Chapter 59: Frenzy
A sharp, stinging ring pierced Tyler’s ears. Agony radiated through every muscle and bone in his body. Warm blood steadily dripped from his nose, splashing against the back of his hand as he forced himself up with a ragged grunt. He blinked hard. The ground beneath his palms blurred, a messy collage of churned dirt, torn grass, and snapped twigs. He drew in a sharp gasp and shook his head to clear the heavy disorientation. His vision slowly sharpened, revealing the entire clearing choked in a thick, billowing cloud of dust.
"James," he coughed.
The memory of the collision crashed into his mind, and a cold vice gripped his chest. The sickening crunch of shattering ribs and a snapping collarbone replayed in his head. He remembered the horrifying image of James caught in the beast's jaws, tossed away like a ragdoll right before the concussive shockwave swallowed them all.
He shifted his weight, straightening his spine while keeping his knees planted firmly in the dirt.
[HP: 100/166]
The system panel flashed in his periphery. Tyler released a shaky breath. *Sixty-six points,* he thought. He pushed himself fully to his feet with a heavy groan. *I lost a lot of HP, but I still have a hundred. Right now, I really need to find James.*
He scanned the area, but the lingering dust obscured everything. The chaos of the blast had completely erased his sense of direction.
Low, guttural growls vibrated through the dense air directly in front of him. Tyler froze. His pulse spiked. *The wolves, they survived?* he thought.
He blinked, and as his eyelids lifted, a faint blue luminescence bled into his vision. His Mana Sight flared to life. Piercing the thick veil of dust, two distinct swirling vortexes of red mana materialized in the distance, the cores of two beasts. Tyler shifted his gaze sharply to the right. A massive mana vortex burned through the haze. Thick dark mana particles twisted violently with heavy streaks of red. It was the most colossal core he had ever laid eyes on.
*That must be the Alpha,* he thought, easing his boot back into a quiet, defensive step. The immense vortex sat low to the earth, a clear sign the beast was still grounded and recovering from the blast.
In his peripheral vision, another core flickered. This one glowed silver-grey, faintly mimicking his own, but laced with scattered dark particles. *It must be another wolf. That means there's three of them.* He swept his glowing eyes across the obscured battlefield. *Where's James? I have to end this quick.*
The silver bow materialized in his grip. He raised it, preparing to use the dust cloud as cover to snipe the remaining pack.
Then, the surging storm of energy raging through his veins abruptly vanished.
His skill deactivated.
His heart delivered one explosive, violent thud against his ribs. Tyler gasped, his free hand flying to the center of his chest. Every single muscle in his body seized simultaneously. A sensation of raw, searing fire injected directly into his tissue. The immense physical toll of the battle, the agonizing strain of the skill, and the brutal blunt-force trauma from the shockwave caught up to him in a single, crushing instant. High-voltage agony ripped through his nerves. A raw scream tore from his throat as his legs buckled. He crashed toward the earth, barely catching his weight on his trembling hands.
The growls amplified. The heavy, four-legged rhythm of claws tearing into the dirt closed the distance. Tyler forced his chin up, his Mana Sight still painting the world in mana particles. The two smaller mana cores surged straight toward his position as the dust began to thin.
*Crap!* he thought, his teeth grinding together. *This is more painful than before.*
Tyler clamped his jaw shut and violently pushed through the blinding agony, reactivating his skill. A fresh, explosive rush of adrenaline flooded his system. The searing heat in his muscles remained, but the sharpest edge of the pain dulled instantly. His tolerance spiked. His physical strength, density, and speed surged back to enhanced levels. Through the dissipating dust, the system revealed the specific targets charging him.
[Level 30] and [Level 39].
Tyler snatched his dropped bow from the dirt and forced himself to his feet. The dust parted, revealing the matted red fur of the Level 30 wolf mere feet away, its jaws already opening. Tyler summoned an arrow, drew the string taut, and released in one fluid twitch of his muscles. The silver shaft buried itself deep into the beast's chest. It released a gurgling howl before collapsing into the soil. Tyler’s hand was already moving. A second arrow materialized. He drew and fired instantly, sinking the tip perfectly into the Level 39 wolf's eye socket. The creature dropped dead in its tracks.
[Level up!]
*Again?* Tyler thought, his eyes stretching wide. A faint, ethereal green glow washed over his skin. The suffocating exhaustion melted from his bones, and a cooling wave of restoration instantly returned his MP and HP to absolute maximum capacity before the light vanished.
