Observing the beast a little longer, Clay could see its body practically falling apart. Wounds that seemed to have healed opened again as crimson flowed like a river, while the body turned into a bloody puddle of flesh, organs and bones.

It was decomposing at a speed visible to the eyes. Seeing this, he realized that the dire wolf wasn’t awakened, but must have burned its essence at a frightening pace to reach the regeneration and speed it had shown.

Crouching down, he was mesmerized by seeing each part of its body slowly falling apart in a gory mess, which made it hard for him to decide if he should vomit or be fascinated with the process. Catching a whiff of the stench coming from below he gagged, vomiting it is then.

Concentrating to ignore the stench, he focused on why the dire wolf burned what was essentially his own life force in such a wasteful manner. The only thing that came to mind was to withstand the pressure from the atmosphere.

From what he could feel, it would be hard if not impossible for non-awakend beast to withstand this pressure without burning their heart blood to get more essence.

Realizing this, he froze, If they need to burn heart blood just to survive, then doesn’t that mean that everyone who hasn’t awakened will…

Taking a deep breath, he pushed the thought aside. It didn’t matter, he had to focus on the moment, on what was truly important: surviving. It will surely pass soon enough. There was no reason to worry.

With an enhanced jump, he was up in the air and back over the palisade and made his way into the house to be greeted by a worried Mia, shooting questions at him. Staying calm, he answered them one after the other before hushing her back behind the makeshift barricade they had built in the hall of their entrance. Every other possible exist, like the windows or the backdoor, were nailed shut with planks.

This wouldn’t stop the beasts if they tried to get in, but he assumed from the intelligence that he had seen so far that they hadn’t the mind to attack anything that wasn’t directly in front of them. As long as she stayed as silent as possible, she should be fine.

At first Mia objected, the idea of hiding, she had trained hard with him and had experienced her fair share of battles, on their patrols, but he was insistent of her staying. This was too much for her to handle. Hell he wasn’t qualified to handle this situation but he at least had to pretend that he was.

She would only stand in his way. If he really had to fight for his life, he knew he worked best alone. Having stifled her worries he asked, “You still remember our plan right?”

“I do, but I still think I shouldn’t hide down there if you have to fight for your life up here–” Interrupting Mia with a hush, he smiled. “Mia, I promise you that nothing will happen to me. I will be fine, but should we get surrounded you get into the bunker, and patiently wait until I get you, okay?”

She hesitated before giving him a slow nod. Kissing her on the forehead, he said, “Get behind the barricade, I will go back to watching the streets.”

Keeping his smile he turned around and went outside, closing the door behind him, when he heard the click of the lock his smile faded. It will pass soon, it had to.

******

The third night was not even halfway over when Clay spotted the second beast of the night. Another dire wolf and just like the first its veins were bulging from the overflow of essence rushing through its body, burning to fight against the building pressure of the atmosphere.

Not wasting any time, he jumped from the roof and headed straight to it. This time he didn’t even wait for the beast to make its attack, he just rushed in while he held the essence in his legs. Once he was close enough, he erupted, catching the dire wolf off guard, and pushed his blade into its chest where he knew its heart was.

Missing the gap without bones, he could feel, his blade pushing against the rips of the beast, stopping it momentarily before his momentum and strength broke right through and pierced the heart. Wincing at the force his sword just had to withstand, he quickly withdrew his blade before walking a few steps back.

Stunned by the sudden attack, the dire wolf took a closer look at its assailant. Locking eyes for just a moment, it immediately turned feral as rage fueled howls filled Clay’s ears, and he saw it rushing at him without a care in the world for the supposedly fatal wound it just had received.

Dashing to the side with another eruption in his legs, he evaded the tackle. Swiftly recovering its stance, the beast shot around after him mindlessly. He was prepared to evade again, but the eyes of the beast suddenly widened as it missed a step and stumbled.

Falling on the ground, it slid a few meters before coming to a stop. Observing from a distance, he could see it was still breathing but much harder compared to before, not long after it drew its last breath and ceased to exist, as its body began its quick process of decay.

So the head it is, thought Clay to himself. He had to know if the beast's regeneration was really as powerful as he guessed, and this just proved that it was. It had its limit, as the heart had proven, but everywhere else beside the heart and brain would probably be non-lethal.

Nodding, he made a mental note on the three ways he knew how to kill these heavily enhanced beasts. The first was to disturb the connection to the body by smashing the brain beyond repair, or just outright beheading them. The second was to cut off the supply of new essence by destroying the heart, and the last and most tedious was to just wait until the essence was exhausted and all burned up.

He was so confident about these methods because they were the only things he assumed would kill himself. The last three years had put him in a lot of unwanted close calls with death and from all the injuries, be it broken bones, torn flesh, pierced organs or crushed nerves he always recovered.

