Chapter 9: Silver Wolf Alpha Beast
Arc stood over the crater the body of the Alpha Beast bloodhound had created, its skull caved in. His balled fist dyed red and dripping with blood that didn’t belong to him.
The Silver Wolf Right-hand Warrior made one last twitch before its body went completely still.
[You have killed Lv10 Silver Wolf Right-hand Warrior]
[You have leveled up | Lv8]
...
[Doing better than I expected. I honestly underestimated you.]
Arc’s voice suddenly spoke in his head, just like the last time.
Arc didn’t flinch this time. His lips parted to speak, and only three words escaped his throat.
"Who are you?" he asked in an icy tone.
[You’ll get to know when the time is right.]
This time, it didn’t try to mimic his voice and spoke with the voice of an alluring female.
[For now, you should focus on the battle before you.]
Just as it said that, Arc lifted his head to discover the second bloodhound had disappeared from where it stood only moments ago. And from his peripheral vision, a large mass was charging at him at the speed of lightning—
"Get lost."
Gaea’s Judgment burst through the side of the wolf, leaving a bloody, gaping hole as the beast crashed to the floor.
[You have killed Lv10 Silver Wolf Left-hand Warrior]
[You have leveled up | Lv9]
Dead.
"You have a lot of explaining to do," Arc said to the voice in his head as he opened his palm and Gaea’s Judgment materialized in it.
"But let’s finish up here first."
Just as he said that, the Silver Wolf Alpha Beast stepped out into the open, and like it couldn’t agree more to Arc’s words, it began shape-shifting and expanding in size, growing easily double the size of the average Silver Wolf, towering over Arc’s form.
The earth beneath its paw cracked as it burst forward at a speed that rivaled that of its bloodhounds, charging at Arc, who didn’t budge from the spot and slowly raised his staff above his head in the time it took the Silver Wolf Alpha Beast to arrive before him. Then he struck.
Bam.
The staff struck the Alpha Beast squarely on its snout, driving its massive head to the ground. But unlike Ol’ Man ’woof woof’, the strike wasn’t enough to take out the Alpha Beast.
[Critical hit!]
The wolf quickly leapt back to create distance between it and Arc, its snout leaking blood and mucus, its rows of razor-sharp teeth now tainted red with blood.
The Silver Wolf Alpha Beast stared down at Arc with bloodshot eyes leaking malice and unrestrained bloodlust. Then it blurred from the spot once more, but this time, instead of a direct confrontation, it faded into the shadows of the forest.
Not that it made a difference to Arc, who slowly closed his eyes and attuned himself to the wind with the help of Gaea’s Judgment, waiting for the slightest disruption in the wind to know where the Silver Wolf Alpha Beast chose to attack from.
But even after a moment of waiting, Arc couldn’t feel even the slightest hint of where the Silver Wolf Alpha Beast might be hiding.
[Mhmm... I think it ran away a while ago.]
Arc’s eyes shot open as he realized he’d been played.
"Bastard."
***
Back to the present.
"A—Arc...?" Rose called out in surprise, drawing the attention of the rest of the team as they turned to stare from Arc’s figure to the wolf cub sprawled before him, dead.
All except Liz, whose hair stood on end and who didn’t think of it as a cub, as she knew the level of danger she felt approaching behind her—deadlier than the Silver Wolves they’d just struggled to take out—but couldn’t react in time when Arc appeared with a stick...
Or was she mistaken?
Whichever it was, she was grateful for the save, as she knew too well that if the wolf had gotten to her—cub or not—it would’ve turned messy for her.
But—
"W—What the hell are you looking at?" Liz snapped. "Are you expecting me to kiss your feet and offer myself to you as an offering for saving me from that rabid dog, while you left us out here fighting for our lives?!" She scoffed, running a hand through her hair as she looked away, only to steal back a glance to see Arc crouch over the wolf’s head and dip his hand into its cracked skull to retrieve a small, bloodied orb pulsating with energy.
"H—How did you learn about that?" Jack blurted out in surprise.
"Didn’t you guys just do the same thing with the other wolves?" Arc replied tactically.
Apparently, the party had somehow discovered the existence of these energy orbs and had extracted them from all the wolves. Arc had simply spotted the drilled heads of the Silver Wolves and didn’t need to make up an excuse to retrieve that of the Alpha Beast.
"Yeah, but—"
"I was here the whole time," Arc cut him off. "I’ll keep this one. You can split those amongst yourselves."
Felix’s mouth couldn’t help but twitch at Arc’s audacity to even utter such words—you can split those amongst yourselves—like he’d contributed a penny to the battle.
He forced a smile. "Sure thing."
Then he turned to face the whole party and began, "Good fight, everyone. It’s great to see we all made it out alive from this one, but I’m afraid we can’t stay here any longer. The blood might attract more unwanted attention we don’t want, and we don’t know if there’s more from where these came from," he said, pointing to the dead Silver Wolves with his sword, then paused to run his eyes through each and every party member.
"We’d be better off moving away from here, in search of a place where we can settle down and recuperate for the night."
"Any objections?" Felix asked.
Everyone remained silent, including Arc, who couldn’t agree more to Felix’s plan for the sole purpose of returning to the wolf’s den when the party was asleep to harvest the energy stones he left behind.
It was at that moment that Jack slowly raised his hand before Felix could wrap it up.
"I didn’t know how to say this earlier, but I have a Talent that can scout a wide area of effect, and when I used it earlier during the battle, I came to discover we are actually on an island.
"A floating island."