He snapped his bow toward the massive, grounded core of the Alpha, immediately summoning another arrow. Then, his grip hesitated. He remembered the horrific reality: his arrows possessed zero penetrating power against the boss monster's dense hide. He pivoted, tracking the third, silver-grey core in the distance. As the dust completely cleared, his eyebrows shot upward.
It wasn't a wolf.
It was James.
"James," Tyler exhaled.
The bow and arrow vanished into his inventory. He exploded forward, his enhanced legs eating the distance in seconds. He dropped to his knees beside the swordsman. James lay entirely unconscious. His eyelids remained shut, his chest barely rising with horribly shallow, weak breaths. A rapidly expanding pool of crimson soaked into the dirt beneath him. His leather armor was saturated, the dark, heavy flow continuously spilling from the mangled ruin of his shoulder. He had lost a lethal amount of blood.
Tyler's stomach plummeted. His hands trembled as he hovered them over the catastrophic wound.
*What do I do?* he thought, his breath hitching. *I didn't even make any potions. How the hell did I forget? What do I do? What do I do?*
A massive, earth-shaking growl reverberated through the clearing. Tyler’s head snapped sideways. Through the thinning haze, the colossal Crimson Alpha slowly forced itself up onto its four legs, its muscles shifting beneath its red fur. Tyler’s heart hammered against his ribs in a frantic, desperate rhythm. He looked back down at James. His eyes locked onto the leather bag strapped to the swordsman's waist.
An idea slammed into his mind.
He ripped the bag open, his fingers blindly grasping inside until they curled around the smooth surface of a waterpouch. He pulled it free and immediately willed it into his inventory.
*Craft three health potions,* Tyler commanded mentally.
[Crafting...]
The translucent text hovered in his vision. Tyler shot a glance at the colossal wolf. The beast thrashed its heavy head, casting off the lingering disorientation of the shockwave. Tyler's breath snagged in his throat. Despite the cataclysmic blast, the monster's thick crimson hide remained immaculate. Not a single laceration. Not a single drop of blood.
"That's impossible," Tyler exhaled, a cold, heavy knot tightening in his chest.
[Crafting successful.]
Tyler opened his palm. The smooth, cold glass of a small vial materialized against his skin. The faint green luminescence of the liquid cast a sickly glow over James’s pale, bloodless lips.
*I hope this works,* Tyler thought, leaning down.
[CRIMSON ALPHA HAS ACTIVATED SKILL: FRENZY]
Tyler’s head jerked up. The Alpha was already halfway across the clearing. His heart kicked against his ribs like a trapped animal. His brain failed to process the impossible speed. Operating entirely on raw, adrenaline-fueled instinct, Tyler shoved James's dead weight violently aside while his boots kicked fiercely into the dirt to propel himself backward.
A suffocating, heat-haze aura of deep red bled from the wolf's coarse fur. The beast swung a limb the size of a tree trunk. Razor-sharp claws sheared the oxygen a fraction of an inch from Tyler’s chest, the violently displaced air whipping his hair across his eyes. The colossal paw struck the earth. The sheer concussive impact pulverized the soil, sending a violent geyser of dirt, shattered rocks, and torn roots exploding outward.
James rolled limply through the debris, a strained, wet grunt of agony escaping his lips despite his unconscious state. Tyler hit the dirt on his side, his momentum forcing him through a brutal, uncontrolled roll. He shoved his palms into the earth, forcing himself upright.
The wolf’s burning gaze was already locked directly onto him.
It launched itself again.
Tyler scrambled for purchase, but the beast eclipsed the sun. The Alpha drove its colossal paw straight into Tyler’s abdomen. The devastating kinetic impact caved the center of his chest inward. Instantly, his leather armor violently detonated into a shower of scattered blue light, its durability completely obliterated by the sheer force.
Tyler rocketed backward. Hot, metallic-tasting blood sprayed from his lips. He slammed through a tree trunk, his body acting as a human cannonball. Solid wood exploded into jagged shrapnel. He smashed through a second tree, the thick bark shredding his clothes, then a third. He possessed zero control over his violent trajectory. Blinding, white-hot agony radiated through his entire skeletal structure. The air was violently crushed from his lungs, paralyzing his throat.
