Vierna slammed into a crate of ceramic pots; the wood splintered, pots exploded in a spray of clay and dust, and a handful of crushed herbs burst free, perfuming the air with bitter, medicinal smell.

  Pain flared across her ribs where the crate struck her side, so intense that Vierna lost consciousness.

  The beast didn’t let up, seeing that she only had one remaining opponent, she extended her many arms towards Fenric, trying to slash and dice him into pieces.

  Fenric’s heart hammered so loud it drowned his thought.

  Each spell he threw to defend himself felt thin and small in his hands; branches bent and stabbed at the monster while his paws shook. Every scrape and nick made guilt and panic spike—faces from Rolbart flashed behind his eyes—and still he could not stop thinking of Vierna, sprawled somewhere in the dirt. Sweat stung his lashes, breath came short, and fear stripped him down to blunt, frantic motion.

  “The fuck, you’re weak as hell! No wonder you resort to ambush. You two are useless in front-line combat,” the beast taunted as Fenric tried to block her attacks with wood magic.

  He didn’t answer; he had too many slashes to avoid or negate with his wood element. He couldn’t even shout the spell’s name, so he just used basic wood manipulation from the surrounding trees. He stretched a branch to stab and hinder the attack, yet the girl didn’t flinch even when it pierced her left arms.

  Fuck… fuck… fuck… Fenric thought; his movements became even more desperate. Several of the slashes managed to slip past his guard. They grazed his skin, red dyeing his golden fur — a canvas of pain and desperation.

  Sweat pooled on his brow. He knew that if he didn’t do something, he would hemorrhage and die.

  “Vierna! A little help?!” Fenric shouted desperately while focusing his gaze towards the enemy. And yet besides the violent sound of his wood breaking and parrying the blade attack he couldn’t hear anything.

  Damn it I know late hunt won’t end up well.

  The she-beast then hit the ground bellow her violently with the momentum she jumped to the air.

  “Hareclouse Serpent’s Fang!” she shouted

  Her right arm morphed into a serpent. It extended unnaturally; from the serpent’s mouth a giant, glaive-like construct ooze black and obsidian.

  “BLOODY HELL!” Fenric screamed and dove right, but the blade still grazed his left arm. Blood spilled, hot and fast. He stared at it, then something colder slid behind his eyes.

  “Arghhh!!!” he howled, but his right arm did not move to shield the wound — it moved as if answering another command, curling to guard his skull.

  The beast struck again. Its serpent arm whipped down, and a wooden pillar suddenly burst up between them, stopping the blade with a sick, splintering crack. The monster’s hand snagged, then thudded against timber.

  “The fuck?!” she exclaimed.

  Laughter tore the air — low, wet, like a wolf that had learned to speak. The clearing seemed to pull its breath in.

  “You sure have your fun, huh?” the voice rasped, not quite Fenric’s.

  A cold, small thing threaded behind his eyes, like a door opening he’d always kept shut. Fenric blinked, and the meek teen was gone.

  His golden fur turned. It became as dark as the abyss, his mouth lengthened, and his shoulders rose into something taller and leaner. Where his eyes had been soft and round, two slits flared, backlit with a feral amber. He moved with a predator’s patience; every twitch measured, every breath a promise.

  Blood slicked his right claw as he dragged it through the wound. He didn’t hiss or cry — he tasted the iron and smiled, an animal’s grin that split cheek and bone. The sound that left him was a throat-thing, half-human, half-corridor of teeth. It did not answer the question; it answered hunger.

  “Now it’s my turn!”

  He slashed, and crescent blades of blood erupted, launched like thrown glaives. Each blade hissed as it cut the air, precise and merciless, the work of something that’s not quiete Fenric but him nonetheless.

  “YOU FUCKING HALF-BREED!” she roared. “Did your parent run out of wolves and decide to mix wolf blood with deer?”

  “You could ask him yourself as I send you to his place!” Fenric lunged with feral instinct, a wolf finding a prey after being caged for what it seems like an eternity.

  His eyes burned with a mix of fury and excitement, as if the battle itself had awakened something forbidden and intoxicating within him.

  With crimson-hot blood, he coated his claws. “CRIMSON REAPING!”

  His claws curved like a reaper’s scythe, ready to harvest the soul of his enemy.

  Sensing that this threat was unlike before, the she-beast quickly retracted her arms. Activating her Drachenschuppe, she coated her entire body in black scales—except for her left arm, which remained unarmored and pale for some reason.

  At first, Fenric unleashed a storm of claw strikes, but her enhancement held. She countered with her bladed arms, matching his speed blow for blow. The melee raged on—claws met blade, serpent against wolf. Yet it became clear that Fenric had the upper hand. The black dragon scales began to crack under pressure, blood streaking across the obsidian hide in vermilion despair.

  “Fucking half-mutt piece of shit!” the girl snarled, leaping back to gain distance.

