Chapter 22 - Storm

  I contacted Skadi once more to make sure she was still safe, which she was. Then I started to enact the plan.

  I followed Val’s instructions to the letter, which was easy, since she actually made illusory images appear, which told me what to do and when and where.

  I roared, I uprooted trees, I dug up burrows and trampled nests. All to ensure the denizens of the forest were in motion. In retrospect, I am almost certain that Val helped in other ways too, she was adamant that I did it all on my own, but I have my doubts. It went just a bit too perfectly. I suspect she somehow compelled the animals to follow the plan, but to this day I can’t prove anything.

  I was in the form of a Werewolf, but half again as tall and broad as the ‘normal’ variety. At this size I could rip trees from the ground with a firm hug and some legwork.

  I herded the stampede towards the tribe. I had modified my body to be mostly lung, just so I could adequately roar from behind the mass of animals. Again, in some odd way it felt right to do so.

  Not long after I started the stampede did we begin to get in range of the tribe.

  That is in range of their Spear throwers.

  A few of the animals started to fall, but the fear of me was still greater, and they didn’t think about fleeing from me in anything other than a straight line, which I suspect was Val’s contribution.

  Soon I began to see the fortifications of the tribe. A wooden wall, with spikes on top, as well as wooden stakes arrayed all around at a 45° angle. They had a gate, which was closed and probably barred. Fuckface did say, they were fortifying the place after all.

  As the stampede tried to bash down the gate - hard to do, since the wood around here was as solid as metal - I thought of a better Idea.

  I activated [Berserker Rage].

  After the five seconds I uprooted a nearby tree and braced it under my arms. Then I sprinted towards the gate. It was hard to not attack anything, while under the effect of the rage, however I could temper myself by thinking of how much slaughter would be done once I was through those gates.

  I practically exploded through them. My arms were shattered by the impact, but that hardly mattered. They were fixed before I reoriented myself.

  All the animals that were battering down the gate flew in with me, as I broke it down. A second later they noticed I was in their midst, so they scattered in all directions.

  It was utter pandemonium.

  None of the defenders knew whether or not any one animal was looking to run past them, or to kill indiscriminately.

  I droppen [Berserkers Rage] and started to make use of my speed. Any opening in someone’s guard, any moment of confusion, any distraction, I used to kill indiscriminately and swiftly, dozens fell in less than a minute, by my claws alone.

  These defenders were not the cream of the crop certainly. I could even cleanly cleave through some of them. After a few minutes however most of the confusion had passed. The animals had mostly fled, and all the inexperienced defenders were slain. What was left were eleven elite warriors. Six mages and five spear people.

  I could feel Skadi was close. And I could feel that she was in pain. These savages were going to die.

  I aimed for two of the mages next to one another and charged. Simultaneously I made my claws heat up, and made my fur shine blindingly bright.

  I didn’t start any fires this time, however the snow on the trees and rooftops amplified the effect of the flash. My eyes were burned out, but that just meant half a second of blindness, until my eyes regenerated. That was enough of a gap for me to finish the two mages. I took one out with the blind charge. Her back broke when she impacted with the inside of the defensive wall. The other mage jumped on my lower back when I rushed past him. I couldn’t properly reach him, so I stabbed my superheated claws through my own abdomen, so that they would come out my lower back and impale him.

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  He let go of me after that.

  A swift kick to the head broke his neck and let me continue on.

  At this point the rest of the defenders had organised themselves, to a certain extent. The mages had given up on stunning me through pain, so they were all transforming into werewolves. Holding back the pain they had inflicted taxed my mind something fierce, but I was determined to keep on with the slaughter. Also I felt my class ease my burdens slightly, because I was acting as an Apex should. I had decided this forest is mine, now it is on me to punish those who challenge me. Brutally and decisively.

  The spearmen had stepped back behind the mages and were bombarding me with their projectiles. Those spears were actually dangerous. They could shatter some of my thinner bones, and could pin me down for a moment, if I was unlucky.

  The werewolves did a good job of keeping me at a distance. If I committed to one, then the other three may pin me down. If they managed to really restrain me, I was done for. They could just slash at me, until my reserves ran dry. I had to get the fight back on my terms.

  I stood up straight in front of my enemies and slit my throat. It was barely a moment before the wound closed, however the blood that sprayed out did so with just as much gusto, as I had hoped.

  I commanded the blood to burn. Which was quite the surprise to my foes.

