A pair of red eyes shone in the night as the sound of tearing meat and crunching bones filled the atmosphere. The wolves had hunted down a deer to fill their hunger. If Alex and his friends had seen the scene, they would have been shocked. Not because of the hunting scene… but because there were more than 40 wolves. The wolf pack had come out and gathered reinforcements!

As the Demon Wolf ate its fill, the slash on its side and the deep gash along its back healed visible to the naked eye. As the wound finally closed up, the wolf shivered slightly. Then gave a growl. Healed from its injury, it only had one thing on its mind… revenge.

Every single able bodied individual was out in full force. We weren’t sure when those wolves would be back but I bet my rock that they were going to be back before morning.

With the mana from the two dead wolves, I summoned two slimes. The two goblins were healing up fast using the medicinal paste the squirrels had made.

As for the rest of the troop, they were preparing traps, as many things as we could think of to our advantage. From what we saw earlier, we were at a complete disadvantage when we clashed earlier. Each wolf could take out dozens of squirrels, and although we have 400, they were not all fighters, we had the foragers, and the ones who specialized in herbs. Only 100 had been especially trained by Max to fight.

The hares were a different story, they all came from the same troop which relied on each individual. So they could all fight, but they were lacking in tactics. That’s were I come in.

‘Ok Levine, we need 15 of the strongest of your family to ambush them from outside, and another 15 to ambush them in the cliff room,’ I told Levine the plan. He paled a bit, I know it was risky but it had a good chance of working.

‘Yes sir, ummm, will I be given a specific task?’ I smiled at Levine when he asked. I liked this little guy, even though he is scared, I knew I could count on him. I didn’t call him ‘the Brave’ because of what I saw, but of what I felt he could become.

‘You’re going to be holding the line along with Max at each defense line. Now Max, you’re the only one who can keep that Demon Wolf from tearing open our defense. The goblins and slimes can keep up defenses but they just aren’t fast enough to do any damage.’

‘Yes sir, understood.’

‘Ok, get everyone ready, let’s give these sons of bitches a hell of a good time.’

The wolf pack came a few hours before dawn, blood dripping from their muzzles. They had obviously gone hunting. They drew to the entrance at a moderate pace. Unknown to them, 15 hares were waiting silently above the entrance. They were helping prepare a special present for the wolves.

Meeting the wolves at the entrance was a line of defenders with Max and Levine in the middle. Levine was now armed with the two daggers while Max was wielding the sword. The goblins were with them as well as the fastest squirrels and hares. They only had one purpose, delay.

The wolves seemed rabid, when they caught sight of the dungeon defense team, some of them quivered as if they were barely controlling themselves from charging ahead.

Max was frowning. I couldn’t see what has going on since the wolves were outside my territory. Max whispered to me, ‘Sir, there’s more of them than the last attack. I count a total of 40 wolves.’

Damn, we couldn’t change the defensive plan now, but more wolves meant we were going to get hit with casualties no matter how skillfully we played this, they simply had too great an advantage in pure physical ability.

It was going to be the 100 strong squirrel fighters, the 40 hares, two goblins, two slimes, Max and Levine up against 40 wolves and their Demon Wolf leader.

At some unknown signal, the entire wolf pack charged forward.

A slight grin could be seen on Max’s face, though Levine looked like he was muttering a prayer under his breath.

The reason for that was soon apparent. As the charging wolves drew nearer, the lead wolves all suddenly tripped and fell. There were a few cracks as the sound of breaking bones filled the air. This was one of Levine’s ideas, potholes traps! So when these wolves charged, they would topple over, breaking their advantage in speed at least momentarily. It had a much better effect than I thought, Max was telling me everything that happened as he kept a sharp watch over it all.

‘Two wolves seemed to have broken their legs in that charge, a few others look injured but not overly so.’

The important thing was they broke the charge. The rest of the wolves would now have to be more careful and thus for us, more vulnerable.

The wolves had slowed down but they soon reached the defence. The defence was based around Max and Levine, Max as the centre and Levine as support who would run around and shore up whichever part of the defence looked to be faltering.

What we had for weapons now were make-shift stakes long sticks that had the ends sharpened. They were far from deadly weapons but they served to keep the wolves back.

