The wolf came down into the hole and felt one of the presences vanishing without a trace. That stupefied him a little, but he still walked to its last known location and saw a shiny thing floating in the air.

That confused him even more. He circled in front of the floating crystal and did what a wolf does. He smelled and licked the thing to see if it was eatable, but the thing turned out to be too bland for his tastes.

He tried to chomp on it, but it was as hard, as a rock, so after trying for a little he stopped. The wolf then shook his head, as if saying, ‘I wasted my effort for nothing.’

Then he looked back at the leftover arm, sat on the ground and started nibbling on it. But because the human he ate before was already very satisfactory and because he was mostly full, he decided to enjoy the last of it inside the hole.

Actually though not finding anyone waiting in the cave to ambush him did saddened him a little, but he thought that the cave was a very good find already.

He liked the cold, dark place and found it to be more comfortable than his home.

So, he started enjoying himself on last of the human meat and time passed by. It wasn’t like he had anything to do at home. So he decided to stay there till it was time to go back home.

He slowly worked through the meat and then started licking the leftover bones. He took a bite out of it and it snapped.

*Tak*

It broke with a crisp sound and he snorted. Seemed to him the human wasn’t a hard worker, but he liked it. Otherwise the bone would have been very hard and difficult to chew. He might have even injured his jaw on it then.

He played with the arm for some time, but then he felt some movement behind him. He abruptly looked back to find and kill whatever it was, but there was nothing behind him other than the same old floating crystal and the wall.

He tried to smell the thing out, but when he didn’t find anything amusing, he got back to his original toy.

He finished the arm, but then his tooth hit something hard and pain flared inside his mouth.

*AYooo*

He cried slightly from the pain and spit the thing out. He saw a solid object spinning through the air and falling some distance away. He stood up in anger, jumped and slashed his claws at the thing with all his might, but nothing happened to it.

Only this time one of its nails broke and he felt as if its claw was on fire.

*AYYOOO*

He whimpered and howled like an idiot in agony. Though it angered him to see the thing which hurt him so much in the same room with him, but he decided to leave the thing be. He even thought for a moment that maybe that thing was a cursed object.

‘Ah, my nail!’ He thought.

Learning from experience, he decided to just stay away from it. So he got back to his original place, but just as it was going to sit down and get back to sleep, when something changed.

He was in the process of stretching his arms and legs, relaxing his muscles and sitting down, when he felt something stirring behind him. Shivers ran across his neck, and his hair stood up straight from fright.

He jumped forward to get some distance between him and the floating crystal. He turned to see what all the fuss was about, when shinning light particles started coming from the crystal and getting collecting in front of the crystal.

His mouth opened wide when he saw them lights joining together and forming a familiar, but completely different shape.

The dots connected and started forming a claw on the ground. Then came the legs, forming before a hard black chitin exoskeleton. The process didn’t stop until the face, eyes and absurdly huge mandibles of the said shape were formed.

The wolf was left there tongue tied, as the light which he thought was disturbing ending up creating a monster out of thin air. But what made him shiver was the absurd size of that monstrosity.

He thought about the knee tall, a small tree log wide monster that he and his little brothers used to play with when they were kids.

He remembered how one lofty paw could easily kill them at that time, but the 4ft tall monster in front of him looked too menacing to die with just a paw.

*Roar*

The ant roared and out of pride he also howled back.

“AYooo.”

That acted as the start of the struggle between the dungeon and the wolf.

…………………

It was the ant which initiated the attack. It ran, and ran so fast that even the wolf thought that it blurred for a second.

He instinctly jumped back and heard a small explosion ringing at the place that it was just some seconds ago.

The dust scattered and there was the ant with its mandibles deep inside the floor.

The noise soon washed away all of the wolf’s confusion, and as he saw that the ant wasn’t easy to handle he took his battle stance and got ready for another bout.

The ant drilled its head out of dirt and the wolf got ready for a direct confrontation.

The ant didn’t think much, and again, like a raging bull, started running towards him with its pincers wide open. The wolf felt the sharpness and danger of its weapon, but didn’t move and waited for the perfect time.

The mandibles reached his head, but just as the pincers were about to close and cut his head of his neck, it dipped his head out, side stepped and countered with wind blades.

*Snatch*

The pincers closed and at the same time.

*Fuu* *Fuu*

*Finch* *Finch*

The sound of pressurized wind travelling and hitting something hard ran in the cave.

