Avi's legs burned as he sprinted through the dense forest, the howls of the spirit wolves echoing behind him. Each step felt heavier than the last, but he refused to stop. Tyler was a few paces behind. Avi's sharp eyes caught the glint of the wolves' glowing forms weaving through the trees in pursuit.
"Tyler!" Avi barked, his voice hoarse from exertion. "Take Ellie and run to the village. I'll hold them off here."
"What?!" Tyler snapped, twisting his head to glance at him mid-stride. "Are you out of your damn mind?"
"Just go!" Avi shouted, veering off to the side and skidding to a stop. He passed Eleanor towards Tyler and then gripped his twin daggers , Shadowfangs, their obsidian colored blades shimmering faintly under the moonlight. "If they catch up, she's as good as dead. You're faster without me slowing you down!"
Tyler gritted his teeth but didn't argue further. He shifted Eleanor's weight on his back and withdrew his massive axe-hammer, stashing it in his dimensional inventory to lighten his load. "Don't die, nerd," Tyler muttered before speeding off.
Eleanor, still clinging to Tyler's back, looked over her shoulder with tear-filled eyes. "Big brother! Big brother!"
"I'll be fine!" Avi lied with a forced grin, planting his feet firmly as he faced the oncoming pack. "I'll catch up. Go!"
The sight of the pack approaching sent a cold dread through him, but Avi tightened his grip on his daggers. His stats were far stronger than when he fought the level 3 demonoid during the second wave. He told himself he could do this—he had to do this.
The first wave of spirit wolves lunged toward him, their ethereal blue forms flickering like ghosts in the moonlight. Avi's body moved instinctively, his daggers flashing as he slashed at the nearest wolf, cutting through its spectral form. The beast let out a piercing yelp before dissolving into mist, but three more immediately replaced it.
One wolf broke away from the pack, darting after Tyler and Eleanor. Avi's heart lurched. "Not a chance!" he growled, hurling himself after it. His |Aura| flared to life, enveloping his blades in a dark, rippling energy. With a sharp twist of his body, he slashed downward, the enhanced blade striking the wolf mid-leap and cleaving it in two.
He landed heavily, rolling to absorb the impact before springing back to his feet. "No one's getting past me," he muttered, raising his daggers defensively as the pack began to circle.
The Alpha spirit wolf emerged from the shadows, its massive form dwarfing the others. Its glowing eyes locked onto Avi, radiating an unnatural intelligence and malice. The beast let out a low, rumbling growl, and Avi barely had time to react as it released a barrage of shimmering energy from its mouth. He dove to the side, the blast scorching the ground where he had just stood.
"Okay, so it has ranged attacks. Fantastic," Avi muttered sarcastically, rolling to his feet.
The wolves attacked in unrelenting waves, their fangs and claws flashing in the dim light. Avi's daggers danced, deflecting and countering as he fought to keep the pack at bay. Each time one wolf tried to break away toward Tyler and Eleanor, Avi intercepted it, cutting it down with precise strikes.
Despite his efforts, the numbers seemed endless. His muscles screamed in protest, and his breaths came in short, ragged gasps. "How many of you are there?" he hissed, slicing through yet another wolf.
The Alpha watched from a distance, occasionally launching another ranged attack. Avi narrowly dodged each one, but his reactions were slowing. He attempted to channel his |Aura| into a ranged slash, swinging his dagger in an arc to send a wave of energy toward the Alpha. The attempt fizzled, the energy dissipating harmlessly before it could reach its target.
"Damn it!" Avi cursed under his breath, sidestepping a lunging wolf and countering with a vicious stab.
His mind raced. Tyler and Eleanor had to be far enough by now, right? He just needed to buy a little more time. Gathering his strength, he tried the |Aura| slash again. Once more, the energy sputtered out before reaching the Alpha. A wolf's claws raked across his arm while he was distracted, and he hissed in pain.
"Focus, Avi," he muttered, shaking his head to clear it. "Get it together."
The Alpha lunged suddenly, closing the distance with terrifying speed. Avi barely blocked its strike, the force of the impact sending him skidding backward. His daggers trembled in his grip as he steadied himself.
"Third time's the charm," he growled, channeling every ounce of his will into his |Aura|. He swung his dagger in a wide arc, and this time, the energy solidified into a sharp wave that slashed toward the Alpha. The beast roared as the attack struck true, carving deep into its side.
The pack hesitated, their leader's injury unsettling them. Avi seized the moment, cutting down the nearest wolves and bolting toward the village.
