Dungeon Sniper

- Commencement

The ground shook for what felt like an eternity, but it eventually came to a stop. For a second or two, I thought the war was over, just like that.

But the explosion was just a start. The Goblins swarmed out of the smoking hole as if they had expected such an attack.

No, it was not exactly that.

It seemed as if these monsters were incapable of feeling fear or panic. The efficiently shriveled size of the brains helped greatly, I was sure.

The Goblins crawled out of their destroyed home with no end in sight. Something in their body movement was odd, eerie even. I looked through the scope to check their faces and realized right away why I was feeling so... off.

No anger. No emotion whatsoever. They moved mechanically, rhythmically, militarily, while the only things that moved in their impassive, soulless faces were the twitching mandibles and saliva drooling, flooding underneath.

And so the army giant, carnivorous ants marched toward the same direction, to greet the fast-approaching army of mindless metals.

The Sons of Benedikt, with the rising sun behind them, stormed onward.

- Chaos

I had a job to do. I closed my eye to the morning sun lightly brushing my left cheek. I searched for my first of hundreds, even thousands to come through the enhanced telescopic scope of Niper.

A formation of some sort had been organized in the vanguard while the sea of identically hideous Goblin Crawlers kept flowing out of the now smokeless hive opening.

And there they were. Standing just a bit different and taller than the others. One in every hundred lesser soldiers.

I hesitated for a fraction of a second before pulling the trigger. I went through and counted the bull-rats I had brought in my head again. Benedikt had made sure the Dwarflyer carried as many bull-rats as she could to her maximum weight threshold. My belt was lined up with ten rows of magazines, holding five bull-rats each. The Dwarflyer was practically made up of those magazines save for the engine, the seat, and the rotor.

Still, I felt shorthanded. The number of Goblin Crawlers down on the battlefield was too overwhelming. The nonstop shaking of the ground and the surreal sight of watching red-skinned scuttling creatures flowing out of a hole like some bloody hot spring made me want to question the point of even trying.

There was no way we were going to win against this many enemies. Perhaps there was still time for me to turn and run away before it was too late. Before an apprehension turned into an inescapable nightmare.

I stared dumbly down at the soon-to-be clashing armies on both sides. Each side picked up its speed and started to run (or roll, as for Dwarones) at each other—

"Why the F.U.C.K haven't you fired your shot yet!"

I started at the screaming voice that almost burst my eardrum. I adjusted the earpiece and exhaled deeply, coming to my sense again.

On the battlefield, the Dwarfighter, operated by Benedikt and Elysia, was rushing past the Dwarones and leaped high into the air, squashing at least a dozen Goblins as it landed.

"Why am I still seeing an army instead of a headless, brainless walking red meat that I asked you for? You had one job—"

I took off the earpiece and fired the shot through one of the Goblin Generals in the front of the mass. It was a perfect headshot that blew the head off its neck.

I was about to pick up the earpiece and retort back to the cranky Dwarf, but then I saw the change immediately.

The circle of Goblin Soldiers around the dead general stuck out like a sore eye in the grotesquely uniform formation of the ant army. It looked like a wave, a convulsion at first—and then it turned into something else.

The Goblin Soldiers without a general started to eat each other, right in the middle of the battle.

The frenzy was not contagious—yet. But it was enough for me to get the idea of what Benedikt had planned for.

I placed the earpiece back in and spoke at it.

"Are you seeing that too? Did you know that was going to happen?" I asked, feeling slightly more confident about the outcome of this battle now.

"Less talking, more shooting!" barked Benedikt irritably.

And I obliged.

Watching the Goblins decimating each other felt satisfying, if not a little piteous. But not all Goblin Soldiers tried to chew each other's head off. More than half of them went at the Dwarones, getting slashed, scorched, smashed, shot, electrocuted, and melted on their way. The Dwarones took damages too. The Goblins instinctively aimed for the joints between metal limbs. Sometimes burning bodies were caught up between the Dwarones, producing spectacular explosions with both metal parts and bloody, charred flesh flying all over the place.

