‘Ok, I think you’ve practiced enough to be able to go. Remember, you’ve only been doing this for half a day, and all that power comes from that stone in your hand so once it runs out, you’re finished.’

‘Yes ma’am, I understand.’

A squirrel holding a red orb that seemed to flicker with energy stood in front of me. The squirrel got up and started running towards the second room of the dungeon. She had been training with me non-stop ever since she first ignited flames.

And that hard work had paid off in many ways.

I smiled at the screen in front of me, my hard work paid off too.

After I left the room where I had been training the squirrel, I went to find the group of squirrels in charge of making the medical paste. I knew that before the battle was over, there would be a lot of injuries.

This medical paste was made using three plants we had collected from outside. One caused a cooling sensation, one numbed the pain and the other one was supposed to prevent the wound from drying out which would help the healing.

I had a grim look on my face, there was a lot of the paste made but I had a sinking feeling that it wouldn’t be enough.

It was a close escape getting everyone to the top of the cliff.

The wolves were making their way up the cliff-side ramp. It was narrow, so only two wolves were coming up beside each other. At the top of the ramp, me, Levine and the last goblin make our stand. We sent the slimes further back since they were hurt. They were up if the last goblin fell… unfortunately that seemed likely.

This would be the scene of our last ambush, after this, ambushes just wouldn’t work anymore. The wolves aren’t stupid, but each ambush had been different which is why it had worked so far.

So now came to put our plan into action.

‘Ok everyone, throw!’

What we threw this time wasn’t rocks, but thorns. Thorns stuck together into a cluster, made in such a way that no matter which side it landed on, there would be a thorn sticking up. That’s right, Rox had devised a way for us to make caltrops. At least that’s what they’re apparently called. Now we weren’t thinking that this would kill any of the wolves of course, but slowing them down was the aim.

Next, ‘Rock team, go!’

The wolves had reached us three by now. The goblin wasn’t doing well, one of its arms was hanging uselessly by its side and the spear-like pole wasn’t meant to be used with just one arm.

There wasn’t enough force in the goblin’s movements to keep the wolves back. That was when the rock team made their appearance. We called them the rock team because… well they were going to attack with heavy rocks. Basically 15 hares were hugging huge rocks, more than half their weight. They then jumped off the side of the cliff right onto the wolves. Basically we were making a hare-rock avalanche. As far as tactics go… it was one of the odder looking ones. The hares didn’t aim or anything, thus just jumped off the cliff with these heavy rocks… I glanced at Levine.

Levine shrugged, even though it was his idea.

Well, the rocks didn’t kill any wolves but it definitely hurt them, a couple wolves looked dazed and a few actually fell done.

It wasn’t all a success though. Having learnt the due to the previous attacks, the Demon Wolf barked out at his pack and a few of them saw the Hares coming and moved out the way. Those hares that missed were in for a tragic time, the two hares nearest to the Demon Wolf were ravaged as soon as they landed. The rest had to struggle frantically to escape.

They had jumped off very close to us, so me and Levine launched an attack at the lead wolves to add to the confusion.

I was worried, we were so ineffective!

The quick hares managed to struggle towards us. Another three had been killed by the other wolves and just less than half had been injured.

After that we had to retreat, the wolves were relentless. It was a rout, the ambush wasn’t strong enough to force the wolves back. With the injured goblin and two injured slimes left behind to give us time, all of us ran as fast as we could to the next room.

It wasn’t looking good, the goblins and slimes were quickly surrounded by wolves and even the slimes, with their physical resistance barely made them pause. The Demon wolf killed off one of the slimes then started following after us at a sprint.

As we reached the narrower corridor, Levine stopped and whipped around, I didn’t even notice until I was a few steps past him.

I was in shock! Levine had whipped around and charged towards the oncoming group of wolves. I quickly made my way back but wolves had reached the entrance of the corridor and Levine had already rushed to meet them.

‘LEVINE!’ Shit shit, this is bad, it was Levine against the Demon wolf and a normal wolf!

Then I saw something that made me… flabbergasted.

Levine was glowing like… the moon?

Forget the glowing, Levine was twirling in the air, on the ground, off the wall. I couldn’t track him! He was so incredibly fast.

What was he doing? As soon as I thought that, suddenly a ribbon of red came gushing out of the wolf next to the Demon Wolf.

Wait, what just happened?!

Holy shit, right at that moment Levine twirled closer to the Demon wolf and his leg kicked out whipping across the face of the Demon wolf. A heavy sound came from that hit as the demon wolf was stagger a step back.

Levine then darted back to the other wolf and two more ribbons of red floated through the air.

Levine was dancing through the air, glowing like a small moon…

Then Rox’s voice came screaming in my ear, ‘Max! Stop him! At this rate he’s going to die! He’s doing something he shouldn’t! Quick, quick!’

