Chapter 48. Commander of the Beast Legion (2)
Night had fallen over the Snowy Mountains beneath a blanket of deep darkness.
Kai and the Lycanthrope clashed in the darkness, where even the moonlight had hidden behind the clouds.
Clang—!
Sparks erupted as metal struck metal.
Kai’s sword was enveloped in Aura. However, it failed to cut through the Lycanthrope’s claws.
The sparks briefly drove away the darkness.
Within them, the Lycanthrope’s eyes gleamed with crimson light. Its eyes were filled with the ferocity of a beast and the pure murderous intent of a monster.
‘Danger!’
Kai’s instincts screamed a warning, and he quickly retreated.
Slaaash—!
At the same moment, the Lycanthrope’s ferocious claws tore through the space Kai had occupied moments earlier.
Kai unconsciously swallowed.
Had he failed to evade that attack, the Lycanthrope would have torn through both his Aura-covered sword and his entire body.
It was astonishingly agile and terrifyingly powerful.
Had Adrian been fighting such a ferocious beast alone?
Kai calmly steadied his breathing and adjusted his grip on his sword.
At that moment, the claws on the Lycanthrope’s feet tore through the ground as it kicked off, closing the distance instantly.
Its enormous body stood more than six meters tall.
Sharp claws swung with the force of its densely packed muscles. They reached toward Kai without making a sound.
However, Kai’s sword was already moving.
A long wound appeared across the Lycanthrope’s right arm.
It was not fatal. But that did not mean it had no effect.
The muscles in the Lycanthrope’s arm trembled. The trajectory of its swinging claws shifted for an instant.
Kai exploited that fleeting opening.
Baaang!
An explosion erupted between the colliding sword and claws.
There was no longer any mere metallic clang.
Kai’s Aura-covered sword and the Lycanthrope’s claws were each capable of delivering a killing blow.
The severity of the wounds they could inflict upon each other had changed.
Kai’s sword strikes danced wildly.
Dance of Fangs.
Bang! Baaang!
Sword and claws continued colliding.
Neither side retreated.
The Lycanthrope stepped forward.
Kai stepped backward.
Having gained the advantage, the Lycanthrope aimed its claws at Kai’s side.
Kai began twisting his body, only to stop abruptly.
Seraphia was on his back. If he evaded the attack, Seraphia would be in danger.
He had to protect her. Even if it cost him his life.
He did not seek anyone’s understanding.
Since when….
Had he needed someone else’s understanding to follow his heart?
Slaaash—!
Kai’s side was ripped open.
An immeasurable amount of blood poured from the wound.
His armor might have mitigated the damage to some degree, but he had discarded it all to dress as a woman.
In other words, this was a fatal wound. It was serious enough to make continuing the battle impossible.
Nevertheless, Kai did not collapse.
Immortality.
It was the ability Kai had acquired by stepping into the realm of a Master.
However, Immortality was not a recovery ability like Regeneration. It merely prevented his injuries from becoming fatal.
As a by-product of eternal life, it allowed him to sustain his life indefinitely.
At least until all the Aura he possessed was exhausted.
That did not mean he was incapable of feeling pain. The horrific agony tore through Kai’s mind.
However, he could hear Seraphia’s tiny heart beating against his back.
He could hear her quiet, peaceful breathing. Those sounds brought Kai profound peace.
With an impassive face, Kai adjusted his grip on his sword.
Swoosh—!
The sword swung.
It lacked sharpness.
The fundamentals of swordsmanship were slashing and thrusting.
The advanced swordsmanship styles of the continent were merely methods of mastering and efficiently applying those two fundamentals.
Some wielded swords as swift as lightning.
Some wielded swords as solid as rock.
Some wielded swords as hot as the sun.
And others wielded swords as fluid as water.
Kai had drawn his inspiration from the hunting methods of wolves.
The first strike disrupted the Lycanthrope’s defense. The following attack from the side created an opening.
Then came the third strike.
Wolf’s Swordsmanship, Second Form - Claw of the Moonlight.
A rapid succession of slashes as swift as a wolf.
The bleeding Lycanthrope retreated. It growled and glared warily at Kai.
At that very moment, the Lycanthrope’s wounds were already healing.
The Lycanthrope possessed powerful regenerative capabilities. Ordinary wounds could not inflict any meaningful damage upon it.
In other words, merely “wounding” it would not be enough.
Kai drew in a breath and charged forward.
He imitated the moment a wolf swiftly pounced upon its prey.
