Amazon Apocalypse: Chapter 54 (Patreon)

My reaction was instant. I pointed my finger and fired an Eldrich Blast at the Alpha Wolfman. Meditation activated, and I activated Enlightenment and pushed myself to the first level of Mania as I prepared for the fight of my life. All the while, my eyes kept tracking him. The shadows lining his body grew deeper as he made his own preparations for battle, caught just as off-guard as I’d been.

I scanned him with Examine.

Servant of the Chaos Wolf (Level 31)

His recent hunts had made him a little stronger, and like me, he was D-Rank. But I still held the level advantage, if only slightly. The only problem was his Epic ranked race as a Chaosborn Lycan. Hopefully, my Rare human subrace would mitigate that advantage, assuming I’d racked up enough Proficiencies to matter. I would depend on my raw advantage in levels and stats to win out in the end.

The black tentacle-like shadows lining the Alpha Wolfman’s back swallowed, opening my spell up in a pool of inky darkness as black as midnight.

“You waste your potential as a human...” The Alpha Wolfman growled at me.

I stopped, hand poised to fire another spell. Was the Alpha Wolfman actually offering what I thought he was?

“Your strength... is admirable...” The Alpha Wolfman said between his pointed teeth.

I stiffened, one hand on my sword and the other ready to fire more spells. I let him speak. I’d need my full powers for this, which meant pushing myself to the third level of Mania. I let him speak to give me what time he could, though he was undoubtedly enhancing his preparations. My preparations would just have to be worth more than his. I activated Exploit Weakness to highlight his vulnerabilities.

“Join my pack, human. You would become stronger as a Chaosborn Lycan,” the Alpha Wolfman offered.

“Are you serious?” I laughed. “I know how your transformation works. It’s one way. You connect a pup to a human, and the pup gets the human’s soul.”

The Alpha Wolfman flashed me a feral grin. “Not so, human. The connection can be reversed. It was how my kind came to be. The two-legged hunters sought the power of the wolf. But I took their knife and stole their power instead.”

I paused, brows drawn tight at the revelation. “There were humans where you came from?”

The Alpha Wolfman barked a laugh. “Two-legs. Like you? Maybe. What does it matter?” The Alpha Wolfman licked his lips. “Come. Heed the moon’s call. Join us.”

The Alpha Wolfman’s front paw went to the stone dagger strapped to his chest. That was the Unholy Athame, the legendary weapon blessed by the Chaos Wolf. In its original form, it was probably what lured the Chaos Wolf to my presence so many worlds away.

“You’d sacrifice one of your own pups just to make me one of you?” I asked with raised eyebrows.

“The strong feast and take many mates. It is the way of the wild.” The Alpha Wolfman stayed deathly still, but the shadows along his back were less practiced than his twitching claws. They loomed over me, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.

I shook my head. “A human wants more than food and mates.”

“That is why we must have you. The Chaos Wolf wants you,” he insisted. “I would lead the pack in strength. You would lead them in spirit.”

“You’re wasting your breath. I’m human and will remain as such.” I wasn’t sure what the Great Ancestor of Humanity on this shard switching races would do to humans who reached the D-Grade, but I doubted it would do anything good. Epic race or not, I had no plans on becoming a Chaosborn Lycan.

But the Alpha Wolfman glowered at me, eyes shining amid the shadows crawling over him. He was hiding a secret and was about to reveal it.

“Your mate will be one of us soon. Our pup grows weak, and she grows strong, yes?” The Alpha Wolfman gave me a feral grin.

“Bridget...” Just what had she sacrificed to be able to fight on the walls with us that night?

“You can’t save her,” the Alpha Wolfman laughed.

“Like hell, I can’t!” I growled back in reply. I followed with a burst of spellfire.

We clashed once more for the fourth and final time. Both of us held certainty in our eyes. There would be no clashes after this one. We were two great beasts in the same narrow valley. There wasn’t room for the both of us.

The Alpha Wolfman swept my spells aside with a burst of shadows. He moved as quick as lightning, vanishing from where he’d stood a moment ago, and appeared before me through some unknown skill. His gnashing teeth went right for my throat.

But he wasn’t the only one who could move fast, and this time I was the one whose speed and reaction time had taken another leap. I was on the other side of the hilltop the moment he’d moved to attack, and I followed up my earlier spells with another round of Mana Bolts.

These spells came from behind, and the shadow tendrils lining his body were too slow to stop them all. Finally, one of the Mana Bolts struck home, and the Alpha Wolfman let out a hiss of pain.

With my newly increased health pool, I was willing to risk something I hadn’t before. I targeted the Alpha Wolfman with Blood Sacrifice, instantly losing a quarter of my health pool.

I coughed up a mouthful of blood and spat it on the ground. The Alpha Wolfman’s body arched backward at the unexpected pain. I exploited the moment of vulnerability to its fullest with a barrage of Eldrich Blasts and Mana Bolts. I targeted his weak points, his throat, eyes, and underbelly.

Suddenly, his mouth lit up to Exploit Weakness, and I targeted that too. But I was just a hair too slow. The Alpha Wolfman let out another roar, just as loud and piercing as the one I’d heard from afar before.

So close to him, the volume and piercing pain were many times worse.

You have been afflicted with Chaos Howl! You are dazed.

I cursed, suddenly unsteady on my feet. I might have fallen if Sure Step hadn’t illuminated my shoddy stance and let me brace myself long enough to use Warp Step.

