Nestled deep within the heart of the mountain ranges, far removed from prying eyes, a lithe figure skulked in the inky blackness of a hidden cave.

It feasted ravenously upon the disfigured carcass of a once-mighty wyvern, which had fallen prey to the creature's sheer, overwhelming strength. The wyvern's demise had been swift and merciless, akin to a child callously crushing an ant or swatting a fly without a second thought.

The air within the cave reverberated with the wet, sickening sounds of the figure's gluttonous consumption, creating an atmosphere of both revulsion and dread.

Continuously, from the figure's body, a horde of minuscule forms emerged, skittering about like an army of ants before pouring out of the cave's entrance. These tiny beings fanned out, scurrying across the ground, rapidly growing and metamorphosing into wolf-like creatures. Upon reaching a mere thirty meters from the cave's mouth, their size had already matched that of a man, but they continued to grow ever larger.

Amidst this throng of shape-shifting beings, peculiar entities occasionally materialized, transmuting into ethereal albino wolves with snowy fur or into monstrous werewolves that blurred the line between man and untamed beast.

However, the figure within the cave paid no heed to the distinctions between these life forms, considering them all equally as mere sustenance. It harbored no regard for man or beast, as long as they satisfied its ravenous hunger.

Once the wyvern's bones lay picked clean, the figure rose from its gruesome feast, wiping its maw with the back of a fearsome claw. A deep, greedy hunger still gnawed at its insides, prompting it to lick its lips in anticipation.

"Mmmm… that was not enough," the humanoid creature growled, its voice low and guttural, filled with primal urgency. "I must hunt… again."

As the creature stepped out of the cave, it traversed an incredible distance in the blink of an eye, only to stop right outside the mountain’s mouth. The sun's cold, unyielding rays, filtered through a thick canopy of clouds, did little to cleanse its ashen and white fur.

Nonetheless, the sun's rays managed to pierce through the clouds just enough to illuminate the creature's appearance.

It was a freakish amalgamation of human and canine features, with a stretched skull bearing a long and narrow snout filled with a multitude of blackened razor-like teeth that gleamed ominously in the darkness. Its eyes were frigid and malevolent, the pupils akin to voids nestled within matte gray irises, devoid of even the faintest glimmer of light.

The creature's unnervingly elongated, sinewy body emanated a sense of hunger and malice, its limbs stretching out like the shafts of farmers’ scythes. Justly, every one of its limbs were tipped with wickedly long, razor-edged claws capable of tearing through both flesh and soul.

Emerging from the shadows of its lair, the creature stalked its surroundings with a predator's grace, weaving through the gnarled trees in an unsettling, soundless manner that belied its imposing stature.

It moved with haste, driven by an insatiable hunger to find its next victim, its next meal. The identity of its prey was yet to be determined, but one thing was certain: the creature would make its choice soon.

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It was getting dark and the day was coming to an end.

It was cold. Gruelingly cold.

Even our constantly growing inventory of wolf hides wasn’t enough to keep us warm once we got far enough into the mountains, Claire having to use her [Heat] spell to keep the group of us thawed.

We had vastly underestimated how difficult this would actually be, clearly. It was taking all our effort and willpower to fight off the growing cold, and it only got worse as we continued walking.

Claire, who had devised this plan, looked exhausted and disheartened by the journey thus far. Her physicality was not one for long treks, no matter how much she tried to hide it. Eventually, she did not have the energy to keep up her mask anymore, and wore her feelings on her face like paint.

Hana had to have killed at least a hundred wolves by now, and they didn’t seem intent on stopping. Every few minutes, one would race down the cliff just to attack us, and Hana would impale it like clockwork. That didn’t even count the few I killed to gather up some meat for our meals later. None of them even stood a chance.

But for whatever reason, they were insistent on running us down at every given opportunity. It made absolutely no sense.

In my experience, monsters would eventually steer clear of you if it was clear that they had lost a great number of their brethren to your blade. The amount of times we had been attacked from noon till evening was completely unnatural.

For a moment I wondered if Claire had considered the idea that we might not even be able to sleep if we kept getting attacked. Surely this was not in her calculations.

Sure they were not actually hurting us, but we hadn't had a chance to take a break in a while, nor had we found any areas that would possibly make for good shelter. Even with our mana pools full and Hana constantly sucking the life force from the animals, our mental fortitude was slowly waning due to the cold and constant physical exertion.

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“Hey, Claire. How are we going to get some rest?”

I looked over at her and she looked back at me, her eyes squinting in exhaustion.

“We need to dig out a cave in the snow, I think. If there are no caves in the next twenty minutes of walking, that’s definitely our best option. We’ll just have to seal it up and hope that the wolves don’t follow us into the snow.”

Hana spoke up.

“Guys, I don’t think I can do this for much longer. We should probably rest now.”

I nodded at Hana’s suggestion, looking to Claire for guidance on this hole digging business. It’d take me one good burst of mana to make a sizable cave in the ground, but I just wanted to make sure I was doing it right.

