There was a putrid smell of rotting flesh in the air. Even though it was still early in the day, the fog hid the sun's light to a significant degree. It was the first time I had seen the Lycans' settlement. Despite having engaged their kind in battle for many many years, the mages and warriors of our settlement had never once invaded the Lycans' settlements.

The area was as one would imagine the settlement of those that worshipped the god of chaos to look. The putrid smell of rotten flesh came from the bodies of dead captives hung on spikes that stood around the fences that surrounded their settlements. Looking further in, there was a place that looked like a market.

Various living beings, animals, beasts and humans were being slaughtered. Their innards and organs removed and passed around as rewards for a successful hunt. Our warriors and hunters have a similar practice, but seeing humans being treated as livestock made my stomach churn. These monsters had no respect for any form of life. They hunted humans for sport and took the lives of other beings simply for fun.

In the market, the skins of the slaughtered were removed and hung to dry. No question that added to the foul smell that permeated the air. Looking at the leather worn by the Lycans, I remember wondering how many were made from human skin.

The barbarity of the Lycans always astounded me. They were not the only shape-shifters in the world, nor were they the only worshippers of the god of chaos. But among even those, they were a particularly brutal race. During the full moon festival, they attacked various settlements indiscriminately. That earned them enmity even among those with whom they shared a common ancestor and belief.

As Aurel and I hid in the shadows and watched as various humans and beasts were slaughtered, I could feel Aurel's anger continue to rise. I could hear him gnashing his teeth. I could hear as his breathing became uneven.

"Calm down Aurel," I whispered, afraid he would do something rash in his anger.

"Those barbarians! How can they treat life with such disrespect? How can they so gleefully slaughter people who already have no will to fight?!" He snarled.

"Aurel, the Lycans are no different from the hounds of Angra Mainyu. Despite being able to take the form of humans, you must not let their appearance deceive you, they are not humans."

While we were having this conversation, one of the Lycans walked out of the fence surrounding their settlement. I could count at least 70 Lycans from my vantage point on the hill I was hiding. The elevation was quite high, so I was looking down at the settlement, which allowed us an unobstructed view beyond their fence.

We were about 40 yards away from the fence, and the closest Lycan in sight was about 47 yards away. We still had to be very careful. Despite the foul stench in the air, the sense of smell of the Lycans was superb. They could see us, smell or hear us, which is why Aurel and I were whispering when we spoke to each other.

The Lycan that stepped out of the fence wasn't as big as the other ones. From here he looked to be about 6'9, but the average Lycan had a height closer to 8 feet. Their monstrous physique made it almost impossible for them to pass off as humans. For comparison, Aurel who was bigger than me was 6'7 and I was 6'4. Among the mages, I was considered a monstrosity being 6 foot tall at the age of 21, but I was considered to be slightly below average for warriors.

Coming from a long line of mages, I lacked the raw brute strength of typical warriors, but I more than made up for it with my speed and agility. Titus had told me once that I moved like a cat. That was perhaps the greatest compliment he ever paid me.

We watched the Lycan move further away from the settlement. Aurel whispered to me, "we have to find a way to drag him further away from the settlement."

I decided to use the senses of the Lycans against him.

"You go, Aurel, I will lead him to you then we can both attack him together"

"Be careful brother," he whispered back as he pulled away as slowly and quietly as possible.

The place we were in was a mountainous area, with various places suitable for one to set an ambush. I watched Aurel retreat, and when he was out of sight I started to move. Since the goal was to attract the attention of the Lycan, I was deliberately clumsy. When I was certain I had been seen, I started to run in the direction Aurel had retreated.

Even though the Lycans hunted in packs during the full moon festival, they were still an arrogant race that trusted their strength above all else. It was, for this reason, I was certain he would chase after me without alerting the others, after all, you don't need an army to hunt a rat.

I don't know how far Aurel went to hide, but I didn't need to know. I simply needed to follow the path he moved in. It was by no means an easy task because despite being 47 yards away, the Lycan could cover that distance within a second. I planned to use all my ability to lead the Lycan to the spot where Aurel was waiting.

Luckily the Lycan didn't immediately come after me. I ran for about 10 minutes before he started to chase. Of course, the distance between us was closed within 3 seconds.

Before leaving our settlement, Aurel and I armed ourselves with some of the artefacts the mages made. Among them was a necklace that detected life-threatening danger. How it worked was it would get hot and start vibrating, and it vibrated more the closer the danger was.

It felt like my neck was on fire, and the vibration was so strong I felt like my head was going to explode. But I didn't need the necklace to tell me I was in danger. The wind pressure from the arm that was swung at my neck was strong enough to blow my blonde hair all around.

The reason I took on the job of luring the Lycan to the spot of the ambush was this: I was confident in my ability to evade his attacks. I ducked and dove forward. As soon as I hit the ground, I rolled forward and got back on my feet.

The Lycans arms swept past where my head would have been. Even though they were incredibly fast, they reacted slowly to things. Perhaps it was confidence, I do not know. But the Lycan that hadn't even bothered to transform from his human form simply stood on the spot laughing as I started running again.