The squads that still had Goblin Generals in leadership even picked up dead bodies of the fallen comrades and used them as shields to get closer to the Dwarones. I even saw some group willingly run in front of the flamethrower's mouth, get themselves aflame, and throw their bodies into the middle of the Dwarones, kamikaze-style.

Meanwhile, I had lost count of how many Generals I headshot to death. I had stopped counting after one hundred.

And despite the chaotic scene in the frontier, the Goblins kept crawling out of the hive, replacing the small waves of confusion with an even bigger, steadier stream of ceaseless soldiers.

The Dwarones did their best against the Goblin Crawlers. One Dwarone easily cooked at least fifty ants before going down.

A fallen Dwarone never got up, while there was always another Goblin to take over the spot.

But luckily for us, we had the Dwarfighter.

- Concentration

The 'chaos' part of the tactics worked, albeit briefly. The frontier of the battlefield was now littered with Goblin corpses and scrap metal.

My finger felt numb while my shoulder ached after the recoils of the past half hour.

I had gotten up to refill the ammo from the Dwarflyer when I saw it: the four-armed mech had gone deep into the sea of Goblins, creating a path of dead Goblins at its feet and leading directly to the entrance of the hive.

I got into shooting position again, this time aiming at the generals in the Dwarfighter's way instead of the ones wrestling with the Dwarones in the vanguard. Some smart Dwarones (or was Benedikt controlling all six hundred of them at once?) followed and widened the road paved by the Dwarfighter. I was not sure what the plan was, but I went on with my guts and turned an organized army that stood in front of the Dwarfighter's trailblazing into a thoughtless, hungry mass.

"I see you, kid. Nice work!"

I heard Benedkit laugh triumphantly through the earpiece. Coincidentally, the Dwarfighter kicked a half dozen Goblins to the air, who I presumed had died from the initial impact even before their feet had left the ground.

"You know, this is the first time you've complimented me on anything. I'm touched. "

"Yeah, well, don't expect me to kiss you or anything."

"I'd rather shoot myself to the head than let you kiss me."

"Guys, we haven't won yet. If anything, Benedikt is driving us deeper into the mouth of death," said Elysia, intervening the insubstantial conversation.

I paused to see how Elysia was doing. The upper arms of the Dwarfighter—the flamethrower and rotary cannon parts—swung and bent in all directions, evaporating the Goblins that would dare come near.

I did not think Elysia could get any s.e.xier, but she did.

"I'm concentrating all the firepower into one spot. In this case, into one 'line,'" Benedikt said excitedly.

"I've never heard of such a strategy."

I could picture Elysia frowning in her c.o.c.kpit, while flawlessly operating the arms despite her discontent.

"Why bother explaining such a brilliant plan to an Elf? She just wouldn't get the picture."

"Try me then, old man. I want to know," I chimed in before holding my breath for another satisfying headshot to some hundredth Goblin General.

Benedikt paused for a moment. Meanwhile, the Dwarfighter jumped high and landed with force to create a large puddle of blood, flesh, and bones... whose cracking sound could be overheard through the communication.

"Aren't you having too much fun?" I asked, grossed out. I also heard Elysia gagging in the background.

"Use the blades! At least swing the hammer instead of stepping on them!" protested Elysia harshly.

"No, it's better for the organs to be spilled evenly like this," said Benedikt nonchalantly.

"Better for wh—Venerable Velonis, I looked down. I looked below, and I shouldn't have looked below, Velonis help me," muttered Elysia frantically.

"Just what are you planning, Benedikt?"

The Dwarfighter was almost near the entrance to the hive. The thick mass of Goblins climbed the Dwarfighter with all their might, and when the four arms could not deal with them anymore, Benedikt made it jump and spin in the air to shake them off. If the Goblins did not die from the fall, the Dwarones were there to take care of them.

