A loud crack echoed through the forest, as if a whip had it the ground. Following was the splintering of wood, as a long limb broke through bark with break neck speed. A wide smile stretched over an elongated snout, which made the beast appear that more unnatural.

It was the first time since the ants that Clay encountered such a heavily mutated animal, and at first he didn’t recognize the creature before him as a wolf. He was ambushed from the trees by this creature, as it used its long limbs to climb from tree to tree like an ape. If not for the cracking branch, he might not have looked up and would haven been hit by the attack that shredded through the wood.

Not wanting to waste the opportunity of the failed ambush, Clay drew his blade and slashed sideways, intending to gut the wolf. With a push of its unnaturally bent hint legs, it took a jump backwards with surprising speed. Seeing the creature for the first time in full size, he was startled.

It was fully covered in dark brown fur and slightly smaller than himself, but not by much. The arms were almost long enough to touch the ground, with hands looking more like his than that of wolves. Before there was time to analyze the strange mutations further, he saw a shadow on his right, but was too late to react.

Another crack rang in his ear, as his aura tried to absorb the blow, preventing the claws to dig into his flesh and instead only damaged his shoulder pad. To his right, there was another wolf that looked just like the first. Great, they hunted in packs.

Flaring the embers that so peacefully smoldered over the last two months inside him, Clay could feel his essence once again rushing through his full body, empowering it in every way, as his veins bulged in an attempt to contain the power within. Once it reached his head, it felt like time slowed down and granted him the crucial time he needed to formulate a plan.

He encountered some kind of mutated wolf. His information was severely lacking, but from the blow he at least knew that they weren’t awakened. They were agile enough to climb trees and the wolf earlier displayed surprising speed, while they used their arms like whips to attack. Additionally, were their numbers unknown, so there was only on logical conclusion: flight!

With little information, it was better to flee and look for a favorable terrain. Not expecting the speed that Clay displayed, the wolves were startled for a moment, but quickly followed through the thicket of the trees.

Running at full speed, Clay skillfully avoided every tree, before he eventually felt his shield once again rippling, as a claw slashed at his back. With him burning so much essence, the shield would be back at full force in a few seconds. He knew that he was unlikely to outrun them and just waited for such an opportunity. The moment he felt a disruption on his aura, he immediately halted his sprint and pushed with his legs.

The claw ripped deep into the back of his chestplate, but in return his blade gutted the wolf in once swift motion, as Clay turned around. The exited smile of the hunt quickly vanished from the wolf, as its intestines suddenly saw the light of day.

Not stopping after his slash, Clay made a beeline further into the forest, he wasn't far now. The sudden death of their kin granted him a few precious seconds, but soon the hunt would continue, only this time wasn’t it for excitement or food, but revenge.

He could feel that the atmosphere somehow changed, and the howling only confirmed his suspicions, as it felt like it echoed all around him. There were much more wolves than two. Clay was feeling more anxious the more time passed, just a few more meters…

Slipping on a wet rock, he stumbled only for a shadow to fly over him, as another attack barely missed him. Scrabbling along the ground, he reached into a bush that seemed like any other, but once the next wolf came flying, he turned around and pierced. There was a yelp, as his wooden spear pierced the head of the wolf. They exchanged blows and Clay could feel the claws of the wolf touching his chest.

A little higher and his head would have been sliced open. He pushed the wolf, spear included, away from him, before quickly grabbing the next. If he only had his left arm, then he could at least use a shield, but this wasn’t the time to cry over spilled milk.

He barely stood when the next crack alerted him to another attack and with it being the third consecutive strike there was no time for his shield to recover, so this time the left side of his armor wasn’t only ripped opened, but also drew blood.

It was only a cut and stopped bleeding the moment the first crimson drop seeped out, but it still undermined the seriousness of the situation. With their long limbs, the spear was definitely the better weapon, but they would break quickly, and their numbers were limited, so he had to make them count.

Another crack from behind and the moment the claw cut into his back he spun with his spear around, only to hit air, as the wolf already stood a save distance away, and before he could engage further there was another strike from behind. Turning around, he yet again missed and was greeted by another two wolves circling him.

