The riot of wolves and werewolves streamed into the large cavern, spilling out of the entrance in a wave of barking and snarls. From far above, Axl stared at them from a sliver of a gap in the ceiling, his first test.

  He held his breath as he looked, the even mass of the pack charging at the lake, as he expected. His heart raced as a werewolf looked up, scanning the ceiling, but it simply looked down and continued to the lake a moment later. Axl kept looking, counting how many enemies he had left.

  Thirty-seven total, thirty wolves and seven werewolves, with maybe some stragglers that would catch up later. These numbers were better than he hoped, especially since most of them were injured in one way or another, some seriously. His [Mana Shroud] confirmed they were all in the G grade, even if most of them were towards the higher levels of the grade, but he expected that, since only the strong would be left after fighting past Nox's spiders.

  He hurried back through his ceiling hallway, needing to crawl past some of the tighter spots to reach another vantage point halfway between the lake and his island. There, he was able to make out the shore with [Mana Shroud]'s full sensing capabilities, and was relieved to see that the pack loitered around his bloodied shirt, sniffing at it, others looking around or holding their noses up in the air.

  This made things a lot easier, in fact, made his quest to kill the strongest werewolf first possible at all. If they were still able to track him across the water and into the ceiling, he'd have to fight them in whatever order they got to him, quest or no quest.

  And there was his target in all his snarling glory, a werewolf a good half meter taller than him, its matte-black fur with red streaks identical to his implanted memory. Unfortunately, this one seemed almost entirely unwounded, the Mana coursing through his body stable and dense.

  I'm coming for you.

  A bloodied pant leg fell from the ceiling, a few hundred meters from where his first shirt was left behind. The pack had started a search pattern along the shore, his target at the outermost edge.

  Quickly, the closest wolves perked their ears, but before any could move, his target charged past them, knocking one of his packmates to the side with a pained yelp. The black werewolf stuffed his snout into the soiled garment, then carefully looked around, body tense and claws twitching.

  Far above, Axl watched as another wolf also approached the bloodied rag, but the werewolf swiped at it, a vicious attack that threw the wolf back. Axl was shocked at the extreme reaction, the wolf limp, its Mana dissolving into the air, the werewolf simply continuing his business. The rest of the pack growled at him for a moment, but soon quieted their obvious disapproval and formed a circle, waiting for him to let them move into the source of smell.

  This confirmed the hunt wasn't some communal activity for the pack, but something they were competing for, which was great news for him. But Axl simply filed that information away and focused on what his target had just done.

  Something about his callous cruelty rubbed Axl the wrong way. Killing a member of his own pack wasn't some priceless opportunity, or even really necessary for their competition. No matter how he cut it, the werewolf was just an asshole, so he nicknamed him Puppy, no longer willing to give his target the benefit of dignity. He acted like a rabid dog, so he'd be put down like one.

  Barely a dozen meters away, Axl threw another chunk of bloodied clothing, this one wrapped with a small morsel of the mushroom he chiseled off from the top of his island's mushroom cap. Hopefully, Puppy would realize he could keep this clue for himself and not share it with his pack, finding a way to come to him a good bit earlier than the others. At the very least, he hoped the normal wolves would have a hard time climbing the mushroom, but he doubted he'd be that lucky.

  As expected, the wolves closest to the cloth perked up after a few moments, and Puppy charged by, the others letting him pass, not willing to risk death just for another clue. They satisfied themselves with looking around in confusion, trying to track where the smell could lead to, none of them thinking to look up. The perils of making Intelligence your dump stat.

  Puppy again pushed his muzzle into the rag, then snatched it into his mouth, snarling as he turned around, initially away from the lake, then slowly starting a full sweeping motion. With the full brunt of [Mana Shroud] on the creature, Axl could tell Puppy was far more focused on the mushrooms in the distance, his Mana flaring as he turned this way, even as he kept the ruse of looking elsewhere as well, likely to keep his kin from figuring out his clue. This was a welcome confirmation that Puppy wouldn't take the whole pack with him, but would want to get him alone.

