The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 3 - Chapter 41 - The Death of a Friend (Patreon)

                                                     Aegis – Right outside of Safe Zone 52
                                                    Nearly half a day before the message.

Wolf’s group consisting of Luke, Lucia, Katie, Aidan, and Lexi can all be seen standing outside of a large dungeon entrance in the middle of a snow-covered field. The entrance – contrary to its location – has the appearance of a large skull with its mouth stretched wide open, along with black flames bursting out of each open entrance. Meanwhile the mouth of the skull has a large, obsidian door with a frame made up of a black metal. Above the entrance itself is a dungeon id.

                                     <|-{ Dungeon of the Deep Abyss – Levels 300-307 }-|>

Luke looks at the others and asks, “Is everyone ready?”

After hearing their confirmations, he turns back to the dungeon entrance with a frown and adds, “Remember to be careful. This dungeon reaches about ten levels above us on average.”

Everyone in the group nods before walking up to the door and touching it, causing a bright flash of white light to envelop them all.

By the time the light fades away, the group finds themselves standing in a dark tunnel, illuminated only by a faint blackish purple light coming from the other end of the tunnel.

“You can tell that this place was set up by the Abyss…” Katie mutters with a frown as they all begin to look around the tunnel.

Aidan and Lexi simply nod their heads in agreement before a loud roar suddenly begins to echo down the tunnel, drawing everyone’s attention.

Soon, a large, black creature with two thick arms on its sides, and two more spiderlike limbs stretching from its back enters the tunnel, still roaring from its split mouth. The creature has pitch black eyes, with a crown of horns on the top of its head, and three sharp, clawed fingers at the ends of the two thicker arms.

“This will be a challenge,” Luke says while pulling out a knife from his pocket.

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                                      Several hours after the group entered the dungeon

“Shit,” Aidan grunts as he slams into the wall, knocking off the torch lit by a black flame stationed on the wall near him. The primal abyssal demon that had sent him flying continues charging straight towards him while he climbs back to his feet.

Before the monster can reach him, a large blue orb appears in its path, sending it flying the moment it makes contact with the orb.

Aidan grunts again as he makes it back to his feet with a hand covering a large wound on his side before he turns to see Lexi standing with her hand held out towards the orb.

“Thank you,” he says with a nod before turning again to look at the others as they deal with their own lesser demons.

Luke can be seen throwing over a dozen radiantly glowing, blue knives at a charging demon that has three horns, the body of a large, black dog, and two sharp fangs sticking out of its mouth.

Meanwhile, Lucia is fighting sword versus sword against a large, humanoid demon with black skin, sharp claws, and black eyes.

Aidan quickly turns around as he hears Lexi cry out in pain, only to see her bleeding from a cut on her shoulder, with a small, black and red creature flying behind her. The creature has two small black wings on its back and two gray blades sticking out of its forearms, with one of the blades covered in blood.

“Lexi!” he shouts before rushing towards her and pointing his hand out sending a wave of flames out straight past her shoulder to torch the creature. Right before the flames hit it, the creature swipes another blade straight at Lexi as she tries to get back up, scoring a hit across her shoulder.

It then burns to death from Aidan’s flames as Lexi falls to the ground again with another cry of pain.

“Katie! Lexi is injured!” Aidan shouts as he rushes over to Lexi, catching Katie’s attention as she knocks back a demon before impaling it through the chest with her sword. She then turns around and begins running as the creature’s corpse hits the ground.

Luke and Lucia both turn to look at the trio before focusing back on their own fights as they see the green glow symbolizing her healing ability begin to envelop Lexi’s wounds beneath Katie’s hands.

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                                         One hour before the message was sent to Wolf

“This should be it,” Luke says with a grimace with his hand massaging his shoulder.

Lucia grunts in response as Aidan, Katie, and Lexi all wordlessly nod their heads.

Katie has a deep look of exhaustion on her face, meanwhile everyone else within the group has various small wounds covering their bodies; ones that came about after Katie had already run too low on stamina to continue healing them.

All five of the players give each other a wary, exhausted glance before Aidan, Katie, Lexi, and Lucia all turn to look at Luke. Luke, in turn, sighs and says with a frown, not taking his hand off of his shoulder, “Make sure you all have whatever items or consumables that you’ve managed to obtain ready for use. This fight might just be our most difficult one yet.”

He then shares a look with each of them before reaching out for the large, obsidian door and touches the large crown in the center of it. As soon as his fingers touch it, a bright white light envelops all of them for a few seconds, only to fade again a few seconds later.

The group soon finds themselves standing in a large throne room, with a large, nearly three-meter-tall creature standing in front of a large throne on a raised dais.

Luke’s grimace deepens further as he identifies the boss.

                                      _-| Lesser Abyssal Demon - Archeron – Level 309 |-_

“Shit,” Aidan swears as over half a dozen abyssal demons drop down from the ceiling. The demons all have the bodies of massive spiders, with long tails tipped with stingers similar to that of scorpions.

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                                                                                       Wolf
                                                Half an hour after receiving the message

I stare unblinkingly at the system call screen without expressing any emotions on my face as Aidan finishes describing the events that happened within the dungeon.

“…we had already used up our last potion, and since Katie was unconscious at the time from stamina depletion, we couldn’t heal her. If it weren’t for your father, then we would all have been killed and not just her,” Aidan finishes as tear runs down his face.

Katie – who had been crying throughout half of the call – simply nods her head from next to Aidan. From what I have been told, neither mom or dad have said a word since about her death.

And if my guess is correct, then they are likely upset about it, but since they have experienced this before, they aren’t crushed and are just acting as usual for Aidan and Katie’s benefit.

My fists clench silently at my side as I silently clench my teeth, still in my hunter form.

I look at the screen in front of me before eventually unclenching my fists and teeth and taking a deep breath.

“I see,” I eventually say before nodding my head slightly and saying, “Thank you for telling me.”

As soon as I hear their replies, I end the call and turn my head to look up at the beating sun still hanging high above me. A loud thud catches my attention, so I turn again to look at the two enormous monsters – now only one monster, considering the two halves of the queen scorpion laying on the ground – that I had forgotten about, only for me to ignore them as the archthron begins to eat the scorpion’s corpse to look up at the sun again.

Several minutes go by in silence as the chewing sounds continue to come from the direction of the archthron.

I think… I need to get to Aegis as soon as possible.

No matter what it takes.

I turn to look at the archthron, only to find it still eating the scorpion.

It doesn’t look like it has any interest in me at all…

I narrow my eyes slightly before clapping my face and nodding to myself with a frown.

Now is probably the best time to check out its back. Then I can go find an arena.

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