The wolf looked at me as we circled one another, gauging just how much effort it would take to kill one another. Well in truth that's my case, I can't quite speak for the giant canid that was right in front of me, but I can only really assume.
That and it was circling ME. Yes I haven't even gotten out of the vines that were still in my body. My mind went into overdrive to find a good plan to get out of them. It was getting closer and closer, licking it's lips like I was the next meal on its list. Honestly, that's probably how it looked at me.
The vines were still keeping me stuck right on the spot while I did my best not to get killed. I closed my eyes, got annoyed and sighed, then subsequently bent over and ripped my foot off of it's joint.
The pain shocked both me and the wolf as I bit my lip and tan over underneath the giant canid. It regained it's focus and went back to commanding even more of the vines to get me. The blood was coming out of my fresh wound, and I didn't intend to keep the fight going for long.
There was a limit to how much damage I considered workable whenever I fight, this, this was one where the fight isn't going to last all that long. The blood seeped out slowly as I was already on all threes again.
I was fighting like a dog again. God fucking damn the irony of all of this. The wolf took a couple steps back as it casted out even more vines to ensnare me, but this time I was working with three limbs on the ground, which, sadly to say, I was starting to get used to fighting like this.
The vines came out to wrap me with their spikes as I made myself scarce around them, prompting them to stay and wave themselves in the air. The wolf snarled again at me while I took in the limited info from all of this.
Vines, definitely came from some form of nature magic. Was it an immediate cast that had no extra cost to it? Was it one that continuously drained mana from the caster? Was it some mix between the two of them? The answer, was complex. The wolf saw that I was watching it's moves and howled into the air, which confused me since it wasn't nighttime.
The vines however, reacted oddly to them as they shrivelled and wilted at an accelerated rate, which made things even weirder and made me even more worried than I would have ever wanted to be.
The green glowing lines on the wolf slowly got even more prominent as it growled at me, staring me down with even more vigor than what it ever began with. 'Are you having a giggle right no-' My thoughts cut out immediately as it dashed right in front of me, using its tail, which somehow had become covered in bark, to swing me off to the side and hit a tree.
The wind was out of my chest, and my eyes were starting to get very very red. The thing stood with as much majesty as it could get as I clicked my tongue and pulled out my axe.
It seemed to narrow it's vision as I approached it slowly, trying my best to ignore the pain of having to step with only a single foot, with the other one getting covered in dirt and detritus from the scuffle we were in.
"HAH!"
Shouting once didn't immediate seem to faze the creature, but that wasn't the plan I had at that moment. The plan that I was trying to cook up can best be described as "catch it off guard and try my best to rip it's guts out with the most vitriol and bloodlust as my body could allow me".
Was it a good plan? Absolutely not. Are there better options, I am more than certain that there actually are, and yet none of them are coming to mind all that well. This was going to be one hell of a fight, and I'm already more damaged than the canid.
Dashing to the left, it immediately began to back up in a dust cloud and stood right near another tree, which I didn't immediately know what I would make of it, but I would get to that if something pops up.
It looked behind for a split second before it lowered itself again, and jumped upwards into the sky. These damned animals are trying their best to be the next possible quarry in multiple game series.
Leaves rustled all around me as they flew over to the wolf, cutting me in the process from the sheer number of these things. I cursed even further when I saw that there were even two big branches that were flying upwards and lodging themselves into the shoulders of the wolf, all while it stared down at me, before a cocoon of leaves and foliage covered it.
"YOU HAVE TO BE RIPPING MY NUTS OFF, ARE YOU JOKING ME? A PHASE TWO WHEN IT HASN'T EVEN TAKEN A TICK OF DAMAGE DAMMIT?!"
Can you feel the anger? Good, soon you'll start to feel the pain. The cocoon began to pulsate with green beams of light coming out of the various holes in it.
The ground that got hit by them seemed to simultaneously grow and wilt all at the same time as the cocoon glowed pure green before it bursted out in a shower of leaves that I did my best to try and cover myself from.
My arms bled and flayed, I looked above and just let my face go completely sour and dour. It was flapping wings of pure leaves, as the green lines that made them all the more powerful flowed through the same wings that seemed to keep itself up.
The first thing that immediately came to my mind was 'fuck this' and I immediately did my best to dodge all that the giant beast threw at me. There were entire columns of foliage falling out of the trees around us as the wolf above consistently howled while they chased me all around the clearing. Leaf Tornados, it would be funny if it was fake. Or not deadly. Or not real, I know that this sort of phenomena is more than common within the world, but by Jove, the rate at which they were spinning and coming into existence was best described as painful.
Painful for the ones that were in the way of them, more or less. But for the wolf? There was something that was odd about it. A tell, a little clue to making sure that it was dead and I was alive.
It lowered itself as leaves seemed to fall consistently off of its wings, but they always got replaced by even more leaves. Except, whenever it was casting more magical mania at me.
I couldn't help but smile at the new little tidbit of knowledge that was going to prove useful as soon as I could possibly get to the thing.
The leaves were strangely going orange whenever the wolf was casting any magic. As if it took a little bit of the magic from nature to cast it's magic. This is more than interesting enough for me to make use of.
