What should I do?

What CAN I do? He was able to kill the twins, and they were Tier 4 Mages! I barely qualify as an above average Tier 1 as it is, can I even run away from him?

I need to distract him somehow.

The Wolfman starts to walk towards me, and I can see the bloodlust in his eyes. He knows he is stronger. Not a challenge to kill me, is it? I start channeling mana into both of my hands, as he takes one step after another towards me. It’s risky, but I channel as much as I can for the right time. As he gets far away from the front door, I slam my hands into the ground and cast Shield Wall with one to create a wall blocking the entrance to the backroom, and another to fire a Wind Blade at the window, shattering the glass.

“What?! A little pup like you is a mage? Don’t worry, I won’t kill you then. You’re too valuable to eat”. He starts swinging at the rocky wall, and I know it won’t last long. I don’t have time to wait and run and jump out the window with the help of Wind mana to lighten my upper body so my legs can push harder and faster. I see houses on fire, corpses of the town members, and human-like mana beasts like the Wolfman.

I can’t save anyone here.. I just can’t. I don’t have the strength I did as Callum..

My parents! I infuse more Wind mana into my body and charge as fast as I can towards where my house is in the forest. Fire, smoke, the smell of burning bodies, and the mangled ones of people I grew up with and saw on my trips with my mother to town.. Everywhere I look.. Gone.

I can mourn later. Right now, I need to check on my parents. Figure out whether they are alive… or dead.

Reaching the forest, the world almost seems like a different place. The fire has not fully spread to the trees yet, and the path to my house is clear… Looking down at the ground, I see there are heavy non-human footprints in the ground. Please let me make it in time!

Reality is feeling far away as I reach my home, and see the damage. The door has been ripped off the hinges, and my father’s warhammer is bloody and on the ground next to no bodies..

I reach the door.. Or where the door used to be. My father is fighting a larger Wolfman than the one I saw in the bar. They both have serious wounds on them, and I look behind my father and see.. What remained of my mother. The woman who showed me what it felt like to love something unconditionally, despite my flaws and differences. Don’t lose control, Lucian.

My kind and wonderful mother… Keep it under control, Lucian!

Mutilated by these fucking monsters… KEEP IT UNDER CONTROL, LUCIAN!!

… I can grieve later. My father needs my help. Grieve later. Don’t look at her.

The Wolfman smells me and laughs wildly at my dad, “Is this your pup? I will have a great time eating him like I did your woman!” Ignore it. Ignore it. IGNORE HER.

My father looked at me and desperately pleaded with his eyes for me to leave. The Wolfman and him keep dealing blows, the Wolfman ignoring me as not a threat.. Once again. Everyone who has faced me in combat has died, and the only survivors are the ones that I still had a use for. They look at me and see a child, yet the bodies I have stacked would fill this continent alone.

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I wanted a fucking peaceful life, and yet here we are. If peace is not an option, then I will show you what the consequences of war are.

“Father, don’t argue and hold him down.” I ordered coldly. “Who does this brat think he is?” The Wolfman looked at me and snarled, my father wasting no time to ask questions wrapped himself in Earth magic that formed a rocky armor around him and wrapped his arm around the Wolfman and slammed him to the ground. He sheds the rocky armor and it falls on the Wolfman, and he uses Earth Magic I am not familiar with to make it form a rocky cast on the Wolfman, only exposing his head.

“What’s the plan, Lucian? He has a high level of regeneration and normal wounds won’t work” The Wolfman starts snarling profanities and trying to struggle out of the cast. He is strong, I will give him that. My father is reinforcing the cast with his mana, but it is clear it won’t hold forever.

“Beasts like this with high regeneration are hard to kill, but they are not immortal” I say as I walked towards the Wolfman making sure he could hear me and he kept fucking barking, “W-What’s a little pup like you going to be able to do? I am as strong as one of your Tier 4 Mages!”. I looked at his ear, and saw the long side of it has a host of adornments, very fancy gold earrings. They would probably fetch a pretty sum if sold to a vendor.

I walk into the kitchen and see a mess of cooking equipment and food on a cutting board. Mom was in the middle of making dinner.. Looks like my favorite stew with potatoes, carrots, onion, and delicious mana beast meat. “I wonder how your meat tastes, beast” I call out to him. “Probably disgusting, huh?” and grab one of the meat cleavers that were perfect for cutting into thick pieces of meat. “This will work” I say and walk back towards the Wolfman still being held by my father.

