Fixing itself was not a matter of difficulty, not this time.

It was relatively stable. Extremely injured, but not dying.

It was simply an issue of time. It was so thoroughly injured that just fixing itself would take a couple days.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time for rest. Not with all the scavengers eating its prey all around it, and trying in vain to chew into the wolf itself.

The rat gnawing at its tail was particularly annoying, because it just wouldn’t give up, despite having made no progress in chewing through the burnt remnants of its fur to get to the meat underneath.

Not to mention that it was lying right next to an extremely abundant source of meat, according to the two or three antennae that hadn’t been snapped or torched off yet, and it wanted to steal its prey’s biology before it deteriorated too much.

All these thoughts led to the simple realization that it had to eat, and get moving. It had to find some little hole or somewhere quiet, and just sleep everything off.

It was finally outside the innards of the human nest, back to a familiar place, so it wasted no time whatsoever in changing its ‘hands’ back to paws and getting rid of the cartilage blocking its ears from the open air, the process of reinstating an older version of itself very easy on both mind and resources.

Fixing its injuries was a lot more costly.

Its Skills were so frustrating. It had full memory of what it had been up to during [Maddened Frenzy], and it was confident it could have avoided most of the burnt fur and the jagged trails of flesh in its abdomen if it had the presence of mind to care about dodging beyond the most basic of instinctive reflexes.

And its poison.

Its damned poison.

It had completely forgotten it even had poison available when the fight started. Completely and utterly. It could have injected the thing with more than enough of that neurotoxin to render it a flopping bag of meat within a minute, but it was so panicked and surprised that its mind just forgot that it had poison in the sheer heat of the moment.

It could have come out of all this relatively unscathed if it hadn’t been stupid.

With teeth tightly shut in frustration and pain, it breathed in the unpleasant scents of its prey’s insides, mixing with the chemical rivers’ scents, quickly moving around in [Devourer] and fixing things, big and small, one by one.

It could process whatever this thing was and what it had gained from it, after eating it and finding a safe spot to recuperate.

As soon as it had confirmed everything it wished to fix, it pushed away the [Devourer] Skill and turned to the symbols’ updates.

You have progressed on your Path.

[Hound of The Keeper] Level 18 → Level 21

Attribute Points Available: 3

-Attributes:

Strength ( +1 )

Speed ( +1 )

Dexterity ( +0 )

Endurance ( +8 )

Perception ( +1 )

Resolve ( +1 )

Intelligence ( +5 )

Soul ( +1 )

Three ‘points’ felt…

Not nearly enough for the amount of pain it had gone through to acquire them.

Its foul mood was already getting fouler-

And would this stupid rat give up already!?

It snapped back into [Devourer] for just a moment, switching to manual change, and twisted its tail around, forcefully jabbing the rodent with the poisonous fang at the tip of its tail, right between the ribs, squeezing the tiny gland in its tail absolutely dry in the moment it took for the rodent to process the attack.

Then it flicked the damned thing away, despite the eye-watering pain of its faulty vertebrae grinding together.

As it felt its twitching assailant spasm on the stone, it disregarded its annoying screeches and turned back to the system, exiting its Skill to ‘stare’ at its attribute points.

Its main issues so far were still Endurance, as it seemed like the world was utterly determined to do its best to kill it, and Intelligence, because Intelligence made the [Devourer] Skill understand more about what it was eating, giving it access to more tidbits it could use. Like the mana cells. If it didn't have the Intelligence to understand those, it wasn't sure if its Skill could so smoothly incorporate them into its body like it had.

It also allowed its brain to process more information and faster, which was seemingly the best way to prevent information overload. It also considered that maybe the Skill was getting faster and easier to use because of Intelligence. It felt like that was the reason, but it didn’t really know.

Τhat attribute also helped the wolf with using the ‘mana’ things indirectly, because of visualization, more capacity for imagination, and things like that.

On top of all those reasons, it kept having the realization that it was, in fact, not nearly as intelligent as it had assumed. The constant slip ups confirmed it.

It still couldn’t get over the fact it completely forgot about its poison.

So in truth, nothing about its point distribution had changed. Endurance and Intelligence were its main tools to stay alive and thrive.

