The wolf bared its teeth at me as it saw my wings, no doubt grouping me together with Saskia, the person who had defeated it earlier and ended its rampage. It circled us, glaring at us through the force field Kaelen had constructed almost on reflex.

Without another moment of hesitation, the horned wolf leapt towards me, growling as more wolves leapt out to greet us - but not in a friendly way. There must have been more than 40 of those bloodthirsty creatures, and they swarmed over to us in less than a second. Only three of them had horns including the first one, but all of them were not to be underestimated.

Kaelen struggled to keep the shield up as more and more wolves piled onto the dome, adding their weight as they bit and clawed into the golden hemisphere of protection. Eventually, her knees gave way.

The horned wolves each led a smaller group of ten to twelve wolves as they split up to fight us. Even then, facing twelve System-enhanced beasts was still a nightmare.

'Hydra? I really need your help now,' I sent a mental message to him as I let arrows fly, trying to buy myself some time as I pulled out my Story Weaver book to create the knives I had drawn. I wanted to draw and control a monster instead, but even with Hydra helping me and keeping the wolves away from me, I doubted that I would be able to sketch, bring to life and write a story for the beast under such tight time constraints. The monsters I could use this technique to fight were either distracted or weak enough for Kaelen to block it using her force field Skill, but the wolves were neither.

Without Hydra's assistance, I wouldn't even have enough time to produce the knives.

The dragon didn't bother answering as he understood what I needed him to do. He drove his claws into the beasts near me just before they sunk their teeth into my skin. I sunk into my mind to visualize, but just as I threw the energy balls at the conjured mental image of the knives, a wolf tore off a decent-sized chunk of my flesh and broke my concentration. With an angry yell, I instinctively pushed my shadow essence into its mind.

The instinct would have saved me normally, but unfortunately for me, horned wolves had a hive mind, and they hated mind control.

Instantly, forty or so wolves turned their heads towards me, absolute rage burning in their eyes. Hydra tried his best to help, but while he busied fending off five wolves nearby, the rest of the pack attacked me all at once.

I pulled out my lion claw daggers, forgoing my idea of throwing knives completely. They were close enough for stabbing now, and wasting precious time on using Artist is not a wise decision at this point. Even then, I was overwhelmed.

I met two wolves' claws with my daggers, the clang of metal against bone loud and ominous. The wolves were stunned, and I took the time to plunge my weapons into their necks, not letting go until another monster used this opportunity to bite my arm. I had to let the wolves go, or I would probably lose my arm completely. They slumped onto the ground, heavily injured but still alive. Their brethren didn't care about the fallen, though, as they stepped over the pair I just hit, effectively reducing the two to corpses. Their eyes glinted with a sadistic glee as they used their claws to rip away skin and flesh, leaving long, gaping wounds all over my body as the wolves came from all sides.

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I tried my best to fight back, but no matter how much I tried, more of them just kept coming in, stepping over each other in their eagerness to land the finishing hit. My companions all tried to help, with Hydra duelling with five or more monsters at once, Kaelen trapping some wolves in her force fields and zapping them with electricity and Elias disintegrating as many wolves as he could with his bare hands.

Only Saskia did nothing and continued observing as if she was watching a show, occasionally nodding as if deep in thought. I ignored her, deciding to deal with her apathy when I was no longer on the brink of death. As it was, I had a very low chance of surviving this, with all the wounds I had sustained over the past few minutes, but there was no reason to give up fighting when there was still a silver of opportunity. For a moment, it seemed like I would win, with the remaining number of wolves down to less than ten. Even with so many gaping holes in my body leaking blood, it felt possible to defeat the pack.

Until I made a second mistake. As my dagger tore into the heart of a horned wolf, I gasped and pulled my blade back, but it was already too late. As the monster fell, I could almost hear amusement in its final howl. The pain of all my wounds had not truly reached me before then, but as an evolving beast leapt towards me, its black fur catching on purple fire, I felt the tiredness and the agony sink in. Why was I fighting a losing battle? It would only showcase my weakness to everyone around me, because only someone who was not strong enough would lose to a mere wolf pack. I was just embarrassing myself, making all those mistakes that now led to my imminent demise.

However, just as I was about to give up, someone appeared in front of me, blocking the deadly strike with her body alone while swinging a blade at the beast.

Saskia began fighting the monster while I tried to help by killing off the other wolves. Soon, the remainder of the pack were dead, and the remaining horned wolf was held in a golden cage while we waited for Saskia's battle to finish. It wasn't that we did not want to help her, but that it was simply impossible to interfere. Their weapons - Saskia with her sword and the wolf with its claws and teeth - clashed again and again in speeds I could not reach even if I strained myself. They were so fast that they were almost a blur to my eyes. However, judging based on the wounds they received, it seemed that Saskia was losing. Was this newly evolved monster even more powerful than the one we accidentally created with the essence of even more horned wolves?

I breathed heavily, worry gripping my heart as I watched them fight, once again reminded of my helplessness to aid Saskia. Fortunately, with a final roar, the girl pushed her shadow essence blade into the wolf's, and it fell. As she wobbled towards us, wounded but alive, the relief I felt was immediate, and I could hear my companions let out held breaths as well. Just as she reached us, she fell into me, her wounds finally getting to her. I supported her with my hands, and that was when I realized something was very wrong.

A large, gaping hole replaced the patch of skin between her shoulder blades, and blood was oozing out from the wound. Behind her, a large horned wolf stood, satisfaction in its eyes as it watched us. In that instant, it all clicked.

With a yell, I sliced into its neck with the pair of lion claws, and was met with no resistance. As the creature's head came crashing into the ground, I felt a deep guilt surge up inside of me. If I wasn't so careless, if I had made even one less mistake, then Saskia would not have died. How could I live with this? After distrusting her so much over the past few hours since we met, how could I live with this?

I grabbed Saskia's lifeless form from Kaelen's arms, shaking her angrily, "No, no! You don't just kill yourself like this, you bastard. You don't just sacrifice yourself and get away with it!"

Ding! The notification felt taunting as I fell to the ground, still holding Saskia's body.

You have slain 1x Horned Wolf [Lvl. 8]! You gained 800EXP, 2x Horned Wolf Meat, 1x Wolf Horn, 320 New Gems