Andius went about summoning his minions before the battle. First up would be the largest wolf since that would be the one that took the most mana and he wanted to be sure he could control it. He lifted his arms and the shadows in the surrounding area responded to his intent, gathering and swirling as a disk on the ground. First came it’s paw, the blank inky surface of its fur coming into contact with the ground and causing a wet splashing sound. The rest of the wolf rose from the portal like a dog could climb on top of the couch, revealing it’s massive dark body to the open air and dim sunlight. Just like before it’s body looked both solid and immaterial, fur bleeding off into shadows that faded off into wispy tendrils. Most horrifying of course were the four eyes, two on either side of it’s long snout that glowed an angry violet color, the same wispy shadows coming from them tinged by the glow of it’s eyes.

All in all the wolf looked like the stuff of nightmares and he would hate to be the person one of these came after. Andius noticed that there was a side panel in the corner of his vision that he hadn’t noticed before, probably because he was in a life or death situation whenever had had summoned one of these. Andius focused in on it and it showed a number of stats for his summon

——————

[UNNAMED SUMMON]

Level:8

HP:210/210

Mana:20/20

EXP:0

Abilities and resistances:

Non-magical resistance

Shadow Immunity

Active Ability Curse(10 Mana): When active, the next bite from this creature will inflict a rapidly spreading curse on it’s target, dealing Dark damage over time and eventually killing them. Targets killed in this way cannot be revived except by high level resurrection spells.

Light weakness

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You have the ability to name this creature, all future versions of this creature will adopt the same name. Would you like to name [UNNAMED SUMMON]?

——————

Andius selected yes and an input with keyboard popped to life in front of him. He thought for a moment what he should name the creature, it was certainly a scary thing to go up against and it’s dark appearance made it seem like something straight from hell.

An idea came to him and he quickly typed in the name he had thought of, hitting confirm and looking at the changed.

——————

Creature now named ‘Hell Hound’… How edgy of you.

Hell hound will now be an option when casting summon lesser creature.

Hell hounds can now level independent of summoner. If accrued level is higher than summoner level, it will spawn at it’s own level, otherwise matching level of summoner.

——————

Andius frowned when he read the prompt, why did the game choose to mock him at every opportunity? Still, being able to choose hell hounds whenever he wanted to would be useful some time down the line, especially if hey could actually be a higher level than him.

With that done he went about summoning the packs. Once again he held his hands out and the shadows moved according to his will, forming a portal for his summons to come through. This time the circle was much larger and soon three wolves crawled up from the darkness. These ones looked a lot more like normal wolves, they were still horrifying of course, but they were normal sized and only had two eyes that were bleeding that violet smoke. They bowed their head to Andius and the original hell hound and moved to the side without even needing to be told.

The next two summons went off without a hitch, but the third failed at the wolves went wild, jumping at Andius intent to kill only to be caught midair by the surrounding seven other wolves. The next two were successful, and Andius found himself surrounded by a pack of thirteen wolves.

Raizus came back from keeping watch and almost jumped out of his armor when he saw the gathered pack. “Good god man, are you opening a shelter?” Andius snickered at his friends comment and just looked at his gathered summons. It wasn’t an army yet, but it was a formidable looking group for sure.

“Not quite.” Andius said as he looks down at his wolves, “The big one is your alpha, you will obey his orders and he will obey mine.” The smaller pack wolves bowed their heads to the Hell Hound, and it instantly started to growl, the voice becoming deeper and more terrifying. Andius and Raizus watched in shock as the entire monster grew to nearly the size of a horse, violet streaks running through it’s shadowy fur and a fifth eye opened in it’s head. This eye looked a bit different from the others and flecks of gold in it.

——————

As you have assigned a summoned Hell Hound to the Alpha of a pack, it has evolved into it’s Alpha form. WARNING: Alphas have will of their own and may attempt to break free from your control if it desires to do so. Should an Alpha summon break free from your control, it will become persistent in the world and take control of the pack.

——————

“Well that’s not great.” Andius muttered and looked at his Hell Hound. It just looked him in the eye and tilted it’s head much like a dog would, apparently it wasn’t going to try and break free right now at least. Raizus gave Andius a cautious look and back off a few feet, looking at the car sized wolf in front of him like it might attack at any moment.

Andius stepped forward slowly and kneeled down, holding out his hand for the wolf. “Hey big guy, come here.” The wolf obeyed instantly and nuzzled into his hand. It definitely had a lot more personality than before, but it seemed like it was friendly to Andius. “We’re gonna go chew on some bad people, does that sound good?” The wolf nodded at him and walked over to the pack, who also seemed a bit more animated than before. It simply sat before them and they proceeded to stare at one another.