Endurance ( +10 )

Intelligence ( +6 )

The attribute screen faded, and a small wall of symbols replaced it.

-Acquired Skills:

You have gained the Skill [Danger Sense - Level 1]

-[Pain Resistance] has Leveled Up. Level 21 → Level 23

-[Infection Resistance] has Leveled Up. Level 8 → Level 9

-[Poison Resistance] has Leveled Up. Level 15 → Level 16

-[Corrosion Resistance] has Leveled Up. Level 5 → Level 8

-[Restful Awareness] has Leveled Up. Level 19 → Level 20

-[Tough Skin] has Leveled Up. Level 7 → Level 12

-[Bloodrush] has Leveled Up. Level 5 → Level 6

-[Sonic Blast] has Leveled Up. Level 3 → Level 5

-[Tremor Sense] has Leveled Up. Level 4 → Level 5

-[Maddened Frenzy] has Leveled Up. Level 1 → Level 4

The only Skill it really cared about was [Danger Sense]. Even just the vague idea of a seventh sense dedicated to notifying the wolf of surrounding danger sounded incredibly valuable. It assumed that it would feel like that prickle on the back of its neck that it had felt a moment before the thing’s tail slammed into the bridge.

As for the rest?

It was once again, not terribly impressed. It would never complain about tangible, visible progress, but the effects of most of those Skills leveling up would be rather minute changes, so it brushed them aside, and went back to resting, just enough for its bones to knit themselves back together.

It could deal with the pain of most of its injuries, but trying to walk with bones made of frayed tissue would feel like trying to force a bag of unsupported meat to walk properly. So it prioritized its bones, and relaxed.

Unfortunately, a downside of [Restful Awareness] skyrocketing in Levels, was that if it had any subconscious issues or worries, they would constantly tug its mind out of rest. So while its body rested, its mind continued to race with errant thoughts.

It’s most prominent worry was actually about its human. It had no idea where she was, because the moment it activated [Maddened Frenzy], [Pack Hunter] completely stopped regarding her as an ally.

It was likely that she died, because to put it bluntly, she hadn’t exactly been strong. It couldn’t come up with a way she could have survived being flushed down a flaming river, nevermind how susceptible humans were to the toxic air down at the abandoned floor if that’s where she also ended up.

It was a rather bitter thought, one that made its chest tight and burn with a strange phantom sensation of sadness, but there wasn’t anything it could do about it. Death was a regular, ever-present part of life. It had been fully aware she could die at any moment.

It was just… sad and disappointing.

After all the trouble it went through, all the fun they had together, she died. It was just… it didn’t feel nice. And it was likely that she died because of the wolf. If it had reacted faster and kept them on that bridge…

Ah. This was the first time it had ever felt ‘guilt’.

It was very unpleasant.

It really wanted something to kill or fight just to take its mind off of it, preferably something weak enough to not cripple or severely harm itself.

That thought made it pause, a light reprieve from its depressed mood.

The dogs.

Those were just free food at this point, weren’t they? They’d be nice to let out some of its self-directed frustrations on.

There were a lot of them around the human nest, and they were even weaker than humans. It had seen some of them gang up on a human and eat them, but for the most part, they scurried around humans and tried to avoid them, clear signs of a weaker pack.

Sure they had fur and it would be annoying to eat them, and many of them were little more than skin and bone and diseases, but they were an extremely easy source of food it could prey on.

Then it remembered that it had assigned the bottom half of its body to be covered in glowing moss, so it put that idea in a corner of its mind for later.

That was something it had to work on. It hadn't even considered life on the outside world when it added the moss.

It just wasn’t used to planning things in advance for later. It had lived its entire life up to this point going day by day, the concept of ‘the future’ wasn’t even something it could ever focus on or be certain would ever arrive.

Now that it was relatively sure it had a future, it had to start actually planning. Or at least attempt to.

A slight problem to its plans of hunting the dogs for free food, was that they were all on the upper part of the human nest, above this abandoned part. Among humans, it had no idea how they would react upon seeing its rather... healthy and sizable frame, and the glowing moss on its bottom half. Judging by how they reacted to the wolf having glowing eyes, they would either stare incessantly or react like that human that tried to capture it with some kind of mana Skill.