I fled the top of the hill, not trusting my reaction speed while dazed.

The Alpha Wolfman pursued with remarkable agility. Though he couldn’t warp space with every step, his raw agility stat had to be incredible. I dodged striking claws made of shadow tendrils, one after another, turning to fire a few spells. I wasn’t sure if any of them struck him; I just wanted to slow him down while I recovered.

Dazed as I was, it took me a few seconds to figure out how to shrug off the altered state. Refilling my health pool to its maximum would hopefully do the trick. I was happy I’d poured my new stats into Intelligence because, without an enormous mana pool, my next trick would have been suicide.

I used Mind Over Flesh, converting mana into regeneration until my health pool was completely full. Dazed flashed in my vision three times before fading. My head cleared immediately, and I turned to fight at full power once again.

The Alpha Wolfman’s claws swept through the air, leaving a shadow twice as large as the Wolfman’s entire body in their wake. Those sharpened nails swung right through a towering oak and cleaved it in two at the base, but they missed me completely as I warped into the upper branches and attacked from afar.

“Human!” The Alpha Wolfman growled into the forest. Try as he might, he just couldn’t dig his claws into me.

I was nimble, taking advantage of every opportunity to hit him whenever an opening occurred. The battle was remarkably similar to our first fight now that both of us had grown more powerful in equal measure.

He had an epic race and the powers of a banished god from another world, but I had three levels on him.

In his rage and frustration, he tore the forest apart. The shadow tendrils lining his body went wild, slashing and tearing at brush and trees alike. He had an impressive range with them, though not as much range as I had with my spells.

One massive tree after another toppled in the wake of his wrath. I jumped from one tree to another, striking him with a constant barrage of attacks. The Corrupting Marks had to be stacking up. And even if the pack magic he’d used before let him call on the mana pools of the rest of his pack, he had to be running out soon. He and the other wolves were all built on vitality and agility. There was no way he could keep this up much longer.

Sure enough, he cut his shadow storm short when he saw they couldn’t touch me.

He started targeting his abilities a little more effectively as he began running out of steam. I saw them in use one at a time instead of the swirling mass of darkness and fangs, and I was beginning to put together what discrete abilities his class and race actually provided.

One ability turned him into shadow instead of flesh, and while in it, he was as fast as the Shadows of the Chaos Wolf crawling around us. One of my Mana Bombs shot that ability down quick, and it seemed to do extra damage if I could catch him with one in that form. He stopped using it quickly once I figured it out.

Another ability let him borrow from the shadows of the nearby trees, using them to lengthen his tendrils. He’d ruined that ability himself by knocking down all the nearby trees since they were what I was using as a good vantage point to shoot from.

He could project claws of shadows, which were bigger and more ranged variants of his usual claws. He also had some sort of sense that let him read into the shadows around him. I still wasn’t quite sure how that worked, only that it did and that I needed to dodge them if I didn’t want to lose a limb.

I wasn’t perfect. If I was even the slightest bit too slow, I’d feel pain lance across my body at a new scrape. One such hit snapped every one of my limbs, and I had to sacrifice a big chunk of my dwindling mana pool to heal myself enough to run.

All the while, Mania called to me. I’d already pushed myself to the third level of Mania, but the power of the fourth would allow me to end the fight in a single move. The power was there for the taking if I had only asked for it.

But no matter how tempting, I shook the sensation off. Using that power was a last resort. There was no guarantee Lyra would save me again, and I’d rather be dead than some evil god’s tool. I would not touch that power unless there was no other choice. The road I’d chosen might be harder, but it would at least ensure I didn’t become a puppet of some being from another world.

“You... are running out...” the Alpha Wolfman panted. “I smell it.”

“Don’t pretend you’re full of energy yourself,” I shouted from afar in reply.

The Alpha Wolfman howled. “Pack! Grant me strength!”

This was what I was waiting for. The last time the Alpha Wolfman called on this ability, his power surged to new heights. I was suspecting it was something akin to a party ultimate.

Fortunately, I had one of those of my own.

You have activated your ultimate ability, Secrets of the Unseen.

Last time, I’d supercharged a Mana Bolt with this unknown power. It flowed through me once again, empowering me to new heights. The world flashed with unknown color. The memory of the Mana Bolt I’d cast before came rushing back in an instant, and I could see it clearly now.

The color was as rich and noble as a royal purple, but as impressive and free as the orange of a setting sun. I had no words to truly describe it, but in that moment, I knew what it was as surely as I knew any other color.

The Alpha Wolfman roared again, trying to daze me as he had before. This time, the roar was charged with the power of this unique ability and was many times more potent. He likely expected another Mana Bolt. But this time, I had something special planned for him.

Throughout the dodging and running and the constant barrage of spells, I’d been afflicting him with Corrupting Mark after Corrupting Mark. Hell, I’d done the same the last few times we fought. I wasn’t sure how long my marks took to wear off, but I was pretty sure most of the ones I’d hit him with before were still active.

I detonated them all at once.

This was the moment. Life and death hung on the fate of this clash, not just for us but for our respective species.

I felt my spell take hold, and then his roar hit me. I lost my footing, and the ground turned unstable beneath my feet. I fell to the ground, collapsing face-first in the mud.

Terror would have gripped my heart if not for one last notification.

Congratulations! Your class, Scholar of Forbidden Knowledge, has advanced to level 26.