Chapter 4246: Wolf Blood (Part 1)

What everyone always neglected to mention while explaining the reasons for the Dead King’s success in hiding his location was his considerable power.

Orpal was a Divine Beast with a small army of loyal-ish, skilled Awakened who protected him because by doing so they protected their own interests.

On top of that, he was bonded to one of the most powerful relics on Mogar and possessed a mage tower.

Sometimes, wanderers and hunters would get close enough to his fortress, but they would always be spotted long before they noticed anything suspicious.

The Dead King had the means to capture the interlopers, interrogate them to discover their intentions and how they had found him, and stage their demise close enough to their last known position but too far away from his hideout to draw attention to it.

The group of Awakened after the Verhens had nothing even close to that level of power or numbers. If discovered, they were likely to fail even to relocate their labs’ equipment and be forced to choose between their possessions and their lives.

Studying Lith’s bloodline might take years, and the Awakened lacked the means to build more than one lab.

"So, what are we going to do?" Alusha asked.

"You take the girl." Arkus tossed Teryon, who yelped and cried, to his companion. "I kill the Emperor Beasts. Verhen will have no traces to follow if there are no witnesses!"

He jolted to a halt and turned around to face his pursuers. Slash had already Blinked to Leran’s position and used gravity fusion to let him carry her like a puppy while Slash prepared their next Blink.

"I deal with him. You chase the woman!" Leran said.

"And pigs fly faster than you, silly boy!" Slash unfurled her wings, using them as a parachute to swiftly slow Leran down and save him from Arkus’ blade. "You are smaller and weaker than him, and are unarmed at that."

The brush with death snapped the boy out of his wild frenzy and alerted his father despite the distance separating them. Outside the dimensional sealing spell, the connection between the Skolls had been restored.

"Together, then! We must save Teryon!"

’Only if we save ourselves first.’ Slash inwardly cursed.

She was the same age and race as Abominus, but she had Awakened later and had no one to provide her with powerful equipment. Leran would have nothing either if not for Lith gifting him a Scalewalker armor for his birthday.

The Geri howled, releasing a wind blast that pushed Arkus away as she unleashed a barrage of electrified ice shards. The Awakened man grunted, using an earth spell to conjure a stone wall that blocked the shards and softened the ground to stop his skidding.

Leran was upon him before Arkus could understand what was happening. The young hybrid injected his mana into his Scalewalker armor, turning its clawed gloves into sharp blades.

He struck so fast that Arkus noticed the first cut in his flesh only when the fourth had already started bleeding. Each strike was aimed at a vital point with the surgical precision that only the killing instinct carried by the wolf blood coursing through Leran’s veins could bestow.

Each one of those wounds would have been deadly, if only it had cut a few centimeters deeper. The Scalewalker armor was meant as a defensive tool, not a weapon, and Leran’s fusion magic couldn’t compare with Arkus’.

Earth fusion stopped the Skoll’s claws millimeters after they pierced through the armor, light fusion healed the shallow wounds the moment they opened, and darkness fusion removed any discomfort they might cause.

’This kid is a monster. If he were just a bit older, stronger, or better equipped, this would have ended differently.’ Arkus lunged with all the speed of air fusion and the strength of fire fusion as Leran’s barrage left him wide open.

The boy had no defense and could only see his short life flash in front of his eyes.

All three Awakened remained shocked when Leran’s arms moved in a circle, the left deflecting the blade with a minimal shift of its weight and the right delivering a palm strike that pushed Arkus back.

’A breakthrough in the middle of a fight? What is this, a bard’s tale?’ The Awakened man refused to believe his own eyes, but he couldn’t stop himself from coughing up blood.

Leran’s posture had become more stable, his eyes cold, and his body exuded a bright cyan aura. Such a sudden increase in strength was supposed to blow him up like a firework or at least make him faint in exhaustion, yet the boy stood.

***

Back in front of Lith’s house, Selia watched Protector’s arms crack and bend at an unnatural angle in multiple points. The wounds started to heal immediately, yet he coughed up blood from an invisible internal injury.

"What’s wrong? Who’s attacking you?" She asked, weaving the best spells in her arsenal.

’No one.’ Protector replied with a mind link to not waste time talking. ’I’m using my connection with the kids to share my strength with them. Yet their bodies are too weak to wield this kind of power, so they get hurt with every movement they make.’

’And since you wouldn’t let them suffer any harm, you’re taking their wounds on yourself!’ Selia’s eyes went wide in understanding.

She stopped spellcasting and used Invigoration on her husband to heal his wounds and replenish his stamina, leaving him free to focus on saving their children.

’Yes, but that’s not enough. You can’t win by just defending yourself.’ Protector took his enchanted maces, Boros, out of his dimensional amulet and threw them towards Lutia with all his strength. ’Go. Find me!’

The maces were enchanted to always return to the hand of their master, and while Protector supported Leran and Lilia, it was as if he stood by their side.

The weapons sensed their master in three different places, but only two of them called for Boros.

***

Lilia and Crash the Freki fared no better than Leran and Slash. The young girl was older than her brother, but not by much, and her mana core was no better.

’Look out!’ Crash used a mix of fire and earth magic to conjure a massive explosion at Lilia’s feet that hit Narma, a blue-cored woman, from point-blank range and hid the Freki’s Blink spell from the Awakened’s Life Vision.

’Thanks for the save.’ The girl panted.

’Less talking, more focusing.’ Crash emitted a low growl, hoping to scare the opponent and buy precious time.

"Nice trick, beast, but it’s not good enough!" Narma threw her spear at the Freki, her strength and the enchantments turned the weapon into a very sharp bullet that sparked with lightning.

Crash managed to dodge, but even the glancing blow released enough electricity to send his muscles into a spasm. He was as good as paralyzed when Narma appeared before him, her hands already on the spear’s haft.

"Nice trick, huh?" The weapon had a dimensional enchantment that allowed its master to move to the spear’s position.

Narma used it to reach her enemies while they were still stunned and finish them off.

She raised her spear, only to pivot on the balls of her feet and turn the haft vertically in a desperate block.

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