There was even the possibility that ripping the brain to shreds wouldn’t be enough and that they could recover from it, but the chance was low, not to mention that the cost of healing the most complex organ in the body must be more than a little costly on the essence.

Whatever these dire wolves were doing to their body, it certainly didn’t leave anything but a puddle of organic matter behind. It was a warning to himself to never burn too much essence. So far, he had the luck to never fall to the low that he had when he survived Mia’s poison, and he intended to keep it that way.

If he saw another of these beasts, he would certainly target the brain. Adjusting his mask, he went back over the palisade, but just when he landed he caught the reflection of a shining black surface. His body tensed at once, as he flared his inner flame and moved to the side before a shadow shot at him, missing his neck barley as a deep gash was left on his chestplate.

Having adjusted to the sudden spike in power, his eyes were able to catch the bone spider quickly jumping to the side of one of the tree trunks in preparation for another attack. With no time to draw his blade, he held the essence in his arm, fuck he shouldn’t have sheathed the blade in the first place.

The spider took its jump, which Clay followed by leaning inwards with his body, moving his arm barely past the sickle-like front leg of the spider, his punch erupted in front of its face, causing ripples of force to shred through his own bones and flesh into the body of the spider, as it was pulverized into a bloody mist of yellow.

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Organic matter exploded outwards, most of it being shot back at the palisade, carrying enough force to make a small dent in the wood and push the trunks ever so slightly to the left and right. Shacking his right arm the few droplets of blood from the open wound flew away, as it closed itself shut, while his cracked bones shifted back into place.

No matter how much he used this eruption, the pain was just the same. Well, seems like it would be hard to get used to feeling your own bones and flesh being torn to shreds, but he had to say that the effect was well worth the pain. It surprised him time and again what power a single erupted punch held.

Shifting his attention from his own body, he looked at the remains of the spider. Encountering two different beasts so close to his home never happened before. Something was strange, and he didn’t have a good feeling about it.

Drawing his blade, he waited, and it didn’t take long before a figure jumped effortlessly over the palisade as yet another dire wolf locked eyes with him. Its target was clear, and it made Clay shudder.

It can’t be that these beasts are targeting me specifically, right?

But before he could pursue any more thoughts the wolf was on him with another fight breaking out, which ended just as quickly as the rest, when Clay sidestepped one claw swipe and swung his sword upwards cleaving deep into stomach and chest, before striking the sword straight down, unto it’s neck in a sideways angle, severing the neck halfway before burying the blade deep into the body stopping just before a bone.

Seeing that its regeneration was still heavily at work, he ripped his sword free, by pushing with his leg, causing the wolf to fall backwards, as he continued to watch. Could it recover from such a wound?

It was quickly losing a lot of blood, and he could see the flesh squirming in an effort to close the wound on the neck, but together with the slash across the body it seemed like it was too much, as the flesh stopped moving and instead gave away old wounds, as the body broke down into an organic puddle.

So this one ran out of essence it seems, Clay figured while stifling his inner flame. Way more problematic was the fact of how determined the dire wolf had targeted him. He was sure that the beasts have never set foot into this small village, let alone close to the center where their house laid. This was more than a little worrying.

Before he could worry further, he heard a creak, as Mia sheepishly opened the door to see what the ruckus was about. There was a small gasp once she saw the dissolving dire wolf. Furrowing his brows in irritation, Clay berated, “Mia, I said you should stay–!”

A loud crash sounded as something heavy tackled the wall and caused the trunks to bend dangerously close inwards. Quickly putting distance between himself and the palisade, he moved his head slightly over his shoulder. “Go back!”

Startled, Mia quickly shut the door, before a weird yet strangely familiar popping sound made Clay bend his head a little to the side, as a black tongue nearly missed him and impacted onto the door.

He stumbled a few steps to the side from the shock of being nearly caught by one of these toads again, before his mind calmed, and he quickly moved his sword in a downward slash and severed the tongue in one motion.

The tongue flailed in the air before being retracted by the toad, who finally toppled the trunks over with an angry and deep croak. Seeing a toad so far from its home finally confirmed it for him. He didn’t know why or how, but these beasts were targeting him specifically.

Knowing that his sword will have little use here, he concentrated and held a stream of essence in his right leg. Moving without hesitation, he confronted the fat and heavily armored creature. From the motion of the thing he saw that it was about to jump long before it did. So with a small sprint, he too jumped right above the toad.

When the legs of the heavy creature finally found the strength to lift it’s body, he was already above it and erupted the essence in his leg and kicked the toad right back into the ground, causing wide fractures to ripple along the concrete, as a loud crash resounded, as if stone clashed with stone.

