[Chapter 78. Wolf against Rabbits]
Iris stepped through the shimring portal, the familiar world of the forest dissolving instantly into near-total darkness. The heavy, subterranean atmosphere of the Burrow Warrens closed around her like a physical weight, the air stagnant and thick with the overwhelming scent of damp earth, stagnant moisture, and the sharp, coppery tang of fresh blood. A low, rhythmic growl rumbled deep in her chest—a primal reaction to the sudden isolation. With each cautious step she took forward, the faint, receding light of the portal faded behind her until it vanished completely, leaving her in a pitch-black abyss. The only source of illumination was the faint, turquoise glow emanating from the edge of her massive Zweihänder, its light barely enough to cut through the oppressive, velvety gloom of the tunnels.
"Light. I should get so kind of lantern," she muttered into the darkness, her voice sounding muffled and small against the packed-earth walls.
She moved with a quiet, predatory grace that was innate to her species, her ears twitching constantly at every minor rustle or shifting grain of soil. Suddenly, there was a sharp, skittering sound to her left. In one fluid, seamless motion, her head snapped toward the noise, her silver eyes catching a flash of movent. The heavy black blade followed in a deadly, sweeping arc. The Warren Hare did not even have the ti to twitch before the enchanted steel carved it in two, slicing from snout to tail with surgical precision. Without pausing to admire the kill, she reversed her swing in a tight horizontal movent, catching another leaping beast mid-air and sending both halves of its body tumbling to the dirt floor. Silence returned as quickly as it had been broken, save for the sound of her own steady, controlled breathing. She adjusted her grip on the hilt and pressed on deeper into the labyrinth.
These beasts were nothing more than a nuisance to her. They were weak, fragile, and lacked any real tactical sense. The tunnels, while cramped and claustrophobic for a human, were just wide enough for her to wield her Zweihänder properly. She could feel the full weight and montum of the blade as it swung through the air, though the low, uneven ceiling forced her to use a asure of caution with her overhead strikes to avoid snagging the tip on roots or stones.
The Warren Hares were surprisingly loud creatures. The rhythmic thumping of their powerful feet and the frantic scrambling of their claws against the hard-packed earth announced their presence long before they ever ca into her limited field of vision. She found that she could track their movents by sound alone, her blade acting as an extension of her will as it cut through the darkness to et them.
The first major chamber revealed itself not through sight, but through a change in acoustics. The air felt colder, and the lack of wall-echoes to her sides signaled a transition into an open, echoing space. She had already hit several dead ends—tunnels that looped back on themselves—which she recognized only by the faint, lingering scent of her own previous kills. This chamber, however, was different. It felt open, but it also made her feel vulnerable.
Iris imdiately flattened her back against the rough, cold stone of the wall, using the terrain to protect her rear. A massive fluffle of Warren Hares moved as a single, coordinated tide of fur, muscle, and gnashing teeth. Her blade sang a dark, high-pitched whistle in the gloom as she dropped one beast after another. But there were simply too many of them, and they were too fast for her to track every single one. A powerful impact suddenly slamd into her abdon, the force of the hit knocking the air from her lungs and sending her staggering back violently against the stone wall.
"Mystic Ward," she coughed out, the words ragged and strained.
A shimring, translucent barrier snapped into existence around her just as the next wave of beasts lunged. It bought her the precious seconds she needed to draw a ragged breath and regain her footing. The ward held firm, the creatures throwing themselves fruitlessly against the magical surface. As their initial assault faltered and they recoiled in confusion, she dropped the spell. Her blade moved again, faster and more violent now, fueled by a simring fury. When the slaughter was finally over, she stood panting heavily over a carpet of carnage. She noticed then that so of the corpses were not rabbits at all, but sothing much tougher—larger, badger-like creatures with thick hides.
