Yunohana where the new boundary would run. ”I can keep expanding along the edges, but reshaping the old terrain has to wait until High-Tier.”

Six square kilometres of Hollow Peaks went beside the chasm’s mountains, with broad valleys for his reserves and caves above them for the flyers. Between the outer ridges, he laid four square kilometres of Black Dunes, whose sand would muffle the movement of troops behind them.

Calypso followed a route between the dunes with her fingertip.

”Could we give them firm ground through here, Darling? A whole row of those mauls waiting when someone gets over the ridge~”

Kaiden widened the lane until a formation could emerge abreast. The reserves could reach the Japanese crossings from there without crowding the creatures already on guard.

Then he brought the old magma region forward.

The thin river winding down its spiral made him remember Melty’s broken jaw. She had kept fighting while the creature that injured her drank away the ground beneath her, leaving her sisters exposed on cooling rock.

”Eight more square kilometres here,” he said.

Yunohana looked from the purchase outline to him.

”For your fire creatures?”

”One of the Claimant’s monsters drained this during the attack. Swallowed the magma and grew stronger on it. Melty and her sisters nearly lost the whole route.”

Deep basins opened along the region’s outer edge in the preview, feeding into the old channel without shifting its course. Kaiden kept drawing them down until the river had reservoirs of molten rock spreading beneath the new banks.

He wanted enough magma that another of those bastards could drink until it burst and still leave his creatures somewhere to fight. Hopefully, a giant lake would prove rather harder to swallow.

”And this time,” he added, placing a lance battery to cover the magma approach, ”I’d like to shoot the fucker while it tries.”

Luna’s grin returned.

”Now you’re talking.”

Four more square kilometres of Virulent Mire spread beside the existing poison bowl. He kept the new ground low, its toxic pools and vapor held beneath the level of the exit toward home.

”How about three more kilometres of the Sink here, Kai?” Nyx traced the far side of the other American route. ”Your Gunners could fire across the path from cover.”

Kaiden extended the Twilight Sink alongside it, shaping hollows for the defenders beneath the new basin’s pearl-colored haze.

The remaining five square kilometres went around the settlement. Green spread beyond the Dungeon-Born’s existing fields, leaving room for their farms to grow and for more homes beside those they had already built.

”They’ll be very happy, Master,” Bastet murmured.

He hoped so. He had given them that land to make a life in, and they had worked it while their warriors fought for him. Kaiden wanted to see what they would do with more.

Near the houses, he left clearings for workshops and storage. A new stream supplied the fields before spreading into reed beds at the base of the peaks. Those pools sent him back to the Common Creatures catalog, where a squat green amphibian caught his interest.

[Reedmist Toad.]

[Cost: 10 DMP.]

In the preview, its pale throat swelled above the waterline. A bubbling croak escaped, followed by a ribbon of white mist that spread across the pool and hid its body among the reeds.

”Could we use that to hide the reserves?” Aria asked.

”That’s what I’m thinking. It makes ordinary water mist, though. Wind will scatter it.”

Kaiden placed sixty toads in sheltered pools along the reserve lanes. They needed water and mana to replenish their mist, and he kept them behind the ridges so his own Gunners would have a clear view when the troops emerged.

Alexandra was following the clearings behind the palace.

”Could we bring the freight carriages around here, Kai? Close to the storerooms?”

He included a short rear branch within the six kilometres of guideway, then added forty Goblin Raiders at one point apiece to unload it. The Dungeon-Born could supervise them carrying supplies between the platform and the workshops.

”I could show them where everything goes,” Alexandra offered.

After nodding at the blonde girl, Kaiden gave the crews a level path beside the storerooms, then placed his last lance battery over the Corridor and Twilight Sink approach. With two overlooking the Japanese crossings and one covering the magma route, all three ways into his home would come under their fire.

Yunohana had drawn closer to the armrest while they worked. She followed the projected routes with fascination, occasionally asking him to turn a section so she could see where it connected.

”Kaiden...” She studied the mountains flanking the chasm. ”At this rate, you’re going to build your own nation inside the dungeon...”

”We’re far from that.”

Kaiden brushed his thumb over the hand she rested beside his. ”But yeah... This place is shaping up to be quite the spectacle.”

[Terrain expansion: 13,400 DMP.]

[Arcane Lance Batteries ×4: 60,000 DMP.]

[Aegis Pylons ×4: 40,000 DMP.]

[Gravitic Transit, 6 km: 30,000 DMP.]

[Slimes ×300: 30 DMP.]

[Loom Spiders ×40: 200 DMP.]

[Reedmist Toads ×60: 600 DMP.]

[Goblin Raiders ×40: 40 DMP.]

[Total: 144,270 DMP.]

”Let’s do it.”