Chapter 45: Wolve Alpha

Ethan moved forward and stopped at the mouth of the tunnel before he opened his system.

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[Death Energy: 268/500]

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The numbers were worse than he wanted but then again, it could’ve been worse... He could have burned through the entire thing trying over and over to raise corpses that were probably going to collapse after three steps.

He looked at it again. His Death Energy was almost half gone, but the pool was still usable.

All in all, it was no longer comfortable.

He closed the screen and exhaled. "Change of plan," he said. "We go into the third chamber for Aetherite only. We extract what we can and we leave. My Death Energy pool isn’t completely burned out but we can’t risk anything."

Lila studied his face for a second, then nodded. "Fine by me. I want to get out of here as soon as possible anyway..."

Nora nodded as well as she agreed. "That’s a smart move. We already have plenty as it is. A few more shouldn’t hurt."

"Then let’s get going," Ethan said. "I want to finish as soon as possible and see what this Raven can really do back at campus."

Lila rolled her eyes, and with that, they headed towards the third chamber...

***

The path to the third chamber was quiet and wrong in a way that sent occasional shivers along Ethan’s spine.

The cracking in the walls was deeper here, and when they went deeper, they found the first corpse.

It was a Beowolf — or rather, what was left of it. It lay twisted against the wall, its ribcage opened from the outside and its throat was ripped open.

They stopped. This didn’t feel right...

Lila looked at it, the way its bones twisted, the way liquid oozed from the open wounds. "That’s a new wound..."

Ethan sent Bef forward and kept the Iron Golem close. Through Bef’s eyes, he could see another corpse a few paces forward. Then two more, then more and more untill he finally deactivated the link.

"It’s all bodies..." Ethan said silently.

"Beasts don’t usually do this." Nora said. "Something is seriously wrong here..."

Ethan kept walking. He was counting corpses and finding nothing worth raising. Everything on the trail was ruined, and he knew that any attempt to raise them would either fail, or cost him energy.

Whatever had come through here had not been hunting for food. It was either clearing a path or losing its mind.

Soon, they approached the third chamber, and when they did, they were met with a horrific sight...

It was a graveyard.

It opened into a broad space broken filled with pillars of stone and shallow depressions that might have been dens or burrows at some point.

Across the floor, ugly and fresh lay dozens of beast corpses.

Beowolves, golems, and other things he didn’t recognize. There was a lake of liquid that was the accumulated volume of blood, and limbs that occasionally detached itself from the body.

The air itself reeked of blood and death, brushing against their skin in waves that felt wrong.

It was like a scene straight out of a horror movie...

Lila covered her mouth, fighting the urge to vomit

"What the hell...?"

Nora’s face went pale. "This isn’t supposed to happen. Slave ranks don’t kill each other off. This doesn’t make any sense."

Ethan walked towards the first few bodies with the golem at his side.

Destroyed.. all of them. Even the golems had been hit with enough force to turn parts of their bodies to dust.

"Most of these are garbage," he said. "Whatever did it was probably a rogue monster."

He looked toward the far ends where the blue veins still glowed along the walls. "Aetherite nodes are still here though. That part is easier. We take them and we get out."

Nora hesitated, still scanning the corpses and nodded. "Agreed."

They moved....

Collecting them was faster than in the previous chambers.

With nothing to fight, the work became pure recovery. Nora and Lila handled the extraction, taking out the Crystals as fast as they could while Ethan stood behind them keeping watch. Every few seconds, he activated Death Link through the Raven for a wider field of view to make sure that nothing was still moving.

One node...

Two..

Then they turned for the third.

"Last one," Nora said, "Then we leave."

Lila exhaled. "Good. This place is creeping me out."

Ethan was about to open his system to check how much Death Energy he had left when the left wall exploded inward.

**BOOM**

Stone filled the air suddenly as the Iron Golem moved in front already assuming a battle stance.

Bef scrambled sideways with a snarl, and the Blood Raven shot upward on reflex as something massive forced itself through it.

It landed among the corpses on four heavy limbs with a force that shook the entire chamber.

It was larger than anything he had encountered before with shoulders pumped with muscle that looked like it was forced into its skin.

Its muzzle was dark with dried blood that was not its own and when it lifted its head and the chamber’s weak light caught its eyes— deep crimson eyes, staring at them like they were insects...

The Blood Raven screamed from the ceiling, and

Lila’s flames roared bright as she moved backwards. "What is that?"

Nora’s blood was already leaving her body and forming a longsword. She gritted her teeth. "I don’t know, but whatever it is, I think it’s responsible for the sea of bodies."

Ethan’s jaw tightened. This was bad, really bad. The beast had an aura that was more menacing than anything he had seen before.

Before he understood what was happening, his system pinged hard enough that the interface edges burned like part of its green color was leaking out.

Ethan stepped back, wincing at the brightness and whe he finally got a proper read on

what it said, his eyes widened.

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[WARNING]

[You have encountered: Wolf Alpha]

[Rank: B]

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"Shit."