Free Web NovelChapter 29: Chapter 29: Death... At Death’s Door...
The massive Alpha wolf was the first to shake off the unnatural chill of the necromancy.
Throwing its head back, it unleashed a deafening howl, forcefully rallying the pack and restoring their lost momentum. Not wanting to give the intruders another second to build up their power, the beast charged.
It clashed directly with Lucy, who now more than twice its size.
Their collision was shockingly equal. Because of Lucy’s massive size, the already cramped cavern became incredibly claustrophobic, but there was just enough room for their brutal skirmish.
They clashed with heavy paws and sharp teeths, trying to deal maximum damage. The physical impacts were devastating as their missed strikes left small craters and tiny spiderweb cracks across the solid stone floor.
However, despite being a Level 60 apex predator previously, Lucy was not used to fighting in a clumsy, head-on physical brawl. Her true mastery lay in illusions and shadow manipulation; skills she was currently holding back.
Since her magical attacks required an enormous amount of energy, she couldn’t rely on them without draining Night dry, which meant she struggled to gain the upper hand against the enraged boss.
Their powerful soul bond; though formidable, had one glaring drawback: their absolute reliance on Night’s Energy Value (EV) pool. If Night had an infinite reservoir of energy, this fight would have been effortlessly easier.
We need to find a way for him to recover energy much quicker during active combat after we return,
Lucy decided in her mind.
But we have to actually survive this dungeon first.
She couldn’t shake a disturbing realization. This dungeon was far too dangerous to simply be a Level 5 dungeon. It wasn’t just the levels of the monsters, but the sheer unnatural quantity of them.
One mjst know they had only encountered two Level 3 wolves at the very start; the rest were all Level 4, and this Alpha felt significantly stronger and smarter than any Level 5 boss had the right to be.
Lost in her rapid thought process, Lucy was distracted for a fraction of a second. She took a harsh hit from the Alpha’s glowing claws, the heavy impact for a second left her breathless.
Snarling, she quickly recovered her footing and refocused entirely on the battle.
Across the cavern, the four skeletal wolves weren’t having an easy time either. They fought their former packmates without an ounce of remorse and the living wolves retaliated without holding back.
Meanwhile, Death charged a stray wolf, quickly overwhelming it with her graceful bone strikes, while Eve and Lilith stayed close to each other as they tag-teamed to face two beasts.
Under the intense pressure of a life-and-death battle, night and his friends fighting styles were visibly evolving.
Unlike their earlier, straightforward brawling, the summons now started dodging, feinting, counter-attacking, and executing highly coordinated maneuvers.
[Energy Value (EV) - 405]
While the others were fighting, Night was observing from the shadows, gripping the red talisman tightly so he could crush it at a moment’s notice.
Looking at his interface, Night felt a cold rush of panic. The main fight had just begun and he was already down 200 EV.
Lucy’s massive size transformation and Death’s necromancy had taken a terrifying chunk out of his reserves before the melee even fully started.
As for himself, while he had proven lethal during stealthy sneak attacks, Night acutely realized his fatal weakness in a chaotic group battle like this. He might be able to execute one wolf if he managed to land a killing strike without being spotted, but the moment he did, he would be instantly caught and ganged up on.
He simply didn’t have a reliable way to escape.
Still, he refused to just hide. Observing from a dark corner, he saw a wolf attempt to sneak-attack Death from behind to save its losing comrade.
Night sprang into action.
Entering the state of absolute calm; which he now called ’meditative stealth’ for convenience, he glided silently across the damp rock.
Just as the beast prepared to lunge at Death’s exposed back, Night closed the distance with a swift leap and took its head.
After reaching Level 5, he noticed his Homunculus body had strengthened by more than double.
This physical boost allowed him to easily perform fighting maneuvers that, in his past life which would have taken an elite athlete a lifetime of rigorous practice to achieve.
[You have slain Lvl. 4 Mountain Wolf | +30 EXP]
Level: 5 (EXP: 95/600)
Despite being physically the weakest of the group, he had secured the first kill of the melee. It was all thanks to his mental mastery over his body and the sharp edge of his [Over-Sharpened] knife.