When about half the wolves had engaged, the hares above the entrance started moving. They had found large boulders early, and with the help of everyone had placed them above the entrance. There were 3 boulders total, and 5 hares per boulder pushed with all their might, bracing their back and pushing with their powerful hind legs. The boulders toppled over, then gathered speed and momentum as it roll then fell onto the pack of wolves. The hares didn’t stop there, kicking one rock after another down at the wolves being held by the defence.

The effect? It was beautiful. Two wolves were smashed flat by boulders while the last boulder grazed a few wolves, the other rocks being rolled down were causing no amount of trouble for the wolves.

‘Ok Max, order the withdrawal to the next line. Things are picking up.’

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Watching a good plan work well is in itself a pleasure. The boulder crushing trap was Lady Rox’s idea, she said if we can use a small group of hares to kill even one wolf, without any casualties on our side, then it’s a good trade.

Indeed, we were without a single casualty while the wolves had been injured and lost 2 members, the ambush was a success!

‘Ok Max, order the withdrawal to the next line. Things are picking up.’

As some of the dust from the boulders filled the air and the wolves were filled with confusion, this was of course the best time to retreat to the next defensive line.

The first room of the dungeon didn’t have any special features. It was large, able to fit 50 humans comfortably but it narrowed down to a corridor that only two could go through at a time. This was where we set the next defense.

In formation in front of the line was the two slimes and behind them are the two goblins, armed with sharpened poles, spear-like but not as strong. They were after all, make-shift weapons.

This was where we planned the second ambush as well.

The wolves were more cautious this time so although we made pothole traps in this room as well, they didn’t trip themselves up like at the entrance.

The entire wolf pack gathered into the room.

I grimaced, there really were a lot. The two wolves with broken legs were trailing behind, dragging themselves forward. They were pretty much out of the fight.

‘Ok troop! Pelt them! Confuse them!’

On my command, rocks were thrown by the fighters. This wasn’t intended to really cause injury, I wasn’t so optimistic. No the reason was to be a distraction.

The ambush we had planned for this room needed precision, and that required diversion tactics.

When I gave the signal to start bombarding the wolves with rocks, twenty squirrels that had been clinging to the roof of the cave launched themselves down. They had a long thorn dagger in each hand. While these thorns weren’t long enough to pierce through the hide of the wolves, no animal can take a thorn piercing into their eyes.

These heroic squirrel fighters aimed to try drop onto wolf heads, not all were successful, less than even half. But it was enough.

The 2 wolves with broken legs were easy targets, the squirrels that landed on them quickly scampered to the heads and with full force jabbed the long thorns into the wolves’ eyes. There was a howl from the wolves as the thorns pierced them.

Apart from the two lamed wolves, the squirrels landed on a further five wolves. Of those, on three of them, two squirrels had landed on the same wolves. Working together, they plunged their thorns into one eye each, while those where there was only one squirrel only managed to blind one eye.

It was a vicious attack on our part but this was Alex’s decision.

‘Max, an enemy is an enemy. Do not give sympathy and do not let things like fairness cloud you from your duty. Your task is to defend your home, protect your kin. It is not to worry about anything else. The enemy will not spare you for being honourable. If you can’t kill them, main them. If you can’t main them, injure them. If you can’t do that, scare them so they make mistakes… THEN kill them. So you WILL order your squirrels to use their thorns and plunge them into the eyes of these wolves. These wolves killed your family, and they are here to finish the job. Be vicious and decisive. Don’t leave a single wolf leave here alive.’

Alex’s words echoed in my head. He was wise and his words had a ring of experience in them. So I watched my squirrels blind those wolves then with a charge I ran towards them.

‘Goblins follow me! Squirrels retreat!’

I attacked to allow the ambushing squirrels time to run to our line. These were brave warriors, I didn’t just command them to take on this dangerous mission, they volunteered for it. So I wanted to save them. They were in the middle of the wolf pack, darting back and forth to get back to us.

Of the 20, only 13 made it. Although they were fast, the wolves were fast as well, once they lost the element of surprise, they were in for a tough struggle.

