The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 3 - Chapter 35 - The Two-Star Ranked Challenge (Patreon)

                                                                         Executive Stream

“That venom of his…” Leo mutters, leaning forwards on the couch whilst sitting next to Diane. “I didn’t think that there was any other venom aside from the yggdrake’s venom that could affect undead.”

Diane nods her head in agreement as she watches Wolf lock his jaws around the arm of one of the gladiators to stop its attack before reaching out and grabbing the forearm of another gladiator as it attempts to swing its sword at his head. The gladiator’s armor groans in protest as Wolf’s clawed hand distorts the armor and his claws begin to dig through into the bone below. Meanwhile, a blackish-blue ice begins to spread from the arm of the first gladiator very slowly.

“It’s a good thing that the yggdrakes are relatively carefree people, otherwise we might have had a problem on our hands,” Diane says, lightly shaking her head before looking at Leo.

Leo turns to look at her in turn with an eyebrow raised as he says, “You mean like how the vampiric dragons started raising a fuss?”

“Unfortunately…” Diane mutters, leaning back in the couch. “But at least they haven’t declared any sort of intentions towards Wolf yet.”

A sour look crosses the draugr’s face at her statement before he turns to look at Ruth’s screen and says, “They are probably thinking something arrogant right now. Like that he couldn’t ever harm the ‘great vampiric dragons.’”

Diane snorts before chuckling a little bit as she goes back to watching Wolf.

The amusement begins to fade from her face after several quiet seconds of watching him fight.

“Why did he have to be a reaper?” she quietly mutters with a sad look on her face.

“It’s unfortunate,” Leo turns to look at her before shaking his head. “If it weren’t a bloodline awakened ability, then it might have been possible to change it through a mutation. But things are never that easy. Especially with his abilities…”

Diane nods in silent agreement, glancing at Leo once before returning her gaze to the screen right as Wolf finishes off the last wave of the one-star ranked challenge.

A few seconds pass in silence before Leo’s eyes widen. Diane notices this out of the corner of her eye and turns to look at him, only to pause as he begins speaking.

“If…” he begins, pausing for a second before continuing, “if Wolf has awakened a reaper ability, do you think there might be other people from the same planet as him that have awakened other reaper abilities…?”

Diane’s mouth drops open at the revelation, only to close again as the two-star ranked challenge begins.

“Well, shit.” She mutters, a large frown growing on her face. “This just got even more complicated.”

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                                                                                       Wolf

Well, guess it’s back to my wolf form again.

I shift back as soon as the first of the three fire jinn gladiators reaches the pit and begins floating straight towards me. At the same time, I let out a large amount of the ice element built up inside of my body, causing a thin layer of steam to raise up from the ground due to the rapid cooling of the sand.

It may not be possible to instantly make ice in this temperature, but I sure as hell can use my ice element for other purposes. I’ve at least learned that much through fighting the fire jinn on the forty-first floor’s default challenges.

A frown stretches across the faces of the three fire jinn before the steam begins to block me from their vision.

I sprint straight through the steam towards them, causing more of it to raise up from the ground as I run before I arrive right in front of the closest fire jinn with a headbutt straight to its chest, sending it flying backwards to slam against the sand several meters away with a loud grunt.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see one of the other two jinn raising their arms with a large amount of flames building on it, so I jerk to the side to mess up their aim.

Just seconds after doing this, I feel a significant increase in the heat to my left as an arc of flames passes right through where I was just standing despite the steam covering me.

I growl before sprinting straight towards the jinn and locking my jaws onto its still-outstretched arm, only to let go again almost instantly as I notice the other jinn preparing its own attack.

After realizing that I can’t dodge it, I instead shift to my hunter form whilst grabbing a dagger from my inventory and tossing it straight at the jinn, lodging it right above its collarbone and knocking its aim off course. The arc of flames that leaves its arms end up flying straight into the other jinn instead of me, leaving a large burn mark on its shoulder as it falls to the ground whilst screaming in pain from my spreading venom.

I sprint straight towards the jinn I hit with my dagger and grab its throat with my claws before expelling a large amount of ice element beneath my claws, the liquid ice venom in them digging straight into the opposing monster’s throat despite its screams of pain.

Without a second thought, I toss the dying fire jinn to the side and turn to look at the jinn that I had headbutted earlier, noticing it attempting to get back up to its feet, before turning to look at the one I had bitten.

“The hell?” I rumble in my surprise as I find the jinn literally burning its arm off at the shoulder so that the venom can’t spread any further.

Well, that’s certainly one way to deal with my venom.

Deciding to not give them any more time to recover, I sprint at full speed towards the now-one-armed jinn, swiping my right claw straight towards its head as it turns to look at me, its eyes widening in surprise.

My claws go straight into its skull before dragging through towards its neck and slicing through its throat, leaving it falling down to the ground again with gurgled screams of pain as I turn my attention back towards the first jinn that is now back on its feet with a painful looking dent in its chest.

A chime rings in my head, right before a second chime rings as well, signaling the death of two of the three jinn.

I glance at the other one that I had injected with my liquid ice venom, noticing its frozen-solid neck, before focusing on the last surviving jinn again.

Surprisingly, the monster actually takes a step backwards with fear in its eyes as I begin making my way towards it.

Interesting.

Not sapient, but certainly sentient to an extent…

Moreso than most of the other monsters that I have seen so far.

Not that it matters, considering that it attacked me.

I continue making my way towards the monster with blood still dripping from my claws, not caring about its reaction. The jinn seems to realize that and raises its arm to send an arc of flames at me.

Sapphire – who had been relaxing in my shadow throughout the entire battle so far – finally jumps out and quickly arrives at the jinn, with one of her long and sharp legs piercing straight through its already-dented chest, causing the flames growing on its arm to sputter out.

I raise an eyebrow at this before pulling out a System item that I had found on the auction not even an hour ago and using it to wipe the blood from my claws. The item is a blue handkerchief that can absorb grime and liquids a lot more than most other cloths and can be emptied of it just by activating a skill the item comes with.

It wasn’t very expensive, and I was getting sick of having to clean my gauntlets on corpses and with my ice. Especially considering how annoying it is to freeze things on this floor.

Right as I finish cleaning my gauntlets, another loud noise echoes from the other tunnel, followed by a plume of flames before a group of six fire jinn gladiators enter the bleachers and begin to float down towards the pit on their own.

Guess that confirms what the mini boss will be.

Some sort of fire jinn.

I glance at Sapphire for a second before focusing on the jinn with a frown.

So much fire…

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