A full day soon passed. The infinite amount of thundering rain never stopped, just like the rampaging black wolves' assault never stopped. Almost all of the goblin settlements had been snuffed out, and what little of them remained ran in every possible direction.

  But even their lives were not guaranteed in the forever-changing hierarchy of unclaimed lands. That was how one ruthless direwolf managed to claim this small area for himself and the gang of black wolves that followed behind him as loyal soldiers.

  But Greg and his little party of goblins were safe. They were even thriving.

  In one day, Greg had managed to kill every overgrown spider and every centipede plaguing the cave. He still didn’t enter the territory of those almost transparent scorpions, but they never left their side of the cave, so it was fine.

  Also, from the looks of it, the spider and centipede species were naturally produced by the caves, but they took some time to reach their ample sizes, so the patrol of normal goblins was enough to deal with any of their weaker versions.

  Almost near the morning, everyone had filled their bellies with monster meat and were sleeping in a makeshift camp while huddled together to maintain a sense of safety. But Greg and Bog were awake with some of the goblins who were responsible for the patrols.

  He knew there were not even twenty of them alive, and more would die if they just waited the situation out. So, after a bit of rest, Greg and Bog walked to the entrance of the cave and blocked it with the bones and armored centipede shells they had managed to slay.

  The layers were thick, and anyone who tried to forcefully enter would have to struggle for hours digging their way inside. There was also a guard placed at the entrance at all times to alert the goblins if the rampaging wolves returned.

  "What now?" Bog asked, already tired from carrying all those armored corpses to make the blockade.

  "Now we explore further in," Greg said with a serious look.

  He knew the situation might look calm, and they had managed to hide themselves like a turtle in the dark environment with only the strange moss on the ceiling to show their path. There was also an infinite amount of food and water sources inside, but living like a hermit wouldn't take them very far into the future.

  And Greg had plans for these villagers. He wanted to make a city, then a kingdom, and maybe an empire of all races too, and he couldn’t do that just staying here.

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  Why the great ambitions, some may ask? Well, Greg just wanted to enjoy the niceties of the modern world in this life, too.

  Imagine eating food that was just questionable meat three times a day. Imagine living without salt or pepper. Imagine sleeping on the bare ground or a bed made of leaves. Imagine not having a hot shower.

  He could go on and on, but all in all, he wanted these things.

  Also, how exciting it would be making an underground city in this unending cavern with functional plumbing and comfortable houses that were attached to the ceilings.

  The idea had merit!

  His first plan was to establish a new village around the waterfall, but the ferocious wolves made that impossible. But to him, this didn’t sound so bad.

  Greg stopped, finally reaching the place where he found the dead bodies of those adventurers covered in local flora.

  "Stay here, I’ll be back," Greg said, getting close to a wall.

  Bog just nodded, thinking what this strange new friend of his might pull. But not even one minute later, he was surprised beyond belief and could only shake his head in defeat.

  Greg scaled the walls and soon reached the ceiling using his spider core powers, and he walked towards the area of the centipedes. His logic said that no matter how unnatural these beasts were, there was a method in their monstrosity.

  He was working on the assumption that scorpions couldn’t fly, right?

  And he was proven correct soon after, because when he passed over those strange transparent creatures, they could only unfurl from their curled positions and hatefully look at the figure on the ceiling.

  Some even followed Greg from the ground, but the cavern ahead opened more and more, and the distance between them only extended.

  The white scorpions finally stopped after Greg crawled out of their territory and reached the other side, and what he saw left him enchanted.

  The cavern size was now enough to easily encompass multiple mega-cities, but what left him in awe were the trees ahead. Yes, there was a whole underground forest ahead.

  The moss on the ceiling had also thickened and illuminated the area perfectly. But Greg didn’t get down, because there was no ground.

  The trees were growing out of the strange bubbling water as it spread out like a sea, supporting and nourishing these massive trunks. Not only that, there was a whole new ecosystem inside.

  Greg saw strange, colorful species flying from one place to another between the canopy. If he had to describe them, they looked extremely close to Pteranodons or those flying dinosaur creatures from the movies, just in their miniaturized versions.

  Each one of these Odons—that's what Greg decided to call them—hunted small stingray-like creatures that lived in the bubbly water.

  "But why is there no steam?" Greg thought, looking at the strange ecology this cavern had birthed.

  He didn't know why or how, but those purple and cyan trees looked responsible for lessening the moisture and temperature of the area.

  Just before Greg could think about whether he should enter the new territory, he saw something orange moving between the branches and immediately stopped himself.

  The thing moved between the cyan leaves and with enough speed to look like a blur from this distance, but it was about to reach an opening, and Greg could only focus to see what new monstrosity he would see next.