It seems the ancients were right,
Night mused coldly.
Humanity’s greatest strength is our ability to use tools.
The wolf actively fighting Death paused in shock as it watched its helper die so swiftly. Death ruthlessly capitalized on the hesitation, landing a fatal strike directly to the beast’s weak stomach region.
Unlike previous times, Night didn’t stop after the kill. Instead, he used his landing momentum to leap directly at the disoriented wolf Death had just struck.
Taking full advantage of the opening, he finished it off with a smooth, upward slash.
[You have slain Lvl. 4 Mountain Wolf | +30 EXP]
Level: 5 (EXP: 125/600)
Now completely free of opponents, Death seized the opportunity. She slammed the heel of her skeletal foot into the damp ground. Another terrifying wave of pure necrotic energy rippled outward from her bones. As the dark aura washed over the two freshly killed wolves, their flesh melted away, initiating their undead transformation.
While this skill looked visually awesome, Night now knew it was absolutely terribly inefficient.
This skill deprived Night of any spoils from the kill. Because the corpses were reanimated instead of devoured by his Nightmare Domain, he received zero EV recovery and no chance of extracting skills.
At the same time, it cost him a massive amount of energy just to turn them into the undead.
Furthermore, previously, Death had consumed the second-least amount of energy to stay manifested. Now, she was likely burning the most, because Night had to passively sustain her and a growing pack of six skeletal wolves (including the two currently transforming).
Eve and Lilith were having the easiest time. They fought using a brilliant, on-the-go tactic to systematically dismantle their two targets.
When a wolf was struck and paralyzed by Eve’s electric charge, Lilith would immediately step in and hammer the stunned beast with her corrosive dark mana, achieving massive double damage.
Before the two dead wolves could even finish their skeletal transformation, Eve and Lilith’s targets collapsed, their weak insides completely scorched by electricity and rotted by dark mana.
[You have slain Lvl. 4 Mountain Wolf (x2)| +60 EXP]
Level: 5 (EXP: 185/600)
Seeing this, Death did not hesitate. She released a third wave of necrotic energy from her bones, raising those two fallen beasts into the undead ranks as well.
With four wolves dead, a gap opened in the cave entrance, allowing four fresh wolves from the main pack to pour in.
But before they could advance, the two skeletons that had transformed first charged them.
A few seconds later, the next two skeletons completed their transformation and joined the fray, effectively creating a brutal 4 vs. 4 clash.
Now, Night, Death, Eve, and Lilith were completely free from the mob.
The entrance to the cave was entirely blocked by a chaotic 8 vs. 8 fight (the four older skeletons wolfs and the four new ones clashing violently against eight living wolves).
Turning their attention back to the center of the cavern, the team saw Lucy struggling and immediately rushed over to help her win. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
Because she avoided using her shadow magic so as not to drain Night’s EV, Lucy was rapidly losing ground in a pure battle of raw strength.
She took a couple of harsh, bloody hits from the Alpha’s claws.
Curiously, as more and more of its packmates died, the Alpha seemed entirely unbothered. When it saw Night and the other summons rushing in to help the giant Fenrir, it simply stalled, adopting a highly defensive, evasive posture to bait them in.
Just as they reached striking distance, Lucy sensed something terribly wrong while Night’s [Beast Instinct] screamed in absolute terror. Before they could even give a warning, the Alpha moved at a speed several times faster than its previous limit.
It burst forward at a speed many times faster than its previous limit; it had been hiding its true agility the entire time.
Completely bypassing the vanguard’s attempts to hinder it, the beast reached Death in the blink of an eye.
Its heavy claws flared with a green light as it slammed its paw squarely into Death’s ribcage.
CRACK.
"Noo...!" Night screamed, his voice tearing through the cavern.
He watched in horror as Death flew backward like a cannonball, slamming violently into the solid cave walls.
The impact shattered the stone and her indestructible white bones crumpled, falling completely limp to the ground.
In that exact same second, out at the cave entrance, all eight of the skeletal wolves collapsed into piles of lifeless dust particles,falling apart like marionettes violently losing their strings.
