The first wolf to reach me was met with teeth, and devoured whole. The second was met with roots and torn apart, but they kept coming, dozens, then hundreds at a time. One snapped at my roots, ripping it off. Another managed to claw at and graze my neck, tearing a small chunk off.

I enhanced my roots, and launched myself into the air.

It was then that the third and final Dolosus Lupus made itself known. A burst of mana suddenly shifted my perspective. Up was down, left was right, and before I knew it, I was falling right back down in the center of the pack.

I phased out one ton of water from the Polypus terrarium, using it to cover my fall, then produced a mana crystal to recover the expended mana just as I fell.

The water crashed against the cave floor with a thunderous crack. As it did, I flailed my roots wildly around me, smashing into the wolves below me and caving in their skulls and ribs. My sense of direction returned, and I jumped again, heating towards the direction of another blue-rose fruit maybe three hundred yards away.

As I did, the Dolosus Lupus activated its ability again, and I was forced to repeat the waste of another mana crystal producing another ton of water. By the time I landed, I realized I was even further away from my destination.

If that’s the case, then I need to buy time to transform. I can’t continue on in this form. Not against this many opponents.

To buy time, I phased several gallons of D rank toad oil out around me, then a torch to set it alight. The wolves encircled me again, too wary of the flames to approach. All but one.

The Dolosus Lupus pounced through the flames, aiming to sever my neck. I turned to bite at it, and it was at that very moment it activated its ability again, making my counter strike miss.

Instead, I phased out Spiderilla string from my subspace, and flailed wildly around. The dolosus lupus and I were both wrapped up in it, neither of us capable of moving. But that only made it easier for me to transform. I phased out more oil, continuing the flames while I transformed.

Before I finished, I detected something in the edge of my scent’s range. A long, spiky vertebrae, attracted by the commotion of our fight, was smashing through the wolves and heading straight for us.

It finally reached the edge of the flames at the very moment my transformation was complete. With one of my D rank Spiderilla arms, I grabbed the Dolosus Lupus, and threw it towards the invader: an Ossa Scolopendra; The Bone Centipede.

It tore through the Dolosus Lupis, shredding it with its razor-sharp legs as it passed, then met my fully mana-powered fist.

Its head shattered, and its hundred sections tore apart and scattered.

“Die, you fucking insect!” I shouted.

The centipede, of course, refused. Half of its hundred sections, each attached to two legs, crawled through the flames at me.

One after the other, I punched them out of the air and away. They shattered as the head had, but it was not enough. The other half of its legs were coalescing back together, healing the broken bones of its shattered pieces, undoing what little work I had done.

The fires died down after that, and the wolves and Scolopendra both charged. I produced a net of spiderilla-silk, and whipped it in a circle around me. The silk caught against the front dozen wolves, as well as the Scolopendra, which bisected itself and continued forward, only to meet my fist again. Its head shattered again, but this time, the rest of it stayed in one piece, ripping a gash down my arm. I howled in pain, grabbed onto it with my other hand, tore it off, then crunched down on it between my teeth. The Scolopendra whined and retreated towards its other half, ripping my silk apart and returning to its whole form. Well, not whole anymore.

I continued chewing on the piece I’d bitten off, and swallowed it, then grabbed its “head” section after smashing another few wolves who got too close and did the same. I felt a burst of strength as its mana was quickly digested into my own, and it phased into my subspace. Two down, ninety-eight to go.

The Scolopendra ran around, but was unable to find its missing pieces.

“Can’t find your head? Have you checked your ass?” I yelled.

It hissed back, then ripped into and entered wolf next to it, coming out the other side with a fresh new two sections to replace the old ones.

I sighed. Make that two down, two hundred to go. In that case…

I phased out a long string of spiderilla silk, and waved it in a circle above my head. I sent my mana detection through it, and phased out Oleum Rubeta oil along it. The oil dropped to the ground and covered the area, and the wolves within it, with tar. I then shot my string up at the ceiling, and hoisted myself in the air, and dropped a lit torch to the ground. The fires quickly spread, engulfing the majority of the pack. What was left quickly fled, their leaders gone, and their numbers dwindled.

The Scolopendra used my own actions as an opportunity, quickly scuttling through the fires to collect the wolves’ bones and add them to its own form. The fires died down, and the Scolopendra shot into the air after me, climbing single-file to reach my height.

All according to plan. I yanked my silk off the ceiling and dropped down beside it, sticking the silk along it as I dropped. It clawed at the silk and I with its hundreds of claws, but the Spiderilla’s force alignment was perfectly matched towards body enhancement, and as the silk was part of my body, we held together, barely harmed by the Scolopendra’s slashing.

The Scolopendra scattered again as I reached the ground, half of it now stuck to my silk. With my one good arm, I raised the silk into the air, and slammed it onto the ground, smashing the pieces all at once, then phasing them into my subspace.

And at that moment, more intruders approached from behind. Slimes, spiderillas, and wolves galore.

“What the fuck!” I yelled, running in the opposite direction from them.

The scattered Scolopendra, realizing it was outmatched, skittered northward towards another blue-rose with blue, D-rank blood fruits.

Leave it, killing these things is not why I’m here. I thought to myself. I have to get out of this mess.

And just let it get away? Another thought intruded. No, chase it. Kill it. Then turn and kill them too. Make this land yours, and grow fat from strength.

I clutched at my head, the voice suddenly growing louder and more vicious.

The voice does not control me. The voice does not control me.

A blur ran past, crimson fur and black mist. The mist surrounded me, and my mind was consumed with rage as I realized what it was.

Ferre Iram, a Barbearian.

My head pounded, the voice screaming at me at an intensity I’d never felt before. My consciousness faded, eaten away at the edges with one final message.

Let it consume you, and in turn, let yourself consume all. Grow strong, until reality itself is a mere burden. And when you can grow no more, when the very universe can hold no more of my essence, I will be there to take it all back.