He was surrounded. A total of four wolves, counting the one that was still in the trees. They just stayed out of range and attacked in circles as the wounds accumulated on his body. They weren’t really deep, but his armor was steadily ripped away, while he was unable to return a single hit.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to concentrate, only for another whip to slash at his back. There had to be some way, he wasn’t fast enough, so just running didn’t make sense. His spear was also not longer than their limbs, and he needed to severely injure them in one clean hit. With his healing, their attacks weren’t really dangerous, but in the long term his essence would be burned up and he would die.

With the constant pain it was impossible to think straight, so he just threw his spear at the nearest wolf and sprinted to his sword picking it up on the run, before turning around. Facing all four of the wolves, he smiled. He really must have gone mad with what he was about to do.

Shaking his head, he took a deep breath before he screamed at the top of his lungs and confronted the wolves directly. Two answered his challenge directly, the one in the trees circled around, most likely to attack from the back, and the last one jumped high to latch onto a tree.

The wolf on the right attacked him, but instead of blocking he just ignored him and endured the hit to get closer to the one on his left that tried to circle him again, but this time was different. He was close enough and the moment the wolf tried to attack, its arm was cleanly severed as he slashed upwards, not stopping his sprint.

The blade held high, he brought it down with full force splitting the skull of the wolf in half, as its eyes bulged, close to popping out of its head. Turning his attention back to the right, his smile only grew, causing the wolf to take a step back. The crack from behind alerted him of the coming attack, but he ignored the pain yet again, standing firm, his muscles tense, as he ran at the frightened wolf.

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This time it was really scared and tried to escape to the trees, but Clay wouldn’t allow that. They specialized in jumping, but with his essence infused legs he felt like he could also get a fair distance, so the moment he saw the wolf jumping he followed suit and together with his previous momentum caught up in an arch. His blade pushed on its back and the moment the claw of the wolf held the tree it was impaled, as Clay’s blade first buried itself through the wolf and then into the tree.

“Hahaha!” What was there to fear if he couldn’t get injured anyway. Ripping his blade free from the tree, Clay jumped back down intending to kill the next wolf only to see two silhouettes rushing from tree to tree, escaping. Seeing this, he was stunned for a moment before calming down. No matter how much he wanted to rush after them, he wouldn’t catch them, not in a forest at least.

For a moment, he just stood there at a loss, watching the two shadows get further and further away. After a while, he suddenly remembered to stifle his inner flame back to the usual embers. Considering everything he didn’t lose much heart blood, well at least compared to the fight with the boar, which was much more dangerous.

Feeling a cold breeze on his back, he finally remembered that his armor was completely cut apart and held on his body by mere straps. Alone, thinking about the time it took him to make his armor caused him to dread the moment he saw the damage in detail. Well that was a problem for later, for now he should retrieve the blood of the wolves.

***

With a last push, Clay was able to heave the corpse of the wolf behind the ongoing construction of the wooden wall. It became a routine to scout the surrounding forest in the morning, carving more marks and built more stashes of spears as he went on. Once home, he would do all the butchering, skinning, curing and tanning needed on the several hides littered around their home with the assistance of Mia.

Following this was breakfast before continuing with the work on the wall. After all this, he did some reading together with Mia, for once to make sure that her writing and reading didn’t stagnate and for the other to acquire more knowledge in everything he thought might be useful.

Once the sun begins to set, he would make dinner, while Mia went to bed. With his essence circulating inside him, Clay not only needed less sleep but also wasn’t tired, so he used this time to train in the use of his aura. Since Mia was able to hold her aura, she made steady progress at forming an aura shield, shockingly fast compared to how long it took her to feel essence.

Well, right now he was more concerned over the corpse of the mutated wolf which he dragged all the way home. His reason for this was for once that he wanted to try to make a coat for him for the winter. There were enough clothes just lying around, but they offered little protection, so he figured a thick coat made out of the hide of a mutated wolf would be better.

The other reason was to study the corpse and see how much had changed, he was by no means an expert, but thanks through the books he read out of boredom on the biology of animals he at least knew what they were supposed to look from the inside.

The corpse in front of him was nothing like a normal wolf, but all in all it still had the same what every other wolf needed, a heart, liver, lungs and so on, they were larger and strengthened of course but other than that was most special the skeletal structure and the bones itself. After cutting a bone from the arm, he noticed that they were severely more bendable compared to a normal bone, which would break or snap in two.