That is, if I even have the power to actually pull something against it. So I waited for as many of them to happen, barely getting more and more cuts from the sheer amount of the leaf pillars, or should I call them leaf tornadoes?
The latter made more sense, so I dashed as quickly as I could around all of them, all the while doing my best to catch the giant wolf off guard. And yet the bastard noticed that I was near it's area, so it pulled a fast one and made some of the tornados go nearer to itself.
Now it was covered in all of it's areas. That is, if it was counting on the idea that I wasn't willing to get hurt. So you already got the idea of what exactly is it that I did. I ran as quick as I could with my single leg, and with one of my arms shredded to the bone.
And I dove right into a point between two tornadoes to get the least damage.
Simply put, it wasn't all that great and trying to be in between two tornadoes that were seemingly spinning in opposite to each other was going to do some Looney Tunes bullcrap.
It shredded off most of my flesh as I came out and stared above at the wolf that cried child.
It looked down at me as the leaves that fell started to get even lesser and lesser. It flapped them all once and it was then that I realized that I was played just as much as I was trying to play it.
I crouched down and tried to jump as high as I could, but without most of the muscle within my body and being more than a skeleton with chunky bits and bobs all across me, I was assured in the fact that I was indubitably fucked.
And the tornadoes got even closer and closer and closer, threatening to finish off the job, with my eyes getting very close to being gone as well. I dug.
That's right, out of all that desperation, I dug as deep as I could as my very skeleton seemed to slowly but surely morph as well to allow me even more ability to go at it.
Was it a stupid idea to dig down when more than four tornadoes was going to tear you asunder and absolutely kill you? Well, not necessarily. It just shouldn't be ever done I nthe same way as I was doing it, because chances are, it's never going to work twice. The wolf just glared at me as the desperation within my body was back again.
Oh hello there old friend, it's been a while eh? Oh what's that? It's just been a couple hours since all this kerfuffle ever began? Oh that's nonsense, and you know it. There's no such thing as an issue like this.
The little bit of me having a minor breakdown over with, I kept digging up until I could start to feel even more stone in the ground around me. I decided to move over a couple meters to try and get out of the encirclement of tornadoes, and I dug up a little bit.
When I could almost start to hear the little pitter patter of feet above me, I balled up what little bit of me was left and punched at the ground above. It was a little tougher than what I anticipated, but I kept going, making more than sure than what I was doing was going to be worth it.
And worth it it was indeed, because I was right behind the wolf and it was still turning around. My mind even faster as I latched onto its left hind leg and started to maul it as hard as I could.
It began to squeak in pain when I was working on its leg, up until I felt something sharp nice and lodged into my spine. I could swear, that I was now beginning to be a dog person after all of this.
The little fucker then bucked and threw me off again, with me digging my finger bones right in the ground. It looked at its leg and licked it once, wincing a little before it looked at me with even more contempt than I would have anticipated for it to be capable of.
Though to be fair, these are animals that could easily gain the access to make contact with my brain, so I'll just keep quiet on that end for a bit.
Now I was just on the ground, completely and utterly fucked in all sense of the word, with a giant wolf that only sustained a small amount of damage in comparison to the things that it did to me.
I cursed a little in my mind as it then opened up it's mouth. I could try to burrow down again, but how many times will that trick work? My answer for that question? Up until I've exhausted it, which I'll never know until I get to that point.
I dug down as fast as I could, since my lower body was more or less useless in the scenario, it didn't really prove to be a detriment when I was digging.
The dirt got onto my bones again as I kept on going deeper and deeper, only this time, something was odder about the soil. It was more rooty and seemed like I was trying go to through rougher patches in the dirt.
That's when I realized that since it was back on the ground.
'Oh you have to be kidding.'
I quickly moved upwards and bursted out of the ground again, seeing that the wolf was right above where I was and growled at me again. There were vines that kept it's wounded leg nice and tightened to lessen the blood loss and possibly let it heal.
'So it's spell book contains things for when it's above the ground, and things for when it's on the ground. Clever boy.'
I quickly scrambled over to get to the underbelly of the foul beast as I quickly began to claw at it.
It constantly tried to get some sharper thorny roots to try and take me off of the area, but I was able to get away from a good portion of them, allowing myself to do more damage since they too were piercing the wolf and giving it more agony.
"BUT NOT CLEVER ENOUGH YOU MANGY MUTT!"
My words reverberated throughout the vicinity of the clearing as I finally struck gold within the beast. Or as it could be better described, I struck red. It's intestines were exposed as I yanked as much of the digestive flesh out through the hole that I made from it. It kept howling in pain as it slowly tumbled to it's side and gave me a bit of reprieve.
I was exhausted, suffering, and was more than certain that I would end up losing another life at this moment. But this, this sight where I've finally gotten my chance of goring another enemy down to the point where they lie upon the ground either looking for mercy or for the release of their mortal shackles?
*crunch*
It was euphorically invigorating. I bashed the skull of the wolf as hard as I could with a stone and fell down to the ground, heaving and wheezing, letting the pain finally wash over me as darkness took me once more.
'Now that, that was a fight.'