Raizus walked forward and looked at the wolves with confusion written all over his face, “Dude, what’s going on?”

“Uhh… By making him an Alpha I… Kind of gave them all sentience?” Andius said quite guiltily, getting a wide eyed glare from Raizus.

“Dude, that is definitely NOT good! Those things aren’t just shadowy murder machines, but now they can think!?” Raizus shouted, his face going more and more pale by the second.

Andius shrugged uselessly, “I always wanted a dog.”

Raizus stared at him slack jawed, at a complete loss of words at this situation. “You-… " He let out an irritated sigh and waved his hands in the air, “You’re insane dude.”

Time went by pretty quickly after that, Raizus and Andius making casual chatter to pass the time and sharing random stories from real life. The wolves didn’t do much, just lounged around and slept mostly. The sun set not long after, and Andius got up, mentally ordering the pack to rise and follow him. Raizus got up as well and kept pace with Andius, “Alright, you said there was a second entrance not far from the main one right? I think we should probably attack there since the people working on it probably wont be in combat gear.” Andius nodded in agreement, Raizus seemed to be gifted in battle strategy despite seeming to be lacking in other areas.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. We should probably try to make a direct route to their leaders tent, if we can make him give up then we’ll have gotten rid of who is most likely their strongest fighter.” Andius explained, and Raizus seemed to agree. “From there it’s just about clearing out the remaining players and setting their prisoner free. After that We’ll ride the Hell Hound out.”

Raizus snickered at Andius, “You named that massive thing a Hell Hound? Could you get any edgier?” He burst out into full laughter even as they were marching straight into danger.

Andius’ cheeks brightened and he glared at Raizus, “It’s not edgy, it’s fitting! What, did you want me to name it ‘big wolf’?” Raizus shrugged with a shit eating grin on his face which just made Andius groan. “Whatever, I think it’s a cool name.” They continued walking for a few moments until the camp finally came into view.

The sun had well and truly set now, and the entire place was lit up with torches and lamps. It definitely looked a lot bigger in person compared to when he was possessing his summon, but he was still confident he could make it work with his practical army of shadow monsters.

Andius turned and looked over at Raizus, “You ready?’ Raizus nodded and his veins started to glow like tubed of lava, his eyes burning with rage and fire in an instant. Raizus quickly followed suit and let his mana consume him, emotions fading away to background noise as his skin turned pale and veins turned black. His uncaring violet eyes looked over the place he was just about to destroy feeling nothing but disdain. He raised his hand into the air and pointed at the camp, “Attack!”

As one, the wolves raised their heads and howled into the night air. The sound couldn’t have even been described as a howl, it sounded like thousands of angry spirits screaming into the air and it made his bones shake inside of his body. The camp went still in an instant as the wolves charged down the path to the encampment followed by the shouts of alarm soon after.

The entire camp exploded into life as men and women rushed for their weapons to defend themselves, but the wolves were already to the opening and ripping people to shreds. The first unlucky soul was a man with a spear who had tried to stab the wolf mid-air, but the polearm simply slid through the beast, resulting in a quick and bloody death.

Andius and Raizus ran into the opening soon after the wolves did, already bodies were lining the walls and paths of the camp, but there were a few dark marks on the ground where some wolves had fallen in battle. He was already down to just 10 wolves. A man charged at Andius with a sword raised, but he was quickly cut in the stomach by Raizus’ flaming sword, “Go, get their leader!” Andius nodded and looked over to his mana pool, with two of his wolves dead he had enough to summon another Hell Hound.

He summoned a new companion and rushed for the large tent, the people inside far too occupied with the hellish monsters to notice the person running toward the center of the camp. Andius was actually surprised at how well the players were doing against the shadow wolves, at least five of them were down now compared to the only ten human bodies he saw on the ground, perhaps these wolves simply didn’t have very many HP?

His internal musing faded away as he passed through the tent. Inside was the leader sitting at the desk holding a small glass of brownish liquid, sitting so casually that one might think there wasn’t a battle raging outside. “Was wondering how long it would take you to get here.” The man said as he took a short sip from his glass.

“You don’t seem all that surprised.” Andius said, his mana-form still muting his emotions. “In fact, one would assume this was what you were hoping for.” The man grinned up at Andius and stood from his chair, throwing back his glass and downing the alcohol in one quick gulp.

“Exactly that.” The man said with a far too happy grin. “I’ve been with this guild between a lot of games for a lot of years, but I’m just getting tired of it!” Now his voice was beginning to sound far too weary, creases forming on his bald head that showed of a stressful life. He looked Andius in the eye, not even flinching a bit despite his ghoulish appearance. “So I’ll tell you where the main camp is if you help me get away from them. I know we’re all trapped in the game, so I’d rather live a peaceful life in that time.”