By the time he reached the clearing outside the village gates, he was gasping for air, his body battered and bloodied. Tyler was arguing with the guards, his voice hoarse with desperation.
"This is bullshit!" Tyler shouted. "You're all gonna die if you don't listen!"
One guard, clad in polished armor bearing the insignia of a gryphon, sneered. "Why should we trust a stranger carrying a cursed child?"
Eleanor's face crumpled, but she held her ground. "Big brother is fighting monsters! If mister soldier don't help, monsters will come!" she cried, her voice breaking.
Before anyone could respond, a horn blared from the walls.
"A pack of spirit wolves is approaching!" a soldier shouted. "All soldiers and adventurers, prepare for battle!"
The guards stiffened, their disbelief melting into panic. Avi stumbled forward, still panting. "I couldn't lose them," he said grimly. "They're coming. If we fight them inside the village, there'll be too many casualties."
The guards hesitated, then fled inside, slamming the gates shut behind them.
"Fuck this villagers, I'm gonna kill them if we survive this" Tyler said while withdrawing his axe-hammer from his dimensional storage and putting Ellie down near the village gates.
He stood near Avi who is still panting, readying himself for the war that the both of them will face. "You ready nerd? first to die is the loser" Tyler taunted Avi.
Avi barked a short laugh, enveloping himself in his |Aura|. "I'll be too busy saving your ass to lose."
The Alpha emerged, its pack spreading out behind it. The fight wasn't over yet.
Avi stood firm, his body enveloped in a flickering black |Aura|, the dark energy swirling around him like smoke. The clearing outside Luthra's gates was illuminated by the moonlight, but the chaotic glow of the spirit wolves' ethereal forms cast haunting shadows across the forest edge. Avi adjusted his grip on his daggers, their obsidian blades now humming faintly with the |Aura|'s energy. His breathing was ragged, and his muscles screamed for rest, but his resolve remained unshaken.
He glanced at Tyler, who was already enveloped in a crimson glow as his |Berserker's Might| activated. Tyler's eyes dulled, his face contorting into a manic grin as the skill's effects took hold. "If we survive this," Avi muttered, a smirk tugging at his lips despite the danger, "I'm going full Karen on this village. Just you wait."
Tyler let out a guttural laugh, or what sounded like one, as his massive axe hammer crashed into the ground, splitting a wolf in two with raw, unrestrained power. The sheer force sent cracks rippling through the earth beneath them.
The Alpha spirit wolf emerged from the shadows then, its massive form exuding an almost regal menace. Standing nearly two meters tall at the shoulder, even with the earlier injury, its fur shimmered like liquid starlight, and its glowing eyes pierced through the darkness with a predatory intelligence. Behind it, a hundred spirit wolves fanned out, their low growls resonating like a thunderstorm about to break.
Avi's smirk faltered for just a second. "Great," he muttered. "these monsters got unlimited spawn rate."
The Alpha wasted no time. With a bone-chilling howl, it charged toward Avi with blinding speed, its claws carving into the earth as it closed the distance as wanting to get back at him for the earlier attack. Avi barely dodged, diving to the side and rolling to his feet in one fluid motion. The Alpha spun to face him, lunging again.
Avi's daggers clashed against its claws in a shower of sparks, the impact sending vibrations up his arms. The beast's raw strength was leagues above the humanoid demonoids he'd faced in the earlier waves. Its movements were unpredictable—a deadly mix of speed, power, and feral cunning.
Avi slashed upward, aiming for its throat, but the Alpha twisted mid-air, dodging the strike effortlessly. Its massive paw lashed out, catching Avi across the chest and sending him skidding back several meters. He gasped, the air knocked from his lungs, as the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.
"Focus," he hissed, tightening his grip on his daggers.
Gathering his energy, he swung his dagger in a wide arc, attempting to unleash an |Aura| slash. The dark blue energy flickered, sputtering weakly before dissipating mid-air. The Alpha took advantage of the misstep, barreling into him with full force. Avi barely managed to cross his daggers in time to block, but the impact sent him sprawling to the ground.
"Come on, come on!" Avi growled, scrambling to his feet. His breathing grew heavier, his body aching with every movement.
From atop Town's walls, soldiers and adventurers gathered, their faces pale as they watched the battle unfold. "Shouldn't we help them?" one adventurer asked, his voice tinged with uncertainty.
"Help?" scoffed another, a burly man clutching a warhammer. "Do you have a death wish? One of those spirit wolves is enough to overwhelm a B-grade adventurer. Look at the size of that pack. And that Alpha? We'd be slaughtered before we could get near it."
