A day after the birth of Rocky, a pack of wolves was passing through the forest, pulling a shredded body behind them, and one of the two male wolves at the front asked the other one excitedly.

“Ah! Big brother when did you learn that skill!? That was too great!!”

“HAha, I learned it at my 75th level up. If it wasn’t for that then we wouldn’t have succeeded in killing that Scaled Deer’s. This one’s scales were too hard.”

“Nah, you would have handled him somehow even without that skill. You are getting strong enough to contend with tribe leader after all.”

“Bullshit! I am nowhere near as strong a tribe leader. She is already a ranker and has evolved. I stand no chance against her… for now that is.”

“haaha…” They laughed simultaneously.

This was a pack of white wolves, lead by two brothers Stone and Ralph.

Although their pack contained 15 wolves, in the end they were just a small part of an even bigger herd.

Though the brothers were not much apart from each other in strength, but the disparity between their levels wasn’t small either.

The little brother was just shy of level 50, but the big brother was already reaching the big boundary to the rank up.

Ralph had two wives and one kid from the first wife, while stone didn’t take any women under him after the death of his first mate.

While they walked while talking, a small cub greedily looked between their hunt and Ralph, before he finally gained the courage to ask him, “Da, can I eat the heart?”

“You can get a small share, sure.”

“No, Da! I want the whole heart!” the cub spoke using his paws to describe what he meant by the word whole, but Ralph denied his request saying,

“You can eat the whole heart when you hunt it Speck, but for now you will only get the amount you deserve.”

Speck’s gloomed, but then the leader of the pack whispered into the ears of his nephew, “Don’t cry little one. You can eat my part of the share, but don’t tell your Da, okay?”

Speck smiled shyly looking at the alpha male of the pack.

Stone, who was already showing the early signs of evolution upon rank up was the pride of the tribe.

After he had hit level 75th his fur had started turning grey and the fur on his stomach had become darker.

With each increasing level he was getting taller than the other wolves of the tribe and was already 4’4” tall and already stood a whole 4inches taller than his peers.

But the most noticeable thing about him was his black paws, and red streaked tail. This was an anomaly, because he was a white wolf.

“Hey, I heard that! And you don’t have to give him your share…” Ralph tried being a father, but failed in front of his doting brother.

“Forget it kiddo, forget it. Haahaha…”

The little brother sighed and shook his head in denial, before ordering the wolves behind him to move out.

“Okay boys lets pack the body and move.”

They walked through the forest and when they got half way through Ralph smelled something delicious in the air. He took a strong whiff and found that the scent of blood in the air belonged to the most delicious of delicacies; a human.

Ralph started salivating as the memories of his previous eating came back and he remembered the soft and tender muscles that most humans had.

He stopped right in his tracks to know where the scent was coming from. Taking a full breath he took the scent in and marveled at the freshness.

“Big brother… do you want to...”

Stone shook I head when he heard him.

“No. we already have a hunt and the members are tired. There is no need to find trouble on our own.”

The reason why the leader was Stone and not Ralph wasn’t only because of his strength, but also because he had more wisdom of age and experience of the dangers covering them from all sides.

Even the little one had his nostrils moving.

“Da, can I ….”

“No?” They both shouted at the same time.

“So you are not coming?” Stone asked Ralph.

“Heee, I won’t be able to sleep at night if I don’t go and check the situation out now.”

“You know if it wasn’t for your bad habits you already would have had a pack of your own. Anyways, take note of the surroundings, okay. Those humans are too cunning, and don’t forget to check whether it’s a trap or not and…”

“I know, I know come back before its night, I know.”

Stone sighed.

“Ah! You care too much big brother. Okay bye, and don’t worry.”

And taking another big breath, Ralph moved leaving the pack behind and jumped behind the bushes getting out of Stones sight.

“That kid!!”

But Ralph’s voice interrupted him,

“Don’t worry I will bring a souvenir!”

*Sigh*

“When will he ever grow up?”

Stone shook his head left and right in defeat and ordered the pack to move.

