"Oh shit!" Where the first two words that came out of my mouth after days of silence. Well I was super surprised, as worried that I would now get mauled again. This must be what PTSD feels like. Slamming into the ground, the monster under me struggled to get up, wriggling without any success.
"Well, this is embarrassing. Let's take this slow, ok?" I asked the rest of the group, struggling to get up off the wriggling dog under me. The group, who was just recovering from the shock of a strange creature that crushed two of its members, Seemed to shake off their initial shock and started to advance on me slowly, sort of like the dogs back in my original world.
"Hold on guy, just wait for me, will ya? Let me get myself situated before our exchange." I casually said, trying but failing to flip myself off of my back and onto my feet. After a couple tries, and accidentally crushing the skull of the beast under me with the flat of my palm, I finally did it!
"Alright, punks. This is for almost killing me a while back. Prepare to be amazed!" I said cockily, which I would have to say is not unfounded, as I could kill them before, and now I have at least twenty times the power I did before.
Crouching down close to the ground, I dug in my right back foot and launched myself at the first Hounds, which coincidentally jumped at me as well. Left foot straight as a board, the connection of the forehead of the Altar Hound and my sledgehammer of a foot created a massive squishing sound. With my foot liquifying the head and brain of the oversized dog, rotten meat and flash sprayed everywhere.
Falling back on the ground, I landed on both feet, hands up in a boxers stance. "Alright, who's next?" I shouted, daring the rest of them to come. Their were a total of 13 excluding the two I just crushed into breakfast food, the one I liquidized with my foot, and the one that was just unlucky.
Not being the smartest of creatures, they all rushed at me full force while I was readying up my attack plan. My plan was to encase my fists in meta spikes, increase the density, and use a constant flow of
This would give the effect of the heads or body parts of the hounds explode upon impact, while in reality the body or head would get stuck on the spikes that will instantaneously protrude out of my hands upon impact, while simultaneously charging the spot my hand is stuck to with concentrated mana waves, thus exploding the targeted area.
This has also been proven to work as I did this during the journey of searching for new monsters, although it was much less effective than I described. But with this much practice now, I can definitely pull it off. Readying my stance, the first of the 13 live Hounds pounced onto me, maw open and drool flying.
Just like previously, it soared at me full throttle. The only thing that was different was two others trying to do a pincer maneuver from either side of me. "Oh, so that's how you wanna play it, huh? You guys are pretty smart, I'll give you that, but you guys are nothing compared to me. I think it is about time for you guys to learn that numbers are not everything." I said, not too loudly, but not too softly, either.
Apparently not getting the memo, the one coming from the front almost got a bite in on my chest, if it was not for the right hook flying into its sternum, which after 1 second exploded with a whoosh of blood and Mana. "Wow, this thing really works! This is great. Now I don't have to worry alot about close quarter combats!
"As long as I can just graze the opponent, then their will be severe damage, or even death if their level is low. Anyways, time to finish your small fries off." This explosion put a halt in the steps of the two trying to trap me on either side, while three more were coming in from the front.
With the test over, I can now go as wild as I want! Launching into the air with a spin, I body slammed the one to my right with my chest, flattening it. Doing an explosive pushup, I re-launched myself back up and sent two consecutive punches to another pair of dogs, unaware of my presence until too late. Four down, nine to go. Landing in a superhero kneeling position, I shook off all the smelly flesh off my hands.
"This is just too easy now. Why didn't I think of doing this sooner? Anyways, that is not important now. What is important is now I know that these stupid dogs won't be of any trouble to me anymore." I said, grinning. By how the dogs were shaking, I could see that they were having second thoughts about attacking me.
"Too slow!" I pummeled the closest hound with an overhand swing, splattering viscera and pieces of spinal column everywhere. One even managed to pierce another Hound's eye, blinding it. Not wanting to waste time, I jumped onto the blinded dog, riding it like a bull. "Woooooo!" I shouted, swinging from side to side of the back of the poor beast.
Steering its head towards another group of three Alter Hounds trying to run away from me, it ran full speed towards dogs, eventually crashing into them. Snapping the blind dog's neck, I front flipped off of it and roundhouse kicked two Hounds in the face, sending them flying horizontally into a tree with a resounding crack, and were not getting back up. Eight down, five to go.
Accidentally flying right over the third member of the small group, I rolled to a stop on the ground and turned around fast, only to see a huge mouth in front of me. In a split second, I de-materialized my head right as I did an uppercut, hoping to hit the Hound while it passed over me. At risk, I know, but one that I was pretty sure would work. Feeling a connection with my fist and a body, I immediately released a compressed mana wave, relieving the pressure on my fist, which now felt sticky and warm.
Cautiously reforming Gallenes head, their was thankfully nothing obstructing the materialization. Opening my new eyes, I looked down at the hand that I used to kill the dog jumping at me and found that my fist went right through it, and the Hound was hanging limp in the crook of my elbow, tongue lolled.
Disgusted, I ripped the Alter Hound off of my arm and tossed it aside. With that one gone, there are only four left to go. The only problem with that is that all of them just up and left! "This is a pain in the ass. I guess it's just cat and mouse now, only their are four of them and one of me. Anyways, time to follow the trail they so conveniently left me to find."