Chapter 60: The Cave Of Wonders (1)
"... Fuck."
Hinata let out a long sigh.
Actually, he had already known something like this would happen back when he and Tamara were close in Falmouth.
However, things were different then, since he had only one goal in mind. Now that the goal was gone, his mind had gone wandering, exploring different things.
Hinata didn’t hate this change in him. Perhaps if he wanted to survive in this world, he needed someone he would always want to return to.
’Well, that doesn’t mean I’ll make it easy for her either,’ he scoffed internally. ’No way I’m going back and just start saying shit.’
A small smile curved his lips, but it quickly vanished as the sound of growling reached his ears.
His head snapped to the side. There, hiding in a dark corner, were not one but three Dire Wolves.
Slowly, the three of them began moving closer, their thunder-coated steps lifting tiny pebbles and grains of sand into the air.
Hinata didn’t change his stance or pay them much mind. The smile that had vanished from his face returned, then shifted into a cocky smirk.
"You guys came at the right time," he said, forming a gauntlet around one hand and summoning the black Izanagi blade into it. "Why don’t we finish this fast so I can get back quickly."
The wolves showed no fear even in the face of his obvious dismissiveness. It seemed that although they were of the same rank as the goblins, they didn’t share the same intellect.
Hinata activated the [Heavenly Sky God Physique], and thunder immediately began crackling around him. Blue, liquid-like energy coursed through the gauntlet, and even his katana took on blue strips along its blade.
The first wolf roared as it charged toward him. The air around it crackled, but its faint lightning was quickly devoured by Hinata’s.
Even so, the wolf pressed forward, bearing its fangs. With a gnash of its sharp teeth it lunged for Hinata’s flesh, but he shot upward into the air then slammed down onto its skull with full force.
Krash!
The skull exploded, blood splattering in every direction. Its blue eyeballs flew from their sockets, which made Hinata’s face scrunch up slightly.
Turning back to the remaining two wolves, he expected them to be at least shaken, but they looked anything but terrified.
The next wolf moved with even greater efficiency than the last. It sidestepped repeatedly, leaving behind a trail of lightning afterimages.
Hinata increased the intensity of the lightning crackling around his body, then immediately fixed his gaze on the second blurry image of the wolf moving ahead of the main body.
Through it, he was able to tell that the wolf was about to swipe its claws forward and send a strike toward his head. In the next instant, he tilted his head to the side, and the strike flew past him and crashed into the wall.
The sound of debris crumbling to the ground seemed to serve as a wake-up call for the wolves.
One hesitant step after another, they began withdrawing.
Hinata wasn’t planning on letting that happen. With a single step, he vanished and reappeared before the nearest wolf.
’Damn, my head hurts,’ he thought as he brought his blade down and slashed the second wolf clean in half.
Ding!
[You have...]
Hinata dismissed the notification before the system could finish. His entire focus was on killing the last damned wolf.
Of the three, this one seemed to be the smartest. Not only had it held back during both prior assaults, it was also the first to attempt retreat once Hinata had dodged their attack with ease.
The wolf trembled, yet its gaze remained firm — the steady eyes of a predator watching its prey.
A brilliant surge of lightning exploded from its body, shattering the ground beneath its feet and sending sand flying in all directions.
Hinata’s amused expression shifted immediately into a serious one. What he was facing now was no ordinary Dire Wolf.
Goblins were known for their cunning, and Dire Wolves were known for their raw power but simplistic mindset. If those two traits were merged into one creature, it would become something else entirely.
Hinata lunged forward with his blade raised to slash the wolf, only to find that it was no longer there.
His eyes swept frantically across his surroundings as he tried to pinpoint its location.
As his gaze moved from one spot to the next, it landed on a path partially obscured by a boulder. Although the path was large enough to contain a person, Hinata couldn’t shake the dread quietly rising within him.
He drew a slow breath, lowered his posture, then crouched and scrawled words into the ground with the tip of his sword. Once finished, he fixed his eyes on the path ahead and lunged forward.
It didn’t take long before he reached a stretch of the cave where the light no longer reached.
Hinata snapped his fingers. Instantly, lightning crackled around them, casting enough light to guide his way.
One step at a time.
It felt like he had said those words more times than he could count, yet each time they had led him somewhere worth going — so he did just that.
The walk felt like it stretched on for an eternity, though barely ten minutes had passed.
He kept moving, and the further he went, the stronger the feeling grew that far too much time had slipped by.
Hinata wanted to turn back, to make sure nothing had gone wrong, but he pressed on. Even as a large part of his mind urged him to retreat, he knew that turning back in the middle of nowhere would never give him direction.
After a long stretch of walking, a faint light appeared at the end of the tunnel.
Hinata’s eyes brightened and he immediately broke into a run.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
As he neared the tunnel’s edge he pushed his speed even further, then came to a sharp halt the moment he saw what lay beyond the cave.
"Wow..."