"Huff, huff..."
"It's still behind us..."
Celia and Rael breathed roughly as they paused for a bit on a tree branch; the two people didn't expect the Alpha to be so relentless in its pursuit.
"That was an E Rank Lifeform?" Rael asked, still shocked after seeing what the big bad wolf was capable of.
Standing at a height of over 3 meters, the black-furred monster was simply a killing machine.
If Rael wasn't wrong, then the Alpha was a jack of all trades. There wasn't a single weakness present.
The only thing that could probably put an end to that monster was... 'Absolute power.'
"I'm afraid so... It's very rare to encounter an Alpha Leader. They're the most dangerous of the bunch."
"Almost all lifeforms in the forest have such a leader guiding them. You could think of it as the evolved form of their kind. Bigger, stronger, faster."
Celia tried to quickly resume some other helpful information about the Alpha, but she couldn't do that, since it found them.
"AWOOO!" A howl deeper than every other wolf Rael heard, it stunned the two of them on their spot.
'There's no way we can outrun that guy, our best chance would be to drag him towards the village; where the Village Head or other E Rank hunters could take it down.'
'But the question is; how?' No matter how much Rael wracked his brains, he couldn't find a definite solution for their current situation.
It seemed that this would be where they met their end.
Or... Was it?
Raising his head, Rael gave Celia a bright smile, one that took her breath away. But not because it warmed her, quite the opposite actually; she was terrified of Rael at this moment.
"You know, Celia..."
(Ding! Lower Chaotic Bloodline is reacting!)
"For the past few years I was locked away in a prison, darkness was the only thing that I could see..."
The more Rael spoke, the faster Celia's heart started to beat.
(Ding! Host is starting to get affected by Chaos!)
"But I wasn't scared of it, I embraced it with every fiber of my body..."
"R-Rael...?"
(Ding! $##$##$$$ #$$# #$$ # # $$)
"And right when I thought I finally found my light, it started to fight back; to drag me towards it again."
Tightly gripping his sword with one hand, Rael put his other hand on his chest, he tried to feel his erratic heartbeat.
"But you know what... I quite like it." His pupils were a shade darker than usual, Rael stopped smiling.
(Ding! Host's condition stabilized, Chaos is $##$#$ $#$# $# $## $#$#)
Without saying anything else, he simply jumped off from the tree branch which was situated about 15 meters from the ground.
Thud! With a powerful sound, Rael perfectly landed, the ground around him creaked, forming a spider web.
Not feeling the pain of his legs, Rael dashed forward before shouting, "Show yourself, you fucking shit!"
Celia was stunned by Rael's unfamiliarity; he looked as if he was possessed by something at that moment. 'What is happening with Rael?'
'That look he gave me back then was one of coldness, full of hatred. If I dared to move at that moment, I'm sure he would've killed me without any remorse.'
Still shaken by Rael's strange change, Celia awoke from her stupor when she heard a high-pitched scream.
"Oh, no!" Exclaiming, she swiftly tried to get off the tree branch using the other branches close by.
She didn't think that she would be unscathed if she jumped like Rael did.
Thinking that made her realize what a feat he just achieved, despite being an F Rank.
'Something definitely happened to Rael. I need to find him, now.' The young woman's eyes were filled with determination.
"Haha! That's it!" Accompanied by laughter, Rael's voice was heard cursing at the Alpha.
This somewhat pissed off the latter even more; it was true that a low-level beast like it couldn't understand human language, but it wasn't impossible to perceive Rael's feeling when he said that.
"Awooo!!!" Releasing another dangerous roar, the black Alpha wolf carefully sized up Rael. The human seemed to be different compared to a few minutes before.
"Awoo my ass! Shut up, you big-sized doggo!"
Saying so, Rael approached the beast without any scruples; he couldn't hide his excitement at all.
Raising the sword above his head, Rael quickly buffed it with Chaotic Flow and Random Strike.
It was the first time he used the two class skills in tandem. And what to say about curiosity, Rael wasn't even aware of what he was doing.
"Die!" With a low shout, Rael gathered all his power for the next strike.
But how could the Alpha wolf stay in the same place and wait for Rael to hit him?
Galloping forward with incredible speed, the Alpha was already in front of Rael, ready to tear the human apart.
"Entropic Shield," softly muttering the skill's name, Rael didn't even notice that the black shield was now almost double the size of the ones before.
BANG! With a powerful bang, the Alpha thought that it could easily break down the paper shield used by the human, but it was wrong.
Because Entropic Shield's special ability, Reflect, activated by itself.
The claws that were supposed to break the shield after the collision were the ones that broke.
This stunned the Alpha for a second, and it was precisely what Rael was waiting for.
His muscles and veins were bulging as Rael swiftly brought down his sword, perfectly hitting the Alpha's eyes, and damaging them in the process.
"Awoo-" Without finishing howling, the Alpha was stunned when looking into the human's eyes.
This was because it felt that something from deep inside Rael's pupils was looking back at it.
A dangerous and malevolent, evil...gaze.
"Chaotic Flux, Random Strike." Using his class skills again, Rael also added Dash into the equation and appeared behind the beast.
"Kill...!" Without caring about anything else, Rael managed to cut the Alpha's right ear.
Now, with two of its main senses gone, the Alpha was the one who found himself in a perilous situation.
Not wasting any time, Rael deftly evaded the desperate attempts of the beast.
Dashing to the other side of his body, Rael once again slashed down.
This time, Rael even abandoned his defense before going for the beast's neck.
Everything was moving in slow motion, the Alpha's claws that tried to cut Rael apart, his own sword that was close to protrude the beast's head.
———
"Rael!" Celia's worried voice was heard as she approached to check on Rael's condition.
He was currently in a pool of blood, most probably his own, and beneath him, the Alpha completely lost its own will to fight.
It simply stood there with its eyes open, life and death were unknown.