So, if and when it ran out of things to hunt for in the abandoned floor, it would just get rid of the moss in favor of its old fur, and go skulk about on the upper parts of the human nest, hunt and wipe out the dogs.

Mostly because they were free food, but it could not deny a slight hint of spite and anger remained in its mind about how the dogs had treated it when it was small and weak.

Now, they were small and weak, and it would have a lot of fun ridding the human nest of all of them.

Oh, and the rats. It hated those damn things. They’d been some of the most consistently terrifying and infuriating parts of living in the human nest. It had gone so many times into an exhausted nap, only to wake up to a screech from some rodent that skulked out of some tiny crevice, and it had to be constantly ready to jump to its feet and run to the humans so they’d kill the thing, or try to lead the rat into some dangerous crevice or canal predator to kill it for the wolf.

Come to think of it, that was probably how it learned to pay attention and use its environment, so it had been a learning experience.

It was still terrifying to its tiny, old self, however, and it really wanted to let out some of its aggression on the vermin. [Devourer]'s incessant, soul-deep hunger seemed to agree.

Judging by how the rat behind it had stopped twitching already, and how it had spent half an hour trying to chew through its fur and skin, they weren’t strong at all, at least not anymore. Free food, again. And entertainment.

It had lost its human, and it couldn’t deny that it was a little… no, it was very depressed about it, especially considering that it was mostly its own fault, or so it felt. But the future looked bright for itself. It had grown a lot. The thirty foot behemoth it was almost lying inside of proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. The human nest was full of food, fights, and entertainment to be had. It had lost its human, but it had gained unsurmountable strength compared to what it had before.

So while it wanted to curl up into a ball and mentally mourn how it lost the only pack member it ever had, it knew that doing that would be useless.

It would… give her a howl. That felt appropriate. It would give her a howl as an apology, and a show of mourning, like it had seen countless dogs do before for their fallen kin, and move on to greater things.

Its mind ruminated on memories for a while, but eventually, with a heavy sigh, it moved on, because that was all it knew how to do.

Plans. It had to learn how to plan.

One of its main problems was that it wasn’t sure how humans would react to its changed form. So, it could just… walk into the nest, and see how they reacted. If it was negative it could just run away into the shadows.

The floor above was quite densely populated by humans, but there was an absolute heap of machinery to navigate through, higher, unlit walkways around and under them, and plenty of alleyways it could prowl through without drawing much, if any attention from the humans. It could easily stalk around the human nest without getting noticed, especially considering [Echoes of Oblivion].

That activity might become a bit harder on the floor above that floor, but it had only been there once or twice by sheer accident, and had no reason to revisit it.

It still remembered when that random human threw some kind of spark missile at it for seemingly no reason.

Actually…

Its memory was rather hazy, and its nose was not nearly as great as it was now, but it was pretty sure it could find that human again by his scent.

Something to entertain for later, once more.

Mostly because thinking of human scents brought it back to its human and made it feel bad.

It thickened its vocal cords significantly in preparation within [Devourer], and rested.

Eventually, its bones were healed, just enough for the wolf to get up and walk around its prey, so it woke up, shaking off the vast amounts of burnt fur it had detached, most of it peeling off in half-melted chunks, and it opened its single fully healed eye to observe a few wriggling maggots, gently glowing green, chewing through its prey’s meat.

It wasn’t particularly bothered. More food on its food.

It would also answer the question of what would happen should it try to eat something alive.

The pain was… not mild, but not enough to deter the wolf from forcing itself upright on shaking limbs, [Pain Resistance] giving it the ability to hobble around at the very least.

Most of its bodily injuries were fixed only to the extent they had to be to not deteriorate while the wolf ate its prey.

It really needed to find a way to make eating things a faster process.

A rather absurd, but efficient idea came up as its eye roved over the charred, leathery mass sprawled out before it, and it let out a long, tired breath.

This was… going to take a long time. And it probably wouldn’t even taste good. It really had to eat a human again, if nothing else, just for the better taste and texture.

But first…

A howl for its own.

It remembered the first time it used [Sonic Blast], the way it poured emotion and memories into mana and let it out in a short, violent burst. This was the opposite of that burst, but the principle was the same.

