Is this really a Game?!



The werewolf continued staring at Reign, but it no longer showed any signs of hostility toward him, it was merely staring at him with a neutral gaze.

Reign stepped forward and got closer and closer to the werewolf, all the while holding his two swords and channeling mana, ready to explode with his full strength in an instant if the werewolf were to attack him.

As he got closer, he kept noticing how the werewolf's body had truly relaxed, no muscle was tensed up, the body posture, as well as its eyes and expression, were all showing signs of being completely relaxed, not ready for a battle at all.

Reign finally got to about 2 meters away from the werewolf, upon which the monster suddenly leaned forward, placing its face right in front of Reign. He had to admit that he flinched for an instant as he thought the monster was about to attack him, to try and bite him as it did multiple times during their battle, but that wasn't the case.

It was sniffing him.

Once again, the werewolf showed no sign of being hostile, it was merely sniffing Reign for some reason. It stopped sniffing him after a while and showed a slightly confused look on its face before it sat down on the ground and continued looking at Reign who was now a meter away from its face.

Reign put a hand forward, and slowly crept up to the werewolf before petting it, and the monster did nothing, it merely closed its eyes in contentment.

'Incredible, it actually worked.' Reign commented in his head while staring at the werewolf. He glanced back, but even then, he still was using his sensing to make sure the werewolf wouldn't attack him from the back and looked at Liara, who had managed to stop the two battles that Siggurd and Basred were having against the other two werewolves.

Both of them were following her, while the first one she had tamed was simply sitting on the ground and looking at her.

The werewolf behind Reign did nothing when he turned around, it still continued looking at him, as well as glancing at Liara with slight confusion.

"Hey, come on, let's go," Reign told the werewolf as he started walking over to Liara. The monster followed after him, and even when they arrived at where Liara and the others were, it showed no signs of wanting to attack anybody.

The other werewolves glanced at Reign, then at Liara, and continued doing so with slight confusion while the one that Reign tamed did the same.

It was as if they couldn't understand something, but it was still not stopping them from listening to both Reign and Liara.

'Could it be that they don't understand how two people have the soul fragments?'

"It's possible, after all, the fragments did come from a single entity, so that might be the reason why they are so confused."

"It seems that after this area got divided and was lost to the artifact's spirit, the monsters here, at least the more powerful ones with a more stable soul, changed slightly, they became able to sense the soul fragments, they are probably looking at you and Liara as if you are their masters."

'Yeah, that's good, if the monsters deeper are the same, then we won't have any issues with passing the deeper layers, this entire dungeon might prove to be much easier to go through compared to the original one, and that is without taking into consideration whatever the spirit would have done to try sabotage and kill us.'

Reign glanced over at Liara and nodded at her and the others.

He waited until everybody was present before he started talking about what he and Aethion had just discussed. He told them that it was only a theory, but looking at how the monsters were behaving, it was probably correct.

"So what, we just need to let you guys stand at the front and let the monsters sense your souls, which would make them stop attacking?" Basred asked, slightly hesitant, as well as a bit nervous about doing such a thing.

After all, Liara and Reign had both fought against the werewolves for a while before they were able to suddenly tame them, there was no saying if time was needed for the monsters to notice the fragments and stop being hostile.

"Yes, we didn't know that they can sense the power of the fragments, and because of that, neither I nor Liara had allowed the soul to be sensed, I can do it because of my ability, as for Liara, it's something she can't explain, she just knows how to allow her soul to be sensed by monsters, that's probably because of the fragments." Reign said before he looked at the four werewolves.

"We just need to go down, allow the monsters to sense our souls from the very start, and there should be no issues at all, if that doesn't work, well, we'll have to fight, and that won't be good at all."

The others all looked at Reign and Liara with some hesitation. They would gladly not fight the monsters and let them tame them all, but the problem was the fact that the monsters might attack them, and if that happened, both Reign and Liara might be seriously injured.

"Don't worry, we'll first try it on the next layer, you guys can get ready to attack at any moment, if the monsters show hostility, we fight, if not, we won't fight."

"Of course, don't attack until they get close, we don't know how close one needs to be for the monsters to sense the soul fragments." 

Reign's words made the others nod before they made their way to the tunnel that led to the next layer. As they got in the tunnel, the four werewolves simply stood at looked at them, it seemed that they couldn't move from the layer they were in.

"Probably a kind of restriction that was placed on them when they were created, it seems the monsters are prohibited from going to a lower or higher layer." Reign said before shaking his head.

"That's a shame, otherwise, we wouldn't need to fear the spirit of the artifact as we would have multiple powerful monsters with us, which would definitely make it easy for us to win." Reign sighed as he and Liara stood near the entrance of the tunnel.

They didn't know whether the monsters would once again become hostile to the others when they got deeper into the tunnel, so they were waiting for everybody to get in first. 

"Even if they could follow us, I don't think the tunnel is large enough for them, maybe if they crawled?" Liara asked, which made Reign chuckle a bit.

"Maybe, that is true, still, it's a shame we can't bring any of them with us, I have a feeling they will all disappear when we manage to gain control of the artifact as well, they were all created by it after all."

"So is that the power of the artifact, controlling souls and creating new beings?" Liara asked Reign who shrugged his shoulders.

"It very well could be, after all, imagine having an army of monsters you have created, an army only loyal to you, one that you formed in a way you wanted to, that kind of an artifact is like having another ability, one incredibly powerful ability." 

Reign thought back on M'azgara, whose ability allowed her to do similar things, only that her monsters didn't have a soul, except for the elite ones.

The artifact's power was very similar to it, but there was still no way of knowing what else the artifact could do, or if the creation of monsters and manipulation was the main power it had. If it wasn't, then the artifact was even more powerful than any of them had imagined.

They got in the tunnel and walked forward, finally getting out after a couple of minutes, upon which they came across another huge area that was devoid of anything but 8 monsters that were in the very middle.

"Three more monsters this time, and two of them seem to be more powerful than the rest." Reign said with a solemn expression on his face. 

Facing the 5 werewolves was already hard, if they had to face 8 enemies, 6 of which were the same strength as the werewolves, and two were more powerful, then they would truly be in big trouble.

Reign and Liara walked forward. They were about 10 meters in front of the group that was following them. They walked forward unhurriedly, and when they were halfway to the monsters, they woke up from their slumber.

The monsters in front of them looked like giant boars that had huge antlers coming out of their heads. The antlers looked incredibly sharp, and the boars had very large and thick teeth that seemed to be able to break anything as they weren't really sharp.

Each bore stood at 3.5 meters tall, with the two more powerful ones being slightly taller, longer, as well as bulkier. The boars glared at Reign and the others before suddenly charging at them.