  Axl rushed back to his original entrance to the ceiling tunnels and crept down, careful to stay obscured by the rock or mushroom cap. Slowly, he crept along to the mushroom's edge high above the lake, barely letting himself peek out. Puppy was still there, faking looking around as he scanned each and every mushroom before his eyes met Axl's.

  Puppy didn't pause, didn't even flinch as Axl held his gaze. The werewolf's Mana flared, its circuit across his body narrowing and speeding up, a subtle tension building in the air even from this distance.

  The original plan was for Axl to gesture at his target in some way, maybe flicking him off or just pointing at him to emphasize the challenge. But none of that felt necessary in the face of the werewolf's palpable conviction.

  So, Axl simply waited, retreating a bit so that he could barely see the shore, obscured by an irregular tuft of the mushroom's edge, just to be sure no other member of the pack would see him. Puppy resumed an irregular path along the shore, as if he were returning to the search, but soon hurried ahead of the pack, and subtly ducked behind a large boulder, hiding himself from his packmates, then dove into the lake.

  Soon, a snout poked out from the water surface and slowly approached his island, its pace painfully slow. Axl held his breath, hoping the rest of the pack wouldn't notice the missing werewolf or see him swimming over.

  The nearest wolf passed the rock where Puppy dove in and simply continued as before. None of the others seemed to notice him in the lake either, the sight of the snout sticking out from the water surface obvious to Axl, but apparently not to the pack. This worked far better than he'd hoped, not only drawing in his target but isolating him from the pack. Now came the hard part of actually fighting the monster.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Axl heard the heavy thud of the werewolf's weight land on the mushroom cap, the dense structure even buckling slightly. Puppy was a heavy bastard. He gripped his spear with both hands, right at the edge of the ceiling tunnel's opening above the mushroom.

  He expected loud stomping, but there was only an eerie silence, his breath suddenly feeling far too loud. He redoubled his focus on [Mana Shroud], straining to get as much of the stony rock's Mana into the weapon's edge, to make it sharper and heavier.

  In preparation for the fight, Axl had drunk some of the potions in the dimensional pouch, taking tiny sips to determine how much would restore him, not wanting to waste the limited resource. Partially because he was sure he'd need them later, partially because Roken's memories screamed at him with how expensive and rare these things were, how he was literally drinking money away. Fortunately, he only needed to take a third of the health potion to completely heal his wounds and largely blunt his fatigue, and half of a Mana potion to restore his internal Mana.

  The heft he felt from his Skill was now brimming with power, Axl willing every iota of his focus and will on empowering his weapon.

  He saw Puppy's head below, slowly approaching the single drop of blood he left just in place for his ambush. Waiting just another moment for the right reach, then another. Then he struck, stabbing the spear right into the top of the werewolf's head. Puppy stepped to the side at the last minute, looking up, the weapon piercing his shoulder instead. He yelped and grabbed the spear with a powerful grip.

  Axl released the weapon and stepped back, past the hanging vines crowding the tunnel as he backpedaled into his planned retreat. Puppy growled and jumped onto the ledge, not even needing to climb up. His hands were outstretched, claws fanned out like vicious knives, his open snarl a mess of teeth. The injury in his shoulder was bleeding freely, even leaking some Mana to the sight of [Mana Shroud], but it was far from a crippling blow.

  Seeing his prey back away, the werewolf's hair raised, and he lunged forward, tearing through the vines as if they were paper. And right into the spears that hid behind, securely fastened against the stone.

  Puppy tried to stop, but had too much momentum, and a spear bit deeply into his gut while another slashed across his chest. Still, he managed to pivot and push back, dislodging both weapons and not entirely impaling himself on them.

  Axl grabbed a spear resting on the wall next to him and pushed forward against the now far more injured werewolf. Puppy deflected his first stab with a claw, but couldn’t capitalize by charging. Axl learned from his first attack that Puppy would be able to grab the spear and leverage his overwhelming Strength. So, he didn’t overdraft his attack, aiming for quick, shallow stabs, retracting the weapon quickly to stab again, the narrow hallway forcing the werewolf to maintain the distance.