It gingerly sat on its haunches, staring through its prey’s mutilated neck.

It had to draw that emotion out, and pour it into its howl. At least to make this feel proper, in a sense, even if it wasn't sure of how humans mourned their dead pack members.

The best way to draw that emotion out that was to simply go back to the beginning, go through everything.

And slowly, it drew the memories forth, categorized them, from the start to the end. The human playing with her mana in the stairs. The fight in the trash pit, them against a few hundred rodents, the endless road down the pipe. Her fingers in its fur. The fight against the insect. Halfheartedly playing on the support rods. Sleeping next to each other.

The emotion built, and built, and its body wished for a way to express it, to relieve it.

It poured a slow, steady stream of mana into its lungs, and took in a breath, one so deep it felt its lungs start burning from exertion. [Mana Conversion] and the mana cells in its lungs got to work sucking the mana out of the air, providing the wolf with a steady stream.

And so it let it all out, slowly, feeling its vocal cords be used to the verge of snapping, but holding, as the slowly building howl vibrated the metal and stone all around it, slammed into its ears incessantly, enough for a serious bout of ringing to fill its ears.

“I’m not complaining too much. I just wish-” He replied through the mask’s speaker and immediately cut himself off as a rumbling, deep, siren-like sound rose among the cramped, nonsensical pathways of the fourth floor. But he’d heard a hundred different sirens and alarms over his life in this work. That was not a siren. It was too…

Off. Unsettling, organic.

Niet stiffened, ever the tense bastard, hand already clutching his short sword, glancing around them.

Himself?

He just focused entirely on the sound, tilting his head up.

A low, building, groan-like sound with a quickly rising pitch, that slowly transitioned into a constant note that kept going higher, reverberating and echoing throughout the gargantuan space as the seconds flit by.

And like a crescendo, it hit its peak, a haunting, mourning howl that never seemed to end, echoing and distorting through the fourth floor’s vast expanses, making shivers and goosebumps raise across his withered skin under the suit.

Part of him was captivated, by the mere sound, the emotions it forcibly wrung out of his withered heart, the odd, primal, natural beauty of it, in a place bereft of life. It reminded him of the forests he prowled about during his younger years.

Another part of him was curious and terrified at the same time.

Despite both sides of him warring for dominance however, a single memory ran through his mind.

A meeting, held almost eight months ago at the Prospectors Guild, telling them to report any dog-like creatures they might have run into or seen during their work, for a hefty, monetary reward should the creature be caught because of said tips. Something offered and paid for by a Dungeon Baron.

His first instinct was to go back to the guild right this moment and try to report it before anyone else did, then realized how pointless that would be.

That howl was loud. There were likely at least a dozen other people across the floor right now that had the exact same thought he did, maybe younger, maybe closer to the guild, maybe faster than him.

What they didn’t have was experience with trapping and hunting. Even after all these years, his Path remained the same, not only in the System but in his heart. He’d trap rodents and slugs and all manner of curiosities still, to increase his Level, but also because it was fun.

And as the howl faded, its distorted echoes still flooding through the mask’s speaker, he considered the reason that Baron wished to find this creature.

Considering how for something like a dog, the only way to survive down here would be if it was exceptionally mutated, or Awakened, the answer was obvious.

Awakened dogs were very rare. Awakened dogs that were strong enough to withstand life on the fourth floor were…

Unheard of, actually.

And if it was mutated to high hell, it would still be much stronger than a regular dog. It would still fetch for a lot in an auction.

Greed warred with caution for a brief moment, and as even the remnants of the echoes faded, he made up his mind.

“Niet. How would you like to make a few hundred gold crowns?” He whispered, breathed out into the mask’s microphone, and he saw his friend’s mask snap to him, so fast he swore he heard something in his spine pop through the grimy bodysuit.

He seemed to consider it for a moment, his head and gaze drifting in thought.

He understood why. This would be dangerous. And neither of them were exactly in their prime anymore.

Then Niet gave a sharp resolute nod, letting go of his sword.

He smiled, an unusual formation for his wrinkled skin and fading musculature.

“It carried a lot, and echoed even more. And the only large, open areas in the fourth floor-”

“The canals.” Niel cut him off.

