Chapter 41: Three Shard
Juna exploded off the branch before the wolf could fully lock onto their position, her body becoming a blur as she shot toward its flank.
The wolf swung but she was already gone, ducking low under its massive arm as her claws raked across its ribs in a spray of gray fur and black blood. She slid to a stop behind it without looking back.
"First hit," she called out.
"Show-off," Hajin muttered, already flying in from above with his short sword gripped in both hands, coming down toward the back of its neck.
[ CringeSlayer91: LETS GO ]
[ ShadowMage44: tag team wolves lets goooo ]
[ NewViewer_02: they’re actually toying with it ]
The blade hit and skipped off muscle, barely cutting an inch deep before the wolf twisted and launched him sideways with a casual snap of its shoulders. He bounced off a tree trunk and landed in a crouch, shaking the sting out of his hands.
’That was barely anything,’ he thought, looking at the shallow wound already closing up. ’This thing’s tougher than the demonic boar from the forest.’
Juna kept pressing from the ground, ducking under another swipe, then launching herself up and driving both feet into its jaw. The kick snapped its head to the side, buying her a second to land and dart behind a tree.
"Nothing is going through," she said, breathing harder now. "My claws keep stopping on the muscle."
"Hit the joints," he said, running along a branch parallel to the wolf, "same as any big animal."
She nodded once and went low again.
He kicked off the branch and came in from the side, timing his swing with her approach, but the wolf didn’t fall for the pincer. It slammed a paw into the ground between them, the impact throwing up a wall of dirt that separated them both and sent Juna stumbling sideways.
[ CringeSlayer91: would you look at that, its smarter than it looks ]
The wolf followed Juna, her stumble pulling its attention, and closed the distance before she could recover her footing. A paw caught her in the chest and sent her spinning through the air, her body clipping a branch before crashing into the dirt on her side.
"Juna!"
She pushed herself up fast, blood running from a gash above her eyebrow, but the wolf was already on her. Its jaws opened wide, three shards flaring brighter around its neck.
Hajin hit it from behind before it could bite down. He drove his sword into the back of its knee, the blade sinking deeper than before, then ripped it free while the leg buckled and the wolf howled in pain.
It twisted and swung blind, the back of its paw catching him across the ribs so hard his vision turned white for a sickening blink, the hit folding him sideways through the air like paper until a trunk stopped his flight. He hit the ground face-first, coughing dust while trying to remember which direction was up.
[ ashley (Mod): GET UP HAJIN ]
[ ShadowMage44: oh shit he got launched ]
Juna saw him go down and something cold flooded her veins. She sprinted past the wolf’s recovering leg, vaulted over a root, and got between it and him before it could turn around.
"I’m not letting you touch him," she snarled, her claws fully extended while her tail bristled straight behind her.
The wolf didn’t care, lumbering forward and swinging again.
She dodged the first hit, ducked under the second, then leaped high and drove both claws into the side of its neck. They sank several inches before muscle clamped down around them, trapping her hands deep in the wound.
Her eyes widened. "I’m stuck."
The wolf whipped its neck sideways and she tore free, screaming as one gauntlet ripped off her hand and went flying into the trees, leaving her fingers slick with her own blood, the claw tips she used to fight left jagged and bent.
She hit the ground near Hajin and couldn’t get her arm to work, her fingers refusing to close properly as pain ate through her wrist in hot waves.
[ CringeSlayer91: NO ]
[ CringeSlayer91: HER HAND ]
[ ShadowMage44: did it just break her claws ]
[ NewViewer_02: oh my god is she okay, I bet that hurts so much ]
Hajin was still on his hands and knees when she landed beside him. The rib hit hurt worse than anything he’d taken in weeks, not broken but bruised deep enough that breathing wrong sent white lines through his head.
He turned his head and saw her hand, the bleeding fingers, the bent claws and her wrist held against her stomach like moving it might make it shatter.
’She got that hurt because I was playing around,’ he thought, something shifting in his chest in a way that felt sharp. ’Two-Shard monsters are one thing but three is different. I knew that and I still tried to fight it with just a sword.’
The wolf turned toward them, blood streaming from six different wounds but none of them deep enough to slow it down. It lowered its head, a deep vibration building in its throat.
’She almost died,’ he thought, pushing himself up to one knee, ’because I wanted to show off for a bunch of people on Earth watching through a screen.’
[ CringeSlayer91: wait what is that gold light ]
[ ShadowMage44: OH HERE WE GO ]
He summoned the chain.
The golden links materialized around his right arm in a rush of light, coiling from wrist to shoulder as the metal hummed with a weight that felt like holding pure heat. His ring flared at the same time, the twin lights washing the clearing gold.
Juna looked up at him through the pain and saw his face had changed, the playfulness gone, replaced by something focused and furious, not at the wolf but at himself.
"I’m sorry for wasting time," he said quietly, standing up fully while the chain uncoiled around his feet. "It won’t happen again."
[ CringeSlayer91: HE LOCKED IN ]
[ ShadowMage44: CHAIN IS OUT ITS OVER ]
[ ashley (Mod): protect her hajin ]
The wolf’s throat pulsed once and a wave of compressed mana shot out in a cone, tearing through the air toward them. He stepped in front of Juna and snapped the chain forward, the links spreading wide into a net that caught the blast and scattered it sideways into the trees.
Bark exploded behind them but he didn’t flinch.
