Chapter 27: Demonic Beast

Sigurd stood beside the headless Ferocious Beast with one hand resting loosely against the hilt of his sword. Three years had changed him considerably.

At ten years old, he was already taller than most children his age, though he remained several years away from the height his Zierghardt blood promised him.

The softness that had once lingered around his cheeks was gone, replaced by the beginnings of a lean, sharp face that increasingly resembled the older members of the Main Line.

His ash-white hair had grown longer and wilder, falling in layered strands around his forehead and ears while the distinctive black roots remained visible beneath it.

More noticeable was his body. Years of Osric’s training had stripped away every trace of childhood softness, leaving compact muscle across his shoulders, arms, abdomen, and legs.

He wasn’t bulky; Osric despised useless mass. Everything had been built for acceleration, balance, endurance, and violence. His hands were rough with calluses, old scars crossed his forearms and torso, and his iron-grey eyes carried none of the uncertainty they had during his first encounter with the Armored Bloodfang.

Osric, annoyingly, looked exactly the same.

Three years had apparently accomplished nothing against the instructor. The same short dark hair remained streaked with grey at the temples, the same rough beard covered his jaw, the same pale scar crossed his nose beneath the left eye, and the same weathered wine flask seemed permanently attached to his hand.

Even the two missing fingers on his right hand somehow contributed to the impression that time had simply looked at Osric Halbrecht Von Zierghardt and decided there were easier people to bother.

Osric glanced at the dead boar, took another drink, and nodded toward Sigurd. "Come."

Sigurd immediately became suspicious.

Whenever Osric sounded that casual, something unpleasant usually followed.

The instructor stepped beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

Sigurd’s expression darkened. "Don’t you..."

The forest vanished. His stomach lurched as space twisted around him, but three years of being subjected to Osric’s teleportation had at least taught his body not to immediately surrender breakfast. Colors stretched, the world inverted for a nauseating instant, and solid ground returned beneath his boots.

Sigurd inhaled through his nose. "Still hate that."

"I know," Osric replied cheerfully.

They had appeared within a broad mountain valley several miles across. Towering cliffs enclosed three sides, their dark stone faces broken by waterfalls and enormous trees growing from ledges.

A river wound through the valley floor before disappearing between distant mountains. Much of the terrain consisted of ancient forest, but directly ahead lay an open basin covered in broken stone and pale grass.

Something slept there.

Sigurd’s eyes narrowed.

The creature resembled an enormous wolf, but whatever ancestry it had once possessed had been transformed almost beyond recognition. It measured more than twenty feet from nose to tail even while curled upon the ground. Dark blue fur covered its body, threaded with silver patterns resembling branching veins.

A mane of pale fur surrounded its neck, and crystalline growths protruded backward along its spine like jagged shards of frozen glass. Its forelegs were larger than its rear limbs, ending in black claws sunk several inches into the earth. Two curved bone structures swept backward from above its eyes, almost resembling horns, while a thick tail rested behind it with three hooked bone blades growing from the end.

Sigurd recognized it.

"Silvervein Direwolf," he said. His gaze shifted toward Osric. "Common Rank Demonic Beast. What do you want me to do with it?"

Osric smiled revealing his pearly white teeth and said. "I want you to kill it."

Sigurd stared at him for a moment.

Then he simply shook his head.

Of course.

He drew his sword and started walking.

The Direwolf remained asleep.

Sigurd slowed after several steps. They had appeared only a short distance from the creature. He could hear its breathing and see its chest expanding beneath the silver mane. A predator with senses superior to ordinary wolves should have detected them immediately, especially when Osric had spoken openly.

Yet it hadn’t even opened an eye.

Sigurd glanced backward.

Osric stood exactly where he had appeared, drinking from his flask.

So that’s how it is.

Osric had concealed them. Not merely suppressed his own presence. He had somehow hidden Sigurd as well, despite standing beside a Demonic Beast inside its own territory.

Three years beneath the man and Sigurd still had absolutely no idea how powerful his instructor actually was.

Osric noticed him staring and waved the flask. "Problem?"

Sigurd turned away. "No."

Whatever technique concealed him disappeared.

The effect was immediate and the Direwolf’s eyes opened. Its head snapped toward Sigurd.

The ground beneath the beast exploded.

Sigurd’s sword was already moving.

The Direwolf crossed the distance so quickly that its twenty-foot body became a dark streak, one enormous forepaw descending toward him. Sigurd stepped diagonally and cut upward.

CLANG!

Sword met claw. The collision detonated the earth beneath them.

BOOM!

A crater burst outward as Sigurd was driven backward, his boots carving two trenches through stone and soil. The shockwave flattened grass for dozens of yards and shattered nearby rocks, while the Direwolf’s momentum carried it sideways through several trees.

