Dylan himself was shocked at the brutality of the orange-furred werewolf, which had just executed one of its subordinates seemingly without a care. There was no doubt in his mind that this was the werewolf warrior, as he found it hard to believe that a mage would be able to instantly kill a wolf, unless werewolf bodies were significantly stronger than average. Thinking it through, he mobilized some of the monsters again to attack both sides, probing at their defenses. He still kept most of his attention on the warrior, however, as there were simply more prizes to gain with this group. He ignored the notification which stated the new wolf being summon-able, in favor of pressing the assault.

Press the attack, maybe more wolves will act up and he’ll kill more! Dylan excitedly ordered his monsters, yet unfortunately, the werewolf wasn’t going to comply.

Turning around, the red-furred beast snarled at the leaping bombardier beetles in the treetops before leaping high up into the sky. Mid jump, he grabbed onto a tree trunk, boosting off of it to further bolster his leap. Landing among the branches of a tree, his claws skewered one of Dylan’s leaping bombardier beetles within reach, and he snarled aggressively at the others.

Go! Although Dylan had been startled by the sudden outburst by the werewolf, he reacted just as aggressively. All of the nearby bombardier beetle-type monsters fired off their rounds of acid before taking off, and multiple giant centipedes and swarm ants rained down on both the werewolf and the wolf pack, causing chaos to ensue among their ranks. The wolves went absolutely crazy upon encountering enemies, aggressively tearing at the centipedes and crunching down on ants. Their ferocity also led to the group tussling amongst themselves in their haste to attack something. The large quantities of swarm ants which were falling on the wolf army was starting to show promise. Several wolves had fallen in pain after unluckily getting bitten in the eyes by the ants, and a few more faced troubles when attacked by multiple giant centipedes, as they were bitten continuously, with each bite bringing a dosage of venom.

On the other hand, the dire wolves completely overpowered the centipedes with little to no damage, their massive bodies easily shaking off swarm ants and sending centipedes flying, their thick fur seemed to resist centipede bites quite well, and the swarm ants face trouble burying into their fur. The sandy-colored wolves darted with frightening speed, lashing out and accurately picking the swarm ants off of other wolves and creating openings for them. In addition, the large grey colored wolves seemed to move quite slowly, but they didn’t seem to suffer much if at all under the assault of the insect horde.

Within a few minutes, Dylan’s advance centipede and swarm ant force had been cleared up quite quickly, with minor injuries on most the wolves, and a couple unlucky ones with missing or damaged eyes. The werewolf himself had no injuries other than some superficial cuts on his face. Even that was caused when he violently clawed at his own face to kill a swarm ant which had landed dangerously close to his eye. After killing off all of Dylan’s bugs, the wolf group continued on their way, combing through the forest. At nearly the same time, Dylan had analyzed the response of the other wolf group, and found that those wolves seemed much more orderly compared to the group led by the red-furred werewolf.

The group led by the black-haired werewolf-man cleared out a smaller group of bugs with decent efficiency too, and Dylan managed to find out that the red-streaked wolves could produce small bursts of fire along their bodies and from their mouths. Dylan was sure now that these were the Ember wolves in the quest. He also believed that the sandy-colored wolves were the wind wolves and the grey ones were the iron-spine wolves.

Snapping back to attention, Dylan continued moving his forces further away from the wolves, engaging hit and run tactics as he led them around in circles. By this time, both the red-furred werewolf and the black-haired man seemed to know that something was up. They had spent several minutes chasing down the insect monsters when they found both of their groups nearby the entrance instead.

“Hey, Uruga, this dungeon seems off…” the black-haired man called out.

“You feel the same, Maxin?” The muscular bipedal wolf questioned in return. “We were led around back to the entrance, but my wolf pack marked some of the trees in the path. We should be able to work off of that.”

“Mm.” Maxin nodded in affirmation to that. “Ignore the insects and continue on your way, they aren’t enough to hurt us. I’ll take my pack to the left and you head to the right and if you encounter a roadblock or something interesting, howl and go back to the entrance. I’ll answer if I hear you.”

As the werewolves finished their exchange and went off in different directions, Dylan snorted to himself as he gathered more monsters. Although he couldn’t understand their werewolf language, he reasoned that they were splitting up once again to search his dungeon. If they found something, they most likely would need to contact each other, either by sending wolves or howling. Thus, Dylan gathered some of his own normal wolves and summoned a few into the first-half of the forest cave. If they sent wolves, he would ambush them, and if they howled, he would make his howl back. He needed to experiment to see their reactions, even if he could stall for just a while longer, it would be worth it if he survived.

