And for Mikael, it might as well have been. ‘If it hits me, I’m definitely cooked!’ The thought barely had time to form before he hurled himself to the ground.

Swish.

Its front limb passed over Mikael ‘harmlessly’—or so it seemed, until the wind followed. The force of that single motion exploded outward in a shockwave fierce enough to rival a Class 5 hurricane, shredding everything in its path.

Trees were ripped from the ground, rocks scattered like dust, and the carcasses of demonic beasts—some weighing hundreds of kilograms to several tons—were launched across the battlefield without even the slightest resistance. Across hundreds of meters, the terrain had become a scarred wasteland. And yet, one group remained completely unaffected.

The six Zephyr Wolves.

They stood motionless, completely untouched by the devastation around them. The storm curved around their bodies as if it feared disturbing them, leaving not so much as a single fur out of place. They didn’t react, didn’t flinch, as if the Titanhide Rhino’s display meant nothing to them.

At least, that was how it appeared. But if one looked closely into their cold, piercing eyes, they’d notice a subtle shift. The hunger they had aimed at Mikael moments earlier had cooled—replaced now by a simmering fury, held just barely in check, and directed squarely at the behemoth that had dared to interfere in their hunt… and worse, attack them!

Awoooooo.

The Alpha howled to the sky, the other Zephyr Wolves responding in unison. Their six howls rose as one—a sound wild and primal, yet pulsing with an unnatural force beneath. Wind curled around their throats as if the air itself responded to their anger, twisting and tightening into something sharper.

Then, it broke loose.

A low-frequency burst detonated outward—not into the sky, but horizontally, sharp, precise, and brutally direct. Trees cracked, stones split, and a deep rumble rolled through the earth. Though its range was limited, everything caught in its path shuddered beneath the invisible force.

Mikael’s ears rang violently as the wave passed through him, and worse, he felt his insides vibrate as if they’d been struck directly, a warm red liquid beginning to leak from his ears as he staggered. The next moment, he planted a purple poisoned hand against the ground and pushed himself toward a standing position.

But mid-motion he failed, the world around him spinning—more than usual. After all, with poison coursing through his veins, dizziness wasn’t anything new; it had practically become the norm*.

As his head collided with the ground with a thud, he immediately understood what had happened, his inner ear, otherwise known as his sense of balance, had been completely wrecked by the sonic attack, making even the act of standing a daunting task, especially in his current, awful state.

For a brief moment, Mikael just lay there, motionless—his vision swimming, his thoughts fuzzy, his limbs refusing to obey. Somewhere in the haze of pressure, poison, and blood loss, a single thought surfaced—sharp, bitter, undeniable.

‘So this is how far I’ve fallen… Can’t even stand.’

The irony would've been laughable—if he had the strength to laugh. He couldn’t even lift himself off the ground, his body too broken, too poisoned to obey. But despite everything, he was still breathing, still here, not dead, not yet at least.

‘Even my mind doesn’t feel like my own anymore,’ he thought with some bitterness, his thoughts painfully slow and difficult to form, the pain coursing through his body, the blood loss, and the poison making even thinking a chore.

Meanwhile, as Mikael was gathering himself, the Titanhide Rhino, despite all its size and power, stumbled a step under the lingering force of the invisible sonic attack. It didn’t last long; it quickly shook its head and steadied itself before its gaze locked once more onto the pack of Zephyr Wolves in a silent confrontation.

Tensions sparked between the two apex predators, the Titanhide Rhino and the pack of Zephyr Wolves. They eyed each other warily, clearly recognizing one another as true threats—recognizing the apex reflected in the other.

Neither side moved, each predator silently gauging the other’s limits, the tension crackling between them. And the small human below—their original target?

He wasn’t important, too weak to decide his fate, he would simply serve as a snack to the victor, nothing more, nothing less. That was the fate of the weak, too powerless to choose their path… or at least, that was how it seemed to the instinct-driven minds of the Titanhide Rhino and the Zephyr Wolves.

But what they didn’t know was that the small human they had dismissed would prove far more dangerous than they could ever imagine…

The wolves let out another howl before launching a barrage of wind blades toward the hill-sized Rhino. On the Rhino’s already incredibly durable skin, a layer of Earth Qi emerged, further reinforcing an already terrifying level of defense.

Shrack.

The wind blades gouged into the Titanhide Rhino’s skin, drawing a bit of blood—but that was all. For a creature of this behemoth’s size, it wasn’t even a scratch. The Titanhide Rhino let out an angry bellow, furious that it had been wounded at all.

Meanwhile, Mikael, still lying on the ground, was doing his best to stay unnoticed. If the Titanhide Rhino and the pack of Zephyr Wolves wanted to go at it, he certainly wouldn’t complain.

He waited for an opportunity to escape while they remained focused on the fight. Of course, he wasn’t just lying there doing nothing, he was also controlling his Qi to push back the poison, and thanks to his current immobile state, he was even making progress!

Boom. Boom. BOOOM.

In this way, amidst the earth-shattering collision between the rhino and the wolves, time passed. By the three-minute mark, Mikael’s condition had noticeably improved—it had gone from incredibly awful to ‘only’ awful. A big improvement!

At that moment, unnoticed by the fighting demonic beasts, Mikael pushed through the lingering dizziness and the remnants of the Zephyr Wolves’ sonic attack, rose to his feet, and then, without wasting a moment, erupted forward at his maximum speed.

