Azrael landed on top of the wolf, catching it off guard with his suicidal manoeuvre. His spear piercing deeply into the beast’s hide, biting in just behind its left shoulder. It howled in pain, twisting its muscular body to shake him off.

Caught off guard by its sudden movement, he was sent flying to the ground. In his hand he still grasped the shaft of his spear, the spear head missing, buried deep in the wolf’s shoulder.

For a moment the whole world spun as his head hit the ground. Rapidly blinking he managed to regain his sight just in time to barely avoid the wolf’s incoming jaws.

Avoiding another attack, he hastily scrabbled up to retaliated with his spear haft, managing to land a glancing blow across the side of its head.

It was a victory that was short lived, as he had to jump away when one of its paws came around to swipe at him.

He swung the spear haft again and it retreated back a step; far enough to be out of range of his stick, but close enough to lunge at him should he drop his guard.

They circled each other, man and beast; hunted and hunter. Except this time, the wolf had found the wrong prey.

Azrael observed his opponent as they circled each other. Now that he was down on the ground, it was a lot larger than he had realised. It had looked far smaller from the safety of his cave. Now down here he saw that wolf almost came up to his waist. Blood flowed out of its wounds, covering its left shoulder and he noticed it distinctly favouring its front left leg.

He was so busy observing it that he failed to notice when it lunged at him, barely managing to get the stick between him and its jaws. Struggling against its strength and weight he missed a claw rushing towards him. It was only in the last second that he noticed the flicker of movement.

Instinctively he twisted his body, but the claws still raked across his chest, drawing blood. Off balance from his own sudden movement and the extra force from the claw, he toppled backwards. The wolf pressed to its own advantage and forced him down with its weight.

They were locked in an impasse. Azrael could neither move, nor attack without fear of retaliation and the wolf could neither attack, nor shift, without giving him a chance to launch a counterattack.

Instead, they pitted themselves against each other in a battle of strength. The wolf pressing down and Azrael pressing up. It was inevitable that someone, or something, had to give.

As it turned out that ‘something’ was Azrael’s spear shaft. Unable to stand against the wolf’s weight and jaw strength it burst into a flurry of sharp splinters. Despite the shock from losing his only protection Azrael hoped the wolf got splinters in its mouth.

In a daze Azrael looked up, each detail in hyper focus and the wolf looked down, its one good eye glaring at him balefully. Almost deliriously he smiled, maybe it did get splinters? He tried to rise, but it pinned him down with a paw and opened its maw, exposing its cavernous mouth and rows of sharp teeth. Yep, definitely splinters.

A string of saliva dropped down onto his cheek and despite his perilous situation he wrinkled his nose in disgust as its breath rolled over him. It had obviously never heard of oral hygiene.

Despite his shock, some instinctive and primal part of him still seemed to struggle for survival, straining against its weight, trying to shake it off, but to no avail.

The wolf ignored his flailing fists, barely even flinching. Then, just as the jaws were about to close around his throat, his hands found something.

A big rock smashed into the wolf’s skull, sending it staggering off to one side, stunned. Keeping his grip on the rock, he bashed it over and over again letting some dark primeval instinct take over, causing any intelligent thoughts to flee. There was only him and the wolf, and the rock - striking again and again.

Eventually he stopped, the overload of adrenaline leaving his system. He sagged and the rock slipped out of his hands, to fall on the ground with a dull thud. Blankly, he looked at the bloodied skull, the blood and the gore splattered across the ground, covering his hands.

Even in all the carnage, Azrael found his face sporting a tired grin.

“You need mints” he said to the dead corpse with a delirious giggle, before passing out on top of it. To him, at that moment, it was the funniest thing in the world.

The midday sun shone down on Azrael as he woke, the too bright light lancing through his eyes. Groggily he held up a hand to block out the light, only to find that his hand was covered in dry blood.