Trunks thicker than Sigurd’s body snapped apart as the beast twisted in midair and landed against the valley wall.

Sigurd stopped sliding.

His hand tingled. "Definitely stronger."

The Direwolf vanished again.

Sigurd pivoted.

Three crystalline spines shot from its back.

He cut the first from the air, ducked beneath the second, and twisted around the third. The projectile missed his ribs and continued into the forest.

CRACK!

It punched through four trees before burying itself inside a fifth.

The Direwolf was already above him. Its jaws opened.

Sigurd kicked the ground. Stone shattered beneath his foot as he accelerated sideways. The beast’s jaws closed where he’d been standing and tore an entire section from a boulder. Sigurd circled around its flank, his sword flashing toward the rear leg.

The Direwolf twisted with him.

Its bladed tail came first. Sigurd leaned backward. One bone blade passed inches above his nose.

He caught the second on his sword and redirected rather than blocking directly, allowing the enormous tail to slide along his blade before stepping inside its arc. His sword drove toward the beast’s ribs.

Steel entered flesh, only two inches. The Direwolf’s muscles tightened around the blade.

Sigurd’s eyes narrowed.

A forepaw came sideways.

He released the sword. The paw missed him by inches and continued through a nearby rock formation.

BOOOOM!

Hundreds of tons of stone erupted across the valley.

Sigurd sprinted through the debris while fragments large enough to crush houses crashed around him. He planted one foot against a flying slab of stone, launched upward, twisted over the Direwolf’s shoulder, and caught his sword hilt as he passed.

He ripped it free. Blood sprayed as the Direwolf roared. The sound rolled through the valley like thunder.

Sigurd landed forty feet away. This was different from fighting Ferocious Beasts. The Silvervein Direwolf wasn’t merely physically stronger. Vis moved through it.

Sigurd felt the change a fraction before the attack came.

Silver patterns across its body illuminated.

The Direwolf opened its mouth. A sphere of compressed silver Vis formed between its fangs.

"Oh."

The beam erupted.

Sigurd disappeared from its path. The attack crossed the valley. For nearly half a mile, everything in front of it ceased to exist. Trees were ripped from the ground. Boulders disintegrated. A trench dozens of feet wide tore through the earth before the beam struck the distant cliff.

BOOOOOOM!

The mountainside exploded. An enormous section of rock collapsed outward, filling the valley with a rolling cloud of dust.

Sigurd emerged from the debris at full speed. His clothes had been torn along one shoulder where the edge of the blast caught him, but he didn’t slow. The Direwolf turned toward him.

Too late.

Sigurd reached its front leg and slashed.

The beast pulled back.

Sigurd had expected it. His first cut changed halfway through.

Severing Line.

There was almost no preparation anymore. His foot, hips, shoulder, Vis, and sword aligned within a single fluid movement.

SHING!

The pale edge tore across the Direwolf’s foreleg.

Blood erupted but the limb didn’t come off.

Sigurd was already gone when the beast retaliated. Its paw struck empty ground.

BOOM!

The basin collapsed beneath the impact.A fissure raced outward for hundreds of feet, splitting the valley floor while chunks of earth were thrown high into the air. Sigurd ran across one rising slab, jumped to another, and watched the Direwolf through the storm of debris.

He was smiling not because the fight was easy, because it wasn’t. For three years, Ferocious Beasts had gradually stopped forcing him to improve during battle. Their movements had become too readable, their strength too manageable, their attacks too familiar.

This creature could kill him and that changed everything.

The Direwolf burst through the debris.

Sigurd met it.

Sword and claw collided again.

BOOM!

The shockwave ripped apart the remaining trees around them.

Sigurd twisted beneath another swipe and opened the beast’s chest. The Direwolf snapped downward; he planted his hand against its muzzle and vaulted over its head as its jaws destroyed the ground behind him. Its tail came around, and Sigurd struck one bone blade at an angle, redirecting it into another.

CRACK!

One blade shattered. The beast roared and spun.

Sigurd was launched through three trees. He hit the fourth trunk hard enough to break it in half.

Pain spread across his back. He landed, rolled once, and immediately rose.

The Direwolf charged through the devastated forest.

Sigurd watched it come. His breathing remained steady. He had already learned something important. The beast favored its right side after firing its silver beam. Vis gathered first through the markings along its neck, then traveled toward its jaws. Its tail always moved before it turned sharply left. The injured foreleg had also shortened its stride.

Information accumulated and possibilities narrowed. The same thing that had happened against the Bloodfang three years ago was happening again, only faster.

Sigurd raised his sword.

The Direwolf accelerated.

This time, Sigurd didn’t move away.

He ran directly toward it.