Time stretched as he fell, and Alex mulled over the fact that his reality had just become a series of one harrowing event after the next. He could accept that this would be the case for the tutorial. The whole point of the trial was obviously to kill, rather than train him, but would it need to be like this after, if he somehow lived that long. It had only been a week but the thought of maintaining this frantic pace for months, let alone potential years, was overwhelming. Every decision he’d made had been hasty, in the heat of the moment coin flips, and this one was no different.
Most of his reasoning had been based on the likelihood that the wolf he’d communicated with was one of the settler beast Dora had spoken about. Alex didn’t plan to disregard her advice so quickly after hearing it, but he was toeing the line as to not store all his eggs in one basket. Especially since his main source still didn’t know the full picture. Theodora’s father might be her primary target, but Alex’s was the other king. This dying wolf presented an opportunity for more information, and in a much safer manner than a village filled with these super animals.
Betrayal was still an issue, but the aging beast would need to at least wait until their mutual target was dead if he wanted any chance of surviving. While Alex wasn’t confident he’d be able to kill the stronger wolf in a direct confrontation, even injured as it was, he could definitely run. Letting the trace amounts of fear fade into the emotional null zone of Battle Trance, Alex centered himself. Then with all the strength he could muster, brought his hammer down on the wolf’s spine. Well he’d aimed for the spine, his actual blow ended up landing closer to the beast’s hip, the failure setting a bad precedent for the fight.
The beast yipped in surprise, seemingly caught unaware, but Alex barely noticed, preoccupied with sudden pain as the force of his attack equaled and opposited. He was anything but an irresistible force, but the creature might have well been an immovable object. Stunned as the reaction force shot through his body, Alex commanded his rigid arm to bring the dagger down in an attempt to salvage the surprise offensive. Before he could even be sure the strike drew blood, he had to shift focus as Sixth Sense issued a warning of impending doom.
Spikes of mana had suddenly formed all around him, their danger obvious after the bits of the beast’s fight he’d already seen. Failing to find a viable way to disengage using more conventional methods, Alex mentally swore as he activated Echo Relocation. He hated to burn the secrecy of his trump card so soon, but when the alternative was being skewered from every direction, the choice was obvious. Orienting himself so that he'd land on all fours, Alex took off in a sprint as the skill’s invisibility allowed him to reposition unseen. He hadn’t expected the single attack to cripple the beast, but the absence of damage was a bit dismaying, his near fifty in Strength amounting to nothing in front of the wolf’s natural defenses.
His contractor hadn’t been entirely idle while Alex was busy overestimating his abilities. He had not expected the likely assassin to accept his offer so it’d taken the wolf an extra moment to register the boy’s sudden tumble as agreement. Though just as the old beast felt a glimmer of hope that this clearing might not serve as his final resting place, he watched the strike do more damage to its attacker than target. With so much of his energy having been drained from the fight, the wolf hadn’t made an effort to measure the child’s strength, now he almost regretted asking for aid, but only almost. At the rate things had been going, he was dead no matter what, this could only raise his odds.
Crushing his original opponent's creations as they formed, the older wolf was surprised as a shift in the wind spoke of a new arrival. For a moment he suspected the boy had brought a friend, at least until the spikes he’d failed to catch collided with the illusion that had been left behind. Feeling marginally better about his chances, he took advantage of the opening. With a command, the wind propelled him forward, making the wolf wince as the force shot through his hind leg. Suppressing the sensation with a familiarity only wrought from experience, he flew forward, mouth open as he sent a torrent of air at his opponent.
The attack caught the younger beast by surprise, the condensed gale pushing him back and off balance as he tried to find purchase. It managed to dig in with a growl of defiance a moment later, but the elder lamented that such an inexperienced cub had nearly killed him as he pounced. The momentum of his tackle sent them spiraling toward the trunk of a tree, but the older beast managed to maneuver about so his younger adversary absorbed the majority of the collision's damage on their spine.