As Maxin and his wolf pack continued through the forest, they passed by many trees, different species of plants which they had found outside of the forest, and many insects, but few monsters. Those that did pop up were ignored or slaughtered on their way to reach the farthest point to the left from the entrance. Running along the curve of the cave wall, Maxin stopped as he saw what appeared to be a hole carved out of the wall, large enough for monsters to head in and out of it. He ordered one of the dire wolves to force its way into the cave before following it as well, deciding to leave nearly all of his forces outside. Both of the Fireball Wolves and an ember wolf pattered behind him, and like that, the five of them made it into the smaller cavern.

Stepping out and stretching after exiting the tunnel, Maxin gazed around at his surroundings. Similarly, to the cave he had just exited, there were a large variety of plants, and the cries of insects, animals, and monsters reverberated throughout the cavern. Maxin and his small group silently walked through the area, observing. There had to be a reason for the long tunnel leading into the cave, it was almost as if the dungeon was trying to hide something. As he stepped on a fallen branch, he heard a snap and rustling as smaller creatures ran away from the sudden sound, and also the incessant buzzing within the cavern quieted down a notch. With that, it suddenly all clicked to Maxin.

Large forests, open spaces, intelligent monsters, the endless buzzing of insects and the rustling of small creatures moving around and feeding. This Dungeon had intelligence of some sort, it had to have activated the [Natural Order] skill which their master utilized as well.

Maxin felt a shiver go down his spine. The reason why both he and Uruga hadn’t realized the abnormalities in this Dungeon previously was because this dungeon resembled their Lord, Gehennia, in many ways. The sole fact that the insects and monsters were acting naturally instead of standing like silent sentinels, not to mention the summoning of non-combatable forces such as plants and trees. The dungeon had resembled their master in too many ways, so they had fallen into the trap of simply not realizing its full potential due to their comfortability with the environment. In other words, they had underestimated this Dungeon’s intelligence. If a Dungeon was intelligent, then it was also unpredictable. Who knew what types of monsters or traps it had planned for them?

Maxin snarled out an order, and the Ember Wolf stepped forward. Opening its maw, it belched some fire into the grass surrounding them, causing a small fire. Maxin himself used his magic, summoning a fireball the size of a human head. One of the Fireball wolves on his shoulder tumbled cutely into his palm, soaking up the flames, while the other fell flat on its face before flopping into the fire which the Ember Wolf had caused. Within seconds, both of them started absorbing the fire, and their bodies seemed to erupt in size as they continued to absorb. Both the Ember Wolf and Maxin continuously created flames to which the Fireball wolves continued to absorb.

After a few minutes, the Ember Wolf and Maxin stopped providing fire, as the Ember Wolf couldn’t produce anymore, and had sunk to the ground weakly. Meanwhile, both of the Fireball Wolves were about the size of a Dire Wolf, with red magma veins glowing through their beautiful red pelts. Maxin snarled as a fireball formed in his hand, and he beaned it deep into the forest before him. The Fireball wolves opened their mouths and ejected their own fireballs into the undergrowth. Maxin turned and exited the cave through the tunnel with his wolves, not even bothering to watch as the breeding cave burned up like a torch. As he stepped out from the tunnel, the howls of wolves began to echo within the cave, and he felt his heartbeat quicken. Was it Uruga or the Dungeon?

Dylan was absolutely livid as he watched the southwest breeding cave burning. He had been too careless to not put a raining [Dungeon Law] within, so the place was essentially screwed. He summoned a torrent of water to flood the cave, and immediately ordered his wolves to make a ruckus to see how they would react, and watching the red-furred werewolf, it appears as if his distraction worked well.

The red werewolf had noticed the howl first, then both he and his wolf pack had howled into the air too before rushing back where they had come from, following what Dylan supposed could be scent markers left along the way, as Dylan hadn’t noticed the werewolf making any marking on the trees.

In all honesty, Dylan would’ve preferred to bury both Maxin and Uruga under several tons of stone, or drop them into an endless pit, but realized that he couldn’t directly manipulate the area around an intruder using [Dungeon Edit]. This greatly bothered Dylan, who sought revenge for the destruction of his breeding cave.

Damned Wolves. Watch this then. Dylan began to manipulate the environment around the river instead with mana he had gained since the wolves’ assault. He turned the banks around the river into extremely muddy terrain, then along the ceiling of the cave overhanging by the river, he created large sharp points of stone, facing downwards like the fangs of an angry beast. He then set them to be traps triggered by touch, and gathered clouds of bats nearby them. Dylan intended to stop the wolves at this river, and he wanted them to die horrible deaths through drowning. He himself had experience of the fear that one could have while running out of breath underwater, and he wanted to watch them flounder as they slowly sunk to the depths of his river.

Deep within his brain, he knew that his Dungeon instincts had acted up because of the destruction of his breeding cave, but this time he was willing to follow through and accept them. He wasn't human anymore afterall, just a Dungeon with a human's intelligence. In addition, the whole damned challenge was unfair towards him in terms of a Dungeon, so Dylan was willing to be unfair as well.