Advancement Trial!

Earn the favor of divinity.

Task: Survive Against an Overwhelming Threat!

Reward: Sapience

Optional Objective: Slay Your Adversary

Additional Reward: Limited access to personal Akashic Records

Time Limit: Dusk to Dusk

Entertain me, little wolf.

The voice slithered into her mind, whispers of wind through the boughs of trees, the roar of a bear, hiss of a snake, bark of a wolf. All of these, and more, but none, all at once.

Wordless, but understood nonetheless, and simply hearing it expanded her awareness, just enough to be able to understand its promises.

She was still a wolf, however, and only knew that doing as the voice demanded of her would make her smarter, and offer her a way to become a better hunter. Her sister, or maybe her father, would have been clever enough to figure out exactly what it offered, but they were dead, as was the rest of her pack, struck down by the foe that watched her, clutching its side and favoring the leg she'd bitten just a few heartbeats ago.

Under normal circumstances, no pack of mundane wolves would ever attack a man-thing like they had, but desperation drove all animals to behave strangely, and nothing could make a wolf more desperate than protecting her pack or going hungry for far too long, and it was for this second reason that her family had risked itself to hunt such a dangerous thing.

They shouldn't have, she knew this, now, but such understanding would've been beyond her before the voice delivered its offer.

Pain wracked her heart, a crude approximation of grief, but one she wasn't entirely unfamiliar with. Even beasts could grieve, in the right circumstances, after all.

The Wolf paced around the man-thing, paws padding softly through the fallen leaves and dry twigs, struggling to decide which path to take in her limited understanding while simultaneously looking for an opening.

The man-thing didn't twist to follow her, only moving its head to listen and watch.

It was waiting for her to grow arrogant.

That was how it'd caught her mother.

She would not make the same mistake.

No matter how much she thought about it, she didn't have enough awareness to understand how much smarter simply running and hunting a smaller, less dangerous animal would make her, and there was no guarantee she even would find a smaller animal to hunt.

If there was, the pack wouldn't have been hungry enough to attack a man-thing.

Likewise, she couldn't quite grasp what the second option would give her, only that it offered a chance to grow stronger, faster, more cunning. To become a greater hunter than any wolf before her, at the risk of immediate death.

The man-thing flicked its shining claw, trying to spook her into charging or fleeing. It wouldn't work, only making her tense to dodge, and its failure caused it to grumble and growl, its voice low and dangerous, deep like her fathers and her brothers', but she couldn't understand it like she could them.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized her choice had been made the moment the voice whispered to her. If it hadn't given her that spark of comprehension, she might have chosen differently, but now that it had, it was no choice at all.

She needed to adjust her tactics. Until now, she'd hunted with her family at her side, diving and nipping and harrying their prey until it grew too tired to put up a fight, but now she was alone.

Though... Her prey – yes, that's what the man-thing was, prey, despite her dire circumstances – was exhausted and wounded already. They'd stalked the man-thing for hours before attacking, waiting until the sun began to fall below the trees, and the gloom of the forest at twilight may have been the only thing that let her pack do as much damage as they had.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

The man-thing was growing impatient, as desperate as she was, and it twisted and lunged at her with its too-sharp claw, swiping at her nose.

She dodged into the motion, rather than back like her instincts told her to, to try and clamp her teeth down on the hide of other beasts it wore on that limb, and got a cruel gash down her muzzle for her trouble, yelping and snarling as she stepped back out of its range.

Next time. The next time it attacked, she'd sink her teeth into the man-thing and keep it from splitting her open like it had her brother. It was dangerous, but she had no choice if she wanted to survive the hunt. Its claw was simply too sharp and too long.

Her brother had managed to knock the man-thing over with her sisters help, but the man-thing shoved its other arm, the one with thicker hide, layered with something of the earth, into his mouth and gutted him while he struggled.

If her brother, bigger and stronger than her, couldn't bite through that arm, she certainly wouldn't be able to.

The Wolf needed to be patient, more than she had ever been, force the man-thing to exhaust itself further and worsen its wounds with its sudden movements. The longer the hunt went on, the greater her advantage. She was bleeding, yes, but only a little, compared to the streams of steaming blood that fell from its leg, side, and shoulder, and the forest was only getting darker.