The wolves moved through the forest with stone leading them and the others pulling the body in rotations of five.

They reached their den on the far side of the forest and feasted.

Stone, Speck and his mothers went inside the den while the rest stayed outside and cuddled with each other.

The sun started setting and the wolves got together to end the day.

Three days passed away and Ralph didn’t return back home. Stone was getting anxiously with each passing second, but when Ralph didn’t return even after three days, he decided to check the situation out.

Stone actually wanted to go bring him back on the second, but stopped when he thought about his brother’s reckless behavior.

‘It’s alright, he’ll come back on his own.’

But by the third day bad thoughts had started forming in Stone’s mind, which made him worry for Ralph’s safety. A bitter feeling in his heart was telling him that something bad had happened and he decided to go find him.

Stone took the whole pack and moved to the place where Ralph had divided from them. He tried to smell the scent of blood in the air and noticed a small lingering scent coming from the way Ralph had disappeared to.

He got angry and howled when he notice that the scent of his brother was mixed in between it.

Ralph’s mates started howling when they noticed it, followed by Speck and then the rest of the pack joined too.

Stone started walking toward the direction that the scent was coming from. His walk soon transformed into a jog and then after a minute he started running, pushing the ground with enough force to leave deep foot prints into it.

*Roar*Howl*Roar*

He moved so fast that the rest of the pack got left behind by him. He flew through the forest, decimating all the branches and flora that came his way.

Ten minutes later, he reached the place and the scene made him abruptly halt on his tracks.

Tears automatically formed in his eyes, and his fur started shaking with sorrow, when he saw the bloody, mangled and decomposing body of Ralph lying on the right of a deep black hole in the ground.

Blood covered tracks of someone having dragged the body away from the hole were still present. It didn’t take him even a second to understand that whatever had killed his baby brother was inside the hole.

He kneeled in front of Ralph’s body and yelped ever so slightly, with the nonexistent hope that he might wake up again. He licked Ralph’s pale face and pushed him with his trembling feet, but Ralph didn’t wake up.

By that time the rest of the pack got there, and saw was their leader kneeling in front of a dead wolf.

Speck and his mothers came running and started howling and licking Ralphs face, trying to wake him up.

“What happened Da? What happened? Wake up Da! Please wake up! I promise, I won’t ask for another heart, I promise! Please Da, please wake up!!!”

But Specks crying didn’t reach Ralphs ears.

Stone on the other hand didn’t cry or even move an inch. His jaw gritted tightly and his eyes blood red, with the thought of entering the hole and killing the entity inside it, he stood up.

*GRRRrr*

He gave a low pitched roar, a yell full of anger, and then charged inside the hole without saying anything to his pack.

Entering the hole he didn’t find what he was looking for, and instead a 6metre deep and 3 meters wide crater welcomed him.

He didn’t stop his descent and jumped directly over the hole, entering the somewhat low cave swiftly. He ran, and ran as fast as he could, forgetting everything about conserving his stamina or energy. The thoughts of avenging his brother clouded his mind and he ended up making a critical mistake because of it.

Behind him his pack entered the hole, but their minds were cool and they did notice the minute differences like the hand carved tunnel, which unfortunately Stone didn’t notice.

Stone moved fast and came across a tunnel and saw a somewhat big ant waiting for him inside. His brows furrowed when he saw it and the image of those docile small ants from his childhood came to his mind.

‘This… killed him?’ he thought, but then shook his head thinking, ‘No, no how the fuck could this thing…’

The sudden appearance of the ant had made him stop for a second, but he otherwise continued running. He flew through the clearing, without minding the ant. He made a casual slash with his claws and the ant got torn apart like it was grass.

He kept on moving without seeing that there were two tunnels to go through. Passing through the tunnel, he found another ant waiting for him in the room following it, and its life ended similarly to the one before.

A single swipe of his claws turned it into mashed meat.

He didn’t stop and kept on running through another set of tunnel and room, before coming across a slope descending downwards and two more rooms, but he didn’t come across any other monsters or even ants.

