CHAPTER 55: CHAPTER 54

In a shadowed clearing deep in the forest...

Two figures stood still—calm, silent, dangerous.

Across from them, the wild stirred.

Dire Alpha Wolves emerged, massive and ragged with muscle, their black-iron fur glinting under slivers of green light. Eyes glowed crimson locked onto their prey.

Lumberling shifted his grip on his spear. Half his body was swallowed in shadow, his stance low, focused. He didn’t breathe—he listened. The forest wasn’t terrain to him. It was home.

Beside him, Skitz cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulders. A sharp grin tugged at his lips. One hand spun a small bomb with casual flair, while the other rested loosely on the hilt of his sword.

The Alpha lunged—fangs like ivory scythes.

Time slowed.

Lumberling saw it all: the angle of the leap, the shadow of Skitz behind him, the raw fury in the wolf’s eyes.

’If I slip here, he dies.’

The beast snapped at air and falling pine needles. Lumberling reappeared at its flank, thrusting low—his spear slicing along its ribs, carving a red line. The wolf howled, twisting to strike, but Lumberling was already beneath it, sliding like mist through grass.

The second Alpha bounded toward Skitz—faster, smarter—jaws gaping like a bear trap.

Skitz blinked.

He vanished and reappeared behind it. His blade arced, slicing deep. Blood sprayed like ink. The Alpha roared and spun.

But Skitz was gone again—this time above—dropping a bomb at its feet.

"You’re fast. Too bad I cheat."

Boom. Thunder split the forest as the ground shook beneath the light.

Lumberling’s spear moved like a surgeon’s scalpel—precise, economic. Each strike drained his foe: bleed, weaken, stagger. When the wolf lunged, claws like scythes arcing down, Lumberling ducked low and drove the butt of his spear upward into its jaw—crack.

’They’re not slowing. They’re not scared. These wolves... they’ve tasted blood and survived. We have to break them.’

Meanwhile, Skitz bled from a gash in his shoulder. His opponent had adapted, timed his movement, and flung him into a tree. His sword clattered away.

The Alpha pounced, fangs wide to crush.

Skitz grunted as the Alpha’s claw raked his ribs—armor cracked, blood splashed. He staggered, rolled, came up grinning.

"Okay... that one hurt."

Lumberling was already in motion. He slipped beneath his opponent’s sweeping claws, boots barely brushing the forest floor. In one fluid turn, he twisted at the waist and hurled his spear—not at the beast before him, but across the clearing.

The weapon spun like a flash of silver.

It struck true.

Thunk!

The spear slammed into the second Alpha’s ribcage, embedding deep with a crunch of bone and a spray of dark blood.

"Skitz!" Lumberling barked, voice sharp as steel.

Skitz vanished mid-dodge, then reappeared above his foe. With both hands, he plunged a bomb straight into the open wound.

BOOM.

The explosion rocked the clearing—smoke, blood, and fur scattering in the air.

The wolf crumpled with a strangled snarl. Not dead. But broken. Its limbs twitched. Its breath came ragged. Still dangerous.

Then—snap!

Lumberling grunted as the other Alpha lashed out. Its jaws clamped down, catching his shoulder.

He managed to wedge his arm against its snout, just in time to stop a lethal bite—but not enough to escape unharmed. Fangs tore through leather and scraped flesh.

He staggered back, breathing hard.

Not deep. But deep enough.

A flash of pain. A flicker of anger. These weren’t just wild beasts. These were killers—tacticians in fur.

The Alpha snarled and turned to bolt—eyes locked on its wounded kin.

But Skitz was faster.

"Blackbind."

Black chains erupted from the soil, like hungry serpents.

Snap! Snap! They wrapped around the wolf mid-leap—its limbs buckling under the weight of black chains—and slammed the beast into the earth.

The ground shuddered.

The Alpha thrashed, claws ripping at the bindings, but it was caught.

And it knew it.

Lumberling charged.

He unsheathed the sword at his waist, vaulted onto the trapped Alpha’s shoulders, and drove the blade down—deep behind its skull.

As the Alpha’s body stilled, the forest fell silent.

Lumberling rose, blood trailing down his brow, and held his hand over the corpse.

"Skitz. Come here."

"Yes, my Lord."

Lumberling activated his Essence Weave. A faint shimmer—unseen by others—drifted from the Alpha’s corpse and into Skitz.