"Can you still move?" he asked.
She forced herself upright, cradling her bad hand against her stomach. "I can still run."
"Then drive it," he said, the chain already flowing around his arm in a tighter coil. "Get it chasing you and keep its head low. I’ll finish it."
She didn’t argue, shooting forward on three limbs, her injured hand tucked tight as she ran wide around the clearing. The wolf tracked her and hesitated, the golden chain wrapped around Hajin clearly making it think twice.
Juna threw a rock at its eye.
The rock bounced off its brow and the wolf turned toward her with a snarl. She kept running and it followed, crashing through the underbrush behind her while she threaded between trees that barely came up to its shoulders.
"Now," she yelled, cutting hard left around a thick trunk.
Hajin was already in the air.
He pulled the chain tight around both fists and came down like a hammer, driving the wrapped links directly into the back of the wolf’s skull. The impact cratered the ground under its front legs and something cracked deep inside its neck, a clean snap that echoed through the trees.
The wolf shrieked, its whole body convulsing away from the hit, but his chain shot out and wrapped around its leg, anchoring him in place.
He slid underneath its belly while it thrashed, threading the links around two more legs, then yanked hard as he jumped back.
Both chains, his arm and its legs, pulled taught in a single violent jerk. The wolf crashed face-first into the ground, pinned open like a bug, its belly exposed for one clean breath.
He didn’t need to ask her twice.
Juna hit it mid-chest with every claw she had left, the impact carrying all her remaining weight, ripping through ribs and organs until her hand punched clean out the back of its body, the fur and flesh giving way in a spray that painted the ground black.
The wolf gagged once, its yellow eyes going glassy, then its body went slack with a long, guttering exhale, the three shards around its neck flickering once before falling to the ground.
[ CringeSlayer91: HOLY ]
[ ShadowMage44: THAT WAS INSANE ]
[ NewViewer_02: the coordination at the end ]
[ DarkBlade: my heart is actually pounding ]
[ ashley (Mod): you two are amazing... now please check her hand ]
The chain retracted around his arm as thick streams of golden EXP light tore free from the wolf’s chest and split between them, flooding into his ring and into Juna’s body at the same time.
A panel slid open in front of him while notifications stacked up fast.
[ EXP Gained: 42,000 ]
[ Rank Progress: 58,500 / 500,000 ]
[ Ring 1 → Ring 2: 11.7% ]
[ Summon Juna gained: 42,000 EXP ]
[ Wing Progress: 57,000 / 300,000 ]
[ Loot dropped: Dread Fang (Rare) ]
[ Passive Trait Triggered: Fragment’s Blessing ]
[ Rarity Upgrade: Rare ➔ Epic ]
[ Obtained: Fang of the Moon-Eater (Epic) ]
He dismissed the panel without reading half of it. He walked over to Juna and knelt beside her, not looking at the huge wolf corpse or the loot, just at her hand that was still bleeding.
"Let me see," he said quietly.
She hesitated, her ears flat, then held it out. Two of her claws were bent wrong at the base and the skin around her knuckles was raw where the gauntlet had torn off.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
She didn’t answer right away, just kept looking at his face instead of her hand. "You changed," she said quietly. "When I got hurt... your entire scent shifted. It was like you stopped playing."
He pulled a strip of cloth from his pocket and started wrapping her hand without looking up. "Because I was being an idiot," he said. "I knew how dangerous a three-shard is and I still treated it like practice."
"You didn’t know it would be this strong," she said.
"That’s not an excuse," he replied, tying off the bandage. "You almost lost your hand because I wanted to look cool."
She was quiet for a moment, flexing her wrapped fingers slowly. Then her tail gave a small, tired flick against the ground.
"You looked cooler when you were serious in anyway," she muttered.
He stared at her for a second before letting out a short laugh. "What, the glowering and the chain?"
"The glowering and the chain," she confirmed.
[ CringeSlayer91: SHE’S NOT WRONG ]
[ ShadowMage44: lock in hajin is a different breed ]
[ NewViewer_02: bro went from play fighting to monster exterminator in three seconds ]
[ ashley (Mod): are you two okay? that was terrifying to watch ]
"We’re fine," he said, loud enough for the stream to hear. "She needs to rest her hand but nothing permanent."
Juna didn’t move after he said that. She kept looking at him with her ears tilted forward and her eyes narrowed a little, the way she looked at something she couldn’t figure out.
"What?" he asked.
She was quiet for another second, her tail giving a slow, thoughtful flick before she finally spoke, "I have been wondering this for a while now."
"Wondering what?"
"Who are you talking to?" she asked.
The stream chat stopped moving for a dead second.
[ CringeSlayer91: uh oh ]
[ ShadowMage44: OH NO ]
[ NewViewer_02: she finally asked ]
[ DarkBlade: the question we all knew was coming ]
Hajin opened his mouth.
’Who am I talking to?’ he thought, his brain scrambling for an answer he had never prepared because he had somehow forgotten that Juna couldn’t see the stream panel at all.
He felt genuinely stupid for not thinking about it sooner. ’Every time I talked to chat, every time I answered a question or asked for donations... to her it just looked like I was talking to thin air.’
He stared at her waiting face and the words completely failed him because how exactly was he supposed to explain that people from another world were watching them through a floating magic screen while leaving comments he could read in real time.
"Uhhhhh," he said.