Rydr forced his body to the limit but couldn't it out of a stalemate against the Alpha. He almost gave up on his plan when the tension in the great beast's body suddenly vanished, and Rydr ate a mouthful of musky fur. The giant nearly missed his chance and let go of the Alpha's neck, but he managed to hold on and wrap his left arm around the wolf's midriff.

With no idea what caused the Alpha to let up in their power match, Rydr grabbed the chance.

While the monster was still semi-limp, Rydr forced its body to contort, pulling with both arms and kicking down at its back. The Alpha's body violently met end-to-end, like Ouroboros eating its tail.

With a final roar of effort, Rydr squeezed his arms to his sides, holding the Alpha's head and hindquarters against his body. He felt the creature's back snap under his knees in a wet, rolling crunch.

*CRIT 120 damage*

*CRIT 40 damage*

Rydr processed the excessive damage numbers before the Alpha burst into light, and he fell through its body to land, kneeling on the ground. A small trill sounded in his head, but the giant fell into his habit of shoving those to the side.

A second chime followed, but one of the smaller wolves charged through the motes of light and opened its maw wide over Rydr's face.

The wolf blasted aside as the business end of a large metal hammer met its muzzle. The monster sailed away into the rough bark on the left side of their kill-box.

"Get up!" Urginok shouted at him. The tank covered for Rydr, but it cost him a chunk of health as he took another wolf's attack head-on. With a grunt, Urginok slammed his back into one of the fallen trees, dislodging his unwelcome passenger.

Rydr looked up and saw more wolves rushing at him, but not as many as he thought there would be. The giant didn't question it. Rydr surged to his feet, ready to take on the rest of the pack with his bare hands.

Mindful to stay out of Urginok's range so that the tank fought without worry over the friendly fire, Rydr waited for his chance. In the end, he waited for no longer than a moment for one of Syrna's arrows to fly in and strike one of the charging wolves, stunning it with her brief knockback.

At nearly the same speed as the arrow, Rydr lunged forward with a single massive step and seized the stunned wolf by its hindleg. Syrna's damage number floated over the creature's body, and Rydr used the split second to [Inspect] the wolf.

*20 damage*

[Brown Wolf Level 5]

HP 450/562

A glance at its stats and Rydr felt cool relief flow through him. The buff Syrna warned him about was gone. Then he started to drag the wolf by its leg and caught the next wolf to charge in with a golf swing.

The attacking wolf's jaws closed on its hapless pack member right before it was thrown back into the air and arced over the press of creatures to fall behind the line.

*19 damage*

*22 damage*

*35 damage*

The wolf's attack dealt almost double the damage Rydr's wild swing caused. With over half its health still in its pool, Rydr's "weapon" would die very quickly if he could use it to block against the attacking wolves.

Unfortunately for the airborne monster, Rydr brought it back to earth in a crushing blow that floored another wolf, forcing it into the dirt. Rydr swung the wolf in a wide circle with a whirling spin, clipping the beast's head on both walls of their wooden trap.

*15 damage*

*12 damage*

Rydr's swing forced the other wolves back, with another arrow from Syrna discouraging an eager attacker before he used the full force of his 360-degree spin to "backhand" the wolf in front of him.

Both monsters slammed together, and the stationary wolf, rocked by Rydr's previous blow, ate the full damage from his attack. It flew to the side and met the fallen tree to his right in a bone-crushing union.

*28 damage*

*25 damage*

*15 damage*

Urginok stepped forward and greeted that wolf with his hammer, trapping it between hard bark and cold metal. He then used the rebound from the blow to bring his hammer to bear again, and again.

With most of the wolves held back by Rydr's wild swings and Syrna's rain of arrows, Urginok focused on just the one wolf. He used the counter-force from each blow to effectively speed-bag the wolf with his hammer.

What Urginok lacked in strength he made up for by using the fallen tree as an anvil, on which he pulped monsters.

*35 damage*

*33 damage*

*CRIT 60 damage*

Urginok burned through the wolf's health, giving it no room to breathe. Through skill or coincidence, Urginok managed to land multiple blows on the same spot. He quickly broke the wolf's ribs and dealt several critical hits in a row, ending the wolf's life independently.

