The wolves emerge from the trees pouring through the gaps between the trees like water, quickly surrounding me and starting to circle, as if waiting for something. I hold my spear and try to keep the wild animals in sight, feeling the adrenaline course through my body and I feel some excitement bleed through the dread and fear I can feel, making my body shake slightly before I clamp down on my emotions and I maintain a strong grip on my spear.

If I am going to die, I am going to make sure that I kill these things first.

Just as I was about to make my move, I hear a crackle of fire and smelled the acid scent of smoke rising through the trees, coming from behind me. I twist around quickly to see the flickering of a blue flame dancing between the trees and the glowing aura of the monster that I had seen the previous night. He walked carefully to me, navigating through the trees with ease despite its humongous frame, not slowing as I pointed my handcrafted spear at its head and entering into the circle of wolves.

“So, that's how it is.” I say out loud, recognizing the clear challenge of the monstrous wolf in front of me. It growled at me, teeth bared and its deep red gums visible as it looked at me. Single combat with that thing might be near suicidal, but it might give me better odds than a full attack from all sides against the other wolves.

I ready my stance, remembering every video on combat and spear fighting I have ever seen and adjusting my stance into a low definitive one, keeping myself braced against the ground. It wasn't a second too late as the wolf lunged itself at me, the flame of its body trailing through the air and time seemed to slow down. Power like I had never felt before started coursing through my body, I moved quickly not wasting a single nanosecond as my mind started hazing over from the adrenaline high. There was nothing other than me and the wolf.

I let out a battle cry, letting out all the air in my lungs as I shouted to the heavens with raw emotion that I kept bottled up for years. All that time kept in a white room all by myself, let slip away to fuel my raw anger and my body’s movements. I leaped to the side and thrust my spear out, catching the beast in the side just below its ribs. The wolf howled into the sky in pain as it fell unsteadily on its paws and I pulled my spear back, sparing a glance at the tip and noticing that along with its black burnt wood, there was blood. Deep red blood.

I grinned savagely as I remembered a quote that had stuck with me through the years, and I let it out with a growl. “If it bleeds-” I started savagely, lunging at the wolf this time, letting my body grow stronger, faster, better. “WE CAN KILL IT!” I howled as I stabbed downwards with strength I had never felt before in all my life, penetrating its skull as it turned its head around to bite at me again, stopping dead as its body collapsed to the ground, the blue flame that had covered its body snuffed out in a moment.

My chest heaved as I watched the spark of life in the wolf's eyes start to wane, finally going out with a quiet growl of hatred as it stared into my eyes and it let out a final breath and died. I grabbed the shaft of the spear and yanked it out of the dead wolf's head quickly, putting my shoe on its head to make it come out quicker and I stood over its body with the adrenaline high starting to peter out.

I watched as a blue ball of light seemed to rocket out of the dead wolf's chest and enter mine, like with the other wolf before and I stood there, letting it happen with my arms stretched wide, welcoming the spirit of the wolf to the space inside of me that I knew it was searching for. It quickly found its place and I felt the emotions of my dead opponent fill my mind and body with more power than I had felt even just a second ago during my adrenaline spike.

I wondered why this was, but I was brought back to reality as howls sounded out around me, coinciding with a sharp pain and a push that nearly knocked me to the ground, all coming from my left arm, causing my mind to go blank as I screamed in pain. I looked at my arm in shock and I saw the face of a wolf attached to my arm. Apparently the pack got bored and decided that I should die.

Well, I wasn't going down that easy! I will kill these monsters if it's the last thing I do. I felt the rush of adrenaline and the feeling of power course through my body again, stronger, more feral. I would kill them all. It wasn't a question anymore. It was fact. None would escape my wrath and they would find themselves wanting in my gaze as they died.

I roared with a primal rage and I swung my spear like a bat, smacking the wolf latched onto my arm in the head and causing it to let go and almost collapse from the blunt force of my spear. Before it could recover from my hit, I shifted the grip on my spear in my right hand and stabbed down at the wolf, embedding it deep into its throat and causing it to start thrashing around as I wrenched it back out to catch the other wolves attack as I saw one of them jump at me while the other ran at my leg.

Fighting through the sharp pain of my left arm, I grasped my spear with both hands and I turned quickly. Catching the incoming wolf missile with the wolf's open and snarling jaw on the shaft of my spear, I diverted the momentum of its leap onto the ground that its buddy just so happened to be on top of as it ran to my leg.

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Both wolves howled as they impacted each other with a smack and I withdrew my spear for a thrust while they were down. Dully I noticed that my arm seemed to feel way less painful than before, but that was not important as I raised up my burnt and bloody spear and thrust it down into the wolves, over and over again thrusting with all my body weight into the mass of fur and teeth, howling in pain in between thrusts before they went quiet.