It was a methodical process. The Dwarfighter led the way, and the Dwarones made sure there was a 'line' of dead bodies piled together.

But having the Dwarones follow the Dwarfighter also meant that once the last Dwarone left the frontier, the entire Sons of Benedikt would be surrounded by the Goblins, standing right in the middle of the enemy territory.

And soon enough, the last Dwarone followed the line, and the Goblins closed in and 'contained' the battleground for themselves.

"Benedikt, you have to tell me. What are you planning?"

I still had some bull-rats left, but I got up and stared down at the battlefield, worried and nervous.

The Dwarfighter had the Goblins swarming all over its body, only to have Elysia point the flamethrower on its own body and set it on fire. Benedikt then jumped and span again, with burning Goblins flying off from the centrifugal force like some sick, grotesque fireworks.

"What am I planning?" came Benedikt's belated answer. For some reason, he still sounded confident.

After a brief, annoying stall, the c.o.c.ky old Dwarf scoffed.

"Just watch."

- Containment

"The Bang-Bangs are powerful, but I never hoped to kill all of them from blowing the hive from within. I'm guessing a couple thousand dead, at most."

For the first few minutes of the 'containment' phase of the strategy, none of us spoke through the communication. Benedikt first ordered to switch controls with Elysia. He then did something to the flamethrower hand... No, 'something' is an understatement. More specifically, he summoned a dozen Scorchies by the Dwarfighter's side. The Scorchies disintegrated their flamethrower parts, and the Dwarfighter picked them all up... and combined them to form a massive, giant flamethrower. It was literally a flame-cannon. I almost exclaimed in excitement then, but the show had not even begun yet.

The flame-cannon let loose, and a sea of fire followed. But the Goblins were instinctive when it came to survival. They burrowed just deep enough to avoid getting caught up in the fire. And Benedikt had expected that from the start.

His purpose was 'not' to divide the ant army in half. He did accomplish that by creating a wall of flame along the line of dead, organ-splattered bodies that he had 'concentrated' all the power for the last hour, but that was a byproduct rather than the goal.

The goal was to get himself, or the Dwarfighter with the flame-cannon, situated in the dead center of the ant army.

This was also where Benedikt mentioned the Bang-Bangs for the first time since the start of the battle.

"Despite the crude name, Bang-Bangs are rather delicate weapons. There's a set amount of explosives, a timer, and certain conditions that must be followed. For instance, they can never be used as mines. The Sand Crystalites that work as both the powder and detonator simply integrate when underground. That's why they had to go off near the surface instead of reaching the far bottom of the hive."

As Benedikt explained, I felt the sun dimming in the distance and looked up.

The Dwarflies had covered the part of a clear morning sky like an unexpected storm cloud.

"That also means under normal circ.u.mstances, simply being covered in sand could protect anyone, anything from the blast of the Bang-Bang. Sand Crystalites are made of 'sand,' and they react benignly against their mother element."

The Dwarflies rained the Bang-Bangs, a thousand by looks.

"But what if the sand got too hot? Not just 'sunny day' hot, but hot enough to barbecue what's under? The Goblins may have thick skin, but they can still feel through it."

The Dwarones and the Dwarfighters burrowed into the ground quickly. Machines could not feel the heat. They could withstand heat as long as it did not melt the metal.

At the same time, most Goblins jumped out of the hot sand, only noticing that the fire had died down and not the rain of death about to pour into their heads.

"What if they dig deeper down? They can do that, right?" I asked, knowing fully well that Benedikt had foreseen that course of action as well.

"They can't. The Queen ordered them to stay 'on' the battlefield, not 'under.'"

The Bang-Bangs all fell down with the same speed and detonated exactly at an inch above the ground, right before touching the sand.

One, deafening, bang—followed by a shock wave that almost made me fall off the sandhill had I not braced for the impact.

The only remains left of the Goblin army were their hands and feet buried just beneath the sand.

- Conclusion

The field was barren again.