Then they turned to the second, barely conscious Alpha. Lumberling stepped forward and thrust his blade into its neck.

Essence flowed again.

Skitz exhaled slowly, the air shimmering around him—not from magic, but pressure. His muscles felt like they were burning from within, his senses too sharp, his skin tingling as if something inside was trying to tear its way out.

He grinned despite the ache.

"So this... this is what it feels like to stand on the edge."

Lumberling glanced at him.

"You’re not on the edge. You’re at the door. All that’s left is to break it down."

And Skitz’s grip tightened on his blade. "Then I’ll kick it in, my Lord."

Together, they turned toward the battlefield where their forces clashed steel and fang.

"Stay close," Lumberling said, voice calm.

"Yes, my Lord!" Skitz grinned, eyes burning. "Let’s speed things up."

And they vanished into the trees—hunter and shadow—bringing with them the storm.

.....

A short distance away, in a clearing marked with claw-raked trees, Skarn stood alone.

The enemy before him was larger than the others. Its fur was streaked with gray, its snout a battlefield of scars, its fangs chipped from wars long past.

Skarn inhaled deeply.

"I’ll remember you," he said. "If you’re strong enough to make me."

The Bloodfang (Elite Dire Wolf) lowered its head, then charged—fast. Too fast.

Skarn barely dodged as it snapped at his side. He retaliated with a downward cleave, but it twisted mid-air, catching his arm with its claws. Blood welled—but Skarn didn’t stop.

"You’ll have to do better than scratch me."

The wolf lunged again, and Skarn met it head-on. His axe locked its jaws, steel grinding against fang. He shoved it back, then swept his leg low—tripping the beast.

With a roar, he raised his axe. But the wolf rolled aside and bit his leg.

Skarn shouted, more in rage than pain, and headbutted the wolf. It yelped, dazed.

Then—Skarn dropped low, his body moving with berserker clarity.

A twist. A spin. A final, brutal arc of his axe across the wolf’s exposed neck.

It fell. Trembling. Beaten.

Skarn stood panting, bleeding, victorious.

The nearby goblins and kobolds stared.

And then, slowly, they cheered.

.....

When Lumberling and Skitz arrived, they found the captains had already felled three Bloodfangs—the evolved Dire Wolves, each one as strong as a Knight Page. The remaining two were locked in battle, besieged by four captains working in tandem.

The moment the captains noticed their Lord’s presence, they disengaged and gave a short salute.

"Where are the others?" Lumberling asked.

"They went to assist the soldiers, my Lord," one replied.

"Good. Leave these beasts to us. Go help the others."

"As you command, my Lord."

As the captains dashed off, Lumberling and Skitz made short work of the two remaining Bloodfangs. Lumberling delivered the killing blows, while Skitz absorbed the essence from each one.

Then, without pause, they moved through the battlefield like reapers—slaying wolves and siphoning essence. Nearly half the original wolf force remained, giving Skitz more than enough to draw from.

After an hour of fighting, only a few dozen wolves still stood. When they realized their Alphas were gone, panic rippled through the ranks—and they fled.

"Aren, Gobo1, Gobo2, Skarn!" Lumberling barked. "Take your units and hunt down the stragglers!"

"We obey, my Lord!" the captains roared and scattered into the trees.

But Lumberling had a different target in mind.

Earlier, he’d sent his golden eagles to track the gnolls that had fled. Now, their hiding place was no longer a mystery.

"We’ll do the wolves a favor and finish what they started," he said, turning toward the trees. The remaining soldiers and captains followed without question.

"Takkar, Vakk," Lumberling called. "Flank the area. I don’t want a single gnoll slipping past."

The gnolls, desperate and wounded, had holed up in a dense, towering trees—but they could not hide from eagle eyes. Lumberling counted twenty-six of them. Fewer than expected.

As his troops advanced, the gnolls panicked. They tried to scatter—but Takkar and Vakk closed in from both sides, herding them like cattle into the kill zone.

Lumberling didn’t move. He stood back, watching, waiting.

And then it appeared.

The strange gnoll—the one who’d stood toe-to-toe with the Alpha Dire Wolves—burst from the shadows with a feral roar and lunged at his soldiers.

But before it could reach them, Lumberling and Skitz struck like lightning.