  Fenric sprang into the air, blood still dripping from his claws. He bellowed to the sky, “VERMILION MOON!”

  A crescent of blood arced toward her like a sliver of the blood moon, aimed to tear her apart.

  With little time to react, she instinctively raised her left arm as a shield. The bloody crescent struck directly, cutting deep—but even then, she didn’t flinch.

  “Hehe… ARGH!!!” Fenric screamed as he landed, pain twisting through his body.

  Seeing the opening, the girl pressed her advantage, her many arms lashing out like whips aimed straight at him.

  “As if, you bitch!” Fenric snarled, dodging and charging again.

  The two continued their deadly melee—slashes flying, trees collapsing, and the ground tearing beneath their feet. Neither side yielded.

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  ‘Vierna! Vierna! Wake up!’

  The sound rang again and again in her head. She forced her eyes open. What the hell happened?!

  ‘You got thrown by her. Right now Fenric is in melee. You need to help him.’

  Vierna looked toward the scene. Is that Fenric? He was a deer, right?

  ‘I don’t know how,’ Moony said. ‘But it’s fighting the enemy and we seriously need to help him.’

  We need more punch. My blade couldn’t pierce her enchantment, and I still can’t use my gun properly.

  Vierna scanned her surroundings for something she could use. Besides the small ceramic pots she’d crashed against, the camp only had what appeared to be daily necessities: food, oil, tar—nothing that could help her.

  Uhhhh, think, think, think!

  ‘If only we had something that pack more punches than our sword!’

  Vierna’s eyes widened at the suggestion.

  Meanwhile, Fenric was doing everything he could to finish his opponent, but pain throbbed like a second heartbeat behind his eyes. He forced himself forward, slamming a branch into the creature’s shoulder; the wood cracked and a shallow gash opened along his flank where a blade had nicked him earlier. Blood matted his now gray fur, warm and sticky, and each breath tasted of iron.

  He managed to drive the beast back with a flurry, a cut across her forearm and on her side, but it was never enough. Every successful strike cost him more: a nasty scrape on his thigh that made his leg buckle, a ragged cut across his lip that left a sour, copper tang on his tongue, a welt on his flank where teeth had grazed. The wounds blurred into one hot map of pain.

  Now Fenric was losing and the beast pressed her advantage, sweeping claws low. Fenric staggered back, his rear leg dragging, skidding on churned dirt. Panic flared as the deer side of him trying to claw back its way to control while the wolf side snarled to hold ground. He tried to plant his weight and counterattack, but his knee refused, folding like a broken hinge.

  “Something wrong, half-breed?! Here, let me help you!” the monster hissed while using her blade like arms to stab Fenric’s torso. The blade raked his flank; hot pain exploded across him. He stumbled, one shoulder dropping, and a thin line of blood marked the earth where he fell to a knee.

  Fenric knew the beast was right. He had spent his life containing the wolf inside him, and when it finally awoke, it was still weak.

  “Time to end this!” The girl shouted. Then her left arms combined into one giant arm and as usual in its pal was a blade as sharp as death sentence she extended it with terrible speed.

  As Fenric tried to dodge to the right, however his legs refused too move. Too injured to even budge, he tried to conjure wooden walls again and yet her arms pierced through it unlike before. He was spent, use too much mana that he couldn’t properly solidify his wood even in his wolf form.

  I guess this is how far I go… mother forgive me…

  “HRAAAAAAA!!!”

  The shout came from his left. Vierna charged with all her might, gripping her blade with both hands. She drove it into the creature’s arm and pushed with everything she had, forcing the trajectory aside. The strike missed Fenric by a heartbeat.

  Seeing her enemies closing in again, the she-beast retracted her arm and leapt backward to gain distance. She assessed her wounds, cauterizing some of them.

  “Fenric!” Vierna called out. By now, he had returned to his original form—that of a deer. His transformation had faded, but his eyes were unfocused, trembling like a leaf in early winter. His breath came short, and his hands shook as if he’d just awakened something forbidden.

  “FENRIC!” She slapped him, hoping to bring him back. “Snap out of it!”

  “Vierna!” Fenric replied weakly. “I thought you were dead!”

  “No, I’m not.” She panted, swinging her blade to clear off the blood. “Listen, Fenric—I’ve got a plan.”

  The she-beast watched as Vierna whispered something to Fenric. She couldn’t stop all her bleeding, but she knew she had to end this quickly.

  “Get a room, you fucking losers,” the beast hissed, then extended her five arms again to impale them both.

  Vierna sprinted to the right. Seeing this, the beast sent three of her arms after her in pursuit. The remaining two lashed toward Fenric, who blocked them partially with a wooden wall.

  Vierna rolled to the right, then kept running along that direction, firing her pistol three times—hoping to distract the beast and give Fenric some space. She had used only a small amount of gunpowder, so the shots were weaker than usual. She was conserving mana; Moony’s ragged panting in her mind told her she was near her limit.