‘I’ll make it!’ he thought as, under his fast action and their lack of attention, he was able to slip away, quickly putting tens of meters between him and them, and for a moment it truly seemed that he would be able to escape alive from this beast tide, but then—

Swish.

His ears and instincts caught something approaching from behind, something carrying a lethal threat. Without thinking, he used his strongest move—Celestial Moon’s Embrace—a flash of Lunar Qi appeared around Sangrelia as he turned a full 180 degrees before slashing at full power.

Sangrelia encountered an extremely sharp and fast wind blade, a gift of the Alpha Zephyr Wolf that caught him escaping. The Wind Qi and his Lunar Qi collided in a surge of energy; Mikael was pushed backward by the power of the wind blade. His foot dragged a shallow trench in the dirt as he slid several meters, blood dripping down his lips, but he endured.

Unfortunately, that was only the beginning. A breath later, the Zephyr Wolves—who had just been locked in confrontation with the Titanhide Rhino—vanished in streaks of speed, riding the wind itself. The behemoth made no move to retain them; on the contrary, it seemed to…approve?

From a human’s perspective, their sudden ‘cooperation’ was bizarre, but for demonic beasts it wasn’t, as their instincts harbored a deep hatred and aversion toward sapient life. Ignoring a wounded human to fight another apex predator was acceptable... but letting him escape? That was intolerable.

And so, without any signal or coordination, the pack of Zephyr Wolves and the Titanhide Rhino entered a temporary truce—one that would last only long enough to take care of the prey attempting to flee.

One by one, they flickered into existence around Mikael, forming a half-circle. Their eyes gleamed with feral intelligence. Behind him, the massive shadow of the Rhino advanced steadily, the tremors in the earth growing stronger with each thunderous step.

Of course, Mikael didn’t know the ‘complicated’ reasoning behind their actions. The only thing he knew was that he was surrounded from all directions. ‘I won’t make it,’ he realized grimly, fingers tightening around Sangrelia’s hilt—only for her to vibrate in response, louder than ever before.

Despite everything, Mikael smiled through the pain. “You’re right,” he muttered. “What’s there to fear? They’re just some demonic beasts… let’s cut them down.”

As he spoke through the pain, the world seemed to quiet for a moment, bending under his declaration.

The Titanhide Rhino and the Zephyr Wolves obviously didn’t understand his words, but they understood the intent behind them, and they certainly didn’t appreciate it; with a final bellow and howl respectively, they lunged and then—

The world blurred in a mix of chaos, pain, and blood. Mikael moved by instinct; through the dizziness, pain, and bloodlust, he moved and battled. Sangrelia’s obsidian black blade with a bloody edge flashed, the silver of the Lunar Qi warping around her as she collided with her master’s enemies.

He swung, counterattacked, evaded, and endured; sometimes he would roll out of the way of a claw before using his Moonpiercer Sword Art to counterattack. Other times, he would be more brutal, attacking with his bare fist in a display of raw savagery.

As the battle continued, Mikael's already dreadful condition deteriorated, a claw tore through his side, the shockwave of the Rhino sent him flying, wind-formed gashes appeared on his body, and some of his bones broke.

The more injured he got, the more his surroundings dissolved in a blur of motion and blood—he couldn’t tell who lunged or from what direction the claws, horns, and bodies came. His sword moved, but whether it struck flesh or air, he no longer knew.

With the blood loss, poison, and the disorientation of his ruined balance compounding his injuries, Mikael’s thoughts slowed, thick and heavy. Somewhere in the haze, something stirred. ‘Wait… there was something I…’ But it slipped away before it could take form, buried beneath instinct, pain, and the need to endure. ‘No… just fight.’

It was through this fuzzy window that Mikael felt Sangrelia change in his hand.

Her edge became sharper as she began to vibrate with an intensity Mikael had never felt before, but oddly enough, he could still hold her without difficulty. Her obsidian black blade was now soaked entirely in blood, a mix that was partly Mikael’s, but some of it belonged to the demonic beasts.

Feeling her master’s dwindling life force, she pushed herself further—past her limits—amplifying her sharpness and durability to higher and higher levels, all to help Mikael cut down his enemy. 

His strikes began to cut deeper, fueled by something unnatural, and at that instant, small cracks began to appear on Sangrelia’s blade, she was burning herself to support him.

In Mikael’s hazy mind, a flicker of recognition flashed at her action, and instinctively, he wanted to stop her, but the thought was buried, as he was too far gone in the blood and gore to even understand what was really happening.

The only thing he was ‘thinking’ was the next slash, the next confrontation, the next injury. Each impact blurred into the next as Mikael and Sangrelia began to fight as one.

Working in unison, and with Sangrelia burning herself, the battle prowess they unleashed climbed to a higher level, but…

It wasn’t enough. Even with that, the best they could do was struggle and endure a little longer, but it still wasn’t enough to turn the tide. At this instant, they were like a small boat lost in a devastating tempest, doing its best to stay afloat, but it was only a question of time before it sank.

Logically, in a situation this desperate, and with Sangrelia hurting herself, Mikael should have escaped without caring about the supposed ‘opportunity.’

💬 I read every comment, and your thoughts genuinely shape Mikael’s path.

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Glad you’re walking this path with me.

— End of Chapter —