Viglaf woke up with pain surging throughout his arm and his head throbbing with ache. He couldn’t even move his body, his own limbs felt so heavy that it was like they were filled with lead. He tried to inspect his surroundings with barely open eyes, his vision blurry due to his condition. Someone was in front of him, Viglaf tried to observe more clearly but he couldn’t see who this was.

The person took off a pendant and gave it to him, gazed at him for a while, as if he was accessing something. A few instances later, Viglaf could feel his pain subsiding slowly, the person looked slightly relived and stood up promptly. He moved away from him, watching the outside from a shattered window. His hand reached into his satchel and he took out a vial and gulped down its contents and stepped out.

Viglaf identified the person as Beowulf, the same aloof man who he had met today.

The person who seemed neither cruel nor merciful.

Indeed, among all the people Viglaf had ever encountered, he was one of a kind.

The pain and ache he had been feeling until now was gradually decreasing, and he could move around his body a bit now, he noticed it was probably an effect of the pendant he had been given. He stared at the child lying next to him, apparently still breathing, and then stared at his own broken arm.

Oddly enough, it didn’t hurt as much it seemed by looking at its state.

He slowly tried to stand up, taking support by grabbing a nearby broken table, barely succeeding. And took a peek outside the window. He could see Beowulf sliding across the ground due to the impact of the beast’s blow, who then immediately rolled into cover behind a wall, and disappeared from his sight.

Viglaf could sense that his movement seemed sluggish compared to earlier today, he had been swift when dealing with those monstrosities in the forest, an unnaturally inhuman feat.

But now, he was barely managing to avoid the deformed monstrosity’s blows.

The place Viglaf was in seemed to be a two-story house under construction. He tried to stand up but he wobbled and almost fell to the ground. If not for the fact the he had taken support with his left hand against the wall, he certainly would have. Steadily, one step a time, he started to ascend the stairs.

The second story of the house was incomplete, without a roof and the walls were not yet finished. If he could get up there, he could take a better look at the street.

He was almost at the top when the screeching started, first it was mild, but after few brief instances, it became unbearable, causing him to fall on the second-story floor. He wrapped his hands around his ears, and waited for it to pass, waiting was the only thing he could do after all.

And pass soon, it did.

It was now eerily quiet, unnaturally so. Viglaf used this opportunity to crawl towards the edge of the floor, facing the street. His mind was numb, his limbs failed him, yet he struggled onwards.

He could hear the rapid loud noise of its attacks clashing against something, it was making a metallic sound. The sound was similar to Beowulf’s gauntlets, he was either on the offensive or the defensive, from his position, Viglaf couldn’t tell.

At last, he was close enough to the unfinished wall, that he grabbed the edges and lifted himself up to peek into the street.

Beowulf was being handled like a ragdoll and being slammed into everything around him, without even being spared a moment. He was powerless at this state, rather, the monstrosity was too overwhelming.

It didn’t matter if one took it head on or using tactics. The result would be the same, this wasn’t something that could be resolved by a single person.

If this went on, soon enough Beowulf would inevitably meet his death.

Viglaf had to choose.

Even though Beowulf had instructed him to not do anything reckless, he just couldn’t face the other way and leave him.

That was his nature.

So, his thoughts raced around frantically, trying to come up with any way of saving the wendigo.

But he couldn’t think of a single thing he could do.

He himself was in no state to directly harm the monstrosity, his only advantage was that he was above the wretched thing, which likely was its only blind spot.

This situation was similar to the first time Azlan had saved him, by jumping off from the cliff. However, he didn’t have the strength to deal any damage at all.

But something was amiss.

Viglaf seemed to recall it.

He remembered what the wendigo had said to him, it wasn’t only raw physical strength that helped him; it was gravity and the sheer weight of his gauntlets.

If only he had something like Beowulf’s gantlets, but he didn’t, so he darted his eyes around looking for anything and surely soon enough, he had found his weapon.

