The Alpha watched him with those yellow eyes, analyzing him.
Thiriel returned the gaze without blinking. In his mind, he was calculating the most optimal way to face it. Six enemies. One clearly superior. Five support units that would likely attack in coordination with their leader. Open ground, no significant cover. The river at his back limited his retreat options.
The Alpha is the key, he thought. If I defeat it, the others will flee. If I focus on the others first, it will tear me apart while I'm distracted.
The five wolves flanked their leader in a crescent formation. Their stances were tense, ready to spring at the slightest movement. These were not like the wolves he had killed before; their bodies were larger, more muscular, and the magical energy they emanated was notably denser.
Elite Shadow Wolves, he classified. Likely the combat core of the pack.
The Alpha grunted.
The five wolves tensed even further.
Thiriel adjusted his stance, lowering his center of gravity slightly. The sword rested in his right hand, the tip pointing down at a relaxed angle. He seemed careless. But he wasn't.
Let them attack first, he decided. I need to see how the Alpha moves before—
The thought did not finish.
The Alpha vanished.
Not literally, but that's how his brain perceived it for a fraction of a second. The beast moved with a speed that defied its size, crossing the ten meters separating them in what felt like two heartbeats.
Thiriel reacted on pure instinct.
The Magic Warrior Aura exploded at fifty percent. His muscles protested at the sudden overload, but they responded. He twisted his body to the right, letting the Alpha's jaws pass inches from his left side. He felt the beast's breath and its explosive magical aura.
Fast, he thought as he completed the turn. Faster than I expected.
His sword traced an arc toward the Alpha's neck. The beast turned its head, and its fangs met the steel. The impact reverberated through Thiriel's arm as if he had struck a rock.
Tough, too.
The Alpha leaped back, landing five meters away. Its eyes gleamed with the thrill of the hunt.
The five wolves attacked.
Not in unison, but in waves. Two first, then another two, and finally the last one. A tactic designed to exhaust the prey, to force it to spend energy dodging while the Alpha waited for the perfect moment for the final blow.
Clever, Thiriel admitted. But not enough.
The first two wolves arrived from opposite flanks. Thiriel didn't try to dodge both. He lunged toward the one on the left, closing the distance before the animal could adjust its attack. The sword entered below the jaw and exited through the top of the skull.
The second wolf bit the air where Thiriel had been a tenth of a second before.
Thiriel tore the sword from the carcass and spun. The third and fourth wolves were already upon him. There was no time for a clean strike. He raised his left forearm and let one of them bite him.
The pain was immediate and brutal.
The fangs pierced his sleeve and sank into the flesh. Hot blood ran down his arm. But the wolf had made a mistake: it had immobilized its own primary weapon.
Thiriel's sword descended like lightning. The wolf's head rolled on the ground, its jaws still locked around his forearm.
The fourth wolf tried to bite his throat. Thiriel intercepted it with a magic-reinforced kick that shattered its chest. The crunch of broken ribs was audible even over the roar of the blood in his ears.
The fifth wolf.
Thiriel searched for it with his gaze.
Too late.
The animal was already in the air, its claws extended toward his face. There was no time to dodge. No time to block.
Thiriel let go of his sword and extended his right hand. Magic concentrated in his palm in a split second.
Magic Projectile.
The sphere of compressed energy impacted the wolf's chest at point-blank range. The animal was sent flying backward, a smoking hole where its heart had once been.
Five elite wolves. Dead.
But the price had been high.
Thiriel panted. His left forearm was bleeding profusely, the muscles torn by the fangs he still had to wrench out. The Magic Warrior Aura pulsed irregularly, consuming energy at a rate he couldn't maintain much longer.
Maybe at sixty percent now, he evaluated. Maybe less.
The Alpha had not moved during the entire combat. It had been watching. Evaluating him. And now, finally, it acted.
The beast opened its mouth, and a sound emerged from its throat. It wasn't a howl or a grunt. It was something deeper, older. The shadows around it began to move, to condense, to take shape.
Magic, Thiriel understood. It's using real magic.
The shadows solidified around the Alpha like living armor. Its fur, already dark, turned absolutely black. Its eyes glowed with greater intensity. And when it took the next step, the ground trembled under its multiplied weight.
It's like a shadow reinforcement, Thiriel identified.
He didn't have time to analyze further.
The Alpha charged.
This time, Thiriel couldn't dodge completely. The shadow-wrapped claw found his side and threw him back like a ragdoll. The impact against the ground knocked the air out of his lungs. Pain ran through his torso like liquid fire.
Ribs, he thought as he rolled to avoid a second strike. At least two broken.
He stood up staggering. Blood dripped from his arm, from his side, and from a cut on his forehead he didn't remember receiving. His sword was three meters away, out of reach.
The Alpha stopped in front of him.
Its yellow eyes were glowing. It had defeated the threat. Now only the final blow remained.
Thiriel spat blood onto the ground.
So this is how it feels, he thought. To be on the receiving end of a beating.
In his previous life, he had been the one inflicting this kind of damage. He had been the one looking at his defeated enemies with that same expression of inevitable victory. The irony was not lost on him.
The Alpha prepared for the final attack. The shadows around it condensed even more, concentrating in its jaws for a bite that would undoubtedly be fatal.
Thiriel closed his eyes.
Not out of defeat. Out of concentration.
The Magic Warrior Aura had been his signature technique in his previous life. He had perfected it for decades, taking it to levels no other warrior had reached. And though this body was different, though the magic flowed through different channels, the fundamental principle remained the same.
All or nothing.
He channeled every drop of magic he had left. Not toward the muscles. Not toward defense. All toward a single point: his right fist.
The Alpha attacked.
Thiriel opened his eyes.
The world moved in slow motion. The Alpha's jaws were opening, the shadows spinning like a tornado of darkness, the fangs shining with an unnatural light.
And Thiriel struck.
His fist met the Alpha's snout at the exact moment the jaws were closing. The concentrated magic exploded at the point of impact with a force that surpassed anything he had achieved in this body so far.
The crack was deafening.
The Alpha was sent flying backward, its shadow armor shattering like glass. The beast rolled across the ground, howling in pain, its jaw visibly dislocated.
Thiriel wasted no time.
He ran toward his sword. He picked it up. He spun.
The Alpha tried to get up, but its hind legs didn't respond. The impact had done more than break bones; it had shattered the beast from within.
Thiriel advanced with firm steps despite the pain threatening to make him fall.
The Alpha looked at him.
For the first time, Thiriel saw something different in those yellow eyes. It wasn't fear. Beasts like this didn't know fear in the same way humans did. It was something more primitive—it was savagery.
Thiriel raised the sword.
"You fought well," he murmured.
The blade descended.
The Alpha's howl was cut short as the steel pierced its throat. Dark blood erupted, almost black, mixed with fragments of the dissipating shadow magic. The beast's body shuddered once, twice, and then lay still.
Silence.
Thiriel remained standing over the carcass, breathing with difficulty. His body screamed in protest. The broken ribs sent stabs of pain with every breath. His left arm hung