Tenebrous Wolf

The moment they sensed danger, the group instinctively took cover. Adrian and Seraphim readied their weapons in anticipation. Klaus crouched low, the Fang of Wrath already worn on his hands, while Briar and the Blackmane Stalker remained behind him, poised to react at a moment’s notice.

A few seconds later, a group of monsters moved across the labyrinth.

Klaus counted all of them one by one. There was approximately five of them, but the problem itself wasn’t just their overwhelming numbers.

’Tch. Just my rotten luck.’

The towering beasts were covered in thick, segmented black carapaces just like the Scavengers but were more bigger and more than that, much more terrifying. Crimson fissures ran along their armored bodies and instead of eyes, a cluster of bioluminescent slits flickered ominously across their angular heads.

Their limbs were grotesquely elongated, ending in scythe-like talons that could cleave through stone as if it were rotted wood. Along their spines, serrated ridges jutted outward like the remains of a shattered exoskeleton and each time they moved, it was accompanied by a ’clicking sound’ that emerged from their jointed limbs like the chittering of a thousand unseen horrors.

These creatures were Nightmare Carapaces. Without exception, each of them were of the Awakened rank.

However,

’These guys... Did they barely survive the flood?’

Upon closer inspection, the hulking beasts all seemed to be injuried. Deep gashes marred their armored bodies, exposing raw, pulsating flesh beneath the cracked carapaces. Some bore missing limbs and their severed stumps leaked thick, dark ichor that sizzled upon contact with the ground. Others carried deep gouges across their torsos, as if they had been raked by something even more monstrous than themselves.

Klaus narrowed his eyes. The crimson flood had left its mark, but it hadn’t killed them outright.