Once it exploded into light and items, Urginok turned to help Rydr.

He then witnessed something spectacular.

Sometime in the last few moments, Rydr acquired a second wolf and dual-wielded the beasts like fleshy twin-hammers. Gone were the wild swings from before, and in their place was a methodical cadence.

In a macabre dance, Rydr lured the wolves in, only for them to be stunned by Syrna's arrows. Once they were still, even for a moment, Rydr's wide, sweepings blows changed direction and thundered into the poor creature from above.

One, two, and three blows rained down on the brown wolf, twice from above and once from below, to knock the monster to the back of the pack.

*38 damage*

*35 damage*

*32 damage*

Mindful of his stamina bar this time, Rydr avoided his limits and settled for a controllable pace. His attacks consumed about as much stamina as he regenerated each moment. His Constitution score, while paltry compared to his Strength, was inflated compared to tanks at his same level.

Without the risk of getting flanked, Rydr focused purely on applying his massive strength. He spun, twisted, and threw his body from stance to stance as he carefully calculated when and where to attack for the greatest effect.

When a wolf tried its luck and attacked, it was instantly crushed under its own comrades, the newest victim of Syrna's knock-back arrow.

With his enormous strength, each of Rydr's blows dealt a stunning blow akin to Syrna's arrows. By the time his second overhand attack slammed into the hapless wolf, his underhanded swing was already in the creature's face.

While the two of them held the lane, Urginok observed the battle and waited for his chance. In such a narrow corridor, if Urginok jumped in too soon, he might eat one of Rydr's attacks on accident or step in front of Syrna's arrows.

The tank poised to strike. One of Rydr's wolves, in his right hand, vanished in a sudden shower of light and threw off Rydr's balance.

Gamely, the giant weaved like a drunk and kept himself from falling, but his cadence was ruined, and the violent dance ended.

The pack descended on the staggering giant, three abreast in the passage. Two of them were taken down in an unusual display of speed when Syrna's arrows pinned their paws to the ground. Those two flipped forward and flopped on the ground with a painful thud.

The last wolf lunged for Rydr, and Urginok dashed low, under his unbalanced teammate, only to charge up from a lunging crouch. Just like a pro-boxer delivering an uppercut all the way from the floor, Urginok's hammer leaped from the ground to meet the underside of the wolf's jaw.

The wolf's mouth slammed shut on its own tongue just before its world blurred into unimaginable pain and a splendid view of the afternoon sky.

In an incredible display of athleticism, Urginok jumped into the air with the momentum from his lunge. He followed the monster into the air and brought his hammer up in a smooth, unbroken arc from the start of his lunge to the peak of his jump. Then the tank grabbed his hammer with both hands and brought it down on top of the wolf's head, adding the momentum of his fall to the blow.

*CRIT 56 damage*

*CRIT 65 damage*

More wolves dashed to intercept the tank on the ground, but Urginok was ready when he landed. He kneeled on the ground to absorb his fall and switched to using his kneeling leg as a pillar.

As two wolves fell upon the tank, Urginok brought his hammer up, horizontally across his chest, and caught both wolves' attacks on its haft. With an audible groan of effort, he stopped their charge on his back leg. With a savage twist, the tank threw both wolves to the ground and stepped forward to attack the next in line.

"Choose your weapon!" Urginok shouted at Rydr, his face a grimace of effort. The tank swung left and right, knocking away attacks and dealing damage to wolves Syrna forced back.

Rydr was left to deal with two writhing wolves that were almost back to their feet. In a mad lunge, the giant grasped the back leg of one and lifted it into the air even as his next step punted the other furry monster to the back of the line.

Somehow the three of them found a pattern to the madness of the small battle. With only three wolves able to attack at a given time, the team was able to control the pace.

Syrna started to stun two wolves at once with increasing frequency. Urginok redirected the final attacking wolf into one of the walls of their artificial hallway. Then Rydr attacked.

Rydr proved ineffective at first but soon adapted by jumping off the fallen trees and slamming his unwilling weapons into the two wolves Syrna stunned. The giant always kicked Urginok's redirected wolf to the back of the pack.

