The Divine Wolf... or?

Chapter 200: Finally entering the next level.

As dawn arrived, golden sunlight streamed through the large windows of the great hall, accentuating the three wolves pure white fur. The spectacle looked incomparably holy, but unfortunately, no one was there to witness it. If Ark was told that he looked holy, he would find it a little ironic. Considering his relationship with the holy church, being called holy would be a little funny.

At the same time, his powers were actually quite holy. Not only was his light affinity perfect, but he even had a holy spear. To Ark, there was no benefit to having "holy" powers. To him, the nature of your power had no significant meaning, what mattered was how you used it.

Unfortunately, the holy church didn't agree with this viewpoint, to them, people with dark power, no matter how they used them, were sinners.

To some people, good or bad didn't really matter. If the holy church could get rid of all people with dark powers, all they needed to do was call them devils, or worshippers of demons who tried to overthrow the church. As long as they did that they would have the peoples' support, and to be honest, they had already done similar things before.

Naturally, no one knew this better than the holy church themselves.

After an hour or so, Ark was the first to wake up. Feeling a little excited, Ark decided to train his mana body a little. Whenever he had some extra time, he always tried to train his mana body a little, since the skill was really strong after all. Although he knew that the fastest way to get strong was to simply level up as much as possible, it wasn't that simple to Ark.

What was the point of being a high level if you couldn't fight people that were 10 levels below you?

Ark wanted to be a high level of course, but he also wanted to have good combat strength for his level. For now, his combat strength was already leagues above his own level, and considering how things seemed, his advantage would only get greater and greater as he became higher levelled.

Although he had been working on his mana body whenever he had time these past few days, it still hadn't levelled up yet.

After another half an hour or so of just absorbing mana into his body, both Atar and Ephine seemingly woke up at the same time. This was something Ark had noticed after he had lived together with them for a while, they almost always woke up and went to sleep at the same time. He figured it was something that was born out of their extreme trust and bond they shared.

As he was thinking about it, he also noticed that Thufrat was stumbling down the stairs slowly.

He looked a little funny, and it was evident that he was still tired as he drowsily tried his best to not fall down the stairs. Seeing as everyone was already awake, they ate breakfast together, before setting off to the dungeon. Since they had gone to sleep fairly early the day before, everyone was pretty energetic and excited to finally move on to the next level of the dungeon!

Although they all cared a lot about their own lives, they were all ambitious. Thufrat wanted to obtain enough strength to never be looked down on ever again, and most importantly, he wanted to keep up with his friends.

Ark knew that something dangerous was coming, something he needed a lot of strength to face, so he desperately wanted to level up and get stronger, all for the sake of protecting those he cared about. Ephine and Atar didn't know what was coming, but they could sense Ark's unease and thirst for strength through their bond with each other, and so they were a bit more serious as well.

Although they were all serious about getting stronger, who wouldn't be excited about some adventures? They had heard a lot about this level of the dungeon, and they were thrilled to finally be able to see it with their own eyes. About half an hour after they had set off from their house, they had arrived in front of the familiar dungeon once again.

Instead of going to the cave they were used to going to, they went to one that was a little further away. Next to the cave was a plaque with a blazing red 5 on it, indicating that it was the fifth level of the dungeon.

Just like the preceding level of the dungeon, the cave was damp, dark and cold. Like he always did, Ark conjured up a small ball of blue flame that drove away not only the dark, but also the cold. After walking for a while, they saw a large set of doors in front of them.

Compared to the doors that led to the forest of the dead, these doors were not only a bit larger, but the magic circles that covered them were a bit more intricate as well.

Although he was intrigued, Ark didn't stand around and watch them for too long but instead put his hand on one of the doors. Soon, a pale blue stream of mana could be seen making its way through the magic circles on the door, lighting them up one by one as it passed through. After all of the magic circles lit up, they seemed to resonate with each other, before the door was finally opened.

As the door opened, they were all hit by a wave of extreme heat. Luckily they were already prepared for this, so it barely inconvenienced them. The temperature inside of this level of the dungeon was way higher than outside, and when compared to the cold cave they were in, the change was extra apparent. When they stepped inside the dungeon, the landscape inside quickly mesmerised them.

In front of them were the ruins of what looked to be an ancient civilization, but if that was all, they wouldn't have needed to prepare so much before entering. What was peculiar about this level of the dungeon was the fire, or more accurately speaking the hellfire.

Instead of normal trees, the trees inside of this dungeon were all black like charcoal, and instead of leaves, they burned with hellfire. Hellfire was a bit different from normal fire. Not only was it way hotter, but it also contained some dark mana, making the shade of the fire an eerie dark red.

In the distance, they could see several creatures roaming about, but these creatures were a bit different from what they were all used to fighting. The first creature they saw was essentially just a bundle of hellfire that seemed to have a conscious of its own. This was a hellfire spirit.

Hellfire spirits were creatures completely born out of hellfire, which made physical attacks nearly completely useless against them. Naturally, this wasn't too much of a problem for them since they all had strong magic, the only one who would need to get used to fighting them would probably be Atar. But to Ark, that was something good.

He needed to learn how to be more diverse when fighting anyways, so now was a good time to learn.