"Hello."
The tentacle in Lug's throat moved as he said this. Aban looked in shock. It took a while to notice, but above the dangling corpse on the platform was another wolf. It was hard to see with its black fur, but the most evident part was its eyes.
The assumption that it had four red eyes was correct. Each eye glowed in the dark, and it was hard to make out from the distance, but it looked like the wolf was smiling.
"L-lug, he's not dead. H-he can't be."
Even Lydd who was usually unphased showed some shock. She then covered Den's vision.
"Calm down, he may be dead, but you can still avenge him. First, we have to get out of here and prepare to face the creature. If we are unprepared, we are going to die. Remember we already killed one, and the other is dead in that building."
She pointed at the main hub. She brought Den up from his knees holding his shoulders.
"Why are you crying, as you can hear from my voice, I'm perfectly alive."
The tentacles going through the shoulders went through the body and ripped his lower half of his body off. That half fell far down, plopping and splattering when it finally hit the ground. The corpse of Lug started to laugh, and the wolf on top laughed with it.
Aban was watching this all and thought one thing...
'Demon, this has to be a demon.'
And he truly believed this, humanity never met actual demons, so the Echoborn were the closest thing the world had to demons. He may have never met them before, but this encounter cemented his opinion.
Especially when the demon-like creature finished the job with Lug. He stabbed through the rest of his neck. It was then when Aban could finally see what was at the end of the tail. It seemed to be a spike made of bone, though the bone was unnaturally strong, he couldn't confirm it, but it seemed to go through other bones like scissors and paper. At least that's what he thought when he noticed that the bones instead of being ripped at the joints each individual bone was broken in parts.
The spike drifted through the head upward while the other tentacles held the body in place. He split the head in two. The laughing had already stopped by now. The other two tentacles began ripping the body in half, using the rip through the head made by the original spike as leverage.
The entire sight was gruesome, and traumatizing, especially to Den. This sight would probably be forever imprinted into his mind.
"Raiden, we need to run into one of these caves. We don't have enough fire power to beat the creature in a direct fight."
Aban looked at her. Lydd was right facing the hellhound with the gear they had would be a death sentence. He shook his head in agreement. Then he ran to the nearest tunnel in the cave, Lydd held Den's hand and started running behind Aban.
They ran, not looking back they needed to find something that could help deal with the hellhound. They kept on running, not looking back, as fast as they could. Each stride was an attempt to escape death. Even when their lungs started to hurt, they didn't stop. Even when their legs felt like they were going to fall off they didn't stop. The tunnel seemed endless, and they have been running near full sprint for minutes at a time.
After more time Den tripped over.
"I-I don't think *huff* I can run anymore."
Lydd was the first to respond.
"You have to get up."
Aban was also tired. He decided to sit down.
"I think we need a break, I don't see the wolf anymore, and if we continue running our gears weight is only going to hurt more and more."
Lydd was about to say something, then decided to just sit down. She turned on the lighter, and they saw the tunnel around them. It only went two ways, forward or backward. They still had some rations, so they all ate some. This tunnel was big; it was likely larger than the original one Aban was in.
"I think we should rest in shifts."
Lydd said was the one who spouted out the idea. Both Aban, and Den agreed. It was decided that Lydd would be on watch first, then Aban, and then finally Den. Secretly, Lydd and Aban both agreed that the hellhound would likely appear before Den's shift, so when that happens, they would wake him up and start running again.