He finally crashed to a brutal halt. His battered spine rammed heavily against the massive, unyielding trunk of an Adas tree. The sheer kinetic transfer slightly uprooted the giant plant, tearing thick, subterranean roots from the soil as the trunk bent backward under his velocity. Tyler collapsed into the exposed roots, his mouth opening in a desperate, silent gasp for oxygen. Warm blood streamed down his forehead, stinging his eyes. Every nerve in his body screamed.
[HP: 50/168]
He stared at the hovering numbers, his vision swimming. *Fifty points left,* he thought, a numb shock piercing through the agony.
He pressed his trembling, blood-slicked hands into the churned dirt, trying to lift his upper body. For a fraction of a second, his heavy eyelids fluttered shut, plunging him into darkness.
When they snapped open, a violent gust of wind whipped his hair across his face.
The Alpha towered directly over him.
The beast stared down, its black lips curling back to expose cavernous rows of jagged teeth. It opened its massive jaws, lunging downward to swallow Tyler’s head whole.
Tyler’s arms shot upward. The heavy wooden shaft of his blunt mace materialized instantly into his desperate grip just as the wolf’s colossal jaws clamped down on the weapon.
Tyler ground his teeth until his jaw ached. The solid iron immediately began to shriek and warp under the crushing, unimaginable pressure of the beast's canines. The monster drove its heavy head downward, physically compressing Tyler's spine deeper into the dirt. A ragged groan tore from his throat. He had braced for the beast to rip the weapon away or violently toss him. Instead, it used its immense, crushing mass to slowly flatten him.
Thick, hot drool splattered heavily against Tyler's cheeks.
The metal of the mace bent severely inward, the thick iron bowing to its absolute breaking point.
*Shit, it's just a basic grade,* he thought, raw panic tightening his throat.
Beneath the crimson hide, he watched the beast's impossibly thick ropes of muscle shift, coil, and bulge. He could physically feel the monster's raw density escalating. The crushing weight bore down until Tyler’s own enhanced muscles began to shake, buckle, and fail.
*If I don't do something, I'm going to die.*
Pure terror threatened to lock his limbs, but a sudden realization pierced his racing mind.
*The katana,* he thought.
He blinked hard, and his Mana Sight flared to life. The air instantly filled with drifting mana particles. Tyler snapped his gaze to the left. A razor-thin, blue strand materialized in his vision, stretching far across the ruined clearing and connecting directly from the dropped blade to one of the fingers currently wrapped tightly around the bending iron mace.
He activated the return skill.
Far in the distance, the dropped katana vibrated violently against the soil. It lifted into the air and shot straight across the battlefield in a deadly, linear blur, ripped through the air by the invisible connection straight toward Tyler.
The thick iron shaft of the mace finally gave way, snapping violently in two. The sudden loss of resistance freed Tyler's hands just as the beast’s cavernous mouth plummeted, stopping mere inches from his nose.
At that exact fraction of a second, the katana arrived. The hilt slammed violently into his grip. The sudden, extreme momentum drove the exposed, razor-sharp steel deep into the thick, impenetrable hide of the wolf's neck.
The Alpha released a furious, vibrating growl, violently snapping its massive head backward to escape the biting steel.
Tyler seized the microscopic opening. He ripped his knees tight to his chest and drove his heavy boots fiercely upward, kicking the beast squarely beneath its jaw. Using the recoil, he rolled violently backward, skidding over the dirt until he arrested his momentum by dropping onto one knee, bracing his back leg against the torn forest floor.
He immediately forced himself to a full stand. Hot sweat mingled with the blood on his forehead, rolling down the bridge of his nose and dripping steadily from his chin to the dirt.
He stared at the monster. The beast radiated a suffocating, heavy heat that pressed against Tyler's lungs like the physical weight of gravity itself. The Crimson Alpha had grown noticeably larger. Its dense, corded muscles bulged violently against its crimson hide, threatening to tear right through the skin.
Tyler gripped the katana tightly with both hands, extending the shimmering steel forward. It was the only weapon that had managed to pierce the monster's defenses. A thin, weeping red line marred the side of the wolf's impossibly thick neck. Small beads of dark blood finally surfaced from the shallow cut, staining the red fur.
*I only have 50 HP, and James is going to die if I don't hurry,* he thought, his knuckles turning white around the hilt, his forearms burning. *But how the hell am I gonna defeat this thing?*