Ozymandias woke up with a start. He had a terrifying nightmare that he could not remember. He only remember one thing. Despair.

In order to get over the nightmare, he decided to observe his surroundings. As his vision became clearer, he saw the world dyed in black and white with occassional.

"Where am I?".... He panicked on seeing that he was in some sort of an underground chamber. Maggots, ants and flies were everywhere. A skeleton of some small four-legged creature was in the centre of the chamber, which was swarming with maggots.

“Oh yeah I remember....I am a dungeon core.“ He remember what he was. ”I am Ozymandias, the dungeon core.“

On remembering that he was trying to create a second layer of mana ring, he tug his vision inside himself.

”It was a success.” If he was a human, Ozymandias pictured that he will have been jumping in the air shouting joyfully. He could not picture how he look though nor how a human look but still he imagined the scenario.

A second ring of mana had formed, encompassing his first mana ring. His mana ring was a dense cloudy white orbital ring, rotating around slowly. He prodded around.

The mana storage capacity of the first ring had raised to three hundred unit and the base of the second ring is six hundred units.

However, only the first ring was filled. The second was only halfway done.

Having figured it out, Ozymandias lifted his vision into the world outside of his core. He noticed that something was wrong. It was a gut feeling even though he did not have a gut.

“There is a disturbance in the force.“

The last thought was his and not his at the same thing but he understood the gist of it. Something had gone wrong.

He check and found what was wrong. Mosts of the creature he had claimed had disappeared. Only three spiders, three scorpions, two wasps and three beetles were left and these creatures were all one-ringed except for the spider that was directly above him. Also, these creatures were all far away from the tunnel.

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It's that little furry bastard. A mouse. Yes, it was that bastard mouse.

He brought his vision to the tunnel. His vision outside of his direct peripheral location had improved. He could now rely on direct vision but there was a three second vision loss after every ten second of direct vision. That was not problem as he could still sense what was happening using mana detection which gave a real time infra-red imagery. In his domain, he was omnipresent.

”Camvision. That sounds good.” Ozymandias decided on how to called this indirect vision that was aided with mana. ”I will call this Camvision.”

The tunnel was a scene out of a war movie.

“Don't ask me what war or movies are. I don't know.“

There were parts of creatures here and there, which were being carried off by ants. There were footprints and signs of fights everywhere. There were two distinct and different prints. One belong to the mouse. The other belong to a creature that was longer than the mouse, about nine inches gap between the hind legs and back legs with webbed toes. It had a tail as well based on the evidence left behind, a scaly tail that was about three inches long and being swarm with ants and flies. Ozymandias felt like he knew what the creature should be but he could not remember. So instead of focusing on the tail, he decided to do the most important task of the moment first.

”Let's check that little bastard first.”

Ozymandias' mana invaded the mouse hole and he was surprised to see the structure of the little bastard's home. It was a twisting and meandering tunnel, with many crossroads that led to many places but he didn't get lost. Ozymandias could sense the mana in the creature as it bear his signature. Moreover, his mana detection could detect the creature even if the mouse had no mana bearing his signature.

It didn't take long for Ozymandias to claim the mouse the entire mouse tunnel. It was an impressive structure with tunnels that stretches more than ten metres, two dozen or so chambers and six opening to the outside and it was home to only one creature.

The mouse was in the central chamber, the biggest and comfiest with a nest made of fur, twigs, bones and grass. The mouse was yet to form a core. The reason behind this was that it is hard for a creature to swiftly build up a core without outside help even if they gorge themselves in mana rich food for months as mana would be turned into prana, which will make it hard for mana to accumulate and form a core.

The mouse was curled up in the centre of the nest and fast asleep.

“Look at you, you little bastard. You are sleeping so soundly after killing most of my creatures. Let's see how long that peaceful sleep last.“

As if on cue, the mouse woke up. It's sleep didn't last long.

The mouse stood up on end. It had sense danger and it was not Ozymandias as it could not sense mana yet. No, it was a common enemy for both of them. It was a corrupted rat, who had found one of the entrance of the mouse tunnel.

Just on sensing the miasma, Ozymandias felt irritated. He had felt such irritation with the insects he had corrupted during the experiments but this time, the miasma was too much for him to bear. It was suffocating.

The mouse flung itself towards the incoming enemy. This mouse was different than other mouse. It was an Arav mouse, the only true predatorial mouse. It was also very territorial and guarded it's territory fiercely.

Ozymandias send a command to all the remaining creatures that had a core in his dungeon except for the spider above him and the beetles. He knows that the mouse could not hold the rat by itself because the rat was bigger and stronger than the mouse and in a frenzied state. The aim of the rat was not the mouse but Ozymandias' core. The mouse was the last line of defence for Ozymandias.

The two creatures met in a chamber inside the mouse tunnel. The rat was thrice the size of the mouse. It had maddened red eyes and matted black fur. It was drooling. There were wounds on its body, black liquid oozing from the open wounds.

The two creatures locked eyes upon each other. They crouched, their claws and teeth barred, hissing angrily at each other. Neither backed down.

Then the fight began.