He felt unhappy and angry at the prospectus that maybe the murdered of his brother had moved out of the tunnel, but he still ran forward and after a final tunnel he came across the entity he was looking.

Rocky and Minnie were having an ordinary day. After moving the main core to the second floor, Minnie had the ants busy digging the second floor. While Rocky had started another skill practice, which Minnie called triple benefiting soul shifting.

Which would have been an impossible practice for a normal being to do, even if one was somehow able to get all the required skills. But being a dungeon core came with a huge set of cheat abilities, like the ability to practice these skills together.

The main skill involved was [Soul shifting]. The skill gave its user the ability to detach his soul from his original body, and travel the world in the astral form. The skill also gave one the ability to possess inanimate objects at first and living being with the increase in mastery.

For now though, Minnie had him posses the wall of his dungeon, which was quite easy for Rocky to achieve, after all even if his soul was leaving his heart or the core, but the object to possess was still his own body or the dungeon.

According to Minnie this single skill was the path to open a multitude of other useful skills and to train them simultaneously with each other.

He had by the way gained the skill [Meditation] while possessing the walls.

Which increased his mana and health regeneration by 200%, but had drawbacks, like he had to remain motionless while meditating.

Like Minnie had said, meditating while soul shifting and possessing the walls increased the proficiency of three of his skills.

The third skill being [Mana sense], which according to Minnie when trained to its highest realm, had the slight possibility of evolving into God ranked skill [Omni presence].

At first mana sensing while possessing the wall gave Rocky a very severe headache and almost made him lose his conscious.

“Too much information for too little space”, said Minnie.

So Minnie advised him to start low and gradually make his way up. There was one more benefit that Neither Rocky or Minnie realized at the moment, which was very deeply related to Rockies’ freedom.

It was noon and Rocky was continuing his new routine, when the Intruder message rang with a red warning.

Rocky was at the first floor when he saw a lone wolf entering the dungeon and jumping over the hole like it was nothing.

“Another white wolf?” his thoughts leaked out, but Minnie answered him anyways.

“And he looks angry for some reason.”

“Looks strong too.”

They analyzed his information and found out that it was the greatest adversary they had ever faced.

Stone the wolf (UQ)

Once a white wolf, now an existence reaching the point of evolution. What will become of it is not know at the point.

…

Level

95

Race

Wolf

Rank

0

Affinity

Wind(90),Dark(7),Fire(3)

By the time they could react, Stone had gone and killed the first ant he had encountered, moreover creating a new dungeon record by taking less that 15 seconds from his entry to the kill.

Stone cruised through the floor like it was his backyard, and within the next ten seconds he killed another ant.

“This wont do!!” Rocky started panicking as he watched the wolf cutting his ants like he was cutting vegetables.

“Yes, even the first ant wasn’t able to kill the worker ants like this.” Minnie replied, while she nervously nibbled on her nails.

The tension was already real, but then even more wolves entered the dungeon.

Rocky did a quick count and Minnie asked him, “How many?”

“Tw-twelve!!” Rocky replied with trembling voice.

Even Minnie eyes fell out of their socket hearing that number. She plucked her hair in anger for not creating the dungeon a bit more deadly, and racked her brain to make a plan.

Then she remembered that there were only five workers and one soldier ant on the first floor, and the rest were digging on the second floor.

Even after converting the numbers, she realized that the situation was already hopeless. She knew that the worker ants were no danger to rampaging wolf and even if the soldier ants somehow killed it they didn’t have enough credits to handle the rest of the wolves following behind.

“It’s hopeless.” She told Rocky, who nodded his head for some reason before saying, “The situation can still be saved.”

He then checked the levels of the wolves and nodded his head once again.

“It’s a hassle, but the plan might work.”

“What plan?” Minnie hurriedly asked, but he didn’t reply and got himself busy with commanding the ants.

But her confidence returned when she saw the movement of ants on the screen in front of her.

The ants left on the first floor dug into the ground before the big scary wolf could get to them, and all the worker ants on the second floor started moving towards the slope to the first floor.