  The spontaneous combustion gave me enough of a window, to run past two mages and attack a spear man. I cut the mages with my claws as I ran past, making sure to inject them with venom.

  The spearman died to a claw inserted from below his ribcage, which went through pretty much all of his vital organs.

  I am sure he would have defended himself better, however his left arm was occupied with my right claw and his right arm was holding back my jaws.

  When I turned around, the rest of the defenders were back in formation and I had three spears through my lower back. They didn’t reach the floor, so I didn’t bother removing them. My body would handle it.

  While their formation was restored, the damage was already done. Two of the werewolves were a lot more sluggish than the other two. They were shouting something at one another, or maybe me, but I couldn’t hear. All the regeneration in the world couldn’t fix your ear canals filling with blood. To disrupt their strategy I transformed into a bear - it was inside two seconds, which was excruciating, but that didn’t hinder me anymore - and charged once again. Now those spears were a lot less dangerous. They barely even reached my bones, nevermind shattering them.

  I aimed my charge at one of the healthy werewolves and bit into her lower abdomen. Tore a chunk right out of her digestive tract. The other healthy werewolf was busy shredding my hind leg, however I simply commanded the blood on her claws to ignite.

  I didn’t care about burning, as evidenced by my charcoaled hands, due to my claws still being heated by mana.

  He, on the other hand, did care. A lot as it seemed.

  The venomed werewolves were howling on the floor by now, the temperature of their wounds certainly didn’t help, and the other two were running for their lives. I was proud of that design actually. I made my claws with that strategy in mind. Superheat them, to cauterise the wound, but make the claws long enough to inject the venom directly into the body, bypassing the sterilising heat. It took some time to get the balance between heat and venom right.

  Before I would frequently burn out my own venom.

  Onto the spear chuckers.

  They ran. Simple as that. When their frontline broke apart, they ran. I managed to get one after the other, none escaped. Not the werewolf with the claws aflame. Not the other three who were writhing on the floor. I ended all their misery and stopped heating my claws.

  I had done it. I transformed into a human and went to search for Skadi. Luckily our bond relayed a sense of relative direction.

  She was in a cage. Which was among a kennel’s worth of cages. They had at least 50 wolves chained up in tiny cages. Three cages high.

  These people dared to call themselves “Wolf-shifters”! They were slave drivers at best.

  I felt Rage boil up in me until I found Skadi in one of the cages. At her sight my rage doubled. She was covered in fresh and old wounds. She barely had any fur left at all. I could see cuts, bruises and even burns on her.

  I rushed towards her, broke the chains and the cage with my bare hands, and then knelt down to try and embrace her, before stopping myself. She was covered in wounds. How could I touch her without hurting her?

  She just walked out of her cage and put her head on my shoulder. Then telepathically said: Thank you!

  I was somewhere between devastated and exasperated “Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell me what was going on? I would have come so much sooner.”

  I heard a Voice behind me, before Skadi could respond. “Because you would have died trying to be a hero. Now you survived being her hero instead.” It was Val, of course. Yes. That. Skadi agreed

  “If you ever get kidnapped again, I swear to whoever might listen, I am coming for you immediately.”

  She licked the side of my face and said: We’ll see.

  We spent some more time there. Mostly it was Valeria healing Skadi’s wounds while I numbed her.

  After Skadi was back to health, we opened the cages of the other wolves. Most immediately fled.

  Afterwards we went through the village and devoured all the bodies. Skadi didn’t have something like [Biomass], however she was still able to eat a lot. The bastards probably starved her, because she ate almost an entire body by herself. There were few, if any children among the corpses and also fewer elderly, than I expected, so I asked Val about that.

  “Why do you think those last defenders stayed and fought you? They were sacrificing themselves to make sure the vulnerable people could escape. You do realise that you were a doomsday scenario for these people.”

  “Oh … Ok, I guess?” I thought about it. I had vowed to erase these people from history. Then again hadn’t I done that already. Even without me hunting them down, the forest would get most of those. If you consider that, at least two thirds of their population was now biomass, I would say I succeeded. Let a few survivors die in the forest. I didn’t care. History would forget these people. I had erased them.

  And I had. They had a name, a culture, and traditions. Today they are only remembered in this book, as an obstacle on my journey. I never even bothered to learn their name

  I sighed in satisfaction after: “Justice has been served.”

  Val tilted her head with a quizzical look on her face. The subtle question on her face was not lost on me: ‘Really? All your victims are guilty then?’

  I didn’t let it bother me. Not today. Not ever. I had done what was right …

  for me.