The wolf couldn’t time his attack properly, so the blades didn’t cut the ants neck. And although, the ant’s exoskeleton was hard, the wind blades turned out to be more powerful than them.

One ripped out its left eye, and the other Left a deep gash at its back.

*Roar*

The ant cried as green liquid dripped from its eye and back.

Angered, the ant ran toward him in a mad rush, but as if the wolf was already ready. He simply jumped over it and with its sharp claws scratched and left three long cuts starting from the long deep cut the ant already had.

*ROAR*

The ant couldn’t take the pain from having its back ripped open entirely, and fell after moving five more steps.

The wolf didn’t wait for it to recover and with a perfectly timed wind blade; he cut the ants neck, and ended its life. The wolf saw that it didn’t get any much experience from the ant and scoffed.

He moved slowly to take a bite out of it. He wanted to know how this evolved? Ant would taste, but then saw it magically vanishing into the same dots of light it had formed from.

He stood there standing looking at the front of him like an idiot, but then abruptly turned around and started growling.

*Garrr*

The reason was simple, because those same lights were again coming from the crystal, and once again creating the same cringe worthy ant. But there was a difference, instead of one there were four of them this time.

He had pride in his strength, and he was not someone who would run away in dire conditions. He loved challenges, and seeing how easy, yet difficult it was to kill one ant, he decided to see how he would fare against four.

So instead of running away he calmed himself. Understanding that barking at those artificial creations was a waste of energy, as even the first one hadn’t responded to its warning.

He prepared himself, got into running position and pushed the ground with all four of his legs. All the power in his legs lifted him high in the air, which attracted the ant’s attention.

*ROAR*

They roared looking at him flying through the air towards them, and opened their pincers wide enough to cut apart its body in half, but right then...

*Boom* *Boom* Boom* *Boom*

Four wind blades came straight towards the ant’s flying parallel to the ground and collided with the two standing at the front.

*ROAR*

Because the ants were looking at him they didn’t notice the blade. Two blades directly collided with one of them on the head and instantly killed it.

The other ant standing at the front noticed the blades and moved its body to dodge, but one of them still struck it, and cleanly took all of its legs on the left side.

Green sticky liquid spewed from its wounds, as it fell over shrieking. The ants standing behind had already moved away from path of the last blade by the time it got anywhere near them, but it ended up striking the crystal behind.

The ants shuddered when it happened, but before they had the time to do anything by the time the wolf had already slashed its menacingly sharp claws and cleanly took the head of the other injured ant.

Now it was two versus one. And from the way the ants were fighting, it was clear that they were fighting something out of their league.

“AYOOO..”

As if assured of its victory the wolf howled with a smile on its face, but then its face stiffened. It saw an absurd amount of light dots coming together.

‘Oh shit.’ It thought.

It understood that whatever was coming out now was probably different from what he had been facing so far.

The lights concentrated and became a dense ball. The ball hovered in the air and silence prevailed in the cave. The ball kept on getting bigger and bigger until it was 4 ft tall.

The wolf saw the scene and thought about its chances. The thought of running out did come to his mind for a second, but it thought to first see what kind of thing was coming this time, before deciding what to do.

But he still moved closer to the entrance of the hole.

The ball then sudden busted into a flash of light, and a similar, yet different monster from the other ants came out of it.

He thought that maybe something would change, but what came out of it was still an ant.

“Ayooo..” It tried to test the waters by provoking it.

*ROOAR*

And the answer and the power behind the roar definitely proved that it was different from the rest.

He noticed that this new ant was a little bit taller than the other ones, and its black body looked as if it was wearing body armor.

Its legs had claws on them which looked sharper and dangerous than its counterpart.

The stalemate between them ended when the big buddy moved its neck and touched their antennas, which was followed by them moving away and standing behind it.

Then the newest ant moved. The wolf felt a gust of wind as its hair danced in the air and he saw the new ant covering the distance at a speed which wasn’t slower than his.

He didn’t try countering the ant by slight positioning like it did with the first one and directly fired a concentrated ball of air at it.

The ball of wind flew as a cannon ball and collided on the head of the coming ant. It forcefully stopped the arriving ant.

*Boom*

A wave of air travelled across, when its head collided with the ball, but it didn’t die.

The wolf concentrated to see what actually happened and saw it once again running towards him. He panicked and rushed towards the side, but the ant anticipated his movement and rammed its head into him

*Crash*

The power was so extreme, that he flew through the air and crashed onto the wall. But by the time the ant had rammed into him, he had already jumped backwards, which saved him.

