The Calling of Wrath - Chapter 27 - Survival (Patreon)

Just a reminder, The Calling of Wrath chapters that fall under the new tier will be removed from Beta and Omega Sponsor patrons on August first.

But for now, I'll leave it open for you all to read the new chapters before then.

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                                                                         Cassandra
                                                         Year 819 | Month 1 | Day 19
                                                                         Midnight

My heavy breathing is completely covered up by the constant shrieking of the various reavers, polters – who I only now realized were in the Dark Forest – and wraiths as they use a bait and switch strategy to wear me down.

I grimace at the pain sweeping through my body from the dozens of wounds I’ve gathered before I let out a faint sigh at the sight of another arch.

No matter how annoying the critters are, they’re my only source of health in this brawl.

But the other damn monsters seem to have realized this as well and are purposefully trying to block me from reaching them whenever one does show up.

My grimace deepens as I hack through another reaver’s limb, spraying a bunch of its blood across my already-blood-soaked clothes before rushing through the newly opened gap towards the arch. Along the way, a few large branches and rocks are thrown at me by the annoying polters who’ve been floating around at the edges of the battle.

I barely manage to avoid most of them, only getting struck by a couple of medium sized rocks on my unarmed shoulder before I finally make it to the arch, who is now backing up a little at my approach. It raises its two front limbs with its familiar bark and tries to swipe them towards me, but I come to a sudden stop about a third of a meter from its reach.

The arch, surprised at my actions, fails to stop its limbs from striking the rocks on the ground as I burst forwards again while storing my knife in my spatial pouch. It fails to react in time, and I jump over it while dragging my claws across its abdomen.

I let out an audible sigh of relief as I feel my wounds beginning to heal before I take advantage of the monster’s surprise to dig both of my clawed hands into the middle of its abdomen, only to continue digging them deeper and deeper until I eventually pull on the creature. It lets out a pained howl as half of its abdomen is ripped off, following which I immediately jump backwards as a large boulder comes flying by, barely skimming the edge of my shoulder and knocking it out of its socket.

With a grunt, I hold onto my shoulder while jumping back to get some distance between the monsters and myself before I grit my teeth and quickly approach the nearest tree to use as leverage to force the shoulder back into place.

Unable to stop myself, I let out a brief cry of pain once it reenters its socket, only to immediately duck my head again as a spider-like limb comes flying straight into where my head just was, piercing into the tree afterwards.

I quickly draw out my knife before stabbing it straight into the face of the reaver next to me and storing it into the bag again, only to rush back over to the arch immediately after, who is still howling from pain.

Just a little bit more before you die!

I dodge another flying rock and grab ahold of the arch’s upper legs with my clawed hands while making sure to dig my claws into the slightly furry flesh beneath.

The warm feeling that was slowly beginning to fade away rapidly increases again for a moment, only to return to fading away as I get the note in the top left corner of my vision about gaining EXP.

Damn it, couldn’t you have lasted just a bit longer?!

I frown for a moment before letting out a forced breath as I suddenly bend backwards to avoid the ethereal blade of a wraith that ends up flying straight past me.

When I get back up, I quickly analyze the situation, finding two more reavers, five polters, and just one wraith left alive.

If I can survive this, then I should likely be able to survive the rest of the night.

I glance up at the moon to find it at its highest point, marking it as midnight before I look down again and immediately charge towards the wraith in order to get it to stop sending magical flying ethereal blades at me.

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After several more hours of fighting, I eventually find myself back to floating down the river, except this time with a trail of blood flowing down with me as I gaze up at the dawn through narrowed eyes.

Despite the large amounts of pain I’m feeling right now, along with the wounds all over my body that are still leaking blood, I let out a deep sigh of relief.

Several glorious seconds pass in silence, with the only sounds being that of the flowing water and the slow breeze.

I’m still alive.

I continue staring out at the beautiful sun rising over the trees for several minutes.

My thoughts go back to one of the few statements the old man said that made sense while he was going on about that tabletop role playing game stuff.

“Life is like a game in many ways, except that it has no clear-cut ending. No initial start. No bonus for simply playing the game, and certainly no way to win it.” I quietly repeat his words exactly as he told them, “However, while there may not be an end goal to this game, that just means that you have to make your own. Live on, grow stronger, and some day reach whatever goal you wish to shoot for. Even if that means breaking the rules of the game.”

An end goal…

What type of end goal would I shoot for?

Survival?

To be the strongest person on the planet?

…Revenge?

I stare up at the rising sun for a few more seconds as the thoughts roll around in my mind before shaking my head.

No.

I couldn’t care less about those insane invaders that kidnapped me, nor how they were planning on controlling me.

They failed to do that, and that’s really all that matters there.

Although if they try anything against me again, then I might have a problem with them. Outside of the fact that they’re trying to, well, invade Midgard.

Because that’s not good.

I glance down at the blood pooling up and flowing through the river with me.

Survival is obviously something I want to shoot for, but I think I want to grow stronger. To see what might be at the end of this System.

Of course, that’ll be after I get back home and help out a bit. Because I’m sure they’re probably bogged down with work right about now.

The last part of the old man’s statement resonates with me a little, but I ignore it for now and begin swimming over to the shore of the river.

I should really go find something to heal myself with.

Once I get back onto dry land again, I wring out my hair and glance towards the West as the sound of howling echoes from that direction.

Guess that makes things easy.

Time to hunt.

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