Mage And Wolf
Chapter 60

"Hui’Jin, if you’d be so kind as to burn everything in this hallway?" Jurgen asks, grimacing at the spiders in distaste.

That’s all the prompt she needs to get her moving, a wall of flame passes from her down the hallway, causing squeals of agony, then another, and a third that’s finally met with silence.

A short lived silence as it turns out. Angered by the deaths of the small spiders, a group of their larger cousins start clicking down the hall towards us, each almost as wide as the hallway, clinging to every surface in their hurry to deal with whoever killed the younglings.

The boys have switched from rifles to shotguns, all thought of stealth abandoned in the face of giant spiders. The echo is deafening, 3 weapons resounding over one another almost enough to make my sensitive ears bleed in this enclosed space. The corpses quickly mount, forming a wall of flesh that has the hallway blocked.

"I’d say we turn and run, but I don’t think that would stop them from following us." I joke to the sound of pincers scrabbling behind the makeshift barricade.

"Hui’Jin, there’s a bunch of small stones on the floor from the burnt spiders, grab as many as you can while we’ve got this break. Do you know how to use a rifle?" She shakes her head in the negative, quickly grabbing as many of the half formed mana stones as possible.

"Alright then, I’m going to teach you a small secret. Those stones contain raw mana." She nods her head, already knowing this. "But if someone who has a cultivation base eats them, they will absorb that mana, and they can use it immediately. So cut one of them into 6 pieces, and when you get low, eat one and circulate the energy through your body. You’ll get a boost of power and you’ll be able to continue casting."

She’s looking at me in pure horror.

"The trick is the slicing you see. A whole stone, even the worst one is too much to handle. But a small slice can be handled safely."

"But can they even be sliced? Common knowledge is that not even the sharpest of blades can do that., your Highness"

I grab a knife from my kit and try. She’s absolutely right, not even a mark, how did Karl make that look so easy? Then I surround it with the black energy of my cultivation plus the Goddess’s energy and it slides through like slicing fruit.

"There, problem solved. I’ve made 6 pieces for you, just keep them well away from your mouth until you’re ready to use them."

"And you don’t need to call me Highness. We’re in a dungeon, just Kat is fine."

"Yes your Highness"

The second rank of spiders is starting to break through and the guys are keeping the opening small with strategically timed kills. The body count is starting to really add up, which seems promising, but the noise from behind them isn’t changing. Wait, yes it is, it’s moving. I think they’re circling around us back at the junction.

"We’re about to get boxed in. Everyone prepare for things to get nasty" I call to the team.

The spiders in front of us are coming in a rush, having made a larger hole than our firepower can manage to keep shut. Jurgen quickly shifts to his wolf form and surrounds his body with energy, crackling along his fur like static electricity. Nice Trick. His claws rake easily through the tough carapaces of the beasts while the brothers keep him from getting flanked.

The sounds of rushing spider behind us bring another wave into view.

Hui’Jin begins launching little fireballs like a missile barrage, over and over. I blast anything that doesn’t immediately drop. It’s slowing them, but they’re still advancing. When they get to 5 meters away I drop the shotgun and coat my claws with power, launching myself into the wall of arachnids, dodging fireballs as I go.

They’re not particularly tough. Their bodies are hard, and their jaws seem to have no trouble cutting through anything they can get them around, but they’re awkward, their bodies almost too big for the space we’re fighting in.

This time it’s a nasty green blood I’m covered in. There’s got to be a spell to repel blood, I’m certain of it. And when I find it I’m having it enchanted onto every single piece of clothing I own.

I’m making quick work of the ambushing wave when I hear a high pitched scream from behind me, where the team is fighting. Definitely Hui’Jin. Jurgen is in wolf form and the Ramirez brothers should be incapable of making a pitch that high.

Shredding my current target I flip backwards towards the sound of her voice and turn to see what’s wrong. Jurgen has taken a sharp leg through the belly and he’s in bad shape, barely fighting off the pincers trying to decapitate him.

"Drag him back into the middle. Hui’Jin, top up your mana and pour every ounce of what you’ve got into burning that side of the hallway to ash."

She pops a piece of the stone in her mouth, already blasting her barrage of fiery missiles at the spiders on Jurgen’s side and I fend off the attacks of the spiders to the rear. Retreating to the group has given us a very small space to work with, but the horde is thinning noticeably. Hui’Jin has moved from a fireball barrage to wave after wave of flames, downing a second piece of the stone as her mana runs dry again. On my side, there’s very little left but carnage, the last few spiders have turned to flee.

It’s finally over, we get a break.

"Hui’Jin, be a dear and burn everything on my side to ashes would you? The mana stones won’t burn, and I have no intention of digging through that mess to recover them."

The spiders burn much better dead, the magic in their body must have provided them some flame resistance. It’s hot and sooty and terrible smelling in here, but we don’t really have time to move elsewhere. Jurgen needs patched up in a hurry.

His werewolf healing has kicked in, but he’s still losing blood. Manuel has the med kit and is making rough stitches to close the hole, keeping the bleeding internal, something werewolves can deal with fairly easily. They’ve doused his wounds in water, washing away most of the gore in case it’s poisonous, and we’re about at the end of our capacity as first responders.

"How’s it going Jurgen, can you move?" I ask once he stops panting for air.

"Hui’Jin, do you have another piece of that stone?" Juan asks "He looks like he’s used everything he has to heal and he’s too out of energy to even bark at us."

She drops a shard into Jurgen’s wolfy muzzle and it dissolves immediately, slowing his panting and increasing his healing to a visible rate.

"We’ll have to add those to our supplies for next trip. None of the rest of us found a way to cut them, the only ones I’ve seen do it are you and Karl." Maybe it has to do with the Goddess’s blessing then? Only servants of the Death God can cut stones formed from a beast’s life? Or maybe we’re simply the only ones in the group with strong enough energy to cut through them.

Jurgen is finally back on his feet when the whole area starts to hum with energy.

"I think it’s midnight dungeon time, we’re about to get reset. Grab every stone that you can and stash it in your pouches" I yell, hurriedly cleaning up the area.

We all get to work, and have most of the large stones safely stored when the energy peaks with a stomach turning flip and we’re relocated back to the entrance, falling ungracefully to the ground.

"Well that sucked more than usual" Jurgen huffs, pulling on a spare pair of pants, his last outfit having been destroyed when he transformed.

"Look on the bright side, buddy" Juan encourages him "It’s reset and we’ve got to go back in to clear the entry so they don’t come running out again. And that means more boars."

"But first, breakfast." I announce, pulling 10 of the lunch boxes out of the bag in the truck.

"All breakfasts? Who packed this, Karl?" Juan’s teasing makes Hui’Jin hide her face in her hands.

"Don’t worry, they secretly like breakfast best too." I whisper, patting her on the head and making the guys laugh as they dig into their meals.