This was a lot to take in, Andius had hoped to come in here and get this man to give up, but he was already offering information in exchange for a safe escape? A devilish grin grew across Andius’ face as he walked over to the desk the man had vacated, taking a seat and throwing back his hood which revealed his utterly creepy visage. The wolf came to rest at the side of the desk and simply laid down. “Alright. If you tell us that intel, I’ll have my wolf here act as a mount for you and take you where you want to go.”

The bald man beamed a smile, “Done deal! The main base of the Bloody Blades is in a city known as Arcanis… well under it actually, inside of the catacombs.” Andius’ eyes widened a bit at that, he was already planning to go to Arcanis after this! “I don’t really know how to get there, but I know it’s there for sure. I know they’ve been planning something for a while, but I don’t know what it is.”

The man went quiet, so Andius nodded and looked to his wolf. It rose without any need for command, knowing what it’s master wants on an instinctual level. “Very well. My summon will obey your commands for now, but it will be desummoned in one hour. Use this time well.” AS if on cue, the wolf bowed it’s head to the armored man. It was a large wolf to be sure, not quite as large as a horse but much bigger than was average. It would be large enough to act as a mount though, which was proven when the heavily armored man got on top effortlessly.

“Thank you.” The man said, bowing his head to Andius, “I will remember this…. I plan to start my own guild one day, perhaps when that time comes, we can do some work together.” And with that, the man rode a wolf made of shadow out of a hellish battlefield.

With a sigh he picked himself back up from his spot at the desk and raised his hood again. “Well, can’t let them have all the fun, can I?” He asked aloud as he drew his daggers and walked back out into the carnage.

Outside it was once again a complete hellscape. Some of the tents and walls have caught fire, thanks to Raizus no doubt, and many bodies of both wolves and players lines the streets. The sounds of metal on metal made Andius look over to the side, where two men in high quality armor were fighting Raizus at the same time.

Andius recognized these two, they were the ones who were holding the meeting with the leader of the camp. They were good too, Raizus was back pedaling while trying his best to deflect attack after attack from the pair.

One of them swung their blade downward at Raizus only to be sidestepped, but that lead Raizus directly into the blow of the other player, narrowly avoiding a horizontal slash with a well-timed parry. Still, even as that blade was parried the other player thrust their sword forward fast, cutting shallowly into Raizus armor and immediately glowing red from the heat.

The player yanked his hand back hard as their blade grew hot, which gave Andius just the right moment to slash at him with a fast upward strike, the tip of the blade cutting through their metal armor like butter and burning the flesh just beneath.

This was just the moment Andius needed as well, and he launched himself forward as maximum speed, jumping over an obstacle and soaring over the pair of players. His hand gripped hard into the injured one’s hair and used him as an anchor to end up behind him, driving both daggers through his neck in an X pattern.

Andius didn’t even hesitate, he simply dropped to the ground and rolled away just in time to see the player’s head flying through the air, the other player having just tried to decapitate Andius. This proved to be a mistake however, as less than a second later a flaming red sword drive through his back and out his chest, a foul smelling smoke rising from the wound as blood and ichor boiled.

Andius looked around to see that almost all of the players had been wiped out, and more than six of his pack still remained! “Well done Raizus, looks like we cleared them all out.” He said in his uncaring and unempathic voice. He let his mana-form fade and immediately grimaced at all the blood. “This game… is way too realistic.”

Raizus looked like he was about to hurl as his flames died down, “Y-… yeah man, this is gross…”

——————

NOTICE: Alpha Hell Hound has broken free of your control, all summons under his command have left your control.

——————

“Shit!” Andius spat out quite gracefully, looking around in a panic. The hell hound was standing at the edge of the camp where they had first entered. It looked a bit different this time, the fifth eye on it’s head was completely gold now. It wasn’t a vibrant gold or very bright, but something about it seemed important to Andius.

The wolf inclined it’s head to the one who had summoned it to this world, to the one who had given it life, before running off through the opening and into the darkness beyond, the rest of the wolves quickly following suit. Andius let off a sigh and Raizus laid a hand on his shoulder. “Eh, I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Raizus said with a casual smile on his face.

Andius blinked up at Raizus with a confused expression, “What if they attack someone? I would be responsible for that!” But Raizus simply shook his head and looked around the camp they found themselves in. Andius paused and looked as well, did the wolves break free because they didn’t want to hurt people?

A warmth spread through Andius’ body at the thought. He felt proud of the fact his summons weren’t mindless murderers. The more he thought about that, the more the warmth spread and…. started to hurt… He blinked and looked over at his shoulder where Raizus’ red hot gauntlet was resting over his cloak, “RAIZUS!”