Urginok and Rydr absorbed a few hits from the wolves, but their health never fell into the red. When one of Rydr's "weapons" died, he would almost instantly receive a replacement courtesy of Urginok.

The experienced divers learned to anticipate and handle Rydr's lack of weaponry. Syrna settled her pace at two wolves every ten seconds, completely stunning them alongside her regular shots.

Urginok aggro-ed all three wolves on the rounds where Syrna only caught one of them.

With this strategy, the team mopped up the surviving wolves over the next five minutes. When the final wolf crumbling into motes of light around Syrna's arrow, the team collapsed to the ground, exhausted.

For the super noob, Rydr, it went without saying that this was his first time in a prolonged fight. Syrna and Urginok fared a bit better than their large teammate, but even they felt exhausted from maintaining that insane pace on jury-rigged teamwork.

"You didn't stick to the plan," Syrna accused.

"The plan sucked," Rydr grunted, unable to sit up from the ground.

"It was your plan," she pointed out.

"You should never listen to my plans. Smack me when I get another one."

"Will do," Syrna agreed.

Rydr sighed, happy they survived the fight. As badly as he wanted to win, victory was still a pleasant surprise. For a moment, he felt like they touched something. He knew that their teamwork was shoddy, and they would have wiped out instantly if it weren't for the bottleneck they'd made.

Despite that knowledge, the giant couldn't deny the surge of excitement he felt when he thought about the opening moments of their battle.

The buzz of notifications on the edge of his vision made itself known again, but Rydr pushed them away to continue basking in victory.

Urginok leveraged himself from the ground and went around collecting loot from the battle. It occurred to Rydr that they hadn't decided on how loot drops worked for stuff they didn't need.

Rydr shrugged and assumed that it would work itself out. He wasn't pressed for gold, minus his debt to the town guard, and wasn't too concerned with how the miscellaneous loot was distributed.

A trade notice appeared in front of Rydr's eyes, informing him that Urginok had sent him 35 copper coins. Mental math informed him that their cash haul from the fight totaled 105 copper or just over one silver coin.

Rydr nodded wordlessly at Urginok as the tank went to Syrna and sent over her share. The rest of the items were unceremoniously dumped on the ground between the three of them.

"We have a mix of thirty wolf teeth and claws, a dozen pelts, and some more mats from the Alpha." Urginok tallied their loot for the other two, but Rydr was looking at...a thigh?

Mixed in with the rest of the loot was a large bone that could only be one part of the Alpha. Next to it lay half a dozen teeth, much larger than the rest of their wolf teeth collection.

Nonplussed, the three looked at the loot.

"Does anyone plan on tailoring or something?" Rydr asked the other two. They mutely shook their heads at him.

It appeared that all three of them expected a bit more after everything they just went through.

Rydr shrugged and scooped up the pile of teeth, claws, and pelts. The other two didn't seem to mind Rydr volunteering as a pack mule.

The group never knew that there was nothing special about those wolves. Ordinarily, the pack hovered around level 2-3 for the brown wolves and level 6 for the Alpha. The pack's strength, like the plants, amplified under the prolonged influence of dense, wild mana.

Nature warped on all levels from the mana wellspring's influence.

With that out of the way, Rydr announced, "I'm going to check my notifications, you guys in a rush?" Another round of shaking heads and Rydr's teammates started to wave their hands around as they interacted with the game menus.

You Leveled Up...

Intimidation +10

Savagery Leveled Up...

Savagery Leveled Up...

Elite Feat! The Harder They Fall

Congratulations! You are the first group of divers to defeat an enemy over 7 levels above you. Like a mouse taking down an elephant, you proved that size does not matter! Rewards have been modified based on slain enemy.

· +10 Dexterity

· +5 Constitution

· +10 Free Points

· (Teamwork Feat)

*Paragon Triggered*

Rydr blinked and reread the teamwork feat notification. Then he read it a third time. With a huge grin on his face, Rydr looked up at his party members. "Hey guys, I've got a surprise for you. Check your notices from the fight."