It was a technique that used a rapid and powerful thrust to penetrate the enemy’s defenses and deliver a fatal blow.
Wolf’s Swordsmanship, Third Form - Crimson Moon Strike.
Kai became a blood-red wolf and sank his fangs into the Lycanthrope.
* * *
Hunting the legion….
No, replenishing myself with the legion was not difficult.
Unlike the Lycanthrope, the legion’s monsters could not easily penetrate my Hardened Skin [B].
And just like the Lycanthrope, the hides of the legion’s monsters were torn apart like paper by Dragon’s Claw [A].
Finally, there was my title, <Master of the Snowy Mountains>.
Every monster in the legion fighting me was suffering a fifteen-percent reduction.
I indiscriminately stuffed the pieces of flesh scattering in every direction into my mouth.
I quenched my thirst with the blood spraying around me.
◆Available calories—100,000 kcal
I quickly filled the maximum number of calories I could accumulate: one hundred thousand.
◆Your level has increased!
Then….
I saw Kai relentlessly driving the Lycanthrope backward.
Despite the severe wound in his side, Kai continued fighting the Lycanthrope ferociously.
The Lycanthrope could not easily overpower him. Far from overpowering Kai, it was gradually being forced backward.
There had been one reason I brought Kai on this operation.
Kai’s role in this operation was that of a “hunting dog”.
However, being skilled at hunting was not what made something a hunting dog.
A hunting dog’s role was not to hunt. Its role was to track the prey and keep it trapped until the hunter arrived.
Furthermore, it had to exhaust the prey.
Therefore, a hunting dog required two virtues above all else.
Patience and stamina.
It must not attack its prey before receiving the hunter’s command. It merely had to prevent the prey from escaping.
What if it barked ferociously on its own, charged bravely, and was bitten to death?
That dog would be disqualified as a hunting dog.
In that sense….
Kai was completely disqualified as a hunting dog. He was doing far more than preventing the Lycanthrope from escaping.
He was driving it backward.
Kai had never been a hunting dog in the first place.
He was a Military Dog.
Unlike a hunting dog, a Military Dog’s role was to support operations and kill enemy forces.
Kai’s sharp sword severed the Lycanthrope’s left arm.
Roooooar—!!!
The Lycanthrope screamed in agony and retreated.
Kai pursued it, only to stop abruptly.
The Lycanthrope’s eyes contained a mixture of madness and anger.
It had entered a Berserk state.
In that state, all the Lycanthrope’s physical capabilities doubled.
The price was complete exhaustion.
In other words, the Lycanthrope had chosen to stake everything on one decisive move.
Unmistakable tension appeared in Kai’s blue eyes.
Immortality was the ability Kai had obtained by reaching the realm of a Master.
It resembled my Regeneration [B+].
In other words, it was not true Immortality. It disappeared once his Aura was depleted. And Aura could not be replenished instantly.
But I was different.
Regeneration [B+] required nutrients.
It was likewise true that Regeneration [B+] would become unusable once my nutrients were depleted.
However, nutrients could be replenished “instantly”.
And I had currently replenished my calories to the maximum amount I could accumulate.
“Fall back!!”
When I shouted, Kai quickly retreated.
This time, however, the Lycanthrope did not allow him to escape.
The Lycanthrope pursued Kai at an explosive speed. It also commanded the legion to restrain me.
Switching positions using the same method as before would be difficult.
Kai apparently had the same thought and changed his movements.
Perhaps it was because of our experience fighting the Gelu-Drake.
We could now understand exactly what the other wanted through eye contact alone.
Kai and I moved like battlefield partners who had fought together for decades.
Ignoring every attack flying toward us, we charged toward each other.
We naturally passed one another—
My Dragon’s Claw [A] slashed the Lycanthrope as it attacked Kai.
Kai’s blue fangs tore apart the legion as it attacked me.
The Lycanthrope’s swinging claws were shredded and sent tumbling backward.
The oncoming wave of the legion collapsed, opening my field of vision.
After fighting the legion, I once again confronted the Lycanthrope. After fighting the Lycanthrope, Kai once again confronted the legion.
The situation reversed again in the blink of an eye.
-G-Grah?!
The Lycanthrope flinched in profound shock.
Despite being in a Berserk state filled with madness and anger, it was bewildered.
That was because it understood.
With that….
My Dragon’s Claw [A] swung in an instant and tore through the Lycanthrope’s chest.
It understood that it now had to choose.
Would it pull back the legion and confront both Kai and me simultaneously?
