<~> CHAPTER 66 - HELENA

I followed the sparks of the guiding rod through the doors of an operating theatre, the ceiling was lit with stars like a planetarium. I only had a few fleeting moments to look at the shining dots before wolves started pouring over the railing surrounding the room and running at me with their bright white eyes. Thirty-two of them were running at me if the same pattern still held. I had intended to run back to the door I had come from and fight them one by one, but the door had turned into a solid wall without me noticing. I growled and turned back to the crowd. I was happy to have a wall at my back if nothing else.

Long minutes passed by as I fought what started to feel like an endless horde. I was blinded, I couldn't smell anything but lemon cleaner, and now even my hearing was impeded by the constant noises of machinery and the out-of-sync beeping of heart rate monitors and air pumps. One by one by one I killed the horde of them. By the end, I was battered and bruised up, with shallow cuts and tears all over my body. My stomach growled now too after my regeneration cleared away all of the damage I had taken. I would have to start carrying monster meat with me, or maybe find something to substitute it with when it was too inconvenient to eat in the future.

I looked down at the dead guiding rod in my hand. It didn't seem worth lighting another one. I was pretty sure it was just leading me to shortcuts and having to fight an ever-growing horde of wolves every time hardly felt worth it. I decided against it and walked through the strange room I had found myself in. I stared up at the stars painted on the ceiling. They looked completely random with constellation marks linking seemingly disparate stars together. Either this was yet another thing that was gibberish or these were constellations from this world, not mine. That seemed unlikely since this place was supposed to be taken from my memories.

The moment I opened the next door I could already see the horde of wolves running at me from down the hallway. There were so many spilling around the corner that the throng looked endless. Their count would be sixty-four by now if they were indeed doubling still. I wasn't going to wait around to count them, my whiskers were telling me to run the opposite way.

My heart thumped in my chest as I darted through the hallways. As I ran, the heart rate monitors were beeping like crazy. If these had been connected to real people, they would all be having panic attacks right now. The walls were now crumbling and falling apart revealing more and more of the mountain I had first been hunted by the umber wolf on. I glanced behind me, I was still ahead of the giant flood of wolves but they were keeping up. They looked like an endless stream, stretching so far back that I wasn't sure sixty-four was accurate anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if another one-hundred twenty-eight had joined them, they looked unending. The legs that I had bemoaned receiving were the only reason why I was able to maintain this endless sprint and stay ahead of them.

The walls fell away until I was running along sheer cliffs instead of hallways. Rather than walls, there were just drops into the abyss instead. The airflow was still pointing me in the right direction but it wasn't necessary anymore, there was only one path forward. The only saving grace of all this was that in the brief moments, I felt safe enough to peer behind me, I could see many of the wolves falling down the holes on either side of us as they fought each other to catch up with me. Randomly sprinkled around the cliffs and rocks were more of those annoying heart rate monitors now going so fast the cacophony was giving me a headache.

It was jarring when all of them suddenly flatlined.

I skidded to a stop, nearly tripping over myself in my momentum when I reached a large circular plateau. In the center of it was a... man. The... man stood up and looked at me with the piercing white eyes of an umber hound. He was recognizable immediately and was wearing the same thing the last time I had ever seen him. The ripped and faded hospital gown fluttered in the wind as the image of my dead father stood there silently. I tore my eyes away from... it and looked behind me, the huge horde of wolves was still chasing, they would catch up in less than a minute.

When I turned back to the thing in front of me, its body was deforming, growing larger, bastardizing my father's image. I untied my axe and pulled my shield back to my shoulder. It would be more annoying to fight all the little ones like this, but I would need my weapons to fight the threat in front of me. The thing that took the form of my dad was turning into an umber hound. Just as large as the one I had run from up here on this mountain trail before. I'LL KILL THIS THING DESECRATING HIS MEMORY.

With an uncontained roar of rage, I leapt at the monster ahead of me. I had expected my axe to sweep through the thing like smoke but instead, it bit deep into flesh. A spray of dark blood splashed across my front and it retaliated at the same time. I deflected one of its sharp claws but the other one cut deep into the side of my torso. I had gotten used to pain while fighting and only winced as I leaned into it and took another swing. This time my axe got caught in bone and its arm was twisted at a weird angle. The false umber hound was so much larger than me but it was weak compared to the form it stole!

I lifted my leg and kicked the doppelganger away with all of my strength. My axe tore itself out of the thing's shoulder and launched the monster away from me. Not letting the opening go to waste, I pounced forward and pinned it to the ground with my axe.

I CAN SMELL IT!

I sunk my teeth and claws into its chest and ripped it open. The monster was still struggling, kicking and gnashing and clawing at me as I swallowed bite after bite of its meat. The taste was rich and flavorful, the strongest flavor I had eaten since the minotaur. This thing must be another boss. I could feel its weak teeth and claws gnawing at me but I ignored its weak flailing as I ate him alive, hunting for my prey. Soon the giant horde of wolves swarmed me and I just ignored them too as I continued to eat. The boss's mana rich meat easily gave me more than enough energy to regenerate through anything these wolves or this pathetic boss could throw at me. They all struggled to drag me off of the monster as I just tore it apart and continued to eat it from the inside out.

