With the face of a pretty ghost, the body of a lioness, the tail of a scorpion and the breath of rotting meat, Rino took a while to understand what kind of monster he was looking at.

From his memory, Rino only knew of something close to this hybrid monster. However, he wasn't certain if they were the same creature. After all, there were some differences in their appearance. Rino did not want to be sexist, but this creature's face was a woman's. He did not know if manticores had genders, but he did not want to offend.

Womanticore? Maybe if he referred to the creature that decapitated him as such, Rino would be forgiven for the mistaken identity.

The womanticore roared, and Rino had to hold his breath. Liches do not need to breathe, but he practised breathing out of habit and regretted every second of it. Weren't females more particular about hygiene? This womanticore was a disgrace to her kind!

As his skull made contact with the uncomfortable ground, Rino groaned at not being able to see anymore with his face planted into the ground. He had no idea how he would see and react like this, but he felt his body flop over in dizziness.

The womanticore took one glance at the strange skeleton in her den and huffed before kicking Rino's body away and walking over his skull to disappear deeper into her lair. For a moment, nothing happened. Rino listened carefully to the sounds in the cave to ensure that the womanticore was really gone before he willed his body to move.

It took him too long to find his displaced skull that was still glowing in purple soul flames, so Rino summoned Mutt to fetch his skull and affix it on his body. The sabre tooth wolf dutifully tried not to slobber on his master's skull as he trotted back to Rino's main body and deposited the skull into the lich's waiting hand.

The skull was reattached quickly, and Rino told Mutt to remain in his shadows. This womanticore was barbarically strong, and he did not wish to alert her of his presence. Mutt whined in protest out of concern, but Rino patted the huge wolf on the nose before forcing his mount back into the shadows at his feet. 

Following the womanticore's tracks, Rino practised stealth and was more prepared to fight if the mythical creature should attack again. His curiosity towards this dungeon did not diminish, but he had to get rid of this creature before exploring further.

Most legendary creatures had intelligence and weren't easy to handle. Rino fought with dragons in his previous world, and the battle was tough. Normally, Rino would be able to kill wyverns without assistance. However, the dragon was a different kind of boss game that constantly outsmarted and outpowered Rino. No matter how powerful RIno was, he was only mortal.

Now, the lich wondered if he could take on a different legendary creature without assistance from the magical ballista and tower magicians. Compared to a dragon, Rino thought that the womanticore was slightly weaker. He should be able to manage this.

Mutt whimpered as Rino got closer from Rino's shadow. The tremendous killing intent radiating from the woman-faced lioness would send any weak-willed creature into a coma. This cave was becoming increasingly dangerous, but his master had no intention of backing down.

Even if Rino was going to be king of this world, fighting a mythical creature was a little too much.

"Master, do you want to reconsider? The guardian of this dungeon has many subordinates in her territory… we should get reinforcements before-"

Rino snorted mentally. For a sabre tooth wolf that evolved several times, Mutt was a coward. The womanticore was only strong because of her territory. If Rino wasn't caught off guard, she would never be able to decapitate him. However, it made him curious now.

Mutt mentioned a dungeon guardian. Does this mean that there were more dungeons? Were dungeons even considered rare in this world?

Thinking about it, Rino finally understood why the jungle was so full of deadly creatures. With such a powerful legendary creature protecting the dungeon, her presence inspired many evolutions for survival. The weak would group together to increase their chances of survival. Betrayal was a common story, and creatures adapted to increase their food choices when the competition became stiff.

The womanticore was sitting in her favourite corner snacking on something she stored in the corner. A huge pile of bones on a different corner told Rino that this was her dining hall. The scratch marks and puncture wounds on the bodies in the carcass hill did not look like they were made by this womanticore.

He stood by the cave wall to study the cave a little better. The lights here were much dimmer than the huge cavern outside this little cave pocket. Rino could not see much, but he could see the smaller side entrance with different monster tracks.

Recalling that some of these tracks were seen at a cross-section before Rino found this cave, he started to form some theories about how the dungeons in this world worked compared to the dungeons in his previous world.

Dungeons in the previous world were infested with beasts driven insane by the powerful dungeon core that was often the deceased remains of powerful mythical or legendary creatures, causing corruption. Ideally, a magician should be present in a dungeon expedition to try to contain the dungeon core. However, if the dungeon core could not be contained, the only other way to resolve the dungeon crisis was to destroy the dungeon's core.

Here, there was no such dungeon core. The master of this cave was a living womanticore, and much like an ant colony, the weaker monsters played different roles. Some hunted food for her and brought it to this cave, while others, like the fat bald worm earlier, were decomposers and took away waste products like the bones of carcasses.

The red crystal wasn't a deliberate creation by intelligent creatures. It was merely formed in a dungeon ecological system determined by this womanticore. The cave had many chambers because there were many secret passages that different monsters used for different purposes. The maze-like structure served two purposes.

The first was to lure unsuspecting prey into it with the promise of resources. The mana crystals were baits like the light from minerals in the wall. The minerals were formed over a long time from this ecological system. The more the monsters killed and contributed their resources to this cave system, the more the cave flourished.

Blood contained iron. Bones contained carbon. Magic crystals feasted on life energy and the souls of the deceased prey lingering in the cave. Plantlife depended on the light emitted by crystals and reflected by gems.

The womanticore finished eating and decided to take a nap by the time Rino pieced everything together. The lich simply stared at the sleeping womanticore and wondered what he should do now.

The resources in this cave were priceless, but he did not want to commit a massacre and ruin the ecology that the womanticore created with so much care. Without the leader, these monsters would run amok. Without monsters, this cave would wither.

What a dilemma! Couldn't he find a regular cave full of minerals to exploit without such concerns?

Rino hated life.