When I, Levine and the goblins hit the front wolves, the thirteen remaining squirrels managed to clamber to us, they had been hit mostly by the claws so they were battered and bleeding. The other seven had met the jaws of the wolves, and were torn in half. It was a brutal scene.

Alex was right, we need to be vicious and decisive.

‘Full scale retreat! Goblins, at the rear, guard everyone else!’

The two ambushes went well but there were still more than 30 able wolves.

During our quick retreat, the last goblin was bowled over completely by one of the wolves. It was the leader, the Demon Wolf.

I have never felt so much anger, ‘YOU! It’s always you! Why?!’

I nearly lost my reason, red seemed to fill my vision. I even almost started to run back but Levine grabbed me.

‘Bro, I know you’re angry but we need to set up the next line! Stick to the plan, you can’t kill all thirty of them just by yourself!’

My head cleared up and I turned to Levine and nodded. Right, we had a job to do.

Of the forty wolves that attacked so far, two were killed outside, two were lamed and blinded, another three were blind in both eyes leaving them out of the fight, while another three were blinded in one eye. They were growling and howling in pain but they didn’t seem to be out of the fight. That means we were up against 33 wolves, three of which were blinded in one eye. And that leader was uninjured. I couldn’t even see the wounds I had given him earlier. We especially couldn’t let this one leave alive.

The remaining goblin and the two slimes were drawing up the rear but the gap between us and the wolves was only barely growing. They were being more cautious as they had fallen into two of our traps now.

The next room was the cliff room, to let everyone run up the cliff in time me and Levine had to stall the wolves again, the slimes were invaluable here as they prevented the wolves from encircling us. While they got battered and bitten, the wolves couldn’t do actual damage as they couldn’t find the monster core. The last goblin also held off wolves using his spear-like wooden pole.

We fought for barely a minute before the goblin let a wolf get too close. The wolf bit onto the goblin’s arm. Levine moved to stab the wolf, but another wolf came in through the gap in the defense and his claws raked along Levine’s left arm.

I turned to help as well, the wolves dashed out of my reach. They had seen my sword kill two of theirs before so they weren’t willing to come close to it.

Levine grabbed one side of the goblin while I grabbed the other as we ran at a sprint. The slimes followed as closely behind as they could, while being attacked by the wolves. They probably couldn’t take too much more.

The squirrels and hares started dropping heavy rocks over the side of the cliff to scare off the wolves chasing the slimes, giving us just enough time to make it to the top.

But it wasn’t over, not by a long shot. We prepared our next defensive line, while the wolves gathered into the room. And that Demon Wolf’s red eyes glowed in the dim light of the dungeon.

My arm felt like it was burning. There were three long gashes, and the blood dripping down my arm made my hands slick. It was difficult to keep hold of my dagger. One of the herby squirrels came and tried to get me to pull back.

‘Just wrap up my arm so it stops bleeding!’ How could I leave the front line? My bro was there. He was so amazing but he was alone. The others didn’t have good weapons, who would have his back? The squirrel wrapped my arm in some type of plant wrap. Wow, that medical paste felt pretty good. I was right back at the defensive line in about two minutes, these herby squirrels were great!

I looked at those hungry wolf eyes down below the cliff. It was still scary. No it was terrifying. I knew in my heart, that I was on par with them in terms of strength… but it’s tough to forget that I was once just prey to these things.

I gritted my teeth. Yes I was scared. Yes, it occurred to me that I could tell everyone that I was too injured and they would let me leave the front lines… but how could I do that? How could I leave Max by himself?

I saw with my own two eyes, brave squirrels jump from a ceiling right into the middle of a pack of wolves. THAT was bravery. In terms of strength and speed, these wolves had the squirrels beaten… yet still they did it. And boy did they cause havoc.

So how could I justify leaving these people? My friends… my FAMILY! How could I leave them to fight alone?!

I would fight these fucking bastards that dared to enter my home! That killed people in my family! That DARE to glare at me.

I glared back at these predators prowling below us.

‘Come on you worthless bastards! I want to see you bleed! I want to make you suffer!’

I shouted at those wolves in anger.

Those wolves started coming up the cliff side ramp. I snarled as I got ready meet them once again, daggers glinting in the dim light of the dungeon.