This definitely explained their agile movement and weird whip like attacks. This was also notable in the arm overall, as it got gradually smaller the closer it got to the hands and fingers. The legs were, in contrast, a lot thicker in muscle and bone.

In by itself, these changes wouldn’t have a great effect, but they give one crucial advantage: they are better suited for essence. With the countless times he was forced to fight, Clay noticed that even though his body was enhanced to be able to withstand the greater power, it didn’t magically allow him to move much different compared to before. If he wasn’t careful, it was really easy to dislocate his own bones by accident. His body just wasn’t made to move in the angles he wanted.

If he had the bones of the wolf, he would have a lot more freedom of movement, the change would be significant in both agility and force he could put into his every action.

Well he couldn’t change his own body, so he just had to work with what he had and in this case was that his proficiency with essence, the only thing that gave him an edge over the beasts which were able to mutate their body in a way more suitable to the use of essence.

***

Again, time flew by in a river of blurry images, as days fused together, during everyday life. With so many tasks at hand and the constant shadow of death looming over you, it was hard to keep track of time.

Winter was once again beginning, but with the heavy coat over Clay’s shoulders, he knew he would keep warm. The leather armor that laid beneath was a mess of several different shades of brown, showing the dozen or so spots which had to be repaired after one of the several fights he had since meeting the mutated wolves.

The frequency of fights and encounters with different beasts only increased since then. Especially with those of birds, but with the coming winter he hoped they would soon move on to warmer regions. Well, the mutated wolves or how Clay liked to call them dire wolves, were still a real problem and seemingly the new main predator of this region.

He had several encounters with them and knew they were large enough of a pack to have their own territory. Speaking of territory, wasn’t that the only territory being formed, his idea with the markings actually worked as the amount of dead beast around his symbols increased. By now most beasts avoided these marks like the pest.

The dire wolves were an expectation to this, as they seemed to have a personal grudge with him after he slaughtered over two dozen of their kin. Not that he complained, as the extra meat, fur and heart blood was always welcome.

His work on the wall also still continued, even though he was beginning to question its purpose if he knew that the dire wolves wouldn’t struggle to cross it in a mere moment. Not that it was his main focus, this long shifted over to Mia as he began to spar with her ever more often.

Soon after learning to hold her aura, she was able to form a flimsy shield and with passing time, this flimsy shield grew very dense. In fact was Mia’s aura compared to his own, denser, and this several times over. He couldn’t explain this with anything else but talent.

They once tested in the past under a selected few how well they are able to feel and utilize essence and there is already became clear that some were just more sensitive to essence like Clay himself. But Mia wasn’t sensitive to essence, quite the opposite as she struggled a lot to maintain her aura indefinitely, which he has done for months now.

Keeping her inner flame active was something she was rather quickly able to learn, but with her aura, she even struggled to keep it up for an hour.

The reason for this wasn’t talent alone, but laid also in the way they formed their aura shield. Clay wasn’t able to hold as much essence at once as Jim, so he only condensed a small part and moved it around his body. Mia in comparison did it like Jim and compressed all of it.

When he asked her to spread her aura out, she just barely reached a meter before failing to hold on to it. The high amount of essence in the atmosphere made it harder to control your essence the thinner it became, limiting his own reach from what used to be several dozen meters to just ten, but this was still far more than Mia.

This proved that they were proficient in different things. This was very good for Mia, as her generally denser aura meant that she could absorb far more energy than Clay could. He was forced to regenerate his aura after just a few hits, while Mia could take several more of them. It wasn’t like Mia had more essence, instead she just could hold more of it at once.

This made Clay reevaluate his complete understanding over aura and how he should use it. Especially with the amount of beasts and attacks increasing so much over the last few weeks.

After discovering his aura shield for the first time he was thrilled, and it is true that it has many uses and advantages, but it became quickly apparent how often it just crumbled even when fighting against beasts which didn’t awaken. Especially after discovering that he could use the mist of essence that came from his natural refinement not only outside his body in the form of aura, but also inside in the form of strengthening.

When not fighting, he always used his essence to circulate it inside his body to give him plenty of energy. As much as he relished in the comfort of his aura, it may be time to focus on what he was truly talented at.