Immediately upon meeting my gaze, Claire shrugged.

“I only know what I know, Sun. I just overheard some adventurers talking about making snow caves when it got too cold. I don’t know any of the specifics.”

She slapped my shoulder, knocking some of the snow off my wolf hide.

“I’m sure you’ll do great!”

That wasn’t exactly the answer I was looking for, but if that was all we had to go off of, I guessed it couldn’t hurt to try.

I figured that it was probably a bad idea to dig a hole straight down, so a hole going sideways would probably be the better option, right? That thought process seemed sound enough, so gathering up my mana into the base of my palm, I shot a beam of purple mana into the side of the mountain nearest to us.

“[Buddha’s Palm]!”

Hana and Claire looked on in curiosity, wondering if I had done it right.

What resulted was…

Not quite right.

I had blown a sizeable cave in the side of the mountain, yes. I had gotten that part right.

What I hadn’t gotten right was the tact behind the strike. The finesse.

I wasn’t sure whether or not I should’ve tried to make the cave larger or smaller, so I just guessed larger. Unfortunately, a larger cave meant more force impacting the snow, and more impact meant incurring the event that I had just created.

At first, it was just a crack, a tiny fissure that appeared in the pristine blanket of white at the very top of the mountain.

But then the fissure rapidly expanded, its jagged edges tearing through the snow like the claws of a ferocious beast. The snow quickly transformed into an unstoppable force of destruction, hurtling downwards in a violent dash for our lives.

An avalanche.

But not just any avalanche, no. That would be too tame.

Like a tidal wave of ice and snow, the avalanche gathered momentum, consuming everything in its path. Trees that had stood tall for decades were snapped like twigs, their broken trunks tossed aside like discarded playthings. Boulders, once immovable fixtures in the landscape, were swept away, tumbling and crashing with deafening force.

And the monsters that got caught in it… didn’t die. They hopped atop it, seeming to glide across the disaster like they were used to it.

It was an avalanche with dozens, maybe hundreds of dire wolves sprinkled in, carried down and into us by the force of the ‘natural disaster’. I was pretty sure I saw some other creatures sprinkled in there, but now wasn’t the time for waiting around to find out what was inside our unpleasant surprise.

Now was the time to run.

I picked up Hana and Claire and sprinted forward at a rapid pace, my mana now fully regenerated.

I was confident that I could outrun the avalanche by going further into the mountains rather than retreating, so that’s exactly what I did. We hadn’t walked all this way just for me to turn around and fuck up all our progress.

I sprinted perpendicular to the oncoming mass of sliding snow.

Yet another obvious misprediction by me, because as soon as I started to do that, forms started to leap from the avalanche to attack us while I sped through the snow.

Why wouldn’t they, right?

Dire Wolves leaped into my path, one after another, and I swiftly obliterated them, leaving behind a splattering of red against the pristine snow. Hindered by the necessity to cradle Hana and Claire in my arms, I resorted to employing a series of awkward spinning kicks to fend off the relentless onslaught of snarling beasts. The two girls were jostled violently in my grasp, whirling rapidly as I desperately tried to keep the monsters at bay.

The relentless spinning took its toll on Hana, her complexion turning a sickly shade of green. Claire didn't fare much better, her face a picture of discomfort.

Before I could eliminate any more wolves, however, Hana's sword began to levitate in the air beside us, its sharp point aimed skyward. As the Dire Wolves closed in, the blade lashed out with deadly precision, slicing through the air and promptly retracting, reminiscent of a mantis snatching its prey.

"PLEASE JUST KEEP RUNNING! I'LL HANDLE THE WOLVES, JUST NO MORE SPINNING!"

Grateful for her intervention, I repaid her efforts by doing exactly that.

I maintained a consistent yet rapid pace, more than sufficient to outdistance the monstrous avalanche nipping at our heels.

For a fleeting moment, it seemed we were on the verge of escaping the looming threat.

Unfortunately, that glimmer of hope was short-lived.

Racing down the mountain slope at a startling speed were dozens of albino Dire Wolves, their deep crimson eyes burning with ferocity. They were White Wolves, and they were more formidable and magically gifted than their common counterparts. Yet, they were not the sole threats sprinting down the hill.

Trailing close behind them were furry figures, their vaguely humanoid forms sprinting on two legs with astounding agility, matching the pace of the quadrupedal White Wolves.

They wore beaten leather armor with iron pauldrons, all dual-wielding curved short swords.

In its fearsome lupine form, the beasts stood taller than the tallest man. Their muscular limbs, tipped with deadly claws capable of tearing through the thickest hide, granted it speed and agility that betrayed its size. The fur of these fearsome beasts was a captivating fusion of dark and silvery strands, woven together in a manner that seemed to capture the very essence of the moonlight itself. As it draped their muscular bodies, the fur shimmered with an ethereal glow, casting a haunting radiance that only served to amplify their otherworldly presence.

Werewolves. And they were rapidly closing the distance between us.