The Shadow beast apparently didn't care if it's opponent had a weapon or not, something which became clear when it threw itself claws first at Fen's face. With nothing left to use but his fists, he lunged forward and thrust his hand upwards to punch the beast's hopefully weaker stomach.
Well... it certainly was NOT weaker than the rest of it.
The shadow fur, or whatever it was, wasn't like normal flesh and contracted in on itself when his fist made contact. His hand was sucked in like it had just hit wet sand, and to make matters worse Fen was certain that he hadn't actually hit anything important. It was if the fur was following his fist's trajectory and pushed the vulnerable flesh out of the way. The Shadow was by no means ethereal, but it's body wasn't normal.
Fen immediately withdrew his hand and continued his movement to slide underneath the beast's jump, checking his hand for wounds while keeping the Shadow in his vision. And it was good that he did so, because black veins started to run up and down his fingers, slowly spreading down his arm. They weren't painful though. They felt more like needles of ice pricking his hand and numbing it, but he sent a wave of Vital energy just in case it was something dangerous.
His senses told him that the energy was feeding on the natural Vital energy that his body produced, using it to propagate and spread, so the next logical course of action was to actively take control of his Vitality and use it to remove the black energy, either by overwhelming it's ability to propagate or by forming a wall of Vital energy and pushing it out of his body.
But much to his shock, his Vitality didn't even slow down the rate at which the black veins infected his arm and actually sped up the process, stealing the energy from his control and assimilating it into itself to grow even further down his arm. His attempts to send more Vital energy than it could assimilate failed, and the black energy simply gobbled up everything that he sent to it with greed.
"Har har har..." Three grunts came from the wolf, and it took him a moment to realize that it was laughing at his attempt to cleanse the black energy from his body.
Gritting his teeth, Fen stopped the circulation of energy to his right hand, forcibly shutting down even the natural flow of Vitality. By doing so he'd essentially be cutting off the blood flow from his hand, but it was better than letting the black poison spread even more when he didn't fully understand what it did. Besides, Fen doubted that it would let it's host, in this case his hand, die from lack of natural energy.
Although he wouldn't be able to use that hand temporarily, at least the infection wouldn't spread any more. His mind worked quickly, realizing that something must have happened to the wolf beast now that it had this black energy weapon.
In the previous fight that Fen had with it, he had used his arms to snap it's legs and force it away but he wasn't infected with this poison then, which could only mean that it had somehow upgraded from then, but who could be supporting it within the facility?
Was it the Wolves, that Chosen family?
Archon Ellora was the one to connect the wolf monster to that family within the Foundation when he first encountered it, but what was their goal? To kill him? No, that couldn't be it, otherwise the beast wouldn't be sitting quietly right now. Wait, sitting?
After stopping the circulation of energy in his hand Fen focused fully on the the beast in question, only now realizing that it was passively sitting still in the facility corridor. The crude laugh was the only sound it made after lunging towards him in the beginning. Now it was just silently staring at him, all four of it's blue eyes focused on him.
Narrowing his eyes, Fen slowly got up from his lowered stance and slowly inched his left hand behind his back to where he kept his short sword. Not to use it, of course, his weapon was far too damaged to be of any use except for testing something...
As his fingers touched the grip of the weapon, a fierce growl erupted from the Shadow's throat, just Fen expected. It's fur puffed up and started whipping around it's body violently. But when his hand released the grip of his sword it stopped growling and relaxed again.
Frowning, Fen tried something else to confirm his guess. He raised his fist again into a fighting stance and the Shadow once again started growling at him, this time taking a threatening step forward after getting up from its sitting position. The Shadow only stopped walking when he lowered his hand back to his side.
"...What do you want from me?" He asked, not really expecting an answer but also not knowing what to do if he didn't get one. It obviously wasn't interested in fighting him, but what else could the Wolves family want from him? An autograph?