The wolf came sprinting down the first floor, but the ants dug a second tunnel from the side of the slope and moved up before the wolf could notice them.

Rocky had specifically ordered the most powerful of the worker ants to dig the tunnel and they had somehow accomplished the task before the wolf could come down.

Stone, continued running forward, but didn’t meet any ants on the way, before he reached the boss room or the room where the core had currently moved to.

And after having run for 500 meters through the narrow underground tunnels, he finally stopped.

In front of him Stone saw three familiar but somehow different ants standing side by side in front of a floating crystal.

A simple glimpse of the crystal and he understood what the place was. He was already having doubts on the way, but that thing confirmed his doubt that he had entered a dungeon.

“Oh foolish little brother, couldn’t you have found some other place to rest!!” He blamed his brother for his own death, but squashed the thought as soon as it came.

“NO matter the reason, I will kill this thing and avenge you brother.” Minnie translated the wolf’s howls for Rocky.

“….”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

The stage was set and the countdown for the fight had begun.

Stone was alone and there were three bigger and stronger ants looking at him expressionlessly.

The face of his once smiling brother remerged in his mind and his anger flared. He gritted his teeth and started running, gave a low grunt and jumped at the ant on his left to make a jumping swipe at it.

Minnie controlled the ant on the left and made it step back. Already in position she got ready to attack the wolf just as it would touch the ground.

Rocky possessed the one on the right and charged at the wolf from the side.

Stone saw the ants acting and understanding that these ants were not mere puppets like the ones before.

He front flipped to cut his flight midway, struck two wind slashes on the ant in the middle by using the inertia from his flight and in the same motion stepped back to get out of the way of the ant charging from his right.

Stone stepped back and Rocky missed him by a few inches. He flew some distance because of momentum, while the ant in the middle had tried to dodge the attack by jumping to the left, but had still ended up getting struck by one of the wind blades.

At that time, Minnie charged directly at the retreating wolf for a tackle.

*Roar*

The blade directly cleaved it the shoulder of the ant in the middle. The depth of the cut was deep enough to show the difference in power between this wolf and the other one.

While Ralph’s wind blade hadn’t even cut through the soldier ant’s exoskeleton, Stone’s skill had tore through it and reached deep enough to make it bleed.

Minnie controlled her ant to charge at the wolf, but the wolf showing dexterity fitting its species, jumped with his hind legs, just as they touched the ground and flipped through the air firing another set of Wind blades at her ant.

The wind blades made direct contact with the back of the ant controlled by Minnie, but unfortunately for the wolf, before he could cheer, the ant controlled by Rocky came running toward it like a bullet and jumped with its head glowing copper color.

They both collided in mid air. Stone tried used his limbs to take most of the force behind the tackle, but he failed and got flung away into the wall.

“Gwack!!”

Mean while, the ant with the shoulder injury started running to intercept him in anger, as its wound throbbed with pain.

With Its pincers glowing white, it got right upon Stone, who had somehow made a nimble landing by rolling on the ground.

Its mandible wide open and his pincers glowing with deadly power, the ant had come jumping with the proper intent to pierce the wolf in one move with, but Stone got his back on the floor and using his legs flipped the ant into the air.

The ant got thrown straight up and Rocky who was still using mana presence felt a huge amount of mana gathering near the wolf’s mouth.

“Oh no!!” Rocky said, but it was already too late for him to act.

As the airborne ant was about to descend directly on Stone, he smirked giving a low grunt and a huge cyclone, containing mini, but powerful criss-crossed wind blades originated from the end of his mouth.

*Woosh*

It struck directly on the soft bottom of the ant and again lifted it into the air.

*Baam*

It smashed on the roof. Struck between the roof of the cave from above and the cyclone from below, the ant couldn’t do anything to get away from its prediction.

*Roar*

It ant cried out loud, but neither Minnie nor Rocky were able to stop Stone, as his skill shredded the ant.

The [Cyclone] continued for a whole ten seconds, before Stones mana ran out and he had to grudgingly stop it.