"Way ahead of you, big guy," Syrna muttered under her breath as she waved her hands a few more times. After she stilled for over a minute, Rydr started to get worried until she blurted, "I created a skill!"

"Wahaat-? What about the feat?" Rydr blurted.

"I have a skill too!" Urginok's voice joined Syrna's as Rydr flashed back to his notices to make certain that he hadn't missed one. Syrna and Urginok managed to create their own skills, and Rydr hadn't.

"What feat? Oh! Oh my gosh! I have a feat!" Syrna squealed and jumped around, clapping her hands.

Syrna's girlish squeal threw Rydr for a loop, but Urginok's outburst of laughter distracted him. Rydr's disappointment over not creating his own skill was overshadowed by watching his party's giddiness.

Then the giant watched as his teammates changed in front of him. Flesh flowed and took shape to form rigid muscles on Syrna's arms where Rydr saw them.

Urginok seemed sturdier somehow. The already lively young man glowed with health like he just finished an intense workout.

Finally, Rydr understood why the sight upset Syrna so much. The game programmers must have meant for these boosts to come at a slower pace because watching the changes was weird.

Unbeknownst to Rydr, his own body went through a significant change once again. Since he had failed to find a shirt yet, his muscular form was on display.

To onlookers, it seemed as if boundless power was barely constrained in physical form. [Intimidation] made his red eyes sharper, and his naturally angular eyebrows lent him the air of constant rage as if he glared at everything he saw.

"What's your skill?" Syrna asked Urginok. She was on her feet, leaning against one of the large, fallen trees. Dried sweat matted the blonde's hair to her forehead, her green tunic almost soaked through.

"It's called [Crescent Charge]. It has a 5-meter range and deals two hits, for 50% bonus physical damage on each hit. It has a chance to stun and interrupt, costs eight Stamina, and has a... 15-second cool-down." Urginok traced his finger in the air as he read of the properties of his new skill.

Rydr remembered the smooth crescent Urginok's hammer traced through the air when he covered for the giant's loss of balance.

"It makes sense. The game's code must have some parameters that have to be met to generate a skill. You made a flawless attack under pressure, to great effect. What about yours, Syrna?" Rydr turned to look at the stormy blonde.

Syrna shrugged, "Mine's [Double Shot]. Two hits for 20% bonus physical damage, and it costs 5 Stamina with a 10-second cool-down." She shrugged yet again and pulled out an arrow, which she proceeded to study with apparent interest.

"Pinning their paws to the ground isn't a part of the skill?" Rydr wondered.

"Oh, it's a skill. Mine." A cocky grin slipped across Syrna's face at Rydr's astonished look. Then she took pity on him and added, "Archery is a hobby in real life."

"You can shoot like that and call it a hobby?" Rydr couldn't mask the skepticism in his voice.

"What about you, Rydr? Did you get anything besides the teamwork feat?" Urginok rounded on his large teammate, whom he noticed had a habit of dodging the limelight.

Rydr turned his usual shade of overripe tomato and squirmed as he heard a faint "Red, your face is red." from Syrna before he answered, "Er...You know I have a new skill [Peerless Physique]. I just hit over 100 in strength... I leveled up and my passive, Savagery, leveled up twice...I also received some bonuses to non-standard...stats..." Rydr counted on his fingers before he slowly trailed off.

Urginok stared at him in horror. On his other side, Syrna looked like she was about to have a fit.

"Red, tell me, what is your Strength score right now?" Syrna massaged the bridge of her nose as she approached the boys. Urginok seemed to be frozen in place, pained cries issuing from his mouth at the unfairness of it all.

"Oh, uh...it's...currently at 118..." Rydr visibly flinched at the sight of a vein throbbing on Syrna's forehead.

"And what, pray-tell, does your new skill do?" To Rydr, it looked as if Syrna towered over him, with thunder clouds around her head.

"[Peerless Physique] gives me 50% of my current strength score as a bonus to my strength. It lasts for a minute. Cool-down is half an hour." Rydr clammed up, worried the blonde archer might attack him.

Urginok sputtered out, "Don't you think that's a little crazy, man?"

"The skill or my score?"

"Yes."