Chapter 57: Plan B

Boom!

Crack!

With each step, the ground cracked. And as these steps came into contact with the ground, they made a loud explosion-like sound. These were the sounds that brought fear as they entered the hobgoblin's ears.

But it was these sounds that forced it to perform at its best. A hobgoblin was not made to run fast, but at that moment, the hobgoblin ran as fast as a gremlin.

Sadly, such an increase in speed was far from enough. As before, the hobgoblin even knew when the wolf alpha was already behind It!

Luckily, at that moment, the wolf alpha got too close; it was already near the arch. The problem was that the archway was too big. Even if the wolf went in, it wouldn't get stuck at all. The hobgoblin realized this too late. So at that point, it could only continue going forward.

Chomp!

But just as it passed through the arch, its waist was gripped by the wolf alpha.

Crack!

The first thing the hobgoblin felt was the feeling of its insides being compressed by the universal pressure. Then was the sound of its own bones cracking, which was likely the most horrifying thing the hobgoblin had ever heard. At that moment, as its blood seemingly spilled in slow motion, the hobgoblin felt regret. But it was too late for that.

The wolf alpha lifted the hobgoblin up with its jaws, ready to get a good grip on the hobgoblin and finish it off. But suddenly...

Grrr!

Boom!

The arch of rock suddenly and rapidly cracked before it turned to hundreds of prices. hearing the sudden sound, the wolf alpha was confused and tried to look around. But it was too late to react.

From these broken pieces, an inlaid object could be seen. A completely black chain that seemed to have been hidden in the archway appeared. The chain fell directly on the skin of the wolf's alpha. And unlike everything else that turned to smithereens upon contact with te universal pressure, the black chain remained intact.

Suddenly experiencing such an unknown situation, the wolf alpha tried to get away from this object. But before it could...

Whoosh!

The ground swiftly cracked and seemingly exploded. But this was actually no explosion. The long black chain had actually sprang out of the ground. Because the force that pulled it out was so great, the earth acted as though it had exploded.

The wolf then suddenly felt a pull on its stomach. Looking down, the wolf noticed that the chain had at some point tightened on it. As the chain grasped tightly on its stomach, part of it extended forward, akin to a noose rope.

With the hobgoblin in its mouth, the wolf alpha looked over to see where the chain led.

A blue, luminous pool of water that seemingly floated in the sky. The chain extended until it disappeared in the pool of glowing water.

Whoosh!

A great force suddenly pulled the chain, Surprising the wolf greatly. And since the chain had wrapped around it it's stomach, the wolf alpha too was pulled.

"Arrgh!"

The wolf roared and tried to get a grip on something. But due to the universal pressure surrounding It, anything it got hold of would crack or turn into multiple bits.

The hobgoblin that had just been let go accidentally when the wolf alpha started screaming looks on as the giant wolf is slowly dragged towards the portal.

"Arrghhh!"

The wolf continued screaming, but it was no longer in anger but in actual fear. It seemed that what was happening was much scarier than the pain that the universal pressure exerted on it.

"AHhh-"

In the end, the wolf alpha was pulled into the portal. But that was, of course, not the end of it all.

"There are so many parts of you I want to see. That brain, that soul, and all those muscles... This is the end."

Almost as if the the wolf alpha had heard what the child had said, it started flailing much harder as it got closer to the dungeon core. Which is where the black chain was dragging it.

But try as it might, its struggles were pointless as the wolf slowly got absorbed into the core. The wolf seemed to flail as it could in the core, but in the liquid-like place that has a viscosity more than ten times that of water, no sound came out, and moving was too hard to make a difference.

"This doesn't feel as tasty as I had thought it would be." The child thought, "Oh well, at least the plan worked perfectly. Maybe I should use this more often in the future."

Crack!

Suddenly, a visible crack appeared on top of the dungeon core. For a fraction of a second, the child wondered what happened and what could have caused this. But it didn't take long to see what the cause was.

So he immediately used all his power and energy to vaporize the wolf, turning the whole thing into pure energy. The only thing that was left over was the soul-like gathering of ether and the inner dot-like consciousness.

"I guess universal pressure has more uses than I had thought." The child used his Ether to feel around the crack in his core. "Could this be considered a wound? Well, the pain checks out."

The child was surprised as he felt out his new crack. The crack was roughly 15 centimeters wide. But although the crack was large, he could still heal it over time.

"I'm never doing that again, unless I had no choice like today."

The child really did not have a choice, as the wolf alpha was too strong; nothing he would throw at it would work. When he thought a guardian was coming to attack him, he changed his mind about creating the lightweight armor.

The lightweight yet tough armor turned out to be too hard to make. Maybe if he had had enough time, he would have succeeded in making It, but time was clearly of the essence at the moment. So he decided to take advantage of the kobold's inexperience by using as many traps as possible and taking them all down.

The only problem that would stay in his way might be the guardian. The child did not have an accurate measurement of how strong a rank 2 creature is, but he believed that it might survive the pool of magical cement. So he decided to make the toughest metal he could and bind the guardian.

But how was he going to bind It? He had first thought to use them like arrows, like in a certain movie he has seen. But that would not work; the crossbows he had could not propel the very heavy chain he had made. So he decided to make something akin to a trap.

Making the chain act like a noose rope was not hard. So all that was left to do was hide the chain inside the arch and underground. So the moment he pulled from his dungeon core, the whole thing would pull down to clamp on the wolf.

At first, he was stumped on what to use to pull the chain. But he remembered that he was literally the strongest creature in this world. Although his magic could not go far outside his core without collapsing and he has no limbs to be strong, that was all outside the core. The inside was very strong, and just using his Ether alone, he could make a force that could pull the wolf even if it struggled.

So the child wondered, 'what if I pulled the enemy inside and then killed them?'

In the end, it all worked out. It was a simple and stupid plan, but since the wolf alpha had gotten simple and stupid in the full moon, it somehow worked.

"Come back!" The child ordered all the goblins. "We still have a lot of work to do."

...