And as the power keeping the ant afloat had been turned off, it fell directly upon Stone, who hurriedly rolled away to save his life.

While Minnie tried to sense life in the ant, Rocky saw the destruction that the [cyclone] had caused.

The ant had a huge see through hole in the centre of its body. Its wound looked brutally torn and shredded. There was no blood or gore to be seen, only a mist of wet and finely grained meat permeated through the air.

Stone checked the condition of the ant behind him, and let out a happy grunt. He was feeling haughty, but the power he had used hadn’t come without it own set of side effects. This skill of his needed a huge amount of mana to use, and only he knew that he had only enough mana left for just one more cyclone.

The ants in front of him kept on looking at the ant behind him and didn’t move. Stone knew that they weren’t afraid of him, and were probably discussing the plan to handle him.

*Huff*

His heart pumped like mad, his lungs opening to their fullest; he took a deep breath, before letting out a loud Roar.

*Roar*

“Gwack!!” Rocky and Minnie’s minds buzzed as the sound reached them.

Stones roar wasn’t simple use of vocal cords, but had mana imbedded behind every vibration. It was his skill [Authority], which allowed him to suppress every monster which was more than ten levels beneath him.

Though stone had roared out of frustration, and didn’t believe that it would work on the ant, but the skill did more than he could have asked for.

The ants started stumbling and back stepping just as the sound hit them. Stone seeing the result directly fired wind blades upon [Wind blades] upon them.

He who had already reached the ‘Intermediate realm level 9’ of the [Wind blades] had long ago broken through the limitation of only firing the blades in sets of two.

Stacks of four bright highly compressed crescent shaped wind blades flew through, cutting the air itself. Rocky was the first to get out of the disoriented effect, and saw eight truly powerful [Wind blades] right upon him and Minnie.

Seeing that Minnie still wasn’t out of the effect yet, he did what every capable man would have done in the situation.

He pushed the ant controlled by Minnie out of harm’s way, as the blades touched his ant’s exoskeleton, cleanly tore through it, sliced his legs and cleaved his body into pieces. The power and sharpness of the attack was so gruesome that it didn’t stop after killing the ant and stuck the wall behind him, tearing through it too.

His ant disappeared into multiple dots of light as Minnie shook her head and got hang of her ant.

The first thing she saw after the skills effect wore out was the other ant disappearing. She didn’t fear for the worst, because Rocky had given her very good news.

“Grrr!!”

Stone haughtily challenged the last ant to attack him and started preparing, but then stopped. He saw the ant pointing behind him with its front leg.

He turned his head to check out what the commotion was about, and saw a whole bunch of ants entering the room from the tunnel behind his back.

Five worker ants came out of the tunnel looking battered and wounded. Following behind them entered a Soldier ant holding something inside its pincers.

Stones eyes opened wide, he clenched his claws and they got embedded into the ground.

“SPECK!!!” he roared and the soldier ant that was being controlled by Rocky tightened its grasp.

Stone slowly walked up to the ant holding Speck and nudged him with his nose. It tore his heart when Speck didn’t move. Stone licked his face once and noticed Him taking a shallow and weak breath.

Then a sudden revelation hit him and he kneeled on the ground.

“Wh-what happened to the others?!”

His jaw trembled and opened wide, tears started forming and dripping t the ground as the truth became apparent, and he understood that the pack had followed him into the hole, and died because of recklessness.

His tears fell on specks face, who woke up after feeling the wetness. Speck slowly opened his eyes and saw his uncle looking at him with an almost broken face.

Even he couldn’t control his emotions and cried out loud,

“The- they are dead…. All dead! I couldn’t do anything. First father, then mother and then everyone else… I couldn’t do anything uncle, I couldn’t do anything!”

He howled in grief as the memories of seeing his family dying resurfaced in front of his eyes.

Stone had stopped crying when speck had woken up, he looked at the howling wolf and patted his head. He stood up and started walking toward the last standing ant from the trio he had faced.

“Let him go.” He said looking straight into the eyes of the ant, but seeing that it wasn’t responding, he spoke again, but with respect kneeling on the ground.

