Chapter 337 Volume V - 55: Second Night

Chapter 337 Volume V - Chapter 55: Second Night

?The howling of the wolves continued. A brilliant blue glow came in through the holes that the rock covering us couldn't quite close, then slowly faded, as if its source was moving away from us.

Compared to the noises outside... the space I was trapped in was remarkably quiet. Sue said nothing, didn't even look in my direction. Her eyes were on the rock that was closed on us.

As I got used to the mana that surrounded me, my senses slowly returned. I was returning to normal as I deliberately directed the flow, so... I finally managed to part my lips.

"S- Sue...?"

I spoke in a whisper, maybe she couldn't even hear me. The noises from outside were... too much. Still, she turned her eyes toward me, she looked at my face.

There was not much distance between us. The space we were in was so small that if we got a little closer, our faces would have touched.

But... as a third person, Adrian could fit in here too. Yes, we would have been too cramped and we would have been in an uncomfortable situation for hours. But... he could fit.

If he hadn't come back to pick me up, if I had tried to protect myself from the mana around me in the first place... he wouldn't have stayed out.

Sue opened her mouth slightly, she was going to say something... but she couldn't put her words together. Just as she was about to speak, the ground suddenly shook violently. Hundreds of rocks, large and small, on which we were standing, almost shifted. Maybe a few of them did.

That was not the only thing that happened. Along with this tremor, a sound so loud that my ears were ringing echoed. It sounded like... an explosion.

Both Sue's and my eyes were drawn to the rock above us. She looked at a hole on her side and I looked at a hole on my side. I don't know if she could see, but... I saw something.

I had a very limited view. Adrian had chosen a nice rock to cover us. If we stayed here quietly, we could really spend the night, but... I didn't care too much about that.

Because what I could see with my limited vision was a figure hurtling upward. Or rather... someone ascending into the sky as if he was climbing a staircase. But it was so fast that I thought it had shot up.

It was Adrian, this person. He was using the skill he had chosen at the awards ceremony almost a year ago, Platform.

But he was not the only person, or figure, to ascend. A wolf passed right after him, as if it was trying to leap up and reach for him. Immediately after him, another wolf appeared, then another... and more.

Adrian stopped ascending, if only briefly, when he realized that one of the wolves was getting too close to him. He twirled the spear he held in his hand, and with a simple thrust, swung it at the neck of the wolf only half a meter below him.

But the wolf did not stay still. It dodged the spear with its head tilted slightly to the side, receiving only a small cut. Then it opened its mouth and tried to bite Adrian's foot.

That thought was quickly confirmed by the growling sound we could clearly hear.

Moving slowly, the wolf began to move toward the point where Adrian had ascended. I could tell by the sound of its steps getting slightly farther away.

It hadn't noticed us. It didn't know we were here...

As I let out the breath I was holding, slowly, almost silently, I slowly looked out into the gap that was the only link between me and the outside. I could see the wolf moving away from us.

The wolf was... literally black. Some of its old wounds were still visible on it. But even these wounds were barely noticeable because of the blackness of its fur. It was about a meter and a half in height, just as Adrian had described it. There was only about two meters between us.

The wolf lifted its head upward, growling even more frighteningly toward the sky. It stretched, prepared to join its friends.

But... instead of doing what it was prepared to do, it suddenly stopped in its tracks for no apparent reason.

My eyes widened, I quickly ducked my head and tried to hide, because the last thing I could see was... the wolf turning its head in our direction.

Dozens of thoughts ran through my mind at once, each one playing out in my mind one by one.

Why did it turn toward us? Did it smell us...? No, could it really focus on us in this chaos? Maybe there was a very small distance between us, yes, but... if it could smell us, wouldn't it have tried to find us a long time ago?

There must be something, there must be a reason why it came back here...

With that in mind, I looked around our hiding place, looking for something that might attract the wolf, but... there was nothing like that. It was just Sue and me here.

But then... my eyes focused on Sue, or rather on her head, which she was still holding in her hand... in her hair.

And there, just between her fingers, there was something tiny. A red mark. A trail of blood.

I held my breath. Sue took her hands out of her hair when she realized I was looking in her direction. Her eyes widened when she saw the blood already drying between her fingers.

When she hit her head, she had gotten a small wound. It was so small that the amount of blood that came out of it was not even worth taking seriously... But this was a dungeon full of wolves.

The growl of the wolf outside turned toward us. It was looking at us, I could feel it, but I just waited, fingers over my lips, eyes closed in prayer. I listened to the sounds the wolf made as it slowly approached us, literally trembling with fear at the thought of our death approaching us with each passing second.

The chill of death seeped deeper into my skin, the wolf's growl came closer. It was right above me, not even a meter between us.

It had found us.