“Tell me why you attacked Seastrand, beast. You all slaughtered the town I loved, and my mother who only gave this world warmth and love. The only times she got angry was for my benefit. She never raised a hand to me, and only did the best to provide everything I ever wanted and more” and the Wolfman noticed too late that I was not a simple kid. I could see the fear begin to crept into his eyes as he noticed the way I was holding the cleaver.

“Good, so a filthy mutt like you can feel what fear is. Since you don’t want to answer however..” and I infused the cleaver with a charged up Wind Blade to increase the cutting power, and slammed it onto the beautifully adorned ear, and cleanly the ear fell onto the floor. The Wolfman’s blood hits me in the face and drips down my eye. Amidst the Wolfman’s howls of pain I say, “It was thanks to Alex that a weak mage like myself could cast a spell strong enough to allow this little kitchen cleaver to cut into a beast as sturdy as you”.

This is what you deserve.. I would normally say this was horrible, but I don’t care anymore.

“You beasts killed him too. His brother Owen and him treated me like a little brother, and always helped however they could. I found their heads stacked on a table by one of your kind”.

“Lucian, what are you doing?” My father asked in fear for what his son was becoming. I look into his eyes, and see the man who went above and beyond to provide for his family and would put me on his shoulders when I wasn’t paying attention and run around the forest. This wasn’t what I wanted him to see of me, but I can see the deadly wounds in his side, and the blood dripping from it. Before it was my mother being poisoned, and now I can’t heal his injuries either. I am too weak once again.

“What I must, father. He has information we need, and I am going to be alone soon. You can pretend, but I can see you do not have much longer, and I can’t heal you, just like I couldn’t with mother last time” and my father didn’t speak but sadly nodded to me.

Turning back to the Wolfman with a missing ear, very slowly starting to regenerate itself. Fascinating stuff to witness. “Why are you here? Do not make me ask again” I looked into the Wolfman’s fearful eyes and waited. When he still failed to speak, I held up the cleaver once again and prepared to take an eye, he yelled, “W-We were paid to rampage in the city! These strong humans paid us a horde of gold to tear this city down!”.

“Names, appearance, location, what do you have?” I asked him. “Nothing! They paid in advance and told us all we had to do was go wild!”. I looked to my father and asked, “The Bandits?” and he seemed to think the same thing. “Was the contract to slaughter and mutilate the people here? We don’t even live in the city!!” He pressed down on the rocky cast encasing the Wolfman and I could hear the sounds of bones giving way.

The Wolfman coughed up blood and cried, “N-No! It wasn’t! Spare me and I will take you to where we met the humans! I swear!”. My father and I looked at him coldly, and shook our heads. I lifted up the cleaver with both hands, which only worked because of my smaller frame. One way I infused Earth mana to reinforce the cleaver’s durability and strength, and charged an infused Wind Blade to the entirety of the blade this time to strengthen the cutting power as much as I could.

“My mother is the only one who would have granted you mercy, and because of you, she isn’t here to stop me from ending your pathetic life”. I slammed the cleaver down, using every bit of rage and power I could produce onto the Wolfman’s neck, and it slices through the majority of the Wolfman’s neck, but not cleanly as the front half of the cleaver hit the wooden floor below him and stopped the cut from following through completely.

It was good enough for me, and I stared into the Wolfman’s eyes of fear as the light quickly faded in them as the bleeding from the cut finished the job for me.

It was over, and I was once again covered in blood for a second time. I tried, and tried, and tried, and tried to live a peaceful life. It still ended up with blood on me once again. Maybe if I had gone with Owen and Alex, they might still be alive. Maybe we could have saved the city, maybe my mother would still be alive and they would be waiting for me to get home for my favorite mana beast stew.

Maybe if I was stronger this would have never happened to the people here. If the Everlasting War had never started, these Wolfman would not have been willing to take the mission for some fucking gold.

“Lucian?” I heard a woman’s voice behind me. The woman with the strength to have solved this invasion quicker. Late again.

Eveline showing up at the perfect moment once again.