He nodded, turning around and briskly walking towards the nearest guild lift, glancing at the magic compass in his hand and hearing loose metal plates grind and creak beneath his steel boots.

“Let’s go grab my old gear, friend. We’ve got a dog to catch.”

Life was an unfair, psychopathic bitch.

And she was absolutely certain that said bitch had a grudge with her.

It was a long series of unfortunate coincidences she couldn’t even bother to count or recite at the moment.

Long story short, she was fucked over by being unlucky several times, in the worst timing and manner possible.

So she’d gotten assigned to this bullshit.

She’d gone from being a half-respected gangster under a respected crime lord’s boot- or Dungeon Baron or whatever the fuck they called themselves, to this. Lugging around almost eighty pounds of gear, looking for some fucking dog in the fourth floor. Day in, day out.

For a goddamn month.

It wasn’t just the time sentence for her fuckups, it was the fact that her task was fucking pointless. There was no fucking dog down here, and even if some dirty mutt could somehow survive down here for longer than ten minutes, there would be no fucking way of fucking finding the fucking thing, for fuck’s sake.

Fuck.

And because of some plucky rumor about some adventurer and a dog reached her boss's ears, her sentence was doubled, along with how many people were sent down in this shithole.

This place wasn’t nearly as big as the third floor, but it was still fucking massive. There were hundreds of others being forced to scour around this shithole ‘cuz of mister Crimelord Dungeon Baron Manny or whatever the fuck his name and title was, when they would need several thousands to even catch a whiff of a goddamn dragon if it decided to live down here.

It was just wasted manpower. Wouldn’t they need her and everyone else they could use up above? The situation was tenser than a stretched, fraying piece of string. One or two Guards, or gangsters, being killed, could ignite the shitstorm. Everyone was looking for a reason to lash out.

But did Manny fucking Ironskin or whatever the fuck give a shit? Noooo, he wanted to find his lost pet or something.

Unfortunately she couldn’t complain to anyone, nor voice these thoughts without getting her limbs cut off and thrown into a sump, so she complained to herself. Like a sane individual.

Probably.

She just continued to stomp through gravel, plates of steel and cracked stone, trundled through oceans of bolts and scrap metal forming hills that blocked half the thin metal alleyways she wished to go through, with just a shitty fucking compass to guide her back once her ten hour shift was done.

This endless bullshit was driving her insane.

Fucking stupid fucking-

Then she heard it.

She tensed, her spine going stiff, her gloved hand braced against a twisting pipe, as if made from rope and turned to metal, her right knee to her chest as she was about to squeeze through a mess of pipes to continue her meaningless wandering.

There was something about the sound, that so openly declared mourning and loss, that she couldn’t help but let her mind wander to those she herself had lost, people she hadn’t thought of in months.

It took almost a full minute of sitting frozen for her to realize what she’d heard, breathless from how fucking loud that was. She could swear her eardrums hurt.

Her first action was to check the speakers on her gas mask, gingerly tapping along the plastic circles clamped around her ears.

No, they worked just fine.

And she was… probably not hallucinating. She hadn’t taken any cloudsugar with her.

It took a few seconds for her mind to start processing what to do and what to make of that sound.

First of all, that was so fucking loud, holy shit.

Which meant that it was probably close to her.

And it also meant she’d been completely and utterly wrong in almost all of her assumptions. And that she could get out of this chore of a job if she could capture it.

Her hand jerked down to the comms tablet that had been bouncing at her hip for two weeks without use, and she hesitated.

If she could capture it without any help, how much rep would she get on the streets? That thing had some lungs on it.

Actually, how dangerous was it?

She brought up the system screen, her lips pressing into a thin line.

Level twenty eight. There was no way she’d lose to a fucking mutt.

As she turned around and began to sprint towards the direction that haunting howl came from, she could have sworn something was staring at her through the smoggy alleys and pipes, yet despite checking around her continuously and seeing nothing, the feeling never faded.

She disregarded the feeling after a couple minutes as she vaulted over a buzzing engine, chalking it up to nerves and anticipation.

Hanging across wires and prowling beneath bits of debris, she never noticed the small entourage of spiders that seemed to follow her with their beady red eyes.

-

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