The Jaws theme began to blare loudly in his ear. Chilly dismissed the various menus cluttering his vision and spun until he saw the ominous silhouette of a Wendigo framed on the horizon. In either hand, the Named Wendigo held a large chunk of ice.

Can’t this guy let me have a second to choose abilities in peace? He narrowed his eyes in annoyance.

At least it hasn’t gained another level yet, Chilly thought darkly. Just then, more Wendigos appeared on the horizon. First, on either side of He Who Walks Behind—

—then more and more wendigos appeared in larger and larger intervals until Chilly was entirely surrounded. Each Wendigo held a large, jagged shard of ice or rock in their clawed grip.

...

The Wendigos were roughly arrayed in order of their level, with the strongest creatures surrounding He Who Walks Behind, while the scum huddled in the rear, eagerly chomping at the proverbial bit as they shuddered and strained against invisible restraints in their desire to maul him.

“Purge the OuTsIDeR with our unholy flame!” screamed a penguin, as all hell broke loose.

He Who Walks Behind raised one of its long arms in a whoosh of movement and every Wendigo immediately unleashed their barrage of impromptu projectiles.

Chilly’s eyes widened in shock as his vision was filled. On instinct, he vanished in a flare of bright fire and appeared several meters directly into the air. He rematerialized just as what sounded like an avalanche of shattering rock and snow exploded underneath him. Tiny fragments of broken stone sprayed him from below as he was once more clutched in gravity’s merciless embrace.

He landed heavily, the ground uneven, as another wave of projectiles whizzed towards him. Abusing Second Wind, Chilly vanished in another flare of bright fire to dodge the projectiles. This time, however, he appeared several meters behind him, towards the lower leveled Wendigos that covered his flank.

A bleating grunt sounded, and another change came over the surrounding monsters. As one, they bounded forwards. Their long strides ate away at the distance as they entered the range of Pious Path. Smoldering Embers flared bright and began to ignite the coarse, matted fur that covered the undead creatures. Bleating, screams of rage, and maybe pain erupted around him, as Chilly ignored it all and sprinted towards the couple of low-leveled Wendigos at the rear of the encirclement.

The weaker Wendigos charged him with the same mindless ferocity as the rest of their brethren, but couldn’t match their tenacity. With Smoldering Embers chewing at their life, they were in poor shape when Chilly collided with them. Star Fuel lashed out as Chilly Flame Dashed directly behind them. Streamers of plasma coiled around them as the soles of their digitigrade feet burned as the very ground at their feet erupted into flame.

They howled as their prey vanished from underneath them, spinning around desperately.

Chilly paused his mad retreat and shot a challenging look directly into the eyes of the Named Wendigo. With an almost contemptuous flick of his wrist, black and purple fire erupted from his palm and engulfed the low-leveled Wendigos.

In a moment, under the combined assault of all his skills, the Wendigos fell. Corpses vanished as black and purple flames consumed any meat that remained behind. Essences tinkled to the frosty ground, and a ripple of fear shuddered through the remaining monsters.

Chilly instantly turned and Flame Dashed away, no longer concerned with leaving behind corpses due to his racial evolution. He had yet to choose an ability for his new level, but simply leveling up did provide flat life and a percent increase to the amount of damage Smoldering Embers did. Since he was still speced into damage, practically all but the most powerful Wendigos would eventually succumb.

He jogged backward, daring the monsters to give chase, and they obliged with slavering fervor. The small army raged after him, visibly flagging as the purple and black embers ate at their diminishing life pools. A satisfied smile crested his lips, as he shot a glance back to make sure that he wouldn’t jog directly into another pack of roving Wendigos or one of the red crystals and their crustaceans.

Suddenly, a bleating scream echoed in the distance and every one of the Wendigos slowed their charge; the lower leveled ones more reluctantly. Chilly frowned as the monsters retreated out of the large, glowing circle of consecrated ground, then vanished as they turned to lope away.

Chilly slowed to a stop, eyeing the retreating horde.

“It’s gathering a bloody army.” He muttered, with a hint of consternation.

“Thanks for the chapter!” a penguin chirped from the side.

Chilly jumped, then smiled in bemusement, “Thanks for the chapter yourself.”

The penguin nodded cheerfully, then gestured insistently.

“You’re right,” Chilly nodded, pulling up the skill options. “No harm no foul. My abilities are great against armies, so next time I’ll just try and take out the higher leveled ones and my passives will kill the lower leveled ones on their own.”

“Haha!” the penguin shouted gleefully. “You are closer to the void now! Consume it and let it consume you!”

“Too much fire, you need to chill,” berated another penguin.

“Amen to that, my dude.” Chilly commented, “I agree, Wildfire Source is boring.”

“Embrace the frost!” Mr. Frostbitten said.

Chilly hummed thoughtfully. “Mutagenic Engine or Aberrant Cadence? Aberrant Cadence is more...frosty I suppose. It would also give me more time to take out any lieutenants before the horde of schmucks surround me.”

The penguins nodded agreeably, though a ripple of discontent spread through the crowd.

Chilly glanced at them, intuiting their frustration. “Is action speed not the same in your world? Here let’s see what it does.”

Action Speed is the progenitor stat to movement speed. Like movement speed, Action Speed affects the rate at which an individual is capable of accelerating their mass. In addition, Action Speed applies to all actions, including, but not limited to moving, swinging a weapon, and casting spells. Action speed does not affect internal effects such as cooldowns, regeneration, or the base tick rate of damage over time effects. See Time Dilation for more.

“So, practically, I’ll move faster and cast Flame Dash faster, while they will become slower and have longer cast times. Not that I’ve seen many monsters struggle with cast times, but I guess. It isn’t a time manipulation spell though so it won’t directly boost my damage.”

Chilly rubbed at his chin. It seemed powerful enough for his needs.

“Besides, I would need way more than 10% increased resistances to survive being mobbed by the Wendigos. Even if they are low leveled.” he continued, referring to Mutagenic Engine.

A bunch of penguins nodded, but the rest roared angrily in indignation.

“Woah, there!” Chilly raised his hands. “I’m not just going to choose willy nilly. I know it's not going to be just 10% resistances. It's going to be at least fifteen, maybe even more depending on how I can specialize my gear, and it will reduce enemy resistances by that much and it will affect my allies.”

“There is a lot going for it. So, maybe we should think a little more about it, and come back to this later once you guys discuss it a little more. We are a little short on time, but I think I can pull a couple of hours of rest while you guys discuss. I think I’ll be safe enough here. At least for a little bit. How does that sound?”

The penguins reluctantly glanced at each other, then nodded, before a good half of them vanished in puffs of rapidly dissipating black smoke.

Chilly nodded then flopped onto the ground to rest. It was good to pace himself, so there was no harm in waiting a bit longer. Though the actions of the Named Wendigo were starting to bother him. It hadn’t attacked him directly yet, but the fact that it was exhibiting tactics was troublesome.