Unable to withstand their combined weight, the tree began to creak before splitting unevenly a couple meters from the base. Focusing on the goal rather than his pain, the senior wolf began tearing into his target. He’d been doing his best to avoid a suicidal attack like this, but after seeing the boy’s opener, he knew the only way they were living through this was if he made openings the kid could follow up on.
Sprinting to catch up as his invisibility expired, Alex let the lightning speed at which wolves snapped at one another inspire his movements. He’d considered swapping his hammer out with his axe, but had another idea he hoped would raise his chances of actually killing the beast. Concentrating on Sixth Sense, Alex double-checked which of the creatures were his target through the bloody ball of fur. While it looked like a wild scrap from afar, he could clearly see the way the older beast’s seemingly random attacks kept the younger from gaining his footing. Knowing he wouldn’t have the time to find a solid angle via foot, Alex slowed slightly, before turning his back to the fight and jumping. Everything he knew about Echo Relocation told him it should work so he activated the skill the moment he was in range, his perception shifting.
Feet crunching against the tree trunk, the wood further splintered from the force as Alex brought his dagger down and into the eye of the grappling beast. This attack connected properly; the younger wolf too focused on its prior target. It let out a howl of pain as the damage registered, the shock giving Alex’s temporary ally a moment to escape. The old wolf did, but Alex could tell the trade-off had been great, its body covered in even more wounds and their movements visibly slower. Not focusing on the retreating beast any further, Alex withdrew his dagger, Thorn’s Touch exacerbating the punctured orbs gory leak, before he brought it down once more.
The wolf flailed; spitting, chopping, and snapping at him violently in an effort to reach him. By this point, he’d been forced to wedge himself between the tree and the beast’s back. Using the beast’s rage filled haze as a distraction, Alex withdrew his dagger and slammed his hammer into the newly created injury. This attack worked much better than his prior one and leveraging himself against the tree as to not lose balance, Alex pushed away. Not wanting to drain all his mana he decided against activating Echo Relocation, the choice turning out to be the wrong one as he felt his back erupt in pain. The wolf, even through all that agony, had managed to extend its paw just barely enough to reach him as he flew, the beast’s claws scoring a few centimeter deep lines into his back.
Rolling across the ground as he lost balance, Alex relocated the second he lost enough momentum as to not hurt himself upon teleportation. His back ached, but Pain Resistance was already working to dull it, so he pushed the sensation to the back of his mind. He’d been concerned the beast would chase after its claw strike had landed, but it seemed Alex hadn’t needed to worry, as the creature was almost exactly where he’d left it. The older wolf had taken the retreat as his queue and reengaged, its claws dragging down the younger beast's flank as their good eye seethed with hatred. Knowing he needed to get back in there Alex used his invisibility to come up on one of the beast’s hind legs hoping to cut a tendon.
Unfortunately, his back injury seemed to have enhanced the wolf’s awareness of his presence even through the invisibility, Alex quickly finding himself the main target as the older wolf backed away the moment his distraction was no longer needed. Gnashing as the assassin before he was even in sight; Alex didn’t hesitate to activate Echo Relocation this time, but still wasn’t fast enough as its rabid chomp caught his hammer holding hand. He managed to use the weapon to fend off much of the damage, the large mallet head proving difficult for the beast to get his jaws around. Realizing his skill had failed and feeling the shaft of his hammer creaking under the force of the bite, Alex hastily brought his knife down on the crown of the wolf’s snout.
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Its mouth opened with a flinch of pain, but recovered before he could get his arm out entirely. Abandoning his weapon, Alex wrenched his limb free, blood and flesh stripping from it in equal measure. His teleportation a second later only angered the beast more, but Alex watched as the wolf was hit with a spear of condensed air, the strike much weaker than any of the earlier ones. Barring the damage they’d both taken, the pair was working like a well-oiled machine, but Alex knew it wouldn’t last much longer. The older beast was clearly running low on energy, meaning he couldn’t’ afford any more mistakes if he wanted to get out of here alive.
