“Dungeon Lord, enemy attacking!”

For the first time, Alex felt blessed by God or gods. This time, he didn’t need to wait forever for something to happen. He prepared his rats and got ready. Unfortunately, many of his neurotoxic rats were injured in the previous attack. He was betting a lot on his new bioweapon.

Alex, in an increasingly common instance of self awareness, realized that he had become addicted to the thrill of danger and fighting. Before his kidnapping, he was a more timid and cautious person. Now, he hated every moment when he wasn’t fighting through the sheer boredom and monotony of his new existence.

He waited at the entrance, eagerly waiting for the attacker. Was it going to be more humans or animals? He really hoped that it wouldn’t be another monster.

The attack walked through the dungeon entrance and Alex’s excitement turned to disgust. The thing was clearly a monster, with skin draping over its thin frame like wax or snot. It was like the monster had been starving for a long time, so long that its body atrophied before its skin.

Cover every corner and bit of skin were eyes. There was no hair, only wrinkled, overgrown skin and eyes looking in every which direction. Alex hated this disturbing and disgusting monster, but he also feared it. The last monster was magical to a certain degree and odd looking - through deduction he guessed that this strange monster was also magical too.

He commanded his rats to be ready, but as they moved through the small tunnels, many of the eyes on the monster focused and stared at one of the cave walls. Normally, that wouldn’t cause him problems, but as a dungeon lord he had the power to look through walls. The monster was staring at his rats through solid stone.

There was no mania to its movements either, except for the erratic shifting, blinking, and moving of its eyes. However, the walls of his maze did little to confuse the monster, even less than any other attacker. Many have seemed to smell his dungeon core - this thing could see it, and see the path to get to it.

Alex called back his creatures with alarm. Thankfully, the monster was rather slow and lethargic. By the time it navigated his maze, his rats were waiting for him at the bottom. The monster stopped at the edge of the hole, peering down and seeming to be in thought. It appeared that the monster had some intelligence too.

However, there was no way to attack his dungeon core except through this singular choke point. He had no idea what the monster could do, other than its enhanced perception. The monster didn’t have any magical tricks up its sleeves either, so it jumped down and began its attack.

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The monster was intelligent, and its claws were sharp, but Alex had grown used to puppeteering his rats. The neurotoxic rats were the first to successfully bite, but the effects were very lackluster. The monster’s movements became more sluggish but it was clear that the monster had either a resilient vitality or resistance to his neurotoxins.

That didn’t matter, it was the other rat that would give the killing blow. The monster seemed to have sensed it and tried to flee, but it couldn’t climb back up the cliff-like hole. The only way to move was further into the dungeon - further into his trap.

He found it somewhat funny how the cliff he created to break animals’ bones in the earlier days of his dungeon was still helping him in new ways. The monster couldn’t escape, and its distraction allowed for his neurotoxic rats to continue poisoning it with venom. While the monster had unparalleled perception, it didn’t have the mental capability or the body to handle multiple threats at once.

The singular monster was completely at odds with everything. The eyes didn’t matter if there were more attacks than its limbs could react to. Slowly the neurotoxin worked its magic and his bioweapon managed to get a good bite on it. He stopped attacking at that point and forced all of his rats to back off.

It didn’t take long for the blood rot to work its magic. From the bite wound, tendrils of red started to appear in the bloodstream, and the area of the bite bloomed into scarlet fuzz. The monster screamed and howled as its body was conquered and taken from it. However, the monster’s innate resistance fought back against its infection, but that vitality only fed the fungus more.

It took a long time, much longer than he would have liked, as the monster was slowly consumed by red. Stalks began to grow from it, carrying spores and magical flesh that almost glistened like rubies. The monster died and the rest of the body was converted.

Alex forced himself to wait until the soul of the monster was drawn into the dungeon core. His account reached over fifty again, this time he had enough to fully create this new rat species. He finished the modifications and mutations to the rat, then he modified the template for females and created another one.

Both rats were injured, but after consuming the bloomed stalks of the blood rot, it didn’t take long for their injuries to start to lessen. After creating not only the male, but also the female, it was finally time for him to name this species. He thought about it for a moment and came up with a name. He decided to name them ‘rotten rats,’ a boring but practical name. Names needed to be kept boring in a dungeon, creative or strange names only bring confusion in the future.

With that, he created his second complete species. Now, he needed to create a backup. These two species needed a predator or parasite, something to keep them in check. He thought about creating another rat species, but that didn’t feel right. Until then, he needed to start refining the rotten rats’ behavior and instincts.

When dominating a creature, they are charmed so that their behaviors can be overwritten. However, there are times, such as his constant use of animals as a defense, when this system fails or wrong things are taught. Behaviors are stored and can be installed, deleted, or even transferred to a different species. This cost soul points though, while just training the species correctly the first time doesn’t.

He went into their minds and modified their behaviors using some of his left over soul points.