The clearing was a slaughterhouse in progress.
Dante crouched on a branch thirty feet above the carnage, invisible in the shadows cast by the bioluminescent canopy, watching Seira's team die.
There were five of them, or five before the Spore Wolves found them. Now there were four, the fifth reduced to a wet stain on the jungle floor that the wolves were already fighting over. The survivors formed a desperate circle with their backs to a massive tree, weapons out and terror written across every face.
Spore Wolves weren't the most dangerous predators in the Whispering Jungle, but they were among the most insidious. They looked like normal wolves at first glance, grey fur and yellow eyes and lean hunting build, but their bodies were hosts for a fungal infection that made them relentless. Every wound they inflicted spread spores into the bloodstream, and within hours the victim would either turn feral or dissolve into a new fungal colony depending on their constitution.
