About a whole day’s time passed until Nine opened his eyes. As he opened his eyes and saw the grass, the blood and the forest he felt happy and sad.

* I survived.

He was perplexed on how to feel, he felt that dieing would have been better than surviving everyday by a hair in this place. He mustered all the strength he had, as his wounds restricted him a lot. When he stood up he saw the human dog laying on the floor, lifeless. Nine smiled.

* So how do I taste?

He laughed as he said that. In a few seconds he took out the knife out of the creature and started looking at the body.

* Those claws and teeth could be useful.

He picked up the creature's hand and started to cut off his claws at the fingers with the letter knife, to get them. It was a gruesome act, and even him himself was trying to not vomit from it, but he got the claws. He did the same with the other hand.

* I should get the teeth too…

He was hesitant, because he did not want to do that even more, but it was something he needed. When he was done he stood up, and looked at the claws.

* They feel like they are metal, I could use the forge to make something better.

He started to look around. He was looking for the sword. He went into the direction the creature threw it.

* There you are!

As he picked up the sword, the stone on the sword suddenly crumbled and it revealed a blade; It was a beautiful blade, the sword it self was not something magnificence looking, it was just a normal looking sword, but it had strange wordings in the middle of it that had a blue tint on them, the edge of sword was sharp as a razor, it was a great sword, even a novice like Nine could tell that such a sword was made by master craftsman.

He was astonished by what just happened, he could not believe that someone sealed such a beautiful blade in stone, but more that the throw was so powerful that it even broke the stone, he looked up, where he saw a wall of the mountain, there was a big impact, that was made by the sword being throwed, he looked back at the corpse of the creature.

* If you didn’t underestimate me, you would have completely demolished me.

The strength of such a small, and weak looking creature scared him, if he’s just this powerful, how strong is the creature in the cave. But now the sword was perfect for him, it was much lighter than before, he was overjoyed with this victory.

* Oh right there is the cave too!

He looked at the entrance of the wolf’s cave and thought that it would be better to come back another time, he was injured, hungry and tired already. He took the sword and the claws back leaving the wolves bodies there. He went home.

* Finally home sweet home!

He went to the basement, and ate some food that he had and took a bath with water that he had prepared beforehand. He put the claws in the storage, rolled the left bandages from last time around his wounds and went into the bedroom to sleep.

He woke up feeling great, today there was no nightmare, it showed that he was fighting his phobia, and getting stronger. He was optimistic about today, so he went to the basement to do his morning training. Doing it he understood that defeating those wolves he got a lot stronger.

* The tougher the enemy the stronger I get.

It seems like it’s great, but the fact that he almost died trying to kill that creature, did not stick with him. After doing his training he left what was left to eat and went on his way back to the wolf’s cave. On his way there he found some dograts, but this time he did not sneak attack them, he sliced them in one move with his sword, he was feeling like he could not win against them wolves easily. He reached the entrance of the cave. He put down the basket, readied his sword and went inside the cave, as he was going inside the cave had the same crystals as the last one, so it was bright inside. He went deeper into the cave, until he stumbled upon a smaller entrance. It seemed like it was a perfect fit for those wolves, he was hesitant, but still gone inside. It was a bit of a struggle to pass through the entrance, but he still managed to pass through it. When he got through a two way passage that led in the right and left directions, he chose to go left. Still walking prepared to be attacked any moment, he stumbled upon a huge cave; it was massive, in the middle of it was a pool of water, and on the ceiling where the pool was there were those golden crystals that were dropping drops of liquid into the pool. There was another passageway at the end of the cave that led somewhere else.

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He went to the pool, drank a bit of it, and went into the passageway. He walked until he heard something coming, in front of him he heard footsteps, but they were not humans, the only other thing he thought it could be, was wolves. He held his sword tightly and got ready in position to fight. The steps got closer and closer, until he heard that they were right around the corner. He saw it, it was a wolf, as soon as he saw the wolf face peeking the corner he jumped right in to attack it, not giving the wolf a chance. He sliced the wolf’s face right off. And got to see that there were more, there were 4 more wolves, it’s more than he has ever taken down, but he was not scared, the light in his eyes did not flicker even once. Not giving the wolves a chance to even react to what just happened, he jumped right into another one, and he succeeded by slicing the wolf’s face. He wasn’t able to slice the head as he didn’t calculate the distance well, but it still sliced through the wolf’s face right in the middle, almost slicing off the mouth. Now the wolves got enough time to react to what just happened and they all attacked Nine together, but stepped to the right while swinging his sword from the left. Doing this, he dodged wolves, and sliced through another one right in the middle of the wolf’s whole body, making the wolf be sliced in two. The body of the wolf flew right threw the sword from the inertia, making Nine and the sword all bloody. There was blood and guts everywhere, it was slippery, Nine knew that he had a bad footing now, as well as the wolf. The wolf didn’t hesitate and jumped straight at Nine, but he had his back turned at the wolf. Nine tried to turn around and block the wolf's attack, but it was too slippery, so he stumbled. Nine fell straight on his back, the wolf didn't give him a chance to prepare and still was jumping straight at him. Nine quickly took his sword firmly, grasped it, and striked straight at the wolf. Nine was laying on the ground, on his back, he struck the sword like he was wielding a spear, a quick and powerful move which made the wolf go straight in the sword. The sword pierced through the wolf's chest, but he could not relax as there was another one waiting for a chance to attack. Nine knew that he could not get the wolf off him and stand up enough not taking some kind of damage. So he started to pretend to be dead, while taking the letter knife from his pocket, ready to strike when the wolf would get close enough. The wolf was hesitant, after a few minutes he started going to see if Nine was dead. As he got closer, Nine listened and listened to where the wolf was, as the other wolf’s body was on top of him, he could not see where the last one was. And there he heard the wolf was so close enough now that you could hear the wolf sniffing. Nine attacked by striking his blade where he heard the wolf sniffing, he hit. The wolf started wimping and howling, this gave Nine a chance he needed, he got the wolf's body off him and readied his sword. He saw that he hit the wolf straight in his left eye, so Nine attacked while going more to the right so that the wolf would have a harder time seeing him. It was still slippery, but by no means so much as before, as the blood has dried off a bit by now. The wolf didn’t even get time to react as it still was in a lot of pain and did not clearly see an enemy coming at him. Nine sliced the wolf’s neck. He won a battle against five wolves, it was a huge achievement for him, as a day ago he could barely fight against three of them, and now he fought five and he feels like he could still take double of that.

* That was exaggerated, but now I'm all bloody…

Nine decided that he would still go down this cave as he could still fight more. He walked for quite a bit of road and there was nothing special, but at the end he came across an even bigger cave where he saw something terrifying. It was a huge cave with dens, like a city of wolves, where in the middle he saw a huge monster that looked like a Fenrir, around it there were more of those human dogs, there was a wall that surrounded them all, and before that wall are dens of just normal wolves, but the number of those wolves are terrifying, there are hundreds, if not thousands.

* My god!

Nine was scared, he knew that if he would go and fight now, he would die immediately. He looked at all of them, thinking of a solution of how to deal with them. Until he realized that there are other passages, and by the looks of it, they leave and come bringing food from all of them, so he thought of a solution. He could fight and win easily over the lesser wolves, by doing this he would weaken the army of wolves and get stronger himself, but first he went home to rest, eat, bathe and get ready for hunting.

* Tomorrow is a day to get even stronger.