The werewolves finally made it to the river after about an hour or two of careful searching and combing through Dylan’s dungeon. They had met very little resistance along the way, and discovered little in the way of Dylan’s core. They had, however, discovered Dylan’s Southeast breeding cave despite his attempt to cave in the tunnel to an extent with his [Dungeon Edit] skill. The reason why Dylan hadn’t completely sealed off the tunnel was because he felt a horrible premonition while attempting to do so, almost as if he was about to cut off a finger, or even his hand. He could do it, but it would be a really bad thing for him to do. Following that, he had received a message from the Voice of the World warning him that sealing off any part of his Dungeon from his core would result in losing control over that area. All parts of his Dungeon had to be ‘accessible’ according to the Voice.
I have to be connected to all parts of the Dungeon at all times? So that means nothing can be completely hidden away behind a tunnel or sealed off…Damn! So, I can’t just bury my core under a ton of dirt and stone?! This is so unfair! Dylan was once again pissed to have another breeding cave destroyed, despite his efforts to save it. After all, if he had completely sealed off the cave, he would have lost it. Deciding whether or not to cut his losses, he sealed it off just enough so that he wouldn’t lose control over it. Yet the werewolves had found and destroyed it anyway. Dylan reasoned that it had to do with their sense of smell. It had been a fairly small hole too, about the size of a human’s fist, roughly the size of Dylan’s own core, yet a fireball wolf had accurately fired a fireball deep into the depths of the breeding cave. If Dylan hadn’t been so busy summoning and arranging his monsters, he could have stopped the fire from doing as much damage as it did, but the fact of the matter was that he had limited the destruction of the Southeast breeding cave to a mere 15%.
Oh, you just wait damned wolves… I’ll kill most of you at the very least then make me a wolf army, then work THOSE to the death as revenge hehehe… It had been a couple hours since the wolves had entered, and Dylan was ready to beat the everlasting shit out of these wolves. When he had fought the goblins, they weren’t nearly as destructive as the current wolves, so Dylan hadn’t felt such extreme anger towards them. As the wolves inched through the forest, searching every nook and cranny, Dylan impatiently waited.
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After Maxin had rendezvoused with Uruga, he had told him of his personal thoughts, which Uruga had confirmed. So, they had taken the time to comb through the Dungeon, just in case it had hidden its core in an inconspicuous area.
The reason for their fears was simple; they had been sent on multiple missions before of this type, and because they served the God of Dungeons himself. In every single dungeon they had entered when sent on quests, the Dungeon’s behaved as they normally should, according to their lord himself.
The God of Dungeons, Gehennia, had explained to Maxin and Uruga once that dungeons of his type were a special case. Simply put, nearly all dungeons started their lifecycles with an animalistic intelligence, and chose not to activate the [Natural Order] skill, as they couldn’t realize the importance of things such as reproduction. They simply saved enough mana to summon monsters or animals which had died within them, then used so called ‘points’ to buy the evolutions of said organisms. In addition, most dungeons didn’t consider the summoning of things such as plants or other non-combatant organisms as they couldn’t protect the core. The last thing Gehennia had explained to them was that dungeons also didn’t appreciate the thought of their minions; their lifeline, killing and devouring each other, as every less minion guarding the core meant a higher chance of danger. Now Maxin and Uruga had no clue what points were, but they understood the basics; that most dungeons saw summoning non-combatants and allowing their denizens to kill each other as harmful to their safety, so a dungeon which overturned those conventions was an unpredictable threat.
Maxin had ample time to go over the information their lord had given them in his head, and he had come to a conclusion; more organisms means more power for a Dungeon, which is why only a smart or lucky Dungeon would be able to recognize both the risks and rewards of following through with that pathway.
Suddenly, his ears caught the sound of what appeared to be rushing water. Maxin was currently in his human form, so his werewolf form would have caught the noise much sooner.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the water?” He sharply glanced at Uruga, who continued to heavily plod forward.
“Ah, my bad, I forgot that you weren’t in werewolf form ahahaha!” The red-furred werewolf chuckled and Maxin rolled his eyes. It wasn’t a huge issue, however, and Maxin knew that Uruga was definitely listening out for them, even if he hadn’t alerted Maxin.
As they reached the source of the sound, Maxin and Uruga’s eyes widened in surprise. Upon seeing the sheer size of the river before them, Maxin chuckled to himself while massaging his temples. His husky and tense laugh spoke volumes of the frustration he was currently feeling.
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“Can you jump that?” Maxin suddenly stopped laughing and fixed Uruga with a hardened gaze.
