Chapter 32: Into The Wilds
Zan heard the loud snarl and turned his head correspondingly. What met him was a creature with four legs, white fur and a snout. Its sharp ivory fangs were bared, glistening under the moonlight. It looked like a typical wolf, if not for the third eye that slit vertically in the middle of its forehead. The three eyes together glowed a menacing red in the dark of night, each eye staring down at the youth. Spit and drool dripped down from its maws, and as it hit the floor, it started to sizzle and corrode the ground.
The two-legged creature looked up at the mutated wolf, unbothered and composed. Zan had seen wolves before, just not one that had three eyes, and never one that was 10 feet tall and 15 feet long. The wolf was nothing short of gargantuan. Despite the size difference between the two, the youth was fearless. Raising his head, the youth locked eyes with the creature and his left eye started to turn and glow red with savage intent.
The wolf’s two eyes continued to stare down at the youth but its third eye on its forehead suddenly twitched, expressing its confusion the more it looked at Zan. As they stared each other down the three-eyed wolf grew more and more apprehensive of the bipedal creature. This two-legged animal was obviously different from the others that it previously ate, it was immensely more dangerous. Abstract but intelligent thoughts started to race in the creature’s head. It was impossible to know, but the wolf was much, much smarter than any wolf that came before it. And right now, the wolf was thinking about a dozen different factors unknown to the odd looking creature before it.
Zan the human however, had a different thought process.
‘Food…’
Three red eyes opened fully wide! The incredible sight of the third eye quite literally saw through this creature’s intention to eat it. The muscles on the wolf started to ripple and tighten, the drool from its maws spewing out like a faucet. Zan’s muscles ballooned, his arms growing twice as large and his enormous quads stretching the fabric of his only piece of clothing. The youth now noticed that his discolored appendages seemed to have an amplifying effect, strengthening and fortifying the rest of his evenly toned body.
‘More strength…!’
The youth smiled joyfully at this realization.
‘Nice.’
As they were about to clash in a storm of blood, the Earth started to shake and rumble. The youth stayed calm, observing the situation in confusion, but keeping ready to unleash mass destruction. The giant wolf however, relaxed its muscles. Its hairs that stood up in agitation started to fall down and relax. Quickly enough, an army of wolves spilled over from the distant horizon, dashing and leaping forwards in a frenzied yet…controlled manner. The sea of beasts surrounded the two, and the three eyes that stared Zan down turned into thousands.
They observed the odd looking creature and the creature observed them. The light of intelligence seemed to vary among the beasts. Staring the youth down, he felt an odd mixture of mindless, thoughtless gazes, the normal threatening stares of predator towards prey but most strangely, looks that held the same level of intellect as clever human adults.
Not normal human adults; those individuals themselves were not that smart, but the clever ones were rare and they were excellent. The stares that he felt from some of these wolves felt like those same stares from those human individuals. Zan could feel them studying and evaluating him. Contemplating upon the strength that they felt from him and surmising a series of plans upon plans should normal protocol fail.
As the wolves noticed his blood red hair, oddly toned body and single glowing red eye, Zan noticed the abnormalities in them. Disgusting outgrowths grew on most of the wolves. Bone-like horns grew from odd angles and obstructed the normally graceful movement of some wolves. Others grew extra appendages on their backs or their stomachs that served no purpose but to twitch from moment to moment, disturbing Zan. The extra appendages were smaller, weaker versions that it seemed the wolves did not even have control over. The worst that he saw however, were that some wolves grew extra snouts, mouths, and eyes all over their body. The eyes that grew on some wolves were either half grown and permanently shut, or always open in a tortured awareness that it was missing eyelids.
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The sizes of the wolves ranged from chihuahua-like to the size of large royal carriages. Rarely, there were a few normal-looking wolves that were simply larger versions of their ordinary sized counterparts. Looking closer however, the youth observed that their fur was shinier in the moonlight and their gait when they circled him pressed an impressive weight on the ground. It was similar to his appendages, and he was correct. The muscular structure of his pale appendages and the bodies of the special wolves was different compared to their default DNA. It allowed a denser, heavier form of muscle concentration that was immensely stronger than ordinary yet also took more nutrients to maintain.
THUMP! THUMP!
