Frostbound

Chris

I pushed my Law to go further. Both in the strength of my Ice and the cold it produced. Some of the constant growth I had felt from the tutorial was missing and I wanted to make up for that.

It was obvious that I wouldn't grow as fast now that we were out of the tutorial, but it still felt weird to be the same level for weeks on end. Even though each level took longer and I didn't have ample opportunity to get essence, it still felt like I wasn't doing anything.

At this point, the tutorial had been over for longer than we were in it. I knew that would be the case, I knew that it would pick up again when we finally settled down and I could run dungeons on a regular basis, but it was still disappointing.

The wolves tried to stop me from approaching the pack leader but they weren't able to hold up. It wasn't even necessary to wait for [Avalanche] to build.

The bodies accumulated as I carved my way toward the leader and I finally laid eyes on him after almost half an hour of fighting. It dwarfed the other wolves by a head and a half in both bulk and height.

Plus, it had a different feel to it, like it was above the rest. It watched me approach with a deep snarl in its throat and rage in its eyes, well beyond the emotions the wave monsters would show.

It did not like what I was doing to its pack and it spent no time sizing me up before charging toward me. It pushed its pack mates out of the way and charged directly at me.

I pushed on [Sweeping Snow] and dumped more of my mana into it, trying to speed up the rate at which I killed the lesser pack. Something about the leader told me to finish the ones around me quickly so more of my attention would be free to deal with it. It had a feeling about it that reminded me of the bosses from the waves. A quality to it that signaled a wellspring of power.

Keeping track of its charge was difficult with all of the bodies around me but I managed to do so just in time to brace myself for its attack.

The wolf came in with jaws wide and teeth glistening with mana ready to chomp down on me. It took every bit of my reaction time to snap my hammer around to defend against it, knocking its head out of the way with my swing.

If it was the average monster, almost every monster, it would have died to that kind of swing with their head caved in, but the leader brushed it off without a scratch. After my hit knocked the wolf of course, it charged past me with its excess momentum.