The force of the kick rippled downwards, leaving cracks in its skin wherever it traveled, which soon were filled with red, like streams running along a mountain. Pushing off from the body with his left leg he landed on the ground beside it, carefully supporting his right leg on the ground, with only his toes touching the ground, as he waited for his regeneration to do its magic.

Before the wound even fully healed, he saw a small black object jump from an opposing rooftop right into his direction. Narrowing his eyes in annoyance, he carefully angled his sword and caught the bone spider right in its maw, as its momentum skewered itself. The body pushed itself to the halfway point of his blade, its eyes turning wide in shock before it’s eight legs turned limp.

Swinging his sword to the side, the body slid off and rolled along the ground. Taking a look at the carnage around him, that just transpired in mere minutes, he couldn’t help himself but sigh.

This wouldn’t continue like this, right? An ominous howl of the wind hushed along the ground, Right?!

******

When the first rays of the dawning sun creeped free from the cracks of the door and planks hammered in front of the windows, Mia finally had the courage to leave her hiding place. Tenderly opening the door, a creek resounded, as the door stopped after only a slit opened.

Putting more force into her push, she felt something sliding along the door as it finally gave away to the open sky. Almost stumbling through the door, she was momentarily blinded by the sun. When her vision cleared, and she was able to take her surroundings in, she gasped in shock, before the smell finally reached her nose and caused her to gag.

Covering her mouth and nose with her shirt, she quickly looked for Clay and saw him resting on top of a literal mountain of corpses. He was sitting on what appeared to be a gray rock, with streams of blood flowing down, into the puddle of brown, red and yellow goo that surrounded him.

His temple was resting on the hilt of his blade, supporting his frame and preventing him from toppling over. Slowly taking a few steps closer, Mia came to the conclusion that he was taking a nap, that was until he moved his head slightly to the side and opened lazily one eye to look at her. For a moment, they just stared at each other, until he suddenly smiled and rose from his fleshy seat.

Standing, she was able to fully take Clay’s appearance in. His mask was hanging from his neck, covered in a mix of red and yellow, the same color smeared his whole body, his pants were almost completely ripped off, while his leather chestplate was hanging with mere scraps to his body. Jumping down, he rested the blade on his shoulder, instead of sheathing it.

“See, I told you I would be fine,” said Clay as casually as he could. This night was more than a little close, and he burned way too much heart blood. He didn’t even have a third left and if the next night was the same as this one, he couldn’t guarantee for his own survival, but Mia didn’t have to know that.

Completely perplexed by the situation, Mia needed a moment to process until she asked, “Are you really fine? I mean this…”

Looking down at himself, Clay became wide-eyed, as if he had only noticed now that he was completely drenched in blood. “Oh! You mean the blood. It’s fine, it isn’t mine… mostly.”

Opening her mouth, Mia was about to say something before stopping midway. “Forget it, can we do something about this,” thinking about the smell caused her to gag again, “we must do something about the smell!”

“Yeah, they did decompose really quickly, but cleaning this up…” he trailed off with his voice as he looked at the close to two dozen bodies around him, the destroyed palisade, the spears which were littering the ground or impaled bodies. The one bone spider he kicked onto their roof caught his eye, when it slowly trailed along the roof tiles and fell on the ground with a loud splash.

“You know what? Why don’t we move for now to a different house in the neighborhood? I mean, the palisade is destroyed, and we can just quickly forticate some house,” suggested Clay.

Happily nodding along, Mia stopped asking questions. “Yes, that sounds lovely, I will get my things.”

******

Clay decided to settle on a house in the southern rear of the village. It was a single-floored house with a small basement, so he half-heartedly turned the wooden interior into planks to barricade the windows.

It was messy and quick, but sufficient for obstructing the vision and hindering the beasts for the mere moments he intended for it to hold. The basement had an exit which directly lead to the outside, in case they were overrun.

The idea was to send Mia back to Churchville into the heart of the poisonous territory when the worst case scenario came into being. Well, he just had to survive. What is one more night after all?

Looking at the makeshift leather armor on his body, his smile stiffened. They were just prototypes he never got around to finishing, they were not properly tanned or had the layers he normally deemed sufficient, but he figured it was still better than nothing.

Fumbling around his belt, he was caught by surprise as Mia suddenly stepped through the door frame and asked, “Are you done with the fortifications?”

Acting as if he was straightening his belt, he smiled, “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good then finally go to bed, you need to be rested for tonight.” Seeing that Clay was about to say something, she raised a brow. “I don’t want to hear any more excuses like, ‘preparation’, or more ‘fortification’, you are going to bed… Now!”

Raising his hand in defeat, he got comfortable on the couch before closing his eyes for a moment to think, but before he could hold another thought he was gone and fast asleep.