Facing off against literally thousands of wolves, the youth’s heart started to beat faster and stronger. In his mind, he was still composed, but his body had already triggered the adrenaline that was currently coursing through his veins.
Numerous thoughts raced inside the youth’s head.
‘Can I take them all on? Maybe if I kill the leader first, their teamwork and goddamn formations would fall. Why are they moving like arranged soldiers anyway? What the fuck? Should I just bulldoze a path out of here? That’d be the smartest choice…but I want to test out my power a little bit hehe.’
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
The youth’s heart started to beat faster and faster until he found that it was no longer beating at all. The sound instead transformed into a constant heavy drone that frightened the surrounding wolves. Beautiful, sinister tattoos grew on his pale appendages. Veins popped up all over his body but they did not appear blue or green but instead black. The whites of his eyes had turned black also, leaving a single glowing red light upon his face. The blood that was pumping inside him burned his body to feverish temperatures, that the youth felt he had to release through physical annihilation of everything around him.
The youth remembered now, that his heart was also destroyed in his first and only defeat. The crazy scientist must have made him a new, better one. Clenching his fists, he was ready to destroy these arrogant beasts that dared to challenge him. Zan did not just want to beat them, he wanted to obliterate all of them.
The wolves felt the change within the creature. Bloodlust and destruction saturated the sea of wolves and naturally, they were shaken. The three-eyed demon wolf that was larger than all of them took a step forward and released its own intent. The alpha, the leader of the pack saw through the eye on its forehead, a purple aura of cosmic leadership, royalty and obedience encompassing all the wolves while battling against the black aura of destruction that this creature emanated.
The elite of the wolves moved towards the front of the crowd and jumped into ever changing formations that loomed closer to the youth. The alpha bent its legs, preparing to pounce while Zan started to focus Vital and Earth energy into his legs. But suddenly! Alarm bells rang in both of their heads and they quickly disappeared from their previous location.
WHIRR!
A large red energy beam tore through the sea of wolves, decimating and reducing everything in its path to atoms. Multiple wolves died with a hole burnt through their bodies while the “lucky” ones survived having only a chunk of their flesh vaporized into the air.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Colossal and thunderous steps strided over before the huge thing leaped into the sky and slammed into the center of commotion.
BANG!
Zan faced off against the very thing that the sea of wolves were running away from. It was 30 feet tall and 60 feet long. Layers of metal gracefully sculpted its figure like natural armor. Four pillars of massive black steel crashed into the hard canyon ground. It raised its head at the moon and then it…howled. A metal colossal resembling a wolf was howling at the moon in front of Zan and actual real wolves.
After it was done worshiping the celestial body, red lines started to glow all over its body like it was activating itself. The red lines originated from the metal wolf’s chest, flowing towards its neck before reaching its mouth. The metal wolf opened its jaws wide and a circular orb of red energy started to condense in the middle of its mouth. The surrounding wolf formations started to collapse into chaos at this scene and they ran away like frightened chickens instead of top predators. It took a moment for the alpha to restore its majesty and take back control of its pack but that mere moment was enough for the metal wolf to complete its procedure.
A large red energy beam unleashed technological destruction towards the mountainous canyon peaks, but before the metal wolf could unleash it upon organic life—
BANG!!!
A strong uppercut from the hot blooded youth slammed the jaws of the metal wolf shut, deactivating the beam. The three-eyed wolf took this opportunity to gather its elite warriors and command them upon the back legs of the creature to hinder its movement. The demon wolf itself disappeared from its position and a screeching sound of claw against metal rang out in the next moment. Unfortunately it only left shallow scratches upon the hard black metal surface.
Zan pumped his mighty muscles with Vital and Earth energy, before giving the metal wolf a left and right hook that sent its head swinging. In the process of it all, the metal claws of the wolf vanished from the ground and swiped at the professional boxer like he was a fly.
BANG!
Exactly like a fly swatted from the air, the youth crashed into the crowd of wolves, breaking his impact upon their soft flesh and broken bone. The wolves stared at him in fury but Zan did not care. Three gargantuan claw marks stretched across his chest, leaking out black blood before it quickly clotted. The boy himself grew furious at this insult and he recklessly ran back into the jaws of the metal wolf, intending to trade blow for blow with the black steel beast.