Andrew's home was located on the outskirts of a small town in northern Alaska, it took about an hour to get to the main town by foot, and a half by car. It had been about a month since he had returned, to prepare for his awakening as "Blessed" he had been going into the forest, practicing exercises and fighting skills that he could remember from memory and relearning how to move and make use of various terrains.
Today was the last day of his supposed training, he had been using the forest near his home, learning to run, climb and navigate, his way through it. He was by no means an expert, but this was the best that could have been achieved in this short time frame.
Andrew moved through the forest as the sun hung in the sky, its warm rays providing comfort against the cold winds that flew through. He had brought his father's hunting rifle and a knife with him just in case. The day itself was still early, as the sun shone threw glistening against the dewdrops that still clung to the trees.
The ground itself was slightly damp as the scent of fallen rain from the night before still hung in the air. Making his way through the forest he was suddenly hit with a cold gust of wind. Unlike the Alaskan cold which he was familiar with, this cold bit at his skin, it was cold in every sense of the word.
Immediately in the direction of the winds, an unknown pressure began to press down on him. His heartbeat quickened as he began to experience a shortness of breath, and his knees began to buckle. Even in this cold Andrew began to feel himself sweat.
Finally responding he chose to quickly move as the cold winds grew stronger. He had swerved from side to side, as his thoughts ran through his mind to find a solution. Whatever that was coming was obviously not some normal animal, and if he were to face this beast he would need to gain every advantage that he could.
Making a quick decision to gain a better vantage, Andrew started to scale one of the trees in the forest. His thoughts raced through his mind, whatever this monster was, it was near impossible for him to fight head-on unawakened, the best bet would be to observe it hidden, from a distance and decide what to do from there.
The blistering cold winds grew stronger as Andrew could feel the presence of the creature moving closer. Quickly he scaled up the tree as high as he could, using its leaves and branches as a form of cover. Finding a sturdy and large branch, he set himself up kneeling on one knee on the branch. Pulling out his already-armed hunting rifle, he controlled his breathing and put the scope to his eye.
With a better view from the treetops, Andrew scans the surroundings using his scope to observe from a distance. In just a second a flash of white catches his eye. Just about 300 meters from his position, there was a small clearing within the forest, through which a small stream ran through. Knelt beside taking a sip of water Andrew spotted a snow-white wolf. Its fur itself seemed to glisten under the sun, shining like flakes of snow, the image of the wolf drinking from the stream itself seemed picturesque.
However, something was wrong, the size of the wolf, even at a distance was too large to call it a wolf. Its height stood at about 1.5 meters its length from head to tail stretched to possibly 3 meters. As Andrew continued to analyze this wolf he noticed something alarming. The surroundings around the wolf seem to have begun freezing. As a wave of frost began to spread from the wolf. Immediately Andrew recognized this beast, a frost wolf, one of the few monsters that evolved from a life form that was already present on Earth. Frost wolves were originally a type of Arctic wolf, they lived in colder and more commonly snowy regions.
When Aether changed the world Arctic wolves evolved into Frost wolves. Frost wolves are known for their speed, ferociousness, and most of all their ability to become semi-impervious to physical attacks, their ranks can range from F to B. When attacked depending on the rank of the frost wolf, they can convert part of their body into crystalized living ice, that possesses a toughness beyond even diamonds. High-rank frost wolves can even convert their entire bodies into this ice and even regrow lost body parts in this state.
Andrew quickly tried to identify the type of frost wolf. From the way the frost affected the surrounding, and its large size it is possible that this may be a mid to high-ranking frost wolf. If this was true then the chances that Andrew could kill such a wolf were slim to none.
As Andrew's mind began to race through possible plans and contingencies, the wolf stopped drinking and lifted its head up, its ears and nose twitched as it tried to pick up on the scents and sounds around it. Just then Andrew noticed something, along the side of its face where its right eye should have been was a gash. A deep gash traveled down the side of its face and replaced where its eye should be, the wound itself still seems quite fresh.
Seeing the gash, Andrew realized something. A high rank even a mid-rank wolf would have been able to quickly recover from such an injury, however this gash hadn't healed. Beyond that, the senses of a high-rank wolf are sharp enough to easily pick a scent or sound kilometers away, which meant that if it was high-ranking, he would have already been caught and killed.
Despite its big size, the wolf was most likely a low-rank frost wolf, which had experienced some sort of mutation. While this gave him a little relief, it still wouldn't be easy to kill such a creature. Even a low-rank frost wolf could easily dispatch an ordinary human, therefore every move he made from here on had to be careful.
His current hunting rifle while possibly able to pierce the wolf wouldn't be enough to kill it, but if capitalized on a weakness such as an already-existent injury, it could be used to more effectively damage the frost wolf.
In and out, Andrew controlled his breathing as he looked down his scope. Lining up his scope with the gash on the right eye of the frost wolf, he took aim.
The eye itself had already been damaged from the gash and even against monsters, eyes were one of the weakest and softest parts of most monsters, especially against wolves.
Andrew inhaled and held his breath steadying his aim, his hand squeezed as his finger pulled the trigger back, and he took his shot.