  The beast blocked the shots with her right arm, but Vierna didn’t stop. She fired again and again.

  “THAT WON’T WORK, YOU SHIT!” the creature roared, clearly irritated. Even when the bullets only grazed her skin, they still hurt.

  Now fully focused on Vierna, the beast swung her right arm and three of her left arms in an attempt to pin her down. Vierna dodged and weaved, keeping her distance, shooting whenever she saw an opening.

  Knowing she needed all her limbs to deal with Vierna, the beast began retracting the two arms she had sent toward Fenric.

  “She’s not fighting alone, you bitch!”

  The shout snapped her attention away. Fenric had used his roots to move himself to the left while firing several wooden lances toward her. The beast couldn’t focus entirely on Vierna and had to divert her two free arms to swat the projectiles aside.

  That moment of distraction gave Vierna her chance. She charged straight at the beast. The creature noticed and snarled, anticipating a frontal stab.

  “Enhancement: Drachenschuppe!”

  Her skin blackened once more as dragon-like scales spread across her body, ready to deflect whatever Vierna would throw next.

  She stopped midway, throwing her blade and gun aside. One of her arms reached into her satchel as she quickly drew a paper etched with runes: a storage rune, one she had created earlier to preserve mana if she ever needed it. With great haste, she pulled a jar from within the storage rune.

  The beast recognized the smell: lantern oil. She tried to dodge, but two of her left arms were stabbed by a giant wooden spear, conjured by Fenric from the ground. Focused on Vierna, she didn’t notice what her left arms were doing, allowing Fenric to pin them to the ground with his wood.

  Earlier, Fenric’s spear had pierced one of the creature’s left arms—and she hadn’t even flinched. Several times afterward, when those arms were injured again, she still didn’t react. That made both Fenric and Vierna assumed that the beast couldn’t feel those limbs. So Vierna kept circling to the right, distracting her while Fenric tried to find an opening to pin her left arms so she couldn’t move.

  “FUCKING DOG!” the beast shouted.

  The jars shattered on impact, spraying lantern oil in wide arcs that shimmered under the moonlight. It drenched her from neck to waist, the liquid slicking over her scales as she staggered back. The reek of oil hit first—thick, acrid, and ready to ignite.

  “FENRIC, NOW!” Vierna barked. She quickly took her sword from the ground.

  The she-beast looked toward the beast kin. A single root, tied with linen, soaked in lantern oil and tipped with a lit rag, jutted forward and ran along her left arm.

  Seeing the torch root approach, the she-beast roared in panic. She tried to use her remaining arms to intercept the fire, but her instinct wavered when Vierna was awfully close to her from the front with blade in hand. She thought that Vierna would stay back since they are planning to burn her, but this slip in judgement was caused her reflex took over and make her swung her arms towards Vierna instead.

  With her gambit succeed, Vierna kicked the beast’s torso and used the recoil to launch herself backward—flipping into the air in a tight reverse somersault. The instant her boots left the ground, the flame met the oil, and the beast erupted in fire. Heat burst outward, licking the space where Vierna had just been. Her right hand, slick with lantern oil, caught flame mid-air; she landed hard, dropped, and rolled through the dirt until the fire finally died out.

  “ARRRGHHHHHH, YOU FUCKING BITCH! YOU THINK THIS IS ENOUGH TO KILL ME?!” she roared.

  “No, but I hope this will.”

  Vierna conjured her storage rune again and pulled out a small ceramic pot with a lantern-oil-soaked cord attached to it. The top was sealed with a sliver of wood. Earlier, when Fenric had been dueling the beast alone, Vierna had conjured lead bullets and gunpowder through her pistol’s rune but hadn’t fired them. Instead, she had crafted the bullets smaller than usual so it could slip out easily. She then placed both the powder and the small lead bullet inside the ceramic jar.

  Vierna hurled it at the beast. She didn't light the fuse because the materials weren't reliable; one wrong move and it could explode in her hand. The pot flew over the beast, caught the blaze, and flashed in a single brilliant moment.

  BAM! The ceramic pot exploded, sending shrapnel in all directions. Fenric had conjured a wooden wall in front of her, but Vierna was too close. Vierna quickly crouched and covered her head, back but some shrapnel struck her body, driving small, burning slivers into the flesh and sending a white-hot sting to her nerve.

  “ARGHHHH! IT HURTS! IT HURTS SO MUCH! FATHER, SAVE ME!” the she-beast roared. She wasn’t dead yet.

  “FUCKING—” the beast’s words cut off.

  Vierna picked up her blade and rushed forward, ignoring the flames that still licked the creature’s scorched body. The sharpnells still send a jolting pain but she pushed through it. With all her strength she slashed the girl’s neck; blood gushed like a waterfall, dyeing Vierna red. An unholy baptism of blood, the first time she had won an actual life-or-death fight. She swung again, trying to decapitate her, but the head wouldn’t come off. The girl slumped at her feet, burned, blasted, and nearly decapitated.