The man-thing shifted back a little, more wary of her now than it had been of her whole pack, thanks to the change in her behavior.

She let out a satisfied growl at the thought.

She would have her meal, and punish the thing that deprived her of her pack. At this point, the offer was a distant memory, pushed aside in favor of her aching stomach and burning heart.

They were both panting now, but the man-thing was less steady on its feet than it had been a few heartbeats ago. The wounds were doing their job, and slowing it, more and more as time passed, but she was growing tired, too. Hunger had already sapped most of her strength to begin with, and, now, exertion was catching up to her.

Her prey lunged again, this time a straight jab with its claw, and she bolted forward and to her right, sidestepping the attack, but she was forced back and away as the man-thing lost its footing and fell, flailing its claw in her direction as it did to keep her from capitalizing on its blunder.

The Wolf barked at the man-thing in frustration, and it scrambled back to a sitting position, kicking at the forest floor to put a little more distance between them.

It tried, and failed, a few times to get its feet back under it as she paced back and forth in front of it, afraid that if she stopped moving even for a second, she wouldn't be able to start again.

The man-thing raised its claw and pointed it at her, shouting something she couldn't understand, but the tone of it gave her a cruel joy. She recognized that shaking in its limbs, its wide eyes.

It was starting to fear her.

This was the most precarious moment, and she didn't need the expanded awareness the voice had brought to understand that. The fear would keep it alert, and the panicked swings of its claw would be unpredictable, if unsteady. The desperation would make it take risks like it had the Wolf, and her pack.

Overconfidence in this part of a struggle was how she'd lost her youngest sibling, seasons ago, during a hunt. He'd underestimated a dying buck, and was gored with its antlers for his arrogance.

Seeing she had no intention of rushing in, the man-thing took several deep breaths to calm itself, keeping its eyes on the Wolf, and gripped the tree to its side with its injured arm to heave itself to its feet, claw still stretched out to keep her at bay.

She let it keep her there. If it was on its feet, it might trip again, but it had been against a tree before, keeping her from flanking it and taking advantage of her preys limited mobility.

A few more pounding heartbeats, and the man-thing was standing again, braced on its injured side against the sturdy tree. It was calmer, now, the few precious gulps of air giving it enough clarity to examine her, and its surroundings.

Its eyes flicked to something she couldn't see, focused as she was on her prey, her 'adversary' – yes, that was an accurate concept for it, too dangerous to be simply prey – and its face hardened as a plan formed in its mind.

She couldn't have that.

She leapt at it, aiming for its arm again, and, this time, her teeth met its hide, and hot blood rushed into her mouth.

It hadn't even tried to stop her, and she saw its arm move, something glinting – another too-sharp claw? – as it impacted her shoulder several times. She half yelped, half growled as she felt it hit her over and over, warm blood dripping through her fur, but she refused to let go, shaking and pulling at the limb until it released its claw.

The man-thing, her adversary – the concept felt good to use – stumbled back half a step before it dove towards the claw beneath her paws, risking everything on who could strike first, and she barked to answer the challenge.

She tackled it again, teeth snapping, claws raking, and their collision knocked the second, shorter claw into the dirt and leaves, tumbling away from the man-thing. Its hand grasped for the first claw as they rolled, but her teeth found their mark, and tore flesh from its throat.

She stepped back as she swallowed her prize, panting heavily, and watched the fallen man-thing for what was likely much too long, what little energy she had leaving her limbs.

By the time she was sure it was dead, her limbs had given out, forcing her to shakily half-crawl to the body. A few paces had never felt so long, but she couldn't sleep, not yet, no matter how tired she was.

The Wolf needed to eat more, enough to guarantee she would wake up, if her wounds didn't claim her life and nothing attacked her while she recovered.

She started with the softest parts, uncovered by the hide of beast and earth the man-thing wore.

She was still eating when her consciousness slipped from her, still-bleeding muzzle buried in the rapidly-cooling carcass of her adversary.