I was still running away from an enormous deviant female doggo who held a grudge because I’d killed her kobold puppies. My mind was still a bit shocked by the knowledge that a wolf could have kobold puppies under certain rather unsavory circumstances.

The she-wolf told me telepathically as she lunged forward, reducing the distance between us to mere yards.

I ignored that rather hypocritical insult and tried to come up with an escape plan. I could just run to one of the edges of the cavern, find a nice elevated ledge along the side of the wall, and jump up to it. The doggo wouldn’t be able to reach me.

The wolf pointed out with a mental smirk.

Could I live with myself if she did that? Sure. I’d probably feel guilty about it for a while, but I’d get over it. But who knew when her (ugh!) mate might come back. The equally deviant werewolf would only need a bow and arrows to kill me as I sat on the wall. Or she could just wait me out. If the kobolds brought her food, like say some fresh catkin, she could sit and munch on that for days while I starved away. It wasn’t a viable plan. Same for hiding away in that cave with the gated entrance. Even if the bars held against her assault, she could smoke me out.

The damned doggo pointed out.

I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, wondering when a giant wolf would show up to eat me. I needed to turn the tables, attack while I still had mana to do something. And I couldn’t think about it too much.

In fact, to counter her mind reading, I had to think of something fast, and do it as soon as the idea crossed my mind. Any idea would do, I just had to commit to it instantly, giving my she-wolf pursuer no time to think of a counter.

The she wolf told me with a mental snort as I allowed the gap between us to dwindle.

Overconfident, much? I thought to myself, knowing she’d hear it. I could do this. I just needed something really unexpected.

Her jaws snapped closed inches from my tail.

No. Ingenious wouldn’t work, it’d take too long to dream up. I needed the exact opposite. Something so dumb it just might work. Something… a glimmer of a thought crossed my mind. Inertia is a female doggo, I thought to myself.

The female doggo chasing me sounded a bit concerned all of the sudden. She was pretty close behind me, really enjoying the chase despite all her rage, as her massive frame trudged along at upwards of sixty miles per hour. She didn’t know what inertia meant. Oddly enough, the system had given me more words than the wolf had learned naturally during the course of her life. She had to puzzle out what I meant as the plan took shape in my head.

I activated my focus ability. Forty-four seconds to pull this off, which would only be twenty-two seconds worth of time for the wolf chasing me. My thoughts would seem twice as fast to the mind reader behind me, and more than that, she’d have half as much time to react. I began to plan my next move.

She wasn’t going to be able to stop as quickly as me, but she tried, in the tiny amount of time she had to read my mind for what I planned to do, she dug in her legs and tried to brake as quickly as she could. Her paws dug huge trenches into the ground as her sprinting skill helped boost her traction.

It wasn’t nearly enough. I hopped up and slammed, paws first, against the side of a mushroom tree, killing my inertia as fast as I could, using the damage negation from jumping skill to prevent injury. The tree bent under the strain of bringing me to a halt, but I only weighed around ten pounds. The monstrosity behind me weighed a hundred times as much. In slow motion I watched her jaws lunge at me, desperately trying to catch me in the brief window in which her head was in position to make the attempt.

The speed of her sudden bite was almost enough. Spittle drenched me as I ducked under her massive jaws, jumping a short distance, aiming for the ground directly beneath her.

Passing overhead, the huge bulk of the dire wolf seemed to almost drift by in the slow motion of the focus skill. I heard the mushroom tree flex back upright behind me, slapping her in the face. Soon she’d tear right through it, but for the tiniest second, that recoiling mushroom tree had startled her. I poured 28 mana into my epic jump skill, everything I had left, except for 10 mana that I used to activate my pounce skill.

With all my strength, 6x greater than 3 days ago, multiplied by the 3x passive jump bonus and a 5.6x active jump multiplier, I shot straight upwards into the wolf’s unprotected underside. I barely had time, even with all my coordination and the focus skill, to put my paws facing upwards as I sprung upwards from the ground at terrific speed. Those paws carried an additional 3x damage multiplier from my pounce skill that generated a crackling white barrier of mana. Everything I had, I poured into this one single gamble of an attack. If this failed, I’d be out of mana, nothing left but to become dog food.

The she-wolf must have had incredible coordination, because she tried to dodge. Her body arched, instinctively reacting as if I planned to swipe or bite at her soft underbelly, but that didn’t help. As I crashed into her, I tore into her like a massive cat shaped bullet, catching her right below the ribcage. The force of the blow was enough to lift her entire mass off the ground briefly, then we tumbled across the forest floor, rolling over and over, me half buried inside her body. She came to a stop, stomach facing down, her weight making her massive wound worse as I was squished under her, shoving me in deeper.

It was horrible. My head was now buried inside her body. I couldn’t breathe, she was howling in pain as I struggled to get free from her smothering weight. Weakly she rolled to her side. Her jaws tried to find purchase on my exposed back, but she couldn’t quite reach. She tried to dislodge me, ripping at me with her back legs. I took damage as she raked me, long gashes on my sides.

