“Alright let's go! Positions everyone.” I was up and running. “Where is the breach happening?”

“The second tunnel.” The map lit up to the furthest room in the new tunnel leading to the top right of the map.

“Oh nice, a change of scenery.” I scuttled down the hallway with a few soldiers coming behind me. Ella was sprinting back down toward me with a panicked look on her face.

“What is happening?”

“Dungeon. Down this way. Get your bow and come back.” I shot past her at top speed and ran for the second to last room. “Alright, same deal as always.” Currently, there was only one tank on guard here, but the others were soon behind me. Looking around the room I saw a pile of poison-coated spears and rocks to my left and a stone hammer and shield to my right. I grabbed two spears and got ready making room for the tank that was on the way.

“Connection to the dungeon in 5” Daisy proceeded to count down to zero and I closed my eyes bringing up the surveillance spider I had in this room. He had gotten little to no action since we left the elf world. I felt his excitement, while it wasn't a large job, it was a very important job. The shaking got more intense before coming to an immediate stop with the forming of a vortex one room away.

“Let’s see what we got.” I didn't have my hopes up. If the previous dungeons were any indication, it would take a little before one of us decided to invade the other. Or so I thought.

The vortex flexed less than a minute after forming. I swore under my breath since my army hadn't arrived yet. I had the map up as well as saw that the poison spiders and scorpion spider were in the hallways behind me, the trap spider was a room behind them, and the two other tanks were a few rooms away. Ella had made it back to the tree room and was presumably on her way back.

I focused on the screen again waiting to see what would come out. Three black figures crouched close to the ground slid out of the vortex. I strained my mind looking closer as they moved into the room lifting their heads and sniffing the air. My heart dropped.

“Hellhounds!” I hissed in anger. The three dog-like creatures caught our scent and focused on the hallway leading to us, and took off in our direction. Hellhounds were a plague to anyone that crossed their path. They resembled a large dog and were about 3 feet tall at the shoulders. While normally I was a dog person, these things were far from cute. I opened my eyes watching the tunnel ahead of us. Their smell reached us before they did. A putrid rancid smell of rotting flesh filled my mouth and nose as they rounded the corner leading to myself and the tank. I immediately launched both spears at them. One spear missed and exploded on the wall showering them with shards, the other spear struck the leading hellhound in the chest. Both the shards and spear managed to buy around 2 seconds of time as the impact made the leader falter slowing the other two down. They regained their footing and speed almost immediately.

Hellhounds were the equivalent of zombie dogs as far as I was concerned. They were incredibly resilient to all forms of attack and would keep trying to fight even after limbs had been cut off. The only surefire way to kill them was the good old zombie way, either take off their head or crush their skull.

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I didn't have time to get another weapon as they reached us and balled up my fists decking the leading hellhound squarely in the head as it lept for my throat. The second one lunged at the tank who swung his mace arm at it. He missed the head and caught the dog on the side crushing its ribs as he drove it into the wall. The third one sprung between them and latched onto my forearm which hadn't finished punching the first one. Hellhounds have two rows of teeth that are curved backward leading to a very painful bite that was incredibly hard to shake off. I winced in pain reaching up grabbing it by its throat. I knew that if I tried to pull it off, the beast would take a large chunk of flesh with it. Instead, I picked up the shockingly light dog by its throat and together with both arms used the third hellhound as a club to beat the first hound who was already starting to recover from the punch. I slammed its body down on the other dog three times before backup finally arrived.

Three spiders launched over me, between me and the tank, and under my legs attacking the two hellhounds. Alec’s tail and mercilessly as he plunged the sharp tip into the bell of the hellhound on the floor. The two poison spiders lept into action sinking their fangs into the other two hounds. I knew that wasn't enough to stop them, but it bought the time needed for the tank to bring his mace down on the skull of his hound, smashing it into a paste. He then proceeded to slice off the head of the one still latched onto my arm. I staggered backward leaving room for him to finish off the third, however, it wasn't needed. Alec had moved his stabbing attacks up to the beast's throat and after many fast stabs had almost cut off the hellhound's head.

I took the moment to catch my breath and work on peeling the head off my arm. Its jaw was locked, but after a few tries, I was able to break it and pull it off. I spat on my arm stopping the bleeding and looking down at the beasts I sneered at their bodies. They wreaked of death and there were patches of rotting skin peeling off of their bodies. I took a closer look at the head, it has 4 eyes and no nose, one ear was barely hanging onto the skull, an injury from a previous fight since it was healed.

“The furthest thing from cute.” I tossed the head aside and flexed my hand checking movement. Everything seemed fine, except for a dull ache in my arm. The other spiders were filing into the room now. “Thanks for joining us.”

I ordered the two tanks to stand at the entrance and pulled the other one to me. He had a few scratches on his arm and near his neck. I stopped the bleeding and made sure he was okay to fight still, which he was.

“Gate activity,” Daisy said drawing me to my mind screen again. The vortex was flexing as more hellhounds came into the dungeon. They immediately locked on to the scent of their brethren and came sprinting our way. More like filing our way as more than 20 hellhounds poured from the gate.