Glancing down, Alex pushed away the feeling of disgust all the exposed bone brought on. He couldn’t do anything to help his arm until this fight was over, and for it to end, he needed to keep fighting. Unfortunately, it seemed that his accomplice wasn’t just running low on energy, but rather out entirely, as both Alex and the younger wolf watched him stagger and collapse. That led to a tense moment of silence where Alex inspected if the beast was dead, and his opponent regained his barring. Sixth Sense told him it was still alive, but Alex considered cutting his losses and running anyway. Then the younger beast bounded straight towards him once more, ignoring his invisibility entirely. Dismissing retreat as a viable option at this point, Alex shifted his considerations to how to end this fight now that he’d been made the main target.
It took a full sprint and two more activations of Echo Relocation for Alex to get out of the wolf’s immediate range; his arm sending jolts of pain radiating throughout his body as it bounced. The older wolf had managed to stagger back to its feet, but with just a cursory inspection, Alex could tell this fight was pretty much just him now. Teleporting to the side of another tree, he launched an attack, hoping to catch the beast off guard. Shooting himself forward like he had launch control, which did miraculously painful things to his dead arm’s shoulder, Alex managed to get himself up and over the creature. The beast snapped its head up in an attempt to snatch Alex out of the air, but the assassin was already past the wolf’s still bleeding snout. Forcing his right arm into motion, he grabbed the beast’s teeth to stop his momentum, the action cutting through bone and tissue alike to disconnect a few of his digits out right.
He’d known it was a risk but living with a few missing fingers was a much better prospect than dying. Shoulder leaving his socket as a couple of his digits did, Alex stabbed his dagger into the beast’s ear this time. As much as he wanted to blind the beast entirely, aiming for somewhere in the larger blind spot made it much more difficult for the creature to react. It closed its jaw then, removing the few fingers it’s razor edged teeth had failed to on impact. The pain reminded Alex of his time spent being tortured by Trevor and his mind had to reflexively dropped into a facet of Meditation to stop himself from passing out even with Pain Resistance active.
He felt the change in momentum as he lost his leverage but managed to reposition, swinging and locking his legs to straddle the beast’s neck. He stabbed again, then once more, the blows eliciting a whine from the wolf as it began to buck like a bull at the rodeo. Feeling that the blade was almost ready he brought it back around to the wolf’s now empty eye socket and, putting every ounce of strength he could muster in to the blade, stabbed it down a final time. He felt the wolf’s claws rake down a leg but ignored it, his pain threshold seeming to have capped two injuries ago. That second seemed to stretch out infinitely as Alex scoured his mind to find his objective, until finally he managed to release the dagger's kinetic energy, the activation instant.
The older wolf had watched the fight through the wind, trying and failing to muster enough energy for another strike. He could barely stand, let alone lift a claw to attack, but as he got a solid look at the boy, he realized he might not have to. The cub's body looked to go rigid the moment the one of the assassin's abilities landed, it wasn’t yet dead, but it looked to be as close as it could get. Sure both in the temporary alliance would almost certainly die as well, but the older wolf found comfort in the fact that the upstart would too.
For once, Alex didn’t pass out. Instead, he immediately released his knife and used the wolf’s back as a platform to push himself into the air. The second he was out of contact with the beast, Echo Relocation activated once then again as Alex shot himself ten feet away.
Falling against the floor in a heap, he shifted until his good arm could reach his mouth, pulled out a potion, and downed it. The concoctions effects felt like a drop in the bucket compared to the damage, but Alex resisted taking another since he didn’t know the effects it would have. The beast had gone limp immediately after he’d activated the dagger’s ability, but he knew it was still alive. The older wolf was still passed out, but Alex resisted the urge to go heal him. He’d rather the beast die, and he miss out on the information, then rush to wake it up without dealing with the other first.
Shifting his attention back to his current target, Alex cursed as he realized the beast might be healing. He’d hoped to scramble the thing’s brains with that last strike, and while it looked to have worked, if it hadn’t died that might mean it could heal. Bringing out his spare dagger and opening his general information, Alex began limping over to the unmoving form of the wolf. His body was currently fucked, with his health nearing the mid-hundreds. Mana was at about 1500 if the ring was counted, it meant he only had two activations left until he recouped enough for a third. His stamina was fine, but he couldn’t do much with only a single viable leg.
