Chapter 72: Against the Apex Predator
Nuan’s already exhausted, starving, and depleted body, which had lost an immense amount of blood over the past two days, simply could not hold it together any longer.
Even as her conscious mind slipped away, her frozen, paralyzed muscles remained rigidly locked in place by pure post-trauma shock. The world before her eyes began to dissolve into a thick, blinding white haze.
Her arm, which was being aggressively torn into again and again, went completely numb—she could no longer even feel the teeth ripping her flesh.
The warm, thick blood slicking down her forearm began to pool across her face, seeping into her ear canals and dripping past her eyelashes.
Nuan finally closed her eyes completely. Her ears dulled, blocking out the savage, echoing snarls of the vengeful cougar.
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Inside her fading mind, the blue system screen violently glitched, and letters fracturing into static as her consciousness collapsed into absolute darkness.
Seeing her prey finally stop resisting, the cougar let out a dominant grunt. She slammed a heavy, mud-caked paw down, aggressively flipping Nuan’s limp body over onto her back.
With Nuan’s throat now completely exposed and defenseless, the cougar opened her jaws wide, her long fangs dripping with Nuan’s fresh blood as she lunged down for the final, fatal bite.
BAM!!!
Out of nowhere, a heavy weight slammed violently into the cougar’s side, knocking the apex predator completely off Nuan and sending her flying sideways straight into the shallow lake water with a massive splash.
A young, sleek silver-grey wolf stood over Nuan’s body, her hackles raised as she bared her teeth at the water.
"Get the Witch back to the pack!!" Lyra yelled at her sister, her telepathic pack-link frantic with panic. Without waiting for a response, Lyra fearlessly leaped into the water, splashing toward the cougar to press the attack before the big cat could regain her composure.
Driven by raw adrenaline, Lyra lunged and clamped her jaws tightly onto the upper side of the cougar’s neck. But it was a naive, amateur hunting mistake—she hadn’t targeted the windpipe or a vital artery.
The seasoned cougar didn’t even flinch. With a furious screech, she lashed out, raking her powerful claws directly across Lyra’s face and head, forcing the young wolf to release her grip and splash violently backward into the water.
Lyra scrambled back onto her paws, coughing up lake water, but she kept growling fiercely, her fangs fully bared as she made desperate, snapping attempts to keep the predator at bay. But the cougar was no naive amateur. She aggressively slapped her heavy claws against Lyra’s chest, pinning the young wolf down into the shallows, and opened her jaws to crush Lyra’s neck.
BAM!!!
Another massive splash echoed through the inlet as a second silver-grey wolf torpedoed into the cougar’s ribs, breaking her hold on Lyra.
Tala padded unsteadily through the churning water, positioning herself shoulder-to-shoulder with her sister after successfully shoving the cougar back.
"What the hell are you doing, Tala?!" Lyra barked through their pack-mind, her ears flattening. "I told you to take the Witch back to the pack and inform everyone that there is an intruder in our territory!"
"No! I am absolutely not leaving you here to die alone!" Tala yelled back, her silver coat dripping with mud and water.
The cougar hauled herself up, standing broadside in the shallow lake. Her fur was matted, her eyes were burning with pure, unadulterated rage, and she was thoroughly frustrated after being blindsided by two naive pups twice in a row.
"Now, the two of you die!" the cougar snarled, aggressively slamming her heavy paw onto the water’s surface, sending a massive spray of blinding droplets into the sisters’ faces.
Beneath the muddy water, Tala and Lyra’s legs were shaking uncontrollably with pure, suffocating fear. Just gathering the courage to charge at an apex predator to save the Witch had taken every single ounce of their willpower.
But now, facing an adult female cougar head-on by themselves was entirely out of their league.
To safely defeat a cougar, their clan typically required three to five experienced pack members. To successfully kill one without casualties, it took at least six. Right now, Lyra and Tala were completely isolated, and worse, they were barely even considered competent hunters within the hierarchy.
Facing a vengeful, fully grown apex predator in a direct match was a certified suicide mission.
The cougar launched herself forward with an explosive burst of muscle, her jaws open wide to crack their necks. Reacting on pure survival instinct, Lyra violently shoved Tala out of the way.
As the cougar barreled down on her, Lyra swiped her front paw across the predator’s snout. It was a useless effort. Even though a female wolf and a female cougar might carry similar weight, their anatomy was entirely different.
Lyra knew the horrible truth. Wolves were built for endurance and teamwork. Cougars were built to explode forward and end fights quickly.
For the massive cougar, Lyra’s desperate slap felt like nothing more than a minor ant bite.
However, the impact was just enough to force the cougar’s jaws shut mid-air, missing Lyra’s windpipe.
Snapping out of her daze, Lyra threw herself into a frenzied, close-quarters brawl, snapping her jaws as the cougar lashed back with lethal claw swipes.
Every single time the cougar gained the upper hand and tried to reach around for Lyra’s neck, Tala would charge in from behind, sinking her teeth aggressively into the big cat’s tail and hind legs.
"Stop fucking with me!" the cougar roared, her furious snarls echoing across the lake as she whipped her head back and forth, trying to snap at both sisters.
But the young wolves managed to keep her erratic, using their amateur pack tactics to annoy and tire her out—biting her exposed flanks the moment she turned to face the other.
Thoroughly frustrated and bleeding from multiple shallow bites, the cougar decided to end the games.
She ignored Lyra entirely, pivoted with terrifying speed, and caught Tala in a crushing grip with both of her heavy front paws. Lyra lunged forward, sinking her fangs deep into the cougar’s back, but the apex predator completely ignored the pain.
Using her massive upper body strength, she forcefully dragged Tala out of the shallow water and slammed her down onto the muddy bank.
"Tala!!!" Lyra screamed through the pack-link.
But Lyra was still churning through the deep water, her paws slipping in the mud.
Before she could even reach the shoreline, the cougar pinned a whimpering Tala into the dirt, opened her blood-stained jaws, and leaned down to deliver the final, fatal throat bite.