Since the upper part of the house was under construction, there were huge tree logs on it, for the purpose of making the roof, beams and the walls. He had to roll one of them towards the edge and the other would follow suit and fall down on the ghastly thing. There was a chance it could hit Beowulf himself but there was also a chance it wouldn’t reach Azlan due to the monstrosity’s elongated body.

And so he crawled a few feet back and he pushed the log with his left shoulder, using all the strength his body could muster. He tried and tried but it did not budge.

It didn’t take him long to figure out that he was hesitating.

Why? Because he was afraid that he could harm Beowulf as well?

That was probably it, perhaps Beowulf was right, and sometimes doing nothing is the right thing to do.

And maybe that was indeed the right thing.

But.

That wasn’t like Viglaf, it wasn’t like him at all.

He wasn’t someone who would sit around doing nothing.

Viglaf took a look at him again, the man on the verge of death.

There was no need for hesitation.

His mind cleared of doubts, he pushed the logs with a jolt.

And with a dull sound they rolled and fell onto the unsuspecting monstrosity’s body.

It gave out a gut-wrenching shriek, as the giant logs fell on its body, crushing it.

Its body convulsed for a time and then, it fell silent.

Viglaf waited for a few moments, and then searched for Beowulf with eyes, and as luck would have it, he was relatively safe. Without further ado, he made his way down slowly, towards the street.

He found Beowulf lying near the monstrosity’s carcass, which was now buried under the pile of logs.

Terrible state he was in, if Viglaf didn’t know better he would peg him for a corpse, but he knew better, Azlan was more than a human.

He was about to call out to him, when with a sudden tremor, the pile of logs broke apart.

Viglaf turned his head to see the monstrosity rising behind him, its lower body was completely crushed yet it seemed it still lived. To him, it was astounding that it wasn’t dead yet.

The monstrosity with no way of attacking anyone, finally unfolded its arms. The same arms it had kept folded until now in a stationary praying-like stance, could now be used. They weren’t any less deadly than its forelegs.

With Beowulf behind him, Viglaf glared at the abomination.

He didn’t close his eyes this time.

Things really didn’t go his way.

But if his death was certain, then so be it.

In hindsight, Man is always one breath, one heartbeat away from death, but until his final moments or the final years of his life, he believes himself to be an immortal. And on the basis of one measly breath, man plunders, violates and kills. Man knows he shall perish one day, without error. Yet he justifies his actions by telling himself that, that day is still far away.

The monstrosity slowly raised its arm with the intention of swinging it down on Viglaf and crushing him mercilessly.

But before it could even complete it ascent, three huge ice spikes came flying from behind Viglaf and lodged their selves into the beast’s body, or what was left of it. And it collapsed on the ground, raising dust in the process.

And this time, it stayed down.

Viglaf immediately turned around to see where it came from, but there were no signs of anyone there. He had a faint idea about what caused it, but this wasn’t the time to dilly-dally.

He turned his head back towards Beowulf, and lowered his ears towards his face.

Thankfully, he was breathing, no matter how raggedy and strained it sounded. However, what he did not expect, was to hear some barely audible words instead.

It seemed Beowulf was trying to say something but Viglaf was having trouble figuring it out. He strained his ears to make out some coherent word at the very least. He could hear him say something about a vial.

“A vial?” Viglaf wondered. “Right! The glass vials he was carrying, that contained the essence or what not”, he realized. According to Beowulf himself, it was something useful to a wendigo.

Coming to a conclusion, Viglaf searched around his body for a vial. If memory served him right, they were contained on a satchel on his hip. A bit of searching later, he found the vial in the satchel, seemingly undamaged.

It must have been made out of some durable matter, because there was no way a normal glass vial could stay intact after being subjected to so much thrashing.

He took out the vial, took off the lid and slowly poured into his mouth.

He imagined Beowulf going through this whole unforgiving ordeal and barely coming out alive, only to die due to choking on some liquid.

As if to avoid that, he carefully let Beowulf drink it in small intervals.

Only a few instances later, his body started to undergo minor convulsions and jolts, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

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