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[System Notification]
─ NA: Root Gnasher
─ TYPE: Beast
─ VARIANT: Lesser
─ LEVEL: 4
Iris willed the flickering System window away and reached down to hoist a Warren Hare by its hind legs. The corpse vanished with a faint, crystalline shimr as it was stored within her minor storage ring. She began to move along the chamber's periter, her fingers trailing against the rough, damp stone to maintain her orientation. "Four tunnels," she noted, the thought surfacing in her mind with cold, tactical clarity. She grabbed the heavy corpse of a Root Gnasher and two more Warren Hares, storing them as well to use as markers.
She moved back to the tunnel she had just exited and dropped the Root Gnasher corpse right before the first new tunnel entrance. After venturing inside and engaging in several short skirmishes, she hit another dead end. Backtracking was tedious and frustrating, but she slowly developed a system. At every fork in the path, she would drop a corpse. She made sure the head of the carcass always pointed toward the direction that led back to the main chamber.
When she finally reached the central chamber again, the dead Root Gnasher lay exactly as she had left it, its nose pointing to the right. Following her internal logic, she took the left tunnel. Before entering the new passage, she dropped another Warren Hare from her storage ring to mark her progress. This thodical approach sharpened her navigation through the oppressive darkness, freeing her mind from the constant, draining need to ntally map the labyrinthine layout.
The next chamber yawned open before her, its ceiling higher than the last. A massive shape lunged from the gloom—a greater variant of the Gnashers, standing at least two ters tall, with a dozen smaller beasts swarming around its feet like a living carpet. Iris leaped into the air, her muscles coiling and releasing with explosive power. She brought the Zweihänder down hard, aiming for the larger beast's exposed spine.
With a sharp, tallic ping, the blade bounced off the creature's back, sliding off the bone and biting into its thick flank instead. Reacting instantly to the failed strike, Iris twisted her body in mid-air, spinning in a full 360-degree arc as she landed.
"Arcane Strike!" she hissed.
The turquoise glow of her Zweihänder flared with sudden, blinding intensity. The empowered blade cleaved through the surrounding Warren Hares and Root Gnashers with ease. The greater variant, its flank opened and its support units decimated, crumbled shortly after. Iris stood over it, gasping for breath. She used the lingering glow of her blade to inspect the back of the larger corpse, noting the thick, scale-like plates covering its spine. They were incredibly dense; even two additional, experintal strikes failed to break the bone plating.
"Tough bone plating," Iris huffed, leaning heavily against the crossguard of her sword for support.
After a short pause to catch her breath and allow her heart rate to settle, she pressed on. The tunnels grew deeper, more interconnected, and significantly more treacherous after the second chamber. It took a long, grueling while to reach the final chamber of the dungeon.
She could hear the heavy breathing of the final variant ahead, its presence a dark shadow in the center of the room. This fight was not about endurance or raw skill; it was entirely about speed. The creature was preternaturally fast for its size. Her initial swings t mostly empty air and displaced dirt. Each missed strike was t with a powerful, bone-shattering kick from the beast's hind legs that sent her staggering back. The impact of the kick was not the primary threat, however; it was the massive, razor-sharp claw on its hind feet. It tore through her leather armor and into her flesh with terrifying ease, even while her Mystic Ward was active.
The golden bracer on her arm suddenly flared with a soft, warm light as her wounds began to knit themselves back together. She felt a significant, imdiate drain on her mana pool. A second instance of such rapid healing would be impossible; her current mana was already dangerously low. Her wounds closed, but the cost was more than half of her remaining energy.
Realizing she only had one chance left, she waited for the beast to lunge. In the end, it fell to a single, hyper-precise Arcane Strike delivered directly to its head. No amount of bone armor could protect it there. The skull cracked open with a sickening wet sound, and the beast collapsed into the dirt. Iris fell to her knees beside it, her arm mangled and bleeding, but she felt no fear. She knew that an hour of rest would restore enough mana for the bracer to finish fixing her physical damage.
She collected the loot from the final chest—more silver and basic materials—and slowly made her way back through her trail of corpses until she stepped out of the dungeon and back into the morning sun.
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