He quickly stood up and jumped forward, luckily dogging the ant pincers. He turned around and blood drained from his face.

The wall couldn’t stop the ant at all. He saw that it was half embedded into it and thought the biggest question of his short life. What if he hadn’t jumped?

But he quickly got over it and saw his chance. So he fired four wind blades at its side, but the result astonished him, and he had to once again jump backwards.

The wind blades which could rip apart the first kind to shreds didn’t even manage to cut through its black armor like exoskeleton properly.

The ant feeling pain from its side thrashed against the wall in anger which made a whole section of it to fly toward the wolf who was left dumbfounded at its power.

The wolf saw it turning its head towards him and he thought that it saw it smiling. He wanted to retort, but than a flash of pain came from his foot as a shriek felt his throat.

*AYOOO*

It quickly looked down to see what was happening and saw a pair of pincers grabbing its legs. Then in pain it noticed that the other two ants from before were nowhere to be seen.

‘I have been had.’ It thought.

The big ant started scratching its legs on the floor like a bull and came running with it head shinning in a dull copper light.

He understood that the light was probably a skill and haphazardly created a wind ball to stop its mad rush. But the ball simply broke into a gust of wind when it touched its head, and the angered bull collided directly with his head.

*Crack*

The pincers couldn’t hold him down and the wolf flew through the air before loudly crashing with the wall behind him.

*Boom*

The loud sound and the wolf’s broken body easily explained the power the big ant had used behind its ram.

The wolf slid down across the wall and fell on the floor. His head bleed furiously. His back legs had deep cuts, but fortunately the tendons were safe. Five of his ribs broke when it collided with the wall, and some of them were sticking out of his chest. But the biggest injury was on his head.

His skull had cracked the moment the ant touched his head, and blood flowed out of it like a raging tides. All in all, the wolf was on his death doors.

From his blurry vision, he saw the ant running towards him with its pincers wide open and shining brightly. It knew that its condition wasn’t anything good and he would die if the pincers so much as touched him slightly.

So he took a chance, created a wind ball underneath its body using left of its mana and fired it. He didn’t know what it was hoping to achieve, but out of dumb luck its body flew over the incoming ant in a parabola.

He saw the ant roaring in anger underneath it and laughed. Then he saw the light coming from the hole and he knew that it was near the exit.

But when it started thinking about its landing and everything, its head crashed on the roof of the cave and its flight path got interrupted.

It crashed on to the floor and slid some distance before it came to a stop. He looked back and saw the ant thrashing about just in front of its face.

‘Ah, am I going to be eaten by ants?’ he thought.

He closed his eyes waiting for the pain to come, but when nothing happened he opened his eye to see the ants standing there just a few centimeters away from him.

‘Not going to kill me?’ It thought.

At that moment he noticed that he was already outside the hole and for some absurd reason the ants didn’t come out and just roared looking at him from inside the hole.

‘They can’t come outside? THEY CAN’T COME OUTSIDE!! HAAha they can’t come outside!!’

It coughed out blood, but that didn’t change its mood.

‘I need to tell my brothers about this place. I need to warn them. This place is not somewhere we wolves can run around.’

It body kept on bleeding, its thoughts churning, as sunlight shined right over its head. The thought of warning his brothers kept on repeating inside his mind when his vision blurred.

He shook his head and after a minute passed, he saw some silhouettes in front of him. But because he had already lost a lot of blood, and his vision wasn’t getting any better, he couldn’t see properly.

Then somehow he saw four small cubs running across the field. He looked at them for some time, when one of them stopped and came running towards him. It stopped in front of him, and licked his face.

Then the other cubs saw their brother and came running too. They talked to each other and then he saw more such shadows coming from afar.

One of them warped into the most beautiful white blue eyed wolf he had ever seen. Her fur shinned like pure diamonds in the bright sunlight. Then his eyes met with her, and he felt as if he was looking into the ocean, serene, vast and never ending.

She was followed by a rough and tough looking wolf; he was almost twice his size. He had a long cut mark across its face. The mark made him look strong. That wolf also looked at him with a smile on his face.

The female wolf came near him, licked his face and spoke with the voice which contained nothing but love for him. “Don’t just sit there. Let’s go.”

He looked into her eyes for a second and said, “Okay mother.”

Before he happily stood up, shook his fur once and followed behind her. He looked back to see the wolf sleeping on the ground, before he quickly followed his family and disappeared into the light.