Stopping ten feet away from the beast, Alex looked for any signs of a trap. The beast’s sole remaining eye was still open, but it lacked the focus of a conscious creature. Alex gripped the weapon tightly, his nerves bleeding through Battle Trance as if its emotional veil didn’t exist. Ready to relocate at a moment’s notice, he closed the distance until he was only a couple feet away. Not hesitating, he stabbed the dagger into the beast’s sole remaining eye and teleported back. The beast still didn’t move, and Alex thought he was good to finish it off. Without withdrawing another weapon, Alex re approached and removed his E-Grade dagger from the beast’s brain, doing his best to dodge the spray of fluids. Pulling out the other dagger, he stabbed once more, then again. He aimed for any open spaced he could easily reach until the beast finally died as the dagger’s skill liquified the other hemisphere of the wolf’s brain.
Not taking a moment to rest, Alex almost stored the body on instinct before deciding against it. He figured if/when the other beast did wake up, it would be best for it to see evidence of its death rather than just Alex’s word. Next, he checked to make sure his potion was still in effect. It seemed to be, though the remaining energy it provided would run out long before he was back in top shape. The effects were much less pronounced than when he’d been in F-Grade, with this single potion looking to at most be able to stop his bleeding and heal either his leg or back, while doing nothing for his hand. It meant he’d need to use at least two to get fully healed, both lowering the value of his potions and raising that of his mat’s.
Knowing he couldn’t wait that long if he wanted to help the old beast’s condition, he approached its prone form. The creature’s good eyes opened wearily as he reached spitting distance, and Alex saw the many claw and bite marks that marred the other up close for the first time. He was in much worse shape than he’d originally thought, it was a wonder the creature was still alive.
A moment of awkward silence passed between them, and Alex heard the voice reach him just as he’d opened his mouth to speak.
“So you do live, less injured than I assumed. Come to put me out of my misery then?” the wind transferred with an effected grunt.
Pausing to rephrase, Alex answered with his original question, “Not if our deal is still on.”
“It is.” The wolf tried and failed to get to its feet, “Though I’m not sure if I’ll live long enough to do much,
Taking a risk Alex summoned a his bottle of watered down potion, and held so the beast could see.
“The new terms?” The beast asked.
“None,” Alex said, shaking his head. The motion making his neck hurt, but he hoped this show of benevolence would gain him some good will. “Just don’t try to kill me, answer my questions, and your favor.”
“I agree,” there was a pause and then the beast continued, “but I will need your help ingesting the liquid.”
Unscrewing the top by placing the bottle between his legs, Alex managed to get it open before closing the remaining distance. He helped the wolf reposition, brutally aware of the similarly large teeth that had removed all the fingers on his dominant hand, and began slowly poring it into the beast’s mouth as to not spill it.
When the bottle was finished, the beast closed its eyes and backed away to wait, eventually downing another of his own after a few minutes. He ended up deactivating everything but Sixth Sense, for which he increased, in an effort to speed up mana recovery. The reintegration of a typical emotional structure took Alex out of it for a moment, but he dropped into a conscious meditation to fend off the influx of pain. He’d wanted to use his mat in the downtime, hoping it along with the potion would limit the time he was missing his fingers, but refrained as to not risk the wolf recognizing its value. It took about ten minutes for the beast to exit its recovery state, and though it still carried plenty of evidence of its harrowing battle, including a missing eye; the diluted potion was enough to get the old wolf to its feet.
Alex looked on wearily as the beast stood taller than him even on all fours, and regretted giving him even a partial heal. He’d been reasonably certain he was making the right choice, but now he wasn’t so sure. Likely seeing Alex’s weariness, it lowered back down, eventually laying awkwardly on its stomach like a big dog.
“What would you like to know?”