The Shadow stared at him for a moment, tilting it's head to the side as if listening to something. For a moment Fen really did expect it to open it's mouth and start speaking, but then, it's glowing blue eyes flashed before a screen of glowing Mana appeared in front of him, almost the exact same as the interface's screen. A little disappointed to see that he wouldn't be able to see a talking wolf, Fen shifted his eyes to the screen.
On the screen were an old man and woman, both of whom looked well into their sixties. They were dressed in a fancy black suit and white dress respectively, with piercing blue eyes that looked as if they could get into a staring competition with the Void, and win. The man's hair was styled to slick back and then to the sides, with neatly shaven white beard covering his sharp cheekbones. The woman's hair was tied back into a complex bun that hurt Fen's brain just looking at it; all his experience with helping his little sister with her hair came to naught just trying to decipher how the intricate mass of hair was designed. It looked like a rose flower, albeit one made of white silky hair.
Although the two of them did indeed look old, it wasn't from their skin. There were no wrinkles on their faces and if it wasn't for the aura of wisdom and experience that surrounded them, then Fen would have believed them to be in their thirties, maybe even their late twenties.
[Fen Altairus. It's been too long since we've wanted to get into contact with you.] The woman spoke in a majestic and clear voice, her tone a clear indication that she took lessons on etiquette.
"Who are you?" Not caring about appearances Fen cut to chase, wanting to know who the people who sent this Shadow monster were. His lack of formality didn't seem to please the two well-dressed people as a tight frown clouded their expression. Though strangely enough, the frown didn't create any wrinkles on their face and was only manifested through their lips using some strange facial technique.
[...Straightforward. My son might like you.] As if their previous frowns never existed, now a smile graced their faces and somehow lit up the corridor with their majesty... until Fen realized that two of the Shadow's eyes were glowing with yellow light to create the 'majestic' effect. [Even if you don't know who we are specifically, is it same to assume you at least know who we are as a group?]
Fen nodded impatiently. "You're a part of the Wolves, whatever that means."
[Quick on the uptake, marvelous.] The woman clasped the man's hand on the screen. [Fen, me and my husband are approaching you because our faction within the Foundation is inherently different than the other factions that the Chosen align themselves within the Program. To be frank, well, we don't care that you killed one of our members.] A light chuckle came through the screen, and although the laugh was anything but disgusting Fen found himself curling his lips unconsciously.
Their attitude towards their own members wasn't the only thing that Fen found appalling, their fake majesty was just as creepy and weird. Even when they laughed, they covered their mouths but their eyes didn't react at all, as if their mouth was the only thing that was alive.
[We want you to join us. It is the Wolves' unique ideology to recruit strong members, especially those that have already proven their strength by killing one of us. What you did was quite the accomplishment, Fen.] Their faces once again smoothed over like glass, but this time it was the bearded man who spoke. [After barely qualifying to become a Stage one Knight, you killed Edmond Holding who was notorious for achieving Stage three of Magehood in just twenty years. You can imagine our surprise when we were informed of his death in the Task.] The man said dryly before his mouth fixed itself back into a (fake) smile.
"So, what, you want me to join your faction or something?" He raised his eyebrow at the ridiculous claim. For one, their Shadow wolf certainly wasn't trying to recruit him in their first encounter. Second, who said that he even wanted to join an organization in the first place?
'The first, and hopefully last experience I will ever have in an organization is with this damned Virtue Procural Foundation, or whatever the fuck their name was.' Not only were they perfectly okay with killing people like Gray, which angered him beyond reasoning, but they were also filled with people WAY past the limit of insane people. It was if they were trying to recruit mentally unstable people.
"Thanks for the offer, but I don't think that you're the right fit for someone like me," Fen politely declined in advance. The odds were just way too high that the Wolves were filled with people like Ellora, Yor, Raisen, Edmond, the person in charge of his Initiation, yada yada ya... The list could go on forever, and that was just the people that he knew about. Combined with his luck, which wasn't even that high in the first place, then there was a guarantee that this 'faction' was crazy.
