"Graw!"
A piercing howl, filled with anger and venom yet carrying a faint trace of indescribable fear, echoed through the dimly lit cavern.
It was a strangely shaped gnoll.
Compared to its relatives on the surface, this gnoll was a couple of sizes smaller and considerably leaner, making it easier to move through the Underdark's narrow tunnels.
Its fur was a grayish white that had seen little light. Faintly glowing subterranean fungi grew on the tips of the tufts along its spine and behind its ears. Its eyes were dark red from enhanced night vision, and its hard claws curved like crescent moons, allowing its kind to climb rock walls like geckos.
Cave gnoll, challenge rating 1/2.
It was an Underdark variant of the surface gnoll.
They still tended to move in groups, but the Underdark's extremely dangerous environment had reduced their numbers, with most packs consisting of three to five individuals.
Only under exceptional circumstances, such as the emergence of a special elite individual or the need to face a tremendous threat together, could these cave gnoll packs reach or even exceed double digits.
The cave gnoll party Xia Nan's group had encountered consisted of four ordinary individuals and one pack
leader.
The cave gnoll leader before him probably had a challenge rating comparable to a bear goblin's, around level 1, with a fighting style focused on agility.
It held a rusty curved saber scavenged from some adventurer's corpse and wore a completely ill-fitting suit of light leather armor, so small that it looked like a tight vest.
Two years after arriving in this world, Xia Nan naturally no longer needed to focus all his attention on a desperate battle when encountering a level 1 monster, as he had when facing that bear goblin.
In fact, to prolong the