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Chapter 113

Although I knew the Wolf King didn’t pose any particular threat to me, that didn’t mean that the others could survive a battle between us. It was simply a matter of inexperience. I hadn’t participated in many high-level battles. I had no clue how much damage I could do, nor how to properly deflect the damage others were causing. Never mind Destiny and Shui, there was a chance I could cause damage to the nearby Stormberg. Then again, maybe I was overestimating my abilities. That was the problem with not knowing.

I had only grown comfortable to the point where I could interact with the world normally without overusing my strength. I still didn’t know what could happen during an adrenaline-filled battle. Thus, I only had one choice. I had to stay behind and let them escape the wolf king. After we were alone, I could work on figuring out how to participate in a fight. This was good, I needed this kind of training.

“Spirit!” Destiny cried out as I raced forward.

“Run!” I cried out, trying to look foolhardy. “I’ll distract it.”

I raced toward the Wolf King, who dismissively tried to swipe a claw at me. The claw struck and I took some damage, but it wasn’t an obvious hit and it would be inconvenient if I was struck at that moment, so I ignored the Wolf King. The Wolf King wasn’t a fool, and a swipe that should have turned me to bloody paste left no mark at all. It naturally turned toward my direction, giving the very distraction I told them I would give them.

As Shui watched this, a dark grin formed on his face. He was likely thinking something about how much of an idiot I was. Destiny tried to run forward, but he grabbed her before she could chase after me. He then turned to the last remaining guard he had.

“Use it now!”

“Stop! He’ll die!” Destiny cried out. “Wait, use what?”

She seemed to realize that Shui had some other plan. The other guard pulled out a stone that closely resembled the light stone they had used earlier, but this one seemed to contain much more mana. It was so much mana that I felt the hair on my arms raise. The Wolf King seemed to sense it too, as he stopped looking my way. It was too late though. The guard pressed something on the stone, and then it began to glow in blinks. Those blinks started slow, but as he threw them deeper into the cave, the blinks grew faster and faster.

“An energy blast!” Destiny seemed to realize what he had thrown.

Shui grabbed her and fled the cavern at full speed, the guard right next to him. I heard her words, and I could see the blinking quickly growing fast enough that the blinks were nearly continuous. It was obvious that it was some kind of energy explosive, and that when the support that contained that power cracked, it’d explode out forcefully. They must have used something similar to this before against the wolf alpha. I now understood Shui’s plan. It had always been to collapse the cave of the wolf king, or at least block him while they escaped.

That blast landed only a few steps away from the pair of us. The Wolf King and I exchanged a look, and then we both turned as one and started running. Although the Wolf King was incredibly fast, I wasn’t very slow. He slammed into me, nearly causing me to strike a wall. I shoved him back, and he did hit the wall, but still forced himself to run forward even as his body made a grinding noise against the side wall. That was when the explosion erupted.

Although I didn’t think that the energy blast would have the power to kill me given my high defense, there was still too much about this world I didn’t understand. Either way, I didn’t want to be buried under several tons of rock either. How long would it take me to shove my entire body out of that many cracks? The two of us were flung away as the energy erupted behind us. For a moment, all of my senses were blinded as I was tossed away like a rag doll. I took damage several times as my body struck walls and the ground. However, given my total HP, the damage was only dropped and I was already healing.

The energy explosive was enough to bring down several tunnels. It looked like the side of one of the hills had collapsed. However, the complex was truly massive, and there were still countless routes out of there. Yet, there was a growl behind me. The Wolf King had survived too, and was standing between me and the exit.

Well, this had been an unexpected development, but it seemed to work out after all. Destiny and Shui were gone, and I was left to deal with the wolf king. I stood up, cracking my neck and body. I supposed now that we were this far underground, I couldn’t cause too much damage. I would start out fighting cautiously, but ramp it up as I needed it. I had never fought a sage beast before. This would be interesting.

My aura began to release, and my fighting spirit began to rise. I had been holding back ever since becoming human. I had dealt with various annoying people and even been looked down on by those I could probably swat away like bugs. I had done this out of necessity. I didn’t want to stand out until I understood things better. Although, that wasn’t all of it. I was afraid of my power. At the moment, my abilities were just numbers on a status board. I knew the numbers were impossibly large, but it was difficult to translate that to real ability, especially when the perspective kept changing. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally see just how powerful I had become.

“Don’t disappoint me, Wolf King,” I spoke as I stood tall in front of the fallen debris. “Let’s do… this?”

I spun around, ready to begin a fight, but then I saw the Wolf King lying there. He was on his back, showing his stomach. He stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth and then panted, wearing a dumb and innocent look like he had never even considered fighting me.

“Aroo?” he lowered his head in complete submission.

“You…” I lifted the hand to my forehead and rubbed my head. “Are you doing this right now?”

The Wolf King Spun around, and for a moment I thought he was getting into a pouncing position, but no, he was just kneeling his head down with his butt in the air.

“Aroo?”

“Shameless!” I yelled, causing him to wince, but not to change his position.

“Aroo!’ He wolfed and then backed up slightly.

“What is it, boy?” I asked. “Do you need to pee?”

He gave me a look, and I couldn’t help but cough. I supposed he was still an Infernal Wolf King. I probably shouldn’t insult him too much.

“Rrr.. raa… raw…” he made a noise while continuing to scratch the ground and back up.

“You…. want me to follow you?” I made my second-best guess.

“Ruff!” he barked that time then turned and began to trot away.

I sighed and then followed after him. We headed down several tunnels, but they were all large enough for him to at least crawl through, so they left me plenty of space. We ended up in an area adjacent to, but a good distance away from the entrance to the immortal city. As we walked forward, the heat grew. I had a good bit of heat resistance at this point, so it didn’t bother me too much, but had I been mortal, this would have quickly grown unbearable.

We finally came out into a blistering hot cavern. He walked to the end sheepishly, stopping at a crack at the end of the cavern where he sat down, his head down as he waited for me to join him. I walked forward and was greeted with a crack in the ground that glowed orange and red. The heat was emanating from this crack, and I began to realize it wasn’t just heat, but mana too. T reminded me of the mana storm that occurred shortly after my tribulation, although considerably less dense.

“This is… some kind of natural flame vent?” I asked.

The Infernal Wolf King only stared at me, either not sure how to explain himself or not willing. However, I felt like I understood. This was how the infernal wolves came to be. In a way, this was their greatest treasure. This vent let off flame mana, which they absorbed to become infernal wolves. This particular wolf probably was the strongest and thus was able to spend the longest time closest to the vent, thus growing to his current state. Perhaps, if he stayed here a few more years, he’d be able to evolve into a new flame species.

Although I understood, I didn’t know why I felt some familiarity with it. It was like I had seen energy like this before. That’s when I remembered the dragon. The dragon had a very similar type of flame energy to this. In that case, was this what I needed to hatch the dragon egg?