Their tense murmurs were interrupted by the arrival of a knight, his silver-plated armor gleaming even in the dim light. His elegant blue cloak marked him as someone of importance. "What in the world is happening here?" the knight demanded, his tone sharp.
A nearby guard stammered, "That… that person with the axe warned us about a spirit wolf pack, but we—" He faltered, shame coloring his face.
The knight's eyes narrowed. "And you did nothing? Are the townspeople of Luthra dumb enough to not think that once they fail, those wolves will not think twice of invading our town?"
The adventurers stirred, their leader—a towering, bald man with twin axes strapped to his back—stepping forward. "Nicely said, Knight Veyrin. The guild is ready. Just give the word."
"I thank the guildmaster Thalor in lending us a hand during a crisis like this. Open up the gate!" shouted the knight.
With a nod from one of the guards, the gates creaked open, and soldiers and adventurers alike poured out. "Let's go!" shouted Thalor the guildmaster, leading the charge.
Back in the clearing, Avi fought desperately, his movements slowing as exhaustion took its toll. The Alpha lunged at him again, and he sidestepped narrowly, slashing its flank. This time, his blade connected, drawing a gash across its shimmering fur. The beast howled in fury, retaliating with a swipe that sent Avi stumbling.
"You're not making this easy, are you?" Avi muttered, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth.
Summoning the last of his strength, he tried the |Aura| slash again. He swung his dagger, pouring everything he had into the attack. The energy rippled outward, but once again, it dissipated before reaching the Alpha.
The beast seized the moment, pouncing on him. Avi braced himself, crossing his daggers to block, but the force drove him to his knees. Pain lanced through his body, but he gritted his teeth, refusing to fall.
Finally, the reinforcements arrived. Tyler, still lost in his berserker frenzy, charged at the pack, his axe hammer a whirlwind of destruction. Knight Veyrin and the guildmaster Thalor flanked Avi, their weapons drawn.
" I can't believe a young greenhorn managed to last this long against an alpha like this." the Thalor said, grinning as he swung his axes.
"He also managed to injure it this much. Such young talent," the Knight added, with admiration in his voice.
Avi ignored them, focusing on the Alpha. With their combined efforts, they began to turn the tide. Blow by blow, the Alpha weakened, its movements growing sluggish.
Summoning every ounce of strength, Avi sprang into the air, the world blurring around him as his |Aura| surged to its peak. It pulsed with an intensity that seemed to defy the natural order, a storm coalescing around him. The pulse of his heart synchronized with the rhythm of his breath, each beat driving him forward, past exhaustion, past the limits of his flesh and bone.
"Maximum effort," he whispered, voice low and steady as steel.
In his hands, the daggers flared with dark energy, veins of crackling power racing across their polished edges. The |Aura| around them burst, morphing into a wave of energy that grew sharp and jagged, a cutting force that sought only one purpose. The slash itself coalesced into a blade of cobalt-blue energy, shimmering like liquid metal and radiating an eerie, otherworldly glow.
Avi drove his arms forward, releasing the slash in a swift, calculated motion. The attack erupted from the blades as a dark arc, a crescent of cobalt-blue energy that cut through the air with a sound like shattering glass. The slash left behind an afterimage, a fleeting, glowing trail that pulsed in the air like the fading heartbeat of a dying star. It surged forward with the speed of a predator, cutting through the distance between him and the Alpha in a heartbeat.
The slash met its mark, slicing cleanly through the Alpha's neck, a trail of shadow and searing cobalt light seeping from the wound as if the beast's very essence was being unraveled. The creature let out a final, guttural howl, a sound that seemed to shatter the silence before collapsing to the ground. The powerful, unnatural mist erupted from its body in tendrils, curling and twisting as if resisting its own dissolution.
Avi dropped to the ground, his chest heaving with ragged breaths, muscles quivering from the effort. The |Aura| around him flickered and dimmed, the daggers no longer glowing, their power spent. The beast's form evaporated into nothingness, carried away on the breeze like a dark memory fading into obscurity.
The forest was quiet, the oppressive weight of battle lifting, leaving only the soft rustle of leaves and the echo of victory that thrummed in his veins.
Avi staggered, his vision swimming. He glanced around the clearing, noting the scattered corpses of spirit wolves and the exhausted fighters still battling the stragglers. Tyler lay sprawled on the ground, still grunting incoherently.
Before darkness claimed him, Avi shouted hoarsely, "Don't touch Ellie, or I'll—"
And then he collapsed.