Dungeon Core Online 158 Chapter 158

What happened next was brilliant, blinding, and all together terrifying. James made a mental note to remove the upgrade from his Secret Boss whenever dungeon wars weren't active. He doubted any players would ever go against the Secret Boss if he left that skill active.

Even as The Candy Man's axe came swinging down, The Perfect Cognivore suddenly detached from his tail, and barreled into BLANK's secret boss. The Perfect Cognivore dug his clawed hands into the enemy's gumdrop armor, and at point blank released all eight of his harpoons. That close, and with the pressure driving them forward, they broke into the gingerbread cookie body of the secret boss and latched on tight.

The Perfect Cognivore used his massive, powerful steampunk legs, and the momentum of the moment, to shove his trapped foe and himself past the muffin mines and closer to The Muffin Man. All the while, James's Secret boss continued to glow brighter. That was, of course, something James was used to. After all, the core within the Terminus normally detonated.
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However, the Perfect Cognivore's version was a bit more…destructive. When the Terminus detonated, it was after he died, with the core just becoming unstable and erupting. Now, the Perfect Cognivore was purposefully overloading his own nuclear reactor, preparing it for eruption. As the energy continued to grow within James's secret boss, James could see the armor plating around the Perfect Cognivore actually closing in on the boss, condensing inward, to create a pressurized chamber for the reactor. Now not only was there going to be a nuclear blast, but it was going to be amplified 10-fold from what James had previously seen.

A split second later, the light, which had been momentarily hidden as The Perfect Cognivore's armor completely closed in and encompassed it, leaked out from his form. The metal plating cover James's Secret Boss glowed brightly from the heat, and James watched as the Perfect Cognivore's face took on a cruel grin.

"Lights out chap." The Perfect Cognivore said, just before he erupted in a massive nuclear explosion. James looked away just in time to avoid starring directly into the bright flash of light, though even with his orb turned away from the explosion, and his giant eyeball closed and covered by his tentacles, it was as if he could see clearly. So bright was the explosion, that he would have believed he were staring into the sun. He waited, counting, for 10 seconds, before the light finally faded.

As it did, James willed himself to turn back around, and take in the battlefield. Where the Secret Bosses had battled, nothing remained. Instead, a massive crater had formed, blackened and scorches, and almost seeming to have turned, in some parts, into a glass like substance. Looking down into the crater, James realized that his assessment that nothing remained, had been wrong.

In the very center, a mass of glowing, radiating, molten metal seemed to rest. It pulsed with unnatural light, and James could feel his vision blurring as his eyeball burned just from looking at it.

He had heard of a similar such substance that had existed in the real world, created from the devastating nuclear accident at Chernobyl. A mass of a substance known as corium, which was created during the nuclear meltdown. It had been named The Elephants foot, and was a mass of extremely hot, extremely dangerous and radioactive material, that existed and remained deadly for over 50 years after the accident.

Now, DCO was a video game world, meaning normally things like radiation poisoning wouldn't be a thing. So, in theory, players would be able to likely get close to that mass of remaining molten material in the center of that crater, if they wanted to. Of course, DCO also wasn't a normal game. And James had not only unlocked radiation for his disease menu, courtesy ironically, of BLANKs players and his M.I.N.E. Craft, but had played around with it quite a bit.

Something that James was really hoping he would get to see soon. Movement along the edge of his vision, was saying he was going to get a good view of it, sooner rather than later.

"Look at that Rue." He whispered, motioning towards the fog of war. His players had already begun running back towards his spawn area the moment the Perfect Cognivore had begun glowing. And by running, James meant they had full on sprinted, atop their dicken mounts, away from the battlefield. However, James had been hoping some of BLANKs players would stick around to watch the fight. After all, only a few of them had seen what happened when the Terminus was defeated.

Sure enough, as James watched the fog of war, he saw a handful of BLANK players stumble out. They were waving their hands about wildly as a sickly, irradiated glow encompassed their bodies. Their status bars showed that they were currently blinded, deafened, dazed, and irradiated.

The first three statuses were a deadly combination, if there were any enemy players around. However, it was the final one, that was actually going to be their downfall. Especially if the unlocked portions of his disease menu did exactly what he thought they would.

Irradiation (Unique Disease)

Disease Effects

Antimagical Resistance (5disease points (DP))- This disease has an increased chance to resist being cleansed, dependent on the amount of magical healing a player has received. For every magical spell applied to a player, the disease has an additional 1x (DP) chance to resist being cleansed.

Proximity Illness (4DP)- This disease has an increased chance to spread to players nearby. This illness has a 5xDP percent chance to spread to players within 5xDP feet of a player. The disease will attempt to effect players in proximity once every minute, until a player either dies, or is cleansed

Unique Effects

Radiation (1 radiation point)

Mutation level 1 (5DP)- Players will undergo a random mutation within 30 seconds of being exposed to radiation. Additional mutations will be applied every 10 minutes, unless a player is cleansed.

Mutation level 2 (10DP)- Players who undergo mutations will lose complete control over themselves. Until they die, or are healed, they will be treated as a drunk character, resulting in their temporary inability to control their character.

In essence, James had figured, as he dumped all 24 of his disease points into crafting this disease, and his single radiation point to even use this tree, that he would be able to create a disease that could turn BLANKs players against themselves. In DCO, and actually many immersion games, whenever a player became so drunk that they would normally become extremely sick or 'black out' they were instead returned to their own waiting area. From there, individuals were welcome to play other games, relax, or in Manly The Dwarf's instance, learn the lore of the game.

Once the detrimental effect had run its course, players would receive a notification allowing them to hop right on back into whatever game they had been playing. Seeing that he could essentially apply that effect to BLANKs players with his irradiated disease, well, it was a no brainer. Even if it had cost him 10 of his 24 disease points to do. James had no idea what the mutations would be, but if his steampunk dino mobs' mutations were anything to go off of, James was about to see an extremely interesting battle take place.

James had also taken care to confirm with Rue he was reading the disease menu correctly, before he even applied this tactic to the battlefield. Because obviously, while irradiating BLANKs forces, causing them to mutate and lose control of themselves sounded great, he had been worried about it effecting his players. However, according to the disease menu, effects of diseases would only be applied to enemies of his dungeon. Which, theoretically, in the case of dungeon wars and the fields of battle, meant BLANKs forces, not James's. Huzzah loopholes. Granted, if James had access to a disease menu, there was a chance BLANK did as well. However, James figured there was no way BLANK would have access to something as neat as radiation.

What was the worst BLANK could do? Create a disease that put James's players in a sugar coma? That was laughable, especially as James watched one of BLANK's player's eyes roll back in his head, as another head sprouted from his torso. Yup, that player was definitely no longer in control. A split second later, an adventurer dual wielding daggers grew two additional arms from outside of his back. Two more mutated as well, one growing an additional leg, the other having his body seem to grow larger and more muscular. At the same time, all of their eyes turned completely white, and their cries of confusion and anger turned into animalistic moans.

Achievement Unlocked

Even as James went to click on the achievement, he watched one last player stumble out of the fog of war. His eyes rolled back in his head, and James watched as the glow around his body seemed to flash. A moment later, his flesh went from glowing yet healthy, to rotten and saggy. His mouth gaped open, as he turned back towards the fog of war. Instead of an inaudible moan, he let out a single, long drawn out word.

"Braaaaaaiiiiinnnnnnnnsssssss."

Achievement Unlocked

Oh, this had to be good.

Chapter end