I kept stabbing at the wolves for a few more seconds before my exhaustion caught up with me and I slumped onto the blood soaked ground and I saw the spirits of the wolves come and join with the other two spirits in my soul space. ‘Huh, soul space seems like a good name for it.’ I thought dully sensing the wolves spirits inside my soul. Sinking into the ground for a second to recover from my battle high.

After a second of rest I sat up, looking myself over. I saw the blood all over my body and couldn't really tell how much of it was mine, but I knew for a fact that my clothes were never going to really recover from the fight. And this is all I have for who knows how long. And I don't have anything to clean them. Or myself.

I sigh as my eyes turn to the bloody scene of my creation all around me through the trees. Seeing the dead wolves laying on the grass soaked through with their blood, I reached a little at the sight. “What happened to me!?” I said with a whimper as I looked around, thinking back on my actions. I have never felt that way before in my life and I wasn't sure what had even triggered it. It had saved my life, but at the same time… What caused it?

‘It must have been the spirits of the wolves…’ I realized. I can feel them even after the fight, they were just as spent even more than I was, but I could feel the residual anger from the wolves and I tensed up for a second before letting it go into the air and I relaxed. “That strength was also probably some kind of boost from the spirits of the wolves…” I said as I lay back down, looking up into the canopy of the forest above me.

I started to get a feel for my body after a while and with that I realized something else that made me quickly turn in confusion to my arm. It wasn't in pain.

I had felt the pain ebb away a little during the last two kills, but I was too battle drunk to notice. But as I examined and wiped off the blood on my arm, I noticed that it was perfectly healed.

As I looked at it in shock, I felt a nudge coming from the soul space and I could feel that the alpha wolf seemed to be communicating with me. It seemed… Comforting? Proud? That was so off putting, I stopped thinking for a second, before I felt the wolf communicating again. Not in words, wolves can't speak after all, but in emotions and intent. He told me that he healed my wounds. “But how?” I asked the alpha in confusion before I felt the wolf telling me that he would show me if I let him.

I battled with myself, but eventually I just sighed and thought to myself that I really had no idea of what was going on, so I picked up the damaged spear and cut a gash onto my forearm with the edge of the spear tip that remained mostly fine.

As I did it, I could feel some sort of energy flowing through my body, like fire flowing through my body. As I felt the energy, it seemed to remind me of something I had felt before, but not quite. It was puzzling, but my mind quickly changed as I felt the effects of the energy flowing through me. It wasn't a bad feeling though and I shivered slightly as I felt the comforting heat pass through me, heading to my arm. When it had reached my arm, I nearly yerked back from shock, but watched what happened carefully.

A flame emerged from the wound, but not just any flame, a blue flame. Like the flame around the alpha’s body. I watched it, breathing fast from the shock as I watched my blood stop flowing from the cut and my flesh start to knit back together. The flame could heal my body!

I laughed in incredulity at what was going on, but I came back to my senses rather quickly. “Ok. Ok. So, the supernatural alpha wolf spirit can heal my body with blue fire.” I said, calming myself and starting to think rationally. There was nothing else I could really do besides accept it and move on. It's the only way to stay alive in situations like these. I can figure out how the whole ‘I have wolf spirits in my soul’ thing later when I have a roof over my head and water in my hand.

God I am thirsty. Ok. Let's do this one more time. Take stock of the situation. What do I have now that I killed the wolves? I look at the area around me, thinking fast now. Resources. I look at the wolf corpses, realizing that they might just be what I need to survive for a few more days. Bone. Meat. Hide/fur. All useful to me right now, so I had better get to work.

I sigh and stand up, feeling sore all over. All muscle pain though. Nothing life threatening. “I always hated this part…” I muttered to myself as I grasped my spear in my hand. I walked over to the nearest corpse that just so happened to be the alpha’s. ‘Huh. Alpha seems like a good name for a wolf.’ I thought to myself before I started to get to work at looting the body.

The minutes slipped away as I worked tirelessly on cleaning the corpse, slicing through the fur and cutting out the parts of animals that I didn't want to eat or use. I extracted several useful things at the same time though. I removed a lot of sinew from the body to be used as cord, like one instructor showed me how to make, I removed the meat in slabs and I deboned the thing as well.

I bundled up the meat carefully into the blood soaked fur, tying it up with the sinew so I could carry it around easily, then I looked over the bones.

For some bones, I immediately saw what I could do with them, but some I doubted I had a use for now and so I packed them away. I could use several of the leg bones for knives or daggers if I gave them an edge, I could use some thinner bones for sewing needles, I could do a lot of things.

Lets get bone carving! I need to finish before night. I don't want to have to fight anything else today.