Free Web NovelChapter 34: Chapter 34: The Cunning Wolf...
Racing through the dark tunnels, Lucy felt an oppressive weight bearing down on them.
By all logic the suffocating threat should have decreased the further they ran from the main cavern, but it didn’t. It only seemed to linger, heavy and unseen.
Up ahead the path split into five different tunnels.
This time Lucy chose one entirely at random only for the path to branch out into seven more tunnels. For a brief moment, the feeling of danger faded slightly.
She picked another at random and kept sprinting.
This maze like tunnels kept going.
Every few minutes, they would encounter junction after junction; sometimes splitting into five paths, sometimes six. At one point, they came across a massive intersection with twenty different tunnels lined up in a row.
The most surprising thing was that not a single one of these tunnels had any wolves in them. It was completely deserted.
Night sat quietly on her back, letting her take the lead. His [Beast Instincts] were screaming at a pitch far worse than anything Lucy was feeling. Every fiber of his being felt like he was going to die at any given moment.
He didn’t dare to speak, terrified that distracting her for even a single second would slow them down and seal their fate.
Even though the immediate danger seemed to decrease as they wove through the random tunnels, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being a mouse toyed with by a very patient cat.
Especially now that they knew this was definitely not a simple Level 5 dungeon...
And just like that, after another thirty nerve-wracking minutes of running he felt another corpse fully digest in his Nightmare Domain.
He now only had nine Level 4 corpses and one Level 5 corpse left in his reserves.
[Energy Value (EV) - 882]
He didn’t receive a new skill, nor did any of his current skills upgrade.
They kept running.
Three hours of escaping through the endless tunnels passed. During that time four more corpses were digested, the last of which was the prized Level 5 scout wolf Lucy had killed earlier.
Upon its digestion, the System finally chimed.
[Ding!]
[Wind Overdrive (Epic) (Lvl. 1) – Cost: 1000 EV]
[Description: Allows the user to explosively enhance their physical body by overloading it with the Wind aspect.]
[Purchase? Y/N]
What the... Night groaned inwardly. He was genuinely annoyed. It was an incredibly useful skill, and his very first "Epic" rarity at that but the cost was absurdly high; ten times more than a Rare skill.
He looked at his EV reserves after the three hours of steady digestion.
[Energy Value (EV) - 1052]
He barely had enough to buy it, but doing so would instantly drain him dry, turning him into a sitting duck unable to sustain his summons.
About ten minutes later, a soft light appeared at the end of their current tunnel.
As Lucy bounded out of the exit, they were greeted by the open sky.
It was pitch black above them, indicating it was currently nighttime in this alien world. The sky was pristine and clear, reminiscent of the past Earth before the apocalyptic, colorful ozone mist had covered it.
Hanging majestically in the dark expanse were ten smaller moons forming a perfect luminous circle around a colossal central moon. It looked breathtaking as if god had put a lot of thought into arranging them so perfectly. The sky between them was dusted with vibrant, colorful stars.
Looking around they realized they were standing somewhere in the middle of a rocky mountain.
"That tunnel must have been an entrance to the cave network," Lucy said, panting slightly.
The rocky outcropping they were standing on looked exactly like a grand balcony. As they carefully approached the edge and looked down, they saw nothing but an endless cliff dropping into the abyss.
Looking up the mountain face seemed impossibly steep, piercing straight into the heavens.
"This mountain is at least 100,000 kilometers in height," Lucy stated, her golden eyes wide with awe.
Just then, Night realized something. He looked at her excitedly. "Lucy... I don’t feel any danger anymore!"
Lucy’s ears perked up. "Yes. Whatever was chasing us... it seems we’ve finally escaped it."
But as she looked back at the dark tunnel entrance, she wasn’t entirely convinced they were truly safe.
"It’s been about 22 hours since we first entered this dungeon... or a more accurate word would be Planet Lunar, as Rango claimed," Lucy murmured.
If what the strange little Alpha had said was true, a portal should open for them within the next two hours. But if they had been fooled, they were trapped on an impossible cliff face with nowhere to go.
Having no other choice, Lucy sat down facing the tunnel entrance, keeping watch. Night slid off her back and settled onto the cold stone beside her, crossing his legs to meditate and recover whatever energy he could.
He needed to generate as much energy as possible. As the saying goes: Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
He shared the prompt for the new [Wind Overdrive] skill with her and after a brief discussion, they decided to hold off on purchasing it just in case an emergency forced him to rely on his EV reserves.
Another two tense hours passed in silence.
[Energy Value (EV) - 1162]
He now only had four Level 4 corpses remaining in his Domain.
If the portal didn’t open soon, they would have to find a way to scale the sheer cliff and survive the wilderness.
Suddenly, the ambient mana around the balcony shifted violently. The air pressure plummeted, making Night’s ears pop painfully.
Right at the very edge of the rocky balcony, a swirling blue portal, roughly the size of a grown man, tore open in the fabric of space. It slowly but steadily grew in size, the edges of the spatial tear crackled with raw, untamed energy as the seconds ticked by.
Lucy and Night looked at each other in pure happiness, incredibly glad to finally escape this place which was clearly way out of their league for now.
They jumped to their feet in a hurry. But before they could take a single step toward the exit, a terrifying, suffocating pressure descended upon them.
Tap... tap... tap...
The distinct sound of padded paw steps echoed from the dark tunnel behind them.
As the figure drew closer and closer to the exit, the pressure on them magnified exponentially, freezing them in place like statues. freewёbnoνel.com
Suddenly, the pressure focused entirely on Lucy.
She let out a sharp groan of agony as she was pressed violently to the ground. Her heavy scales cracked under the unseen weight. She was in too much pain to even concentrate forcing Night to forcefully unsummon her, dissolving her back into the Nightmare Domain.
He simply couldn’t bear watching her suffer like that.
Standing entirely alone now, Night stared at the dark tunnel. The figure finally stepped out into the moonlight.
To his absolute horror, his [Beast Instinct] skill hadn’t shown a single reaction. Even now, looking directly at the threat the skill was completely silent.
As the light from the eleven moons illuminated the beast, Night saw it clearly.
It was a wolf, but it was much smaller than the massive monsters they had been fighting. Its size was remarkably similar to Rango’s. He couldn’t spot any major physical differences in its form, but the chilling malicious expression on its face told him instantly that this was a completely different wolf.
The wolf’s lips curled into a sinister smile. "As I guessed," it spoke, its voice just as clear and fluent as a human’s. "The wolf was merely the summon, and you are the master."
Night didn’t even bother correcting it by saying Lucy was his friend. His life was currently hanging by a thread held by this very beast.
"I guess from the way you moved earlier, you must possess some sort of Instinct skill," the wolf analyzed mockingly. "But it has its obvious flaws as well."
Night’s blood ran cold. He had been so reliant on his [Beast Instinct] that he had completely forgotten a fundamental rule mentioned frequently in the Webnovels he read in his past life: there was always a way to bypass a skill if the opponent was skilled enough.
The wolf took a slow, menacing step forward, its cunning smile widening. "I was here this whole time, you know. Watching you sit there and meditate so peacefully... grr... grr... grr," it laughed darkly.
Night didn’t know what to think. This wolf had been right beside them for hours, stalking them perfectly while they falsely believed they had escaped.
"It’s time I send you on your way," the wolf said coldly. "You need to die if we want to use this portal to safely invade your world."
It raised its front paw and casually swiped down at the empty air.
It looked like a simple, mocking gesture; if you ignored the massive, human-sized crescent blade of highly compressed wind that instantly materialized, tearing through the air straight toward Night to end him...