“I beg you, please let hmy nephew go. I… I will do anything. You can kill me if you want. I… I will become your pet wolf and obey your every order, but please let him go.”

“No uncle, no. Run away before….”

“Grrrr”

“Shut up and let me talk…”

“But…”

Minnie saw the duo bickering with each other and sighed. She praised Rocky for taking the cub hostage and waited for him to take a decision. She knew that the wolf was powerful, and his addition to the dungeon would be a great asset for them, but she let Rocky take the decision after she explained the benefits to him.

“Okay, let the cub leave.” Rocky told Minnie who took a breath of relief. She thanked god for making it so that Rocky didn’t just let them both go out of pity.

The ants standing at the entrance parted, and the soldier ant holding the hostage, took the struggling cub and walked into the tunnel.

“No, please no…”

Stone saw the ant taking his nephew away and howled with sorrow. He saw the ant disappearing front the front of his eyes and slowly stood up before saying, “What now?” to the ant.

And taking that as her cue Minnie manifested out into the real world. She made stone sigilant, but didn’t give him any time to react and directly spoke; “Now you will present your heart and a part of your soul to the core.”

Her words confused both the wolf and Rocky who could make sense out of her method.

“You do that and you will get bound to this dungeon as its monster. You will keep your memories, which we will be able to take if we felt the need, and you will lose your freedom.”

Minnie saw him frowning and scoffed,

“What? Regretting your decision now?”

“Suu..” Stone scoffed at her words. He thought of killing the fairy and running away when the time presented, but Minnie’s next words left him tongue tied.

“And stop thinking about taking revenge, you won’t be able to harm the dungeon core or any entity associated with it. Failure to comply will lead to your death.”

Minnie felt a sense of superiority when she saw the wolf getting frozen and she continued.

“But all these shackles comes with a wide set of benefits. You will get to fight with better and stronger beings, mainly humans, to your heart content. You will gain levels and skills regularly and you might even get the chance to evolve into something stronger than your current species. Moreover you won’t have to fear death, because monsters of a dungeon can be resurrected again and again.”

Stone thought about all that little fairy had said and weighing the pros and cons found that other than not being able to hurt the master or leave the dungeon, there were too many benefits to have, but the pain and suppression in his chest didn’t let him forget the loss of his whole family.

He sighed and with a somewhat willing, but mostly unwilling mind nodded his head to comply with the fairy.

“Okay, good choice. Hopefully we will get along with each other.”

Then Minnie asked Rocky to repeat after him and told the wolf to say yes to everything. Stone did hesitate when a new voice started talking to him, but he agreed thinking about Speck, who was still in their hands.

“Are you willing to present your heart and soul to protect and help the core flourish and prosper?”

“Yes.”

“Are you willing to remove the shackles bounding you to the life in the outside world and forever be indebted to me your master to be?”

“Yes”

“Are you willing to enjoy life, have fun killing and feast upon the blood of every soul which will intrude upon the home of your god?”

“Yes?”

Both stone and Rocky looked at Minnie, as if asking, ‘what the hell those vows were about’, but then within a second, Rocky felt almost half of his mana leaving his body.

At the same time a tri colored circled pentagon emerged from the ground with Stone at the centre.

Stone hesitated, but Minnie assured him that it was just a part of the procedure. The drawing then started rotating and hollow hole opened at the Stones chest at the place where his heart was. Then the sigil moved up and Stones eyes became white as if someone had possessed him.

The atmosphere stayed like that for a minute, before the wolf and the sigil both vanished midst a burst of light.

“What just happened?” Rocky asked feeling perplexed.

“Oh nothing. Because every dungeon entity is needed to be brought from the dungeon store, he vanished because we haven’t bought it yet.”

Then feeling the desire they checked their gains and the message made Minnie yell happily.

“Fuck Yes.”

[Total Dungeon credits: 875]

[New monster added to store]

[Stone the wolf:500Dc, 300Mp.]

[Skill gained: Wind blade, Wind cyclone]