The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 2 - Chapter 15 - A Welcome Surprise (Patreon)

Inside of the Dungeon of the Lost on Aegis

“Remember, we have to hurry this up and move on to the next dungeon before one of the visitors gets to it if we want to get the first clear bonus!” Luke says as he and everyone else from Wolf’s group sprint through the dungeon while killing everything as quickly as they can.

“We get it, dad. You don’t have to repeat it,” Katie says with a grunt as she parries a goblin’s sword with both of her knives before kicking its feet out from under it and slitting its throat with one of her knives.

“Oh, yeah?” Aidan says in Luke’s defense as he shoots a wave of flames out of his hands to engulf a goblin, “if that’s true, then how come you got distracted and ended up slowing us down with the last dungeon?”

Katie grimaces while ducking her head under another goblin’s sword, “I already told you! My ability is a healing one! Not a combat ability! I am also only level 73 while the rest of you are almost level 80! So, it’s not my fault that I am not killing them as fast as you guys are!”

As she is speaking, she tosses one of her knives into the air and swiftly reaches back to grab the goblin’s sword hand before using its own weight to throw it onto the ground in front of her. She then goes onto one knee on top of the goblin’s back, grabs the same knife she tossed, and slits its throat with both of her knives.

“Excuses, excuses,” Lexi jokes from the side as she uses her ability to create a small blue orb right in the path of a goblin’s sword, sending the sword flying away out of the goblin’s hand as soon as it touches it, before she uses her sword to impale the goblin through the chest.

She then finishes her statement as the goblin falls to the ground dead, “I also don’t have a combat ability, but I am still level 78! You’re just falling behind!”

Katie scoffs in annoyance before throwing a System knife at a fleeing goblin and saying, “Your ability can also be used in a combat setting! The most I can do is heal myself whenever I get injured! That doesn’t do all that much for my combat abilities!”

Luke interrupts their bickering as he says, “We’re moving on. Continue your argument later.”

The others turn serious and nod before they all begin to move through the goblin corpse infested forest within the dungeon.

Several seconds pass in silence before Luke adds, “Also, being able to heal yourself mid-combat could be considered a massive increase in your combat abilities. Just not your ability to quickly kill an enemy.”

Aidan and Lexi snicker while Katie looks disgruntled before they all focus on the task at hand again.

“Are first clear bonuses for dungeons really that good? Good enough for these visitors to come to our world just to get them?” Lexi asks after several more seconds of silence.

Luke turns to look at her before facing forwards again as he answers, “They are really good, but it’s mostly just the higher leveled dungeon’s first clear bonuses that give really good stuff from what I have been able to research. But, while they are definitely a major factor as to why the visitors came, it isn’t the only factor. The System created this world with numerous different rare resources scattered across it, so every newly initiated Galaxy is an enormous boom on the System-wide economy.”

Luke pauses speaking to grab a drink of water from his inventory before he continues, “That said, these first clear bonuses are necessary for us to be able to measure up against the visitors, because, while we are given – on average – higher Tier starting abilities than those born in the System, we also have less time to level up. Which is why we need the first clear bonuses as a sort of boost to help us catch up with them a little bit.”

“Now,” he adds as he puts the water bottle back into his inventory, “enough talking. We need to finish this dungeon so that we can move on to the next.”

Everyone nods their head and voices their agreement before everyone continues sprinting through the forest.

Wolf
Three days later, on the seventeenth floor

“These cobwebs are getting extremely annoying,” I mutter as I push through another large, frosted over cobweb as I travel through the foliage of the jungle.

The seventeenth floor is definitely showing to me that the boss is likely going to be a spider…

The stupid jungle is starting to be filled with cobwebs everywhere! It’s to the point that I had to start letting my ice element naturally spill from me so that it would automatically freeze the webbing to keep it from getting stuck all over me as I trudge through the jungle foliage!

It’s just like how the last few floors of the first ten started shifting closer to a theme focusing only on the boss monster and its minions. First by adding in more and more powerful zombies, while focusing more on them in general. Then by changing the floors appearance, and even adding some miasma here and there.

And if these floors are anything like the last set of ten floors, then this is just going to continue getting even more annoying as I continue through to the twentieth floor!

My inner complaints are interrupted as dozens of creatures enter my range of senses for my life sense.

“A nest?” I mutter before making my way in the direction of the creatures.

None of them are moving in my direction, so it probably is a nest considering just how many of them there are.

That said, I wonder which species out of spider they are out of the two species inhabiting this floor…

The answer comes to me in the form of a one-and-a-half-meter long spider with literal blades as its arms as it steps out of its nest, making clinking sounds with its blade-like limbs as they tap against the stone ground of the cave making up their nest.

_-| Unnamed – Scythian Arachnid – Level 181 |-_

Okay, this is the easier to deal with species out of the two. The other one is at least partially immune to magic, so it’s more annoying to deal with.

I let my ice element fully spill out of me before slowly surrounding the entrance to the nest in an arc as the spider continues clinking around.

Fortunately, these creatures don’t have very good senses, which I am pretty sure is because of their lack of hairs. It makes them easy to sneak up on.

After several seconds of maneuvering my ice element into position, I suddenly have it all swarm the nest, freezing the spider in its place before I dig my ice straight into its eyes and mouth to kill it.

Now, time to clear out this nest of spiders.

Arcadian Live

“If I am being honest, I was kind of expecting Deadshot and The Winter Wolf to be the first Competitors to make a trade during this run,” Mikaela says to Katherine as they discuss the trade from a couple of days ago while Wolf clears out the nest of spiders on the main screen.

“I was as well, but really,” Katherine begins as she looks at the screen, “who would have expected Nosferatu to be the first Competitor to initiate a deal!”

Shouts of agreement echo through the stadium from the audience before everyone begins to chat amongst themselves whilst watching Wolf exterminate the nest of spiders.

“How do you feel about Aegis’s current situation?” Mikaela asks Katherine via telepathy as the audience mingles amongst themselves.

Katherine looks surprised for a second before she answers, “I’m not really sure, but I don’t really like what The Abyss is doing. Or the Volcanic Domain for that matter.”

Mikaela nods his head in agreement and says, “I feel the same about it. I just hope that the Chairman can do something about them, otherwise those two factions are going to cause a lot of chaos down on Aegis.”

Before Katherine can agree, Wolf finishes off the last scythian arachnid in the nest and a song begins to play out within the stadium from the livestream.

Both commentators turn to the screen in shock before an explosion of red fireworks emerges in the center of the cavern near Wolf.

The audience also turns silent in shock as a fancy looking red chest appears from amidst the fireworks.

Wolf stares dumbfoundedly at the red chest before a large smile emerges on his face.

Meanwhile, Mikaela finally breaks out of his stupor and shouts, “The Winter Wolf has just gotten a Mythic Loot Box!!! A damn mythic!!!”

Everyone within the enormous stadium breaks out into chaos as hundreds of thousands of people break out into cheers and screams as they watch Wolf slowly begin to approach the chest.

“I don’t think I have ever seen a mythic chest appear before the first Centurion Boss!!” Mikaela shouts with a bright, ecstatic smile right as Wolf reaches the chest.

The audience suddenly goes silent as Wolf mutters something and begins to reach out to touch the chest.

“And the mythic chest contains…!!!” Mikaela exclaims before his excitement is replaced instantly by shock at the sight of the description that appears above the fancy looking red chest.