Or would it confront me alone while I used the legion as nutrients to regenerate endlessly with Regeneration [B+]?
“Choose carefully.”
On a battlefield, a single mistake or incorrect judgment could determine whether someone lived or died.
◆Activating the Combination Skill ‘Metabolic Overdrive [U]’!
◆Calories consumed: 50,000 kcal
◆All the player’s stats increase by [+50%] for [500 seconds]!
The nutrients I had replenished sent my nervous system into overdrive once again.
Dragon’s Claw [A] tore through the Lycanthrope’s chest like paper and dug into its body.
Bright-red blood stained the landscape of the Snowy Mountains as the Lycanthrope descended even further into its Berserk state.
With all its physical capabilities doubled, the Lycanthrope’s movements became grotesquely fast.
The power of its explosively contracting muscles became monstrously strong.
However, that power would not last forever.
Using my amplified Agility, I stalled for as much time as possible.
I allowed attacks that I could endure using Regeneration [B+] to strike me.
From time to time, I mixed in attacks with Dragon’s Claw [A] to inflict damage.
As time passed, the Lycanthrope’s movements gradually slowed.
The slower it became, the deeper the wounds my attacks carved into its body.
And a wounded beast would ordinarily become even more ferocious.
But the current Lycanthrope did not.
-Yelp—!
The Lycanthrope tumbled down the Snowy Mountains. Buried beneath the snow and darkness, it could not easily rise.
The growls emerging from its crocodile-like snout were filled with fear.
Its eyes, which had gleamed with anger and madness, were now consumed by terror.
It resembled prey confronted by its natural predator.
The Lycanthrope’s eyes shook violently. It was clearly struggling with its decision.
Would it pull back the legion and confront both Kai and me simultaneously?
Or would it confront me alone while I used the legion as nutrients to regenerate endlessly with Regeneration [B+]?
The Lycanthrope finally appeared to reach a decision and ground its teeth.
Then it suddenly turned its back on me. I did not even have time to react.
The Lycanthrope hurled its massive body down the Snowy Mountains and began fleeing desperately.
“What...?”
I was momentarily dumbfounded.
I had never expected the Lycanthrope to choose to flee.
He was a beast driven mad by desire, so the thought that he might escape had never even occurred to me.
A sparrow ignoring a mill would have been more believable.
Even the claim that a cat had casually walked past a fish shop would have sounded more plausible.
The Lycanthrope had never fled in my previous life either.
That was precisely why he had died.
He had been completely obsessed with the Saintess and refused to escape even when he had every opportunity to do so.
He was a beast that prioritized sexual desire over survival.
I did not call the Lycanthrope a “beast created from desire” for nothing.
Nor had I devised the plan to use Seraphia as bait without reason.
Naturally, I had assumed that he would try to possess Seraphia at all costs.
I never imagined that he would abandon Seraphia and flee, even to save his own life.
Then what in the world...?
In any case, I could not let him escape. If I lost the Lycanthrope here, I would never capture him again.
I absolutely had to consume the Lycanthrope with Predation [S+].
But the fleeing Lycanthrope was far too fast.
His physical capabilities had already been amplified by his Berserk state.
Now that he believed he would certainly die, he was moving at more than twice his ordinary speed.
That left me with no choice.
‘I won’t be able to use Regeneration afterward, but….’
I needed to burn through all my remaining calories and use Metabolic Overdrive [U].
That was the only way I could catch the fleeing Lycanthrope.
Confronting him without Regeneration [B+] would be difficult, but the Lycanthrope was also in a Berserk state.
In other words, just as he had staked everything on one decisive move, I needed to do the same.
It happened just as I was about to burn all my remaining calories. It was as though all of space and time had stopped.
Everything in the Snowy Mountains was suddenly engulfed in silence.
The night sky above the Snowy Mountains became covered in dark blue clouds.
A bone-chilling wind began surging toward us from the distance.
My gaze slowly turned toward the source of the wind.
Then—
Clunk!
My entire body stiffened.
I could not move.
The thoughts inside my mind were torn apart in an instant.
My instincts continued warning me without pause, yet the thought of escaping never arose.
Fear, terror, and despair….
Even those emotions had become meaningless.
Seraphia had been unconscious on Kai’s back.
She had lost consciousness after being crushed beneath the Lycanthrope’s desire.
No matter how desperately anyone struggled, survival against that being was impossible.
Even the instinct to survive had become meaningless.
Beyond my frozen gaze….
The Monarch of Frost raised her pure-white eyes and looked at me.
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