I FOUND IT

My teeth bit into the heart and my eyes fluttered in ecstasy as I felt a rush of power tear through my body like a sledgehammer. I was completely stunned by the rush of power and pleasure that coursed through my body, even as the mass of wolves continued to try and rip me to shreds. The magic formed a large knot of energy in my core. It felt bigger and subtly different than the other one I had picked up from the misty wolves.

Much too caught up in the sensation I didn't hesitate to grab the knot of mana and activate it. The threads unraveled and flooded my entire body with the magic that had collected there and I felt it asking for something else. My mind raced through my hazy memories and I reached for the first thing that came to mind, my favorite flavor.

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I felt a ripple go through my entire body as I felt something change. My body felt strange, wet, cold. My smoky fur faded away, retreating into my skin as it took on a different texture. Slime coated my body and I felt something wet fill my mouth like drool. My sense of smell changed completely and my eyesight shifted as well, yet I could still see the glowing brightness now reflecting off of my skin.

I gathered all of the mucus in my mouth and sprayed it at the crowd of monsters still trying to slash at my more sensitive skin. The ones nearest to me froze instantly and shattered. The ones behind them tried to run past the shards of ice and only got caught in my icy breath faster. I spun and whipped my tail while claiming my territory with my ice. I spread my mucus on the ground and watched the wolves slip and fall in it, losing limbs, tails, or even their heads when they met the ice magic filled slime. Eventually, the crowd of wolves were all reduced to shards of ice as I stood atop the corpse of the monster that DARED to steal my dad's face.

A headache was coming on so I released the knot of power I was gripping tightly inside of me. Like a spring, the mana coiled back in on itself depleted but not entirely empty. I managed to revert the magic before it put too much stress on my body. Now in my wolf form again I tore into the meat under me to refill my expended mana. The magic rich meat tasted amazing after exerting myself so much. The scratches, aches, and bruises faded away as I ate my fill. When I finally stood up and looked down at the thing I had eaten, it was nothing but a black blob. It didn't look anything like my dad or the umber wolf anymore.

The night around me flashed to bright white and I had to cover my eyes as they adjusted to the sudden change. I was in a circular boss room now, the walls the same sterile white they had been when I first entered this place. My whiskers twitched and I looked over at the door on the far wall. It looks like I can finally get out of here.

I shifted back to my human form and retrieved my axe. I was tired now. This fight had taken a lot out of me. My instincts were in a constant war with my conscious mind and it left me exhausted and wrung out. I had gotten quite the amazing ability but I wasn't ready to think about the implications of it yet. I just hoped my friends wouldn't mind waiting for me to recover.

I dragged myself to the door and leaned heavily on it before opening it and dragging myself through. I slowly traveled down a few more long corridors of the plain white walls while following the airflow on my whiskers again. Eventually, I found a door that looked similar to the one we entered this floor through, it was the safe room on this side. I took a breath before pushing the door open, hoping for the best.

Most of my friends were here, looking just as exhausted as I was. Maxwell and Aria were asleep, the only one awake was Piper. I closed the door behind me and plopped myself against the wall on the other side of Maxwell.

"Luna isn't here yet?" I asked.

"No, Maxwell said that the two of them were the last ones to get separated," Piper replied.

I nodded and slumped down a little, on the verge of passing out already. "Was this floor as shitty for you as it was for me?"

"...yes," was all she replied back.

I turned to her with a hint of worry. "Do... you want to talk about it?" I asked.

"No... This trial is tough on everyone. It can take a toll on you. But no, I would rather not think about it at all."

I grimaced. "The fucking dungeon made me kill a monster that looked like my dad."

Piper was quiet for a few moments before she replied. "Was it hard to kill him? Er, ...."

I didn't understand the last word she used but I just shook my head. "It didn't make the monster harder to kill... it just made me angry. The last time I saw my dad he was in the... uh, at the healers. He died of a... brain... explosion... no, brain bleed?" I had no idea how to even begin to explain a stroke or an aneurysm to her. I considered using the rings but she looked tired, I didn't want to use her mana up if she was tapped out.

"What did the floor look like to you?" she asked.

I laughed. "I don't think I can explain it without the rings. Too many words I just don't know. It was weird though, made no sense."

Piper nodded. "Better wait to explain it later then."

"Yeah," I replied with a sigh.

Piper looked over and studied me somberly. "If you need to rest you can. You look tired and I'm already planning on staying up while waiting for Luna. I can never sleep after this floor until I see her- er, everyone safe again..."

I looked up at the plain ceiling. "Will you wake me when Luna gets back? I want to wait up for her... but I think I'm going to pass out whether I like it or not."

"Sure. Get some rest. I'll wake you when she gets back," Piper promised.

I smiled and slid all the way down to my back. "Thanks Piper. I'll do that." I closed my eyes and was asleep in seconds.