No choice then, only one place I could hide. It wasn’t a pleasant solution, but I just started trying to dig deeper, forcing myself further into her wound. Her wound was already a mortal one, but if she managed to dislodge me with her claws, she’d be able to crush me with her jaws before expiring.

She screamed in my mind, pain filled us both as we savaged each other, but I was winning, I was digging in deeper and her back legs were weakening.

She launched a massive mental attack, a psionic blast that shattered my mind with pain and blurred my thoughts until all I could do was twitch in agony. The focus ability helped, from my perspective, the powerful psionic attack was half as strong because it was spread out twice as long.

She was also in far too much pain to focus properly, her psionic blast a shadow of its normal devastating power. Somehow, I managed to hang on, my mind grew dim, but I didn’t pass out. Then the attack ended, a brief calm in the storm as she gathered her mental energy for another attack. My focus ability ran out, and I knew her next mental attack would knock me out, and if I did, we’d both die together. Already I was near my limit, there was no way for me to breathe like this...

Dimly, I felt something moving. A beating. Her heart. Blindly, I dug towards it until I managed to bite into the organ.

You have managed to eat the still beating heart of a sapient creature while inside that creature. A more horrific achievement is difficult to imagine. The Gruesome Eater title has evolved and been replaced by the Horrendous Devourer title. +2 str +2 constitution. +1 rank to intimidate skill, 1.5x damage multiplier with bite attacks, immunity to nausea effects. Your intimidate skill’s aura now carries the sensory memory of what you have done. Chance to cause nausea effects while using intimidate skill. Karma score reduced by 5 to -25, new karma rank: Bloodsoaked Butcher.

The she-wolf gasped, and went still. She whispered in my mind as her own mind began to fade. A brief pause then,

Then she died.

I was near dead too. No air, blind and drowning in blood…

You have gained 2 levels! You are now level 9! You have gained a new ability, Control Minion (novice).

My mana returned. With my last gasp of consciousness, I epic jumped as hard as I could, burning 40 mana to explode out of her chest like some alien creature. Feeble as I was from oxygen deprivation, I barely broke through her thick ribs, only my head sticking out as I gasped for air. Sweet sweet air! I could breathe! I feebly pushed my way out of the wolf, to fall to the ground beside her.

I was soaked in blood, lying in a vast puddle of it. I was at 11% health and in a great deal of pain. The wolf’s hind legs had torn long gashes along my back and sides, and my head ached from the psionic damage. I wanted to just close my eyes and let it all fade away.

But I was right at the cusp of level 10. I could see my XP bar only had a smidge left. I forced myself to my feet and barely managed to jump up onto a mushroom tree so the inevitable carrion beetle swarm wouldn’t eat me along with the wolf corpse.

I was too weak, and too low health to risk going to fight personally, but maybe if I used my new ability I could help Katrina and Jason win their side of the battle? For the XP of course, not because I felt guilty for having run away, I just wanted that last bit of XP. A little extra kill participation could make all the difference in the world. My new ability seemed perfect for the current situation.

Control Minion (novice) - at a cost of 5 mana per minute, it allows you to assume direct control of one undead minion you have created at a distance of upto 1 mile (+0.1 miles x amplitude). This ability works by fusing your mind with the mind of the undead minion you are controlling, allowing you to use your compatible abilities and skills in addition to the innate abilities and skills of the undead minion. Only works on undead minions that have minds of their own.

The she-wolf and I had not carved a straight path through the mushroom forest, my Death Wasp was fighting less than a mile away. I remembered to dump my 9 ability points into intelligence to bring it up to 13, so that when I leveled to 10, I’d add 3 more ability points to the 4 I already had saved up.

After the brief mental pain of the stat boost taking effect, I activated the control minion ability and my mind was whisked away to another battlefield.

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Status Screen HP (Max) 234 MP (Max) 90 Name Onyx Species "Alley Cat" Level 9 Jobs Insect Necro. Phys. Stats Strength 2+2+10=14 Coordination 14+2+6=22 Constitution 5+1+7=13 Mental Stats Intelligence 4+5+4=13 Willpower 6+4=10 Empathy 1+4=5 Magic Stats Amplitude 0+1+4=5 Attunement 0+1+4=5 Luck 9+4=13 Combat Skills General Skills Abilities Pounce (Master) Jumping (Epic) Reanimate Insect (Journeyman) Swipe (Apprentice) Perception (Journeyman) Dimen. Storage (Master) Stealth (Master) Math (Apprentice) Insect Bomb (Apprentice) Intimidate (Epic) Identify (Apprentice) Focus (Novice) Bite (Journeyman) Swimming (Novice) Sum. Death Wasp (Apprentice) Courage (Novice) Haggling (Journeyman) Control Minion (Novice) Sprint (Grandmaster) Tracking (Novice)