Damon held his position at the edge of the alpha’s chamber, his eyes still fixed on the massive gray form sprawled in the shaft of pale light. The creature’s sides rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm. Sleeping.

Or resting, at least. Its muzzle was scarred, one ear torn ragged, and even at rest, its claws gouged shallow furrows into the stone beneath it.

It looked like someone had already attempted to fight it but failed and retreated.

Voss’s voice echoed in his head.

"I suggest fighting a normal dire wolf first. If that one gives you trouble, head back out and don’t even attempt it."

Damon exhaled slowly. He wanted to charge in. Every instinct honed over a month of pushing himself past his limits screamed at him to take the opening, to strike while the alpha was unaware, to end this in one decisive blow.

But Voss hadn’t survived decades of Resonator combat by being wrong.

"Fine," Damon muttered under his breath. "A detour."

He stepped back from the chamber entrance and retreated down the tunnel until the alpha’s musk faded from the air. The side passages he’d passed earlier branched off in both directions. He’d seen parties in two of them.

The third had been dark and quiet, too small for a full pack but large enough for a lone scout.

He found it again a minute later.

The side chamber was smaller than the alpha’s lair, little more than a hollowed-out pocket in the tunnel wall. Stalactites hung low from the ceiling, their tips glistening with condensation that caught the pale blue glow of the moss.

The air was colder here, carrying a faint animal musk that grew stronger with every step.

Damon paused at the entrance and let his eyes adjust to the dim light. The bestiary entries he’d memorized surfaced automatically. Dire wolves hunted in packs, but lone scouts sometimes broke away to establish new territory.

Weaker than the alpha by a wide margin, but faster than their pack-hunting kin.

A D-Rank monster, same classification as the goblins. Dangerous to an unprepared first-year. To someone with his stats?

He’d find out.

The dire wolf emerged from the shadows at the far end of the chamber. It was lean, its gray fur matted and scarred, its yellow eyes tracking him with the cold calculation of a predator who’d survived long enough to learn patience.

Standing on all fours, its shoulders reached Damon’s chest, and its claws clicked softly against the stone floor as it began to circle.

No pack. No alpha calling the shots. Just one wolf and one Resonator.

"Alright," Damon said quietly, drawing his longsword. "Let’s see how you stack up."

The wolf lunged.

It was faster than the goblins. Faster than the King Slime’s pseudopods. Where those enemies had telegraphed their attacks with slow, clumsy movements, the dire wolf moved like a coiled spring releasing all at once.

One moment it was circling. The next, it was airborne, jaws gaping toward his throat.

Damon sidestepped.

[AGI 23] made the difference. The wolf’s teeth closed on empty air, its momentum carrying it past him, and Damon brought the longsword down across its flank in a single sharp arc.

The blade bit deep. Blood sprayed across the stone, dark and hot, and the wolf let out a snarling yelp as it skidded to a halt.

"Not a one-shot, then," Damon muttered. The goblins had dropped in single hits, but the wolf’s hide was thicker, its body built to take punishment. He adjusted his grip and turned to face it.

The wolf was already recovering, its yellow eyes burning with fresh aggression. It paced in a tight semicircle, blood dripping from the wound in its flank, its lips pulled back to expose rows of jagged teeth.

Then it lunged again.

This time, Damon didn’t sidestep. He ducked low, letting the wolf’s momentum carry it over his head, and drove his sword upward into its exposed belly.

The blade sank deep, and the wolf’s own speed tore it free in a spray of gore.

The dire wolf crashed to the ground behind him, its legs scrambling for purchase on the blood-slicked stone. It tried to rise, snarling, but its strength was already fading.

Damon finished it with a thrust through the heart.

[DIRE WOLF SCOUT DEFEATED]

[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 50]

[DIRE WOLF FANG +1]

[SOVEREIGN’S TRIBUTE: +5]

[TRIBUTE: 30]

The wolf dissolved into faint motes of mana, leaving behind only a single curved fang the length of his thumb. Damon picked it up, turning it over in his palm.

The surface was smooth and cool, sharper than any blade of comparable size had a right to be.

Another material. Between the slime essences, the core fragment, and now this, he’d have plenty to show Lena when he got back.

