The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 2 - Chapter 40 - Revenge is Sweet

Wolf

My eyes briefly flicker to the black shards on the ground that seem to share the same material as the black orb before moving back to Vulcan.

“No more running,” I growl out loud through the light haze in my mind.

“Dammit,” Vulcan mutters while raising his one arm as a fire ball manifests in front of it.

I lower my limiter a little bit before sprinting out of the way as quickly as possible right as the fireball launches in my direction. Due to my being unused to the sudden influx of strength, I end up flying straight into a tree, but I readjust the limiter again and get right back up without any trouble as I turn back to Vulcan again.

The fireball had struck directly where I was standing, and if I had been there, it would have hurt like hell.

Speaking of…

_-| Ludric Hyde – Human – Level 243 |-_

It looks like we have both only leveled up once since we last met. Which means that his fire can still melt my ice.

Good thing I dodged that then.

A brief flash of surprise slips past the fear on Vulcan’s face before he turns towards me again and shoots a wave of flames. I avoid the wave of flames with my physical abilities limited by 88% instead of lowering the limiter due to its slower speed when compared to the fireball.

It flies right past me as I sprint straight towards Vulcan who – despite his continued surprise at my speed – suddenly pulls a hand axe out of nowhere and swings it straight at me. I bring up my gauntlets to block it before surprisingly getting pushed back slightly from an explosion originating from the axe.

I should have expected some sort of special effect to be on the axe…

Disappointment at how little effect his axe had on my is clear on Vulcan’s face as he tries, miserably, to push me back with his one hand.

A light growl slips out from my mouth as I push back, forcing his axe closer and closer to his chest until he does something completely unexpected.

He suddenly shoots out a wave of flames from his mouth!

I try to back away from the flames, only to end up with a light scorch on my shoulder that burns like hell despite my pain resistance. My momentary weakness allows Vulcan to get some leeway in our clash as he jumps backwards while panting from the exertion.

My eyes narrow in anger before I control the ice element that has been leaking out of me this entire battle, filling the area of the clearing behind me with an icy mist, to rush straight at him in the form of a blizzard. This seems to take him by surprise before he starts shooting waves of flames at random through the blizzard, melting portions of it before more of my ice element takes its place.

I take advantage of his distraction to rush straight into the blizzard towards him before dropping my limiter a little bit more and tearing a large bloody strip from his waist to his shoulder as a cry of pain resounds from him.

He tries to jump backwards, only to fall on his rear end on the ground in front of me while still stuck in the blizzard.

Without letting him have a moment to recover, I sprint forwards and lock my jaw onto his remaining arm before slowly tearing it off as a ripping sound comes from his body, followed by a scream as a torrent of blood flows out of the wound.

“No more fire balls or waves of flame,” I growl at him as my blizzard continues to shroud us, partially cloaking my presence from him as he sits there on the ground without any arms.

I suddenly duck down as he shoots a wave of flames out of his mouth before turning his head to make the wave slowly rotate with it, melting a good portion of the blizzard before more of my ice element replaces it. He then begins panting in exhaustion, likely from lack of stamina as the wave of flames sputters out, leaving nothing behind but my seemingly endless blizzard in the middle of the dark clearing of trees, under the light of the two moons.

A smile once again forms on my face as I realize that he can’t drink any stamina potions without any arms.

I slowly walk the couple meters between us before reaching out and grabbing his throat with one of my clawed hands, allowing my claws to dig into the thin skin of his neck very lightly. He chokes as I lower the limiter a little to lift him into the air, coughing out no small amount of blood as the icy venom in my claws seeps through my gauntlets into his blood and slowly begins to freeze his own blood.

“Do you have any last words?” I ask him in a gruff voice as I stare unblinkingly into his eyes as the golden-blue light of my own reflects back at me.

A cold and slightly pained voice follows my question as I slightly lower the pressure of my claw on his throat, “I don’t regret my actions.”

He coughs out another mouthful of blood before adding, “The world should burn for what they did to me…”

I raise an eyebrow at that statement before dropping my limiter entirely and crushing his neck like an empty bottle. The light dies in his cold grey as I let go of his bloody neck, dropping his dead body to the floor.

Soon after that, I let the blizzard around me die down before looking up at the moons in the sky amidst the field of snow, mixed with Vulcan’s blood as the silence of the clearing fills the air around me.

And that makes a successful hunt.

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Arcadian Live

A silence fills the air of the stadium as everyone looks at Wolf as he stands in the middle of a snow-covered field with blood dirtying his snow-white fur looking up at the moons with a calm expression on his canine-like face.

No one says anything for a few minutes until Wolf finally shifts back to his neutral form and begins to clean the blood from himself.

“He’s done it,” Mikaela mutters, still dazed after witnessing the bloody scene. “Vulcan is dead.”

As if a floodgate were opened, hundreds of thousands of voices immediately explode in a mixture of applause and cheers, displaying their delight for the scene they had just born witness to.

“The murderer is dead!” “Long live The Winter Wolf!” “His Highness did it!” “It’s about damn time!”

Amidst the applause, a group of five humans can be seen grinning from ear to ear before they vanish from the stadium.

“It looks like the relationship amongst the Competitors might take a turn from here on out,” Niklai states with his arms crossed in front of his chest and a large grin stretching from ear to ear on his face. “Now, the only known player-killer amongst the Competitors is the damn bug.”

Katherine stops applauding for a second as she says, “Yep! I also have to wonder just how much popularity The Winter Wolf is going to get after this! He did just kill off another of the most popular Competitors!”

Mikaela nods at this and says, “That’s true. There are probably going to be some haters as well from amongst Vulcan’s fans, but I think some might switch over to our wolf just due to the rather gruesome scene he created when killing the man!”

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Executive Stream

The gathered Moderators glance nervously in the Ruler’s direction as Vulcan’s screen goes completely black before disappearing, showing that he is no longer amongst the living.

The Ruler himself just stares at Wolf’s screen with a frown as this happens.

No one says a word out of fear that the Ruler would take out his irritation on them when, suddenly, a bright white flash of light shines from near the door, followed by a very angry harbinger.

“You call that a potential killer of the ice harbinger?!” Torusk shouts without any reserve at the Ruler while referring to Vulcan.

From their place on the opposite side of the room, the Moderators want nothing more than to leave the Executive Stream right now but are stopped by the fear of being reprimanded at a later time by the Ruler. Meanwhile, the Ruler himself just turns to the angry harbinger and says, “You said it yourself. Potential killer.”

He then turns back to the screen showing Wolf as he continues, “He didn’t live up to that potential, so now we must shift our focus to a new potential killer.”

Without waiting for Torusk’s response, Wilhelm just messes with one of his menus, causing a new screen showing an anthrovespid to appear in the place of Vulcan’s dead screen.

Torusk looks at the screen in surprise before a grin splits his face from ear to ear, causing a shiver to run down the spines of the gathered Moderators.

“If the Competitors had this thing in their midst,” he begins before turning to Wilhelm, “why the hell did you even bother showing me the other waste of time?”

Without waiting for his response, Torusk vanishes in another flash of light, leaving the Moderators alone once again with Wilhelm.