“If I could use my full power…” Uruga replied curtly. “If I had my full power, I could easily make it across.”
“And I would dry up this river with my magic but we don’t have our full power! Hell, we wouldn’t even need to be here, we could probably send one of those ants and it’d wipe out this entire dungeon!” Maxin cursed loudly before calmly analyzing. “We can make the wolves swim; they’ll be tired but they surely can do it. Also, the wind and fireball wolves might be able to make it with our assistance, but we cannot send the iron spine or ember wolves.”
“Seems about right…” Uruga muttered to himself. “Shall we send the fireball and wind wolves on their sweet way? We can follow through after I guess.”
“Definitely, but first…” Maxin stepped forward and let loose a series of guttural grunts and howls. Uruga stiffened hearing the order, then nodded in understanding. Following the call, the dire wolves and black-furred wolves rushed forward and leapt into the water. Many of them slipped on the loose mud before falling wildly into the water, causing them to get swept away. The wild wolves all hesitated to leap in after seeing a few get swept down, but recovered their confidence upon seeing the wolves swim aggressively against the current, with most of them recovering their momentum. Stopping the dire wolf with the prisoners, Maxin took them off and dropped them onto the ground next to the remaining wolves before letting it go. Soon, all of the normal and dire wolves dove in and began to swim at an angle against the current.
Maxin grunted at the iron spine and ember wolves who wanted to go in as well to guard the prisoners, then he signaled the wind wolves and Uruga. His body began to erupt with black fur, his snout and jaws elongated, and claws stretched from his fingertips. Within a minute or two, he had transformed into his werewolf form, a pitch-black bipedal beast with purple streaks and dots which peppered his fur. His glowing red eyes narrowed before he howled aggressively, seeing that the wolves had almost reached a third of the way there.
Following the howl, Uruga, the wind wolves, the fireball wolves and Maxin himself rushed from the bank, propelling themselves off of the bank. Although a few wind wolves slipped and got swept away by the river, the majority of them made it. They landed onto the backs of some of their allied wolves, ruthlessly pushing them underwater as they bounced lightly off of their backs to land on other wolves. Regardless of if the wolves were shoved underwater and swept away by the currents, the small pack continued to bounce off of them. The fireball wolves themselves seemed to leap higher into the air, their bodies igniting into flames as they flew through the sky ahead of the main pack, occasionally they bounced off of the other wolves, yet most of their time remained in the air.
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Dylan was extremely startled by the action, yet seeing that the wolves had already started to reach the halfway mark with few casualties, he decided to activate his traps and concentrate. The small cloud of bats flew through the hanging stone spikes, triggering the touch-activated trap mechanism. Huge spikes of stone fell from the ceiling, crushing some wolves and killing them instantly.
Some unlucky wolves were crushed into bloody chunks by the falling stones which were swept away. Some took minor damage to their limbs or sides, but most of them remained lucky enough to not take a severe blow. A whirlpool suddenly opened up in the middle of the river, catching a few wolves and even a dire wolf before funneling them down deep into the river’s depths. Still, the sandy-colored wolves and the werewolves leaped carefully, with the werewolves even propelling themselves off of the stones which passed by them. The two fiery wolves were both cloaked in flames as they seemed to fly through the sky for short periods of time.
Well then, I’d hate to rain on your parade…Hell, that’s exactly what I’m going to do! Die! Dylan triggered one of his Dungeon Laws with his mind, then aimed it directly at the incoming wolves. A torrent of mist and rain suddenly began to pour in an area encompassing the entirety of the river and both of its banks. Caught in the rain, the wolves already swimming weren’t affected as much, but the sandy wolves and the werewolves suffered from obscured vision as a heavy wind pushed the droplets straight towards them. The target of Dylan’s attacks, the fireball wolves, suffered greatly, as the intensity of the fires which carried them were slowly drained away, forcing them to land. As they tumbled from the sky, the fires covering their bodies shrunk down, and their fiery veins pulsed with less intensity. Midair, the once fairly large wolves reverted back to their puppy-like state.
The black-haired werewolf immediately traveled towards one of the falling wolves while barking out loudly. Catching it in his arms and landing on the back of a dire wolf, he turned to watch the other werewolf leap for the other falling wolf and miss it by a hair. The beautiful yet tiny wolf fell into the river head first into a particularly shallow area with a rock spike sticking from the bottom, snapping its neck as its body was swept away.
Dylan looked at the notification that popped up.
You can now [Summon]: Fireball Wolf (C )
Seeing the sour and grim expressions on the werewolves’ faces delighted Dylan. If Dylan currently had a body, it would currently be sporting a shit-eating grin.