  Mana pooled onto the weapon as [Mana Shroud] geared up, each strike heavier or faster than the next. Puppy clearly had overwhelming Dexterity and Strength, but he was constantly out of balance from the narrowness of the hallway and how the spear strikes seemed to vary in speed and heft, not to mention the longer reach. This allowed Axl to land several glancing blows, even as his enemy's claws ripped through the air in front of him, always out of reach.

  It was tense, and barely a few seconds had Axl reeling at the mounting pressure of Puppy's offensive. This wasn’t some crippled cultivator at the end of his life, this was a creature at the peak of their power, and slowly it was getting used to its environment, the deflections more effective, the claw swipes getting closer and closer.

  Axl realized that if this continued, at some point the werewolf would land a hit, and it would effectively end the battle, so he refocused his [Mana Shroud], the Mana now spreading more fully across the shaft as well as the blade. He didn't get a chance to test this out as he waited for Puppy to come to him, but he had no choice.

  Puppy clearly noticed that the strikes suddenly lacked their confusing flourishes of weight or sharpness, and redoubled the ferocity of his attacks. Axl took a long step back, focusing the spear squarely on Puppy's chest, and the weapon launched from his hands.

  It was a haphazard adaptation from how he originally used his Skill with a gun back in Luna, burning the palms of his hands with a controlled Mana explosion to launch the weapon forward. Puppy was taken fully by surprise, likely from the sheer speed of the weapon and Axl's apparently neutral stance when holding it, and the spear dug deeply into his chest.

  But the werewolf was lunging forward even before the weapon reached him, the snarl on his face only growing wider, like a deranged smile. As the spear burst through the other side of his body, his heart most likely destroyed by the strike, Puppy's head detached itself from his neck, his mouth opening wide to reveal three dense rows of teeth charging at Axl.

  The head continued its trajectory, still connected to his body by a bloody spinal cord that curled in the air like a whip. It was a nightmare horror, the black wolf's head thrust onward as an assault on sanity itself, on the very idea that mere prey could dare fight against their rightful predator.

  Axl unsheathed the sword on his belt, ignoring the searing pain from the burns on his hand, redoubling the focus of [Mana Shroud] onto his body. He needed to stand against this threat to his very existence, as if he were standing back at Luna, the antenna humming at his back. He pushed his Skill, the incoming Mana sent to empower him as a whole, making him faster, stronger, even as it spread evenly across all his Attributes, the world feeling like it was moving ever slightly slower, his mind sharpening.

  He repositioned his instinctive flinch away from the charging head to let him bring the sword up faster. He aimed the sword tip at the roof of the werewolf's throat, his weapon an extension of his body, lifted just fast enough, placed at just the right angle.

  Right as the sword entered the wolf’s flesh, he empowered it further with sharpness, and the tenuous focus on the Skill was broken, a scrambled mess of trying to do too much. Axl awkwardly fell to the side, his left forearm pulled back as fierce teeth stabbed onto it, the heft of Puppy's head slamming onto his side.

  He had slid right next to the fallen head, looking out at where the spinal cord jittered at the base of where the neck should be, a fleshy mess inside a ring of matted fur. He tore his injured arm away, the pain almost causing him to black out, and he only then noticed the surge of Karmic Energy in his body, filling him up.

  The gentle pleasure of Karmic Energy soon became a burning pitch, then almost like his body was being electrified. Axl tried to bring the twitching mess of his body under control, but it was beyond him, and he was barely able to even stay awake. He expected the process to be fast, his previous surges lasting but moments, but this one took countless seconds, each one dragging like an apparent eternity, then it was gone.

  He had notifications in front of him, but he couldn't even bring his mind to wake up enough to see them, couldn't even muster the strength to close his eyes. Somehow, he was breathing, and soon his body gasped, a deep intake of air, then another slowly bringing him back.

  "Congratulations!" a small, childlike voice rang from the wall. "Don't take any of the boons just yet, you'll regret it later if you do."

  Axl couldn't even parse what the words meant, focusing on slowly sitting up, then looking down at the ringing pain of his right arm, taking a moment to see what he was looking at. His hand jutted the wrong way at nearly a right angle, and as he lifted it, it swung freely, hanging from the middle of his forearm elbow by a flap of muscle and skin.