Either that, or he could also just sell them.

[Stored in Inventory]

The fight had lasted maybe thirty seconds. His breathing was still even, his heart rate barely elevated. A month ago, a dire wolf would have killed him in half that time.

Now he was using them for practice.

"The professor was right," he admitted to the empty chamber. "Good thing I didn’t charge in blind."

The scout had given him valuable information. Dire wolves were fast enough that even with his agility, he couldn’t afford to get sloppy. Their hide was thick enough to withstand a glancing blow; he’d hit the flank square on, and it still lived.

A shallow cut wouldn’t slow the alpha down at all.

And the alpha would be stronger, faster, and smarter. Its hide would be thicker. Its bite would be worse. Unlike the scout, it wouldn’t give him the luxury of a one-on-one fight if it could help it.

Dire wolf alphas were known to summon their pack with a howl that could carry through solid stone.

He’d need to end the alpha fight quickly. One clean, decisive strike before it had time to call for reinforcements. Sovereign’s Strike, fully charged, aimed at something vital. The skull, maybe. Or the throat.

"I could try fighting more dire wolves... but that would mean risking another party finding the alpha and killing it."

Damon sighed, sheathing his sword and thinking about what to do.

But it didn’t take long for the world to make his decision for him. Twice in one day, he heard another calling for help.

"Someone, please help! I ran out of mana!"

Damon turned toward the shout before he’d fully registered it. The voice came from farther down the side tunnel, high and panicked.

"Another one...?"

He ran.

The tunnel narrowed as he moved deeper. His footsteps splashed through shallow puddles of groundwater.

The chamber he burst into was a dead end. A single caster-class student, second-year, by the look of her robes, was pressed against the back wall. Dark hair clung to her face in damp strands, and her blue eyes were blown wide with panic.

She was small, shorter than Damon by at least half a head, and her hands were raised in front of her as if she could ward off the two dire wolves advancing on her with nothing but empty palms.

Her staff lay shattered on the ground between them, the crystal at its tip flickering with the last dregs of spent mana.

"Hey!"

Damon’s voice echoed through the chamber. Both wolves turned, their yellow eyes locking onto him in perfect unison.

The girl’s knees buckled. "Oh thank the gods—"

Damon didn’t give the wolves time to react. He closed the distance in an instant, mana flowing through his boots as he drove his foot into the floor with [SOVEREIGN’S STRIKE].

He had thought about it before; the skill didn’t really specify where he was allowed to use it.

The floor detonated on impact, the ground flattening as the two wolves lost contact with it. Damon didn’t want to fight both of them at once, so he decided to end it quickly.

Another hum of mana followed, and his sword began to glow as well. The skill really didn’t seem to have any limits; as long as it was something he was touching, it would work.

A single slash was enough to cleave both wolves’ heads in half, the air where his blade passed parting as though it had been struck by a massive, blunt tree trunk rather than a sharp sword.

[DIRE WOLF DEFEATED] x2

[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 100]

[DIRE WOLF FANG +2]

[SOVEREIGN’S TRIBUTE: +10]

[TRIBUTE: 40]

Damon stood over the dissolving corpses, his sword still humming with the fading remnants of Sovereign’s Strike. The two wolves vanished into motes of mana, leaving behind only the shallow trench his strike had carved through the stone floor.

She was still pressed against the wall, her chest heaving, her robes spattered with mud and something darker. Up close, she looked younger than he’d expected.

"You alright?" Damon asked.

"I—" She swallowed hard, her eyes darting between him and the fading mana where the wolves had been. "You killed them. Both of them. In one swing!?"

"They were distracted."

"That was a D-Rank monster. Two of them." Her voice pitched upward, somewhere between disbelief and borderline hysterical relief. "What kind of Resonator are you?"

Damon sheathed his sword. "Doesn’t matter, can you walk?"

"I think so. My mana’s completely drained, but..." She pushed herself off the wall, wobbled, and caught herself on a jutting stalagmite. "I still have some mana potions in my pack that can fully recover me, but I dropped them when I was ambushed by those two."

"Where’d you drop them?"

"Somewhere down the corner."

"I’ll grab them, stay still."

"Thanks..."