But hey, if that wasn't enough justification for his refusal, Fen also didn't forget about his Death Mark. The damned thing always came into play at the WORST moments, so of fucking course he was going to decline.
The oh-so-majestic smile deformed entirely into a smirk that spread all the way to the man's eyes, just as Fen felt his mind crumble. While he was distracted by their make curtesy and their 'offer', the black energy had spread all the way up to his arm, and was nearing dangerously close to his vital areas.
"Oh, shit-"
Scratch, that, it already reached his heart.
[Who said you had a choice?] Fen had met very bad people, but never had he ever heard a voice so sinister, other than his imposter back on Earth.
***
When he came to, there were many more Shadow-whatevers around him. There were four Shadows in total, with the familiar Shadow that poisoned him and the other monster with shattered legs growling at him. The other two didn't resemble wolves at all, with one standing on two legs and the other with eight. Standing at the same height as him, the Shadow with two legs had rippling fur up and down it's body, and resembled what a transformed werewolf would look like if they existed.
The other with eight legs still had the body and head of a wolf, but was much bigger than the two Shadows that Fen first met.
"So you guy's are different..." Fen hiccupped, "I thought it was something like that. No way that weak bastard grew poison like that."
The bastard in question growled and snapped a bite at his leg, tearing off a sizeable chunk of flesh from his thigh. Fen groaned in pain, suddenly feeling much more thankful that his senses were numbed by whatever drug had invaded his body. If his senses were restored, he might've actually screamed in pain.
The pain only reminded him that he had been holding off of training his pain tolerance training. Well he'd been busy with other stuff for a while, like going to Lessons, practicing and sparring with Qin and Gray, talking with Dey... He didn't exactly have a whole lot of free time, even though he'd practically given up all his sleep already.
For the sake of not calling them the same name, Fen named the Shadow that bit his leg One. The monster with the poison became Two, because Fen met him after the first one. For the final two, the one that looked like a werewolf and the massive wolf with eight legs... Seeing that he met them at the same time, he couldn't name them after numbers like with the other two monsters, but actual names seemed too polite for monsters that kidnapped him.
Fuck it, Werewolf and Big Wolf.
While he was mentally naming them, Fen looked around the room for anything he could use to escape, also noticing that his limbs were chained with a thick metal. Chains were attached to his hands, bolted to a wall, while his legs were left free. He still had on his black Opfer uniform, but there were holes where the Shadows had bitten off some chunks.
The rest of the room was kept in the dark, with barely any lighting even from the black energy veins on the walls. Though, the familiar sight of the veins faint glow told him that he was still inside the facility. Looking at his arm, it seemed that the black poison had completely disappeared- it was either a temporary kind of poison, or his enhanced body might've already dealt with it while he was still unconscious. Either way, it meant that his body was topped off with Vital energy and ready to fight.
Tensing his legs and bracing against the floor, Fen sent a flood of Vitality to his arms and chest and pulled against the chains restricting him, tearing them from the wall as his strength increased. With a roar emanating from his mouth, he charged the weaker Shadow, One, while the chains still dragged behind his arms.
The sound of his fist as it punched through the monster's head was deafening, and while the first blow wasn't enough to kill it, the second and third were more than enough to send the monster flying into the wall. It seemed that his attack took the Shadows by surprise, as the other three were stunned into inaction by the forceful attack.
"OOOAH!" Fen roared, his eyes were wild, glancing from Two to Werewolf to Big Wolf, his body itching to hit something. His movement were fueled by rage and anger from being dragged against his will to this part of the facility. Now that he the perfect opportunity to deal with his stress, who was going to refuse him?
He was supposed to hide his true strength? Hide his Vitul nature? Why would he have to hide if there weren't any witnesses? Who would report him? The dead couldn't speak, and neither would the living once Fen was done with them.