"Look at this rat go," he said as he watched.

His voice was a deep and ghastly voice. One more reason the Lycans couldn't pass off as humans was this. Say one could accept a being with their monstrous physique as human, as soon as they spoke any confusion would be dispelled.

Their voice was really deep, but that wasn't the reason it sounded ghastly. It was the way it was heard. It almost sounded like it wasn't coming from the mouth of anything in our dimension, but from a different dimension and reaching one's ears through cracks in space. It was very disorienting. When they transformed and howled, it was enough to drive any weak-willed person insane.

I was not only familiar with how they sounded, but I had heard many packs of Lycans howl and snarl with bloodlust at the same time. I remember in my first battle against the Lycans, their howls had rendered me completely useless. I lost consciousness just hearing it. Now that I think about it, that wasn't really much of a battle. So embarrassing.

I continued to run forward, knowing I was being toyed with didn't phase me at all, I had expected this. The Lycan made an exaggerated sniffing sound and started laughing.

"There is another rat ahead huh? Oh, I'm going to enjoy feasting on your organs," he said.

I couldn't be bothered by his words, a moment's loss of concentration and my head would be rolling on the ground, so I simply ignored his words and continued on.

So what if he knew Aurel was waiting in ambush? Knowing what's going to happen doesn't mean one can stop it. His arrogance will be his undoing. As I continued running, soon I could sense Aurel's presence. He was hiding behind a stack of boulders. No doubt the Lycan knew it too. When I got close enough, he was already in front of me attacking the Aurel.

No one had ever researched what the limits of the Lycans' abilities were. For example, we knew how sharp their senses were, but we didn't know the range of their senses. I mention this because we were a significant distance away from their settlement, but I was still afraid the other Lycans could hear us.

I had several knives that were enchanted with the explosion spell on me, but besides the possibility of endangering Aurel, I couldn't use it for fear of the other Lycans hearing the sound of the explosion.

In hindsight that was stupid of me. Not only did the other Lycans already know of our presence, but they had also sent this guy out to hunt us apparently. We very much were still within the range of their senses. In fact, those back in their settlements could hear our heartbeats.

Anyways, because I had to fight cautiously I pulled out an axe that was enchanted with sharpness and knockback spells. Both spells couldn't be activated simultaneously. It activated in conjunction with what image I had in my head as I swung it. Many warriors hated using enchanted types of equipment because of this. It required an extra level of concentration in battle and were relatively new, so not a lot of warriors could use them well.

Having trained as a mage originally, even though I failed, working with mental images was easy for me. I threw the axe with the intention of knocking the Lycan away from Aurel, but he caught it and threw it back at me. I attempted to dodge but the axe was too fast and cut my shoulder.

As warriors, a bit of pain is to be expected, and part of our training was to increase our tolerance for pain. Mine was decent, but Titus had the best pain tolerance among the warriors. The training meant barring dismemberment, we could still continue fighting until our injuries became grave enough.

The cut on my shoulder was quite deep, but it wasn't enough to stop me. I pulled out the axe and joined Aurel in the battle against the Lycan.

Even with my axe enchanted with sharpness, Aurel's bastard sword enchanted with the same spell, we were barely scratching the Lycan's skin. Having fought many battles against them, we knew how to deal with them.

First, we go for the legs, sever the tendons. Cause even if the Lycan's healed fast, it still took about a minute for tendons to heal. That gave us enough time to attack while they were immobile, and the final stage was to take off the head. It proved difficult to do that now as there were no mages assisting us. The Lycan simply toyed with us. I got desperate enough and pulled explosive knives I had on me.

Aurel engaged the Lycan in a frontal battle, and I tried coming in from his blindside to attack using hit and run tactics. While Aurel was distracting him, I would slash at his legs and put some distance between us. I had no doubt that the Lycan simply ignored me at first as I wasn't doing much damage, but as the fight wore on and I continued to attack the same spot, the damage accumulated and I became a nuisance.

A powerfully swung arm sent Aurel flying into one of the boulders around just as I was coming in for another leg slash. The Lycan then turned and caught me by the neck and lifted me up from the ground.

"Finally caught the rat," he said as he began to squeeze.

There was no way for me to escape his grip, and Aurel needed some seconds to recompose himself, as the damage he took left him in a stunned state. I was going to die if I did nothing, so I pulled out the knife and stabbed the Lycan's left eye.

The explosion knocked both of us away. The loud ringing noise in my ears left me disoriented. My whole body went numb, no doubt from shock. When I looked up from where I lay on the ground, the Lycan seemed to be on his knees howling in agony, blood dripping from his face. The top left half of his face was missing, and brain matter seemed to leak out and mix with the blood that ran down his face.

I thought this would be a good chance to continue attacking, so I reached for the knives again, that when I noticed my missing digits. Pain suddenly assaulted all my senses. The explosion had rendered my left arm useless, a part of my face was burnt, my spine hurt from the impact it suffered.