‘Blood?’ he wondered. Did he hurt himself? He licked his dry lips, his mouth parched. Water. He needed water.

He pushed himself up, only to fall face down into something soft. Blankly he lay there. It was silky, like the fur of your favourite dog; not that he’d ever had one. His eyes closed again, his head falling down as he nodded off. No. He pushed himself up again. He needed water.

It was only when he was standing, looking down at the beaten corpse of the wolf that he remembered what had transpired the previous night. The wolf, the fight, the final moments. He stumbled to a nearby bush and dry heaved. Luckily, he hadn’t had enough to eat in the last day, so there wasn’t anything for him to heave up.

Leaving the dead wolf where it lay he stumbled through the forest towards the lake, following the sound of the waterfall. The pounding of water mirrored the pounding in his head, constant and far too loud. The trip to the lake was far more exhausting than it had any right to be, but fortunately, he reached the water’s edge without incident.

As he went in for a sip he slipped, unable to keep his balance, and toppled forward, into the water. Mentally he shrugged, turning to lie on his back. After the battle he had needed a wash anyways.

In the end he just lay there, half submerged, listening to the roar of the waterfall. The constant pounding of water, it was soothing in its own way. A constant, unstoppable force of nature. By comparison, he was weak. His spear had broken and his fists had been insufficient to even make the beast blink. There was not even anything to make a proper weapon out here in the forest.

Oh, how he missed having his [Junk Smith] class. It was meant as a joke class in another game, but Azrael had turned out some really broken weapons with that one. Briefly he wondered if he could get a brawler class. They didn’t need weapons. But it was only a passing thought. Azrael was better off without a combat class.

When he had first started playing VR, both as a hobby and later as a way to make money, he had chosen close combat classes. There was a thrill in throwing yourself into combat, pitting yourself against impossible foes and overcoming the odds.

However, it was a constant battlefield, fallen enemies and pools of blood (or pixels in a lot of cases). Constantly immersed in an endless struggle to survive to the next battle, the reality between worlds began to blur. The game became reality and reality became a game.

When he’d immersed himself for countless hours to earn money, he’d done it in the most efficient way possible, through PvP, PvE and PK. Most of his waking hours had become combat. In the end he’d lost himself, as game and reality blurred.

He’d ended up going overboard when some punks hurt his father. The worst of them ended up in hospital two months, with eight broken bones and two missing teeth. There were no repercussions. It had been declared a case of self-defence.

After that however Azrael quit the combat classes. He quit combat. The feeling of losing himself was something he didn’t want to experience again. He’d felt so powerless as if watching from the outside, but at the same time it was exhilarating, intoxicating. It was dangerous. Instead, he’d tried to earn money in another way, as a crafter.

Yeah, he was better off as a crafter, the guy at the back, mooching off others for materials. It wasn’t the same thrill, but he’d managed. In games, for him it was no longer about being the strongest, the fastest, the most famous or even being the wealthiest player.

Azrael’s new hobby had been crafting, not the most beautiful, or the sharpest, but the most impossible. Azrael took the joke classes, the most useless skills and the most random items to attempt the craziest experiments. There was a new thrill in breaking what people deemed as ‘impossible’.

He either sold the items for real cash or traded them for more materials. He made money and could push the limits. It was a win-win.

The closest he’d ever come to a combat role again was when he was forced to pick the [Mage] class while working for Holy Empire. He still remembered the time he’d annihilated an army of nearly three thousand invading players with a magic spell. The thrill of th… He broke off that line of thought, as it was replaced by another.

With a sudden burst of energy, he pushed himself out of the water. Magic! That was it. That was the answer!

With no proper crafting equipment to make weapons, magic was his best bet for survival. And it wasn’t a close combat role, so he wasn’t breaking his own promise.

Azrael washed off, cleaning off all the dried blood, before preparing to head back to his cave. It was only when he stepped out of the water that he realised he was buck naked, again. Somewhere, he’d lost his skirt.