Fuck, I had frozen for a few seconds but I snapped out of it and raced the last few steps to come before Levine. He had stopped moving now… but the wolves were looking warily at him. Even the Demon Wolf had moved back a few steps.

I grabbed Levine and carried him over my shoulder, running back to the rest… god why is so heavy…

Levine, what the fuck did you do?! Damn it! Were you trying to save me?! Just to save me?!

Damn it Levine, don’t you die on me! Don’t dare fucking die!

It was when we were racing through the corridor and when we heard the last goblin die that I realized that… it didn’t look like we were going to make it. We were a few metres ahead of the wolves but they were just so much faster in pure speed when charging.

Time seemed to slow. I was afraid of dying. Truly afraid. Alex says the contract means our souls will stay with him but he doesn’t know if our memories will. Doesn’t that mean we’ll die anyway? I didn’t want to die. The pain, and that awful terrifying darkness that would come after…

But this… Max was in front of me. The one who saved me from a hunter’s trap, was it weeks ago? Months ago now? Knowing that bloody honourable bastard he’d try to hold off the wolves all by himself and die. What a joke, without him the rest of the defence is nothing.

So what should I do? Little old me.

I guess I should … give it a bit of a try. Maybe I’ll be able to take one of those wolves with me. Did you see this about me Alex? If I was honest with myself, I would put me in amongst the cowards. I know myself, I wouldn’t need an excuse to run away. But… there are some times when I can’t run. I think even cowards have a line that can't be crossed.

This was one of those times. No, I couldn’t run away and even if I could… leave my bro? Leave Max?! Fuck you universe. I may be a coward but don’t you fucking dare take away those I care about!

That was it. That was all it took.

I had it, I knew it. Levine the Brave. I’ll tell Alex that he’s kind of a smartass.

I stopped and whipped around to face the wolves, Max hadn’t seen me yet. This was perfect. I started running back.

I had to do something… I only had one skill and it wasn’t an attacking skill…

What was it Rox said?

‘Concentrate? Find my focus… my centre…’ Those words didn’t make sense when I first heard it… but I think I could grasp it now. How to sense mana, that was it… a warmness in my chest. Beating like a second heart.

I didn’t need fire… what did I need? I needed to be faster. I needed to be stronger. I willed that heat in my chest to flow into my arms and legs. Time seemed to move ever so slowly as I was racing back towards the wolves. And slowly, so so slowly. I could feel the heat move.

I saw my body start to glow, and with that glow I suddenly felt… strong. Incredible power seemed to flow into my limbs. The speed at which I was racing towards the wolves doubled, no tripled.

Warning! Warning!

You have invoked [MANA BURNING]

You will lose 4 mana every second, once mana reaches zero, your body will disperse and you will die

Strength has doubled, stamina has doubled, agility has tripled

Estimated time remaining before death: 40 seconds

Who the fuck cares about that?

I jumped through the air, twisting as I approached closer to the normal wolf.

It was moving so slowly… I could see each individual hair on its head. As I twisted, I tried stabbing it with my dagger… I misjudged it striking way too soon and my body spun in the air as it headed towards the side wall. I pushed off the wall with one foot and tried again. This time I timed it right, and managed to make a slash from its nose up to its eye, bursting it before the force of the strike pushed it back and my dagger shot into the air. The blood sprayed into the air in a beautiful ribbon…

The Demon Wolf was faster than the normal one and it was turning towards me.

Think you can catch me you fucking bastard?

I kicked out with one leg and whacked it across the face. I watched a bit astonished as it was thrown back from my kick and looked dazed. Shit I should have hit it with my dagger.

The kick pushed back towards the normal wolf, I wouldn’t make a mistake of not killing this one!

I used both daggers and aimed for its throat, both daggers drawing lines of blood through the air.

My limbs were starting to feel a terrible pain now. They weren’t built to move so fast, nor to have so much power flowing through them. Man, I had only been moving for 10 seconds…

With everything I had, I threw one of my daggers at the Demon Wolf's eyes. It was a gamble.

I tried to will my body forward again but my muscles were trembling… most of them were tearing themselves apart.

I guessed this was it.

I glared at the Demon Wolf, as the tearing muscles ripped open my skin along my arms and legs. Covered in my own blood, I glared at that bastard who was attacking my home and trying to kill my friends and family.

In those demonic eyes… I could faintly see a trace of fear. Wait no, not eyes, eye. The dagger had ripped into its right eye and it was bleeding and shut.

At that point, if I could have smiled I would have. If I could laugh, I would laugh the happiest laugh in the world.

But then the world went black.

Mana burning. I had never seen it before… it was when someone started burning their mana in their body without a skill being used. Skills are basically special mana formations that transform mana into a desired effect. Mana burning was releasing pure chaotic energy into your body…

‘Fuck Levine, why did you have to go so far!’

It had been 20 seconds since he started burning… his body was still glowing as Max carried him back to our line.

‘Rox, what do we do?! I have no idea what’s happening to Levine.’

Alex was deathly worried. We all liked Levine.

I bit my lip. I had an idea… but it went against everything I knew about being a dungeon fairy. Dungeons shouldn’t care about the creatures they summoned. This was something undeniable, because when intruders came, they would kill off everything inside the dungeon. So caring about them was useless… they were slaves to do our bidding. And yet, our dungeon was not like that…

‘Alex… I think I have an idea, but it’ll take all the mana we’ve gained so far from killing the wolves…’

‘Tell me Rox, we don’t have any time left…!’

‘Ok! Summon a holy elemental stone!’

‘Summon holy elemental stone!’

I grabbed the white pearl orb that appeared in the air in front of me. I flew to Levine’s side and grabbed his remaining dagger and without any hesitation I stabbed into his abdomen.

Max gasped.

With all the force I had, I pushed the holy elemental orb into the abdomen.

‘Fire squirrel girl! Get over here!’

The squirrel was with me, right behind me. She was smart, she knew what she had to do.

She stuck her hands into the Levine’s bloody abdomen and started trying to pour as much mana as she could into him, while the blood covered her hands.

‘Max… I know you want to stay but you have to go defend us. We can’t move Levine right now so you have to hold this line. You have to hold it…’

It was a difficult request. But this was Levine…

The wolves still hadn’t recovered from Levine’s attack but it wasn’t going to take long.

The glow around Levine was still there… seconds went by… soon a minute was up. Only after two minutes had gone by did the glow start to fade. The muscles that had been twisting in his limbs started settle down and the blood flowing from his wounds slowed to a trickle… fuck fuck, did he die?!

The poor fire squirrel was sweating and looked exhausted. She had been saving up her mana to try launch some attacks at the wolves, who knew this would happen? It would take a few hours before she would be ready to try attacking again.

I looked at Levine. The orb inside the wound in his abdomen was still glowing faintly while the glow from his body had dimmed. I had no idea if he would be alright, but as of right now? The fucker was breathing! He was alive… he was alive.

I called out to a few of the squirrels around me, ‘Tell Max we can move Levine now, we’re taking him back to the crystal room and behind Greywall to safety, so he can start his retreat as well.

With that, I ordered more of the squirrels to carry Levine and the exhausted Fire Squirrel back to Alex.

Levine had saved Max.

Levine the Brave... now we had to survive so that when he wakes up he’ll see us all alive and well.

Treating Levine took barely 3 minutes… but that was a very harsh three minutes. It took the wolves only a few seconds to recover before they started attacking again. The only thing saving us was the narrowness of the corridor. Damn, this sense of powerlessness as I had to watch my friends fight while all I could do was watch… I thought that was finished after I left earth and yet here again, I was the immortal spectator. Fuck!

Rox was getting Levine moved back to my crystal room. Max was holding a fighting retreat. He was absolutely amazing. We hadn’t lost anyone during that tense three minute defense, but I could tell that Max was losing a lot of his stamina.

4th room, 5th room, 6th room.

It was when the retreat was at the 7th room that the echoes of a wolf’s howl came crashing towards us.

The pursuing wolves stopped and looked around in confusion. They couldn’t figure out who was being attacked or where.

But I knew.

The hares that had launched the first ambush had re-entered the dungeon. Imagine their surprise when they found two lame and blinded, and 3 blinded wolves resting in the first room? So they attacked. The wolves were defenseless. But before they could silently kill off all of them, the sudden scent of blood was picked up by the blinded wolves and they started thrashing about. And when the hares went to kill them, it took a lot more effort. They had killed the two lame and blind wolves by tying vines around their necks then strangling them. The tried to do the same for the third but it started struggling too much so they started bashing its head with rocks. It took a long time for it to die, and one of the hares even got hurt when he wasn’t fast enough to dodge the trashing.

The next wolf was the same and also the one that started howling as the vine couldn’t be looped around its neck.

That didn’t stop them from going about their grizzly task.

Back at the 7th room, the Demon Wolf looked like it was torn between wanting to go see what was happening and chasing after the retreating enemy right in front of it. Its few seconds of indecision were all Max and the rest needed to beat a hasty retreat and make it back to the final room. There, we had built our final defense. The walled compound and city that we had made in the past was stronger and bigger than it had been. Greywall was a real walled area. The last room was a massive room, you could plunk down 500 people in it. We had used two thirds of it as our base and the walls itself were a metre thick. This was where everyone retreated to. The rest of the plans we had for the other rooms were lost. We had underestimated our foe. There was still just under thirty of them left and around twenty of them were barely injured.

The final fight, right at the gates before my crystal room was about to begin.