Veronik was standing within the sphere made by her spiritual energy, barely able to resist the constant crushing down of the nine tails against the sphere. Each time a tail crushed upon the sphere, she felt her insides being torn apart, making her feel agony like never before.
Only a few moments passed since Ariel left, so she knew that she couldn't make any rush moves yet, because if the forest king discovered that the cubs aren't with her, he would rush after Ariel, and with her injured self, Ariel and the children's only fate would be death.
Thinking about what to do, Veronik kept on searching through the knowledge she gained from the library given to her by the strange man. If she wanted to survive, she needed something that would kill or knock out the forest king in one move, or she would end up dead. But there was one problem. In the section of martial arts, the man didn't leave behind any skills, only introductions to skills, so she would make her own skills.
She knew that making her own unique skills was much better than just learning something that someone else could possess, but in the situation she was in, she needed a skill urgently, and she wasn't sure if she could make one in time before the forest king smashed her to death with his tails.
Veronik emptied her mind of all thoughts and in her mind started gathering the knowledge about martial arts using no weapons. Very quickly, she had a technique in her mind, but she never tried it, and wasn't sure about its effects, so she didn't stop and kept on gathering the knowledge, to make a new technique in case the first one didn't knock the forest king out.
When she was done, one of the tails crashed onto the sphere and shattered it into pieces, causing her to nearly faint because of the pain. Seeing the tail crushing towards her, Veronik took a deep breath and closed her eyes, pushing her spiritual energy to its limit, gathering it all in her palms.
When the tail was about to land on her, she swung her eyes open and grabbed the tail using her bare hands. She felt her bones break under the pressure, but she couldn't afford to pay it any attention. She used the strength of the tail to throw herself upwards and land on the forest king's back.
Standing there, before the forest king could throw her off, she rushed to his neck and using up the last bits of her spiritual energy, she threw a hard punch into the back of his neck, hearing a crack in his bones.
Feeling the pain in his neck, the fox king wanted to throw Veronik off, but he realized that his movements were ragged. His eyes started turning hazy, and he fell down and then shrank back into the size of a bigger wolf.
The forest king died because his spine cracked, thus his spinal cord got damaged.
Veronik collapsed atop the forest king's dead body and felt her eyes closing in exhaustion. [Ariel! It's safe here now! Come back with the cubs!] She sent a message to Ariel through the bond of equals and fell asleep.
When Ariel came, she was shocked to see Veronik peacefully sleeping atop the forest king. She cautiously came to the forest king and when she realized that he's dead, she froze in shock.
Then, she quickly put the cubs down and rushed to Veronik to check her injuries. Because of having the spiritual sphere shattered during the fight, Veronik suffered some internal injuries, but they weren't that critical.
What worried Ariel more was the state Veronik's hands were in. Probably at the moment when she caught the tail that was crushing down at her, her shoulders were dislocated, her bones severally fractured and broken. If left in that state, Veronik might end up with crippled hands.
Ariel was just thinking about what to do, when she heard a rustle behind her. She turned around and saw a tall person wearing a white cloak completely covering him, slowly approaching them.
She growled fiercely as she jumped off the forest king's corpse and took on a defensive stance in front of her cubs.
The man wearing the cloak lifted a brow at her and sneered. "Do you think you can stop me?" he asked arrogantly with a smirk on his face, covered by the cloak. If Veronik wasn't asleep and heard him, she would instantly recognize that the voice belongs to the strange man who sent her to this new world after she died.
Realizing that the man could speak the universal beast language, Ariel froze a bit, but that didn't make her let her guard down. Veronik was in bad shape, and Arile wouldn't let a random stranger get close to her, as he could harm her even more.
Seeing that their mother was wary of the stranger, the three fox cubs stood behind their mother and bared their teeth at him, their gray fur glistering in the moonlight.
The man snickered when he saw Ariel and her three children protecting Veronik, even though he was clearly much stronger than the dead forest king. "It seems, she not only passed the test, but even gained some benefits..." he mumbled as he flicked his sleeve and the four foxes were suddenly immobilized.
He then passed by them and placed his hand on Veronik's shoulder. A dim light shone out of his hands and enveloped Veronik's wounded body. After a while, the light disappeared and Veronik's breathing was clearly more peaceful, her face no longer pale from the injuries. The man healed her.
Then, he walked over to the foxes and placed his hand on Ariel's forehead. The instant she felt his palm on her fur, agonizing pain seeped deep into her soul, and tormented her for a good while. When it disappeared, she realized that her body was slightly bigger, at the moment as big as the corpse of the forest king, and her fur was no longer grayish but snow-white.
The man then repeated the same with the three fox cubs and then retreated to the side, still leaving the foxes immobilized.
After a while, Veronik woke up from her sleep, and was shocked to realize that she didn't feel any pain. She sat up on the corpse and her eyes landed on the immobilized foxes. She was deeply shaken when she saw their now white fur.
Before she could even process that, she saw the man wearing a white coat completely covering him up, so she couldn't even see his face. "Who are you?" she asked warily.
The man snickered. "As vigilant as ever, I see!"
"It's you!" Veronik was shocked. "Why are you here?" She relaxed a bit, but not entirely, because she always had a suspicious feeling about this strange man.
Seeing Veronik's wariness, the man laughed out loud. "I came to congratulate you on passing the test!" he said with a sneer.
"Test?" Veronik frowned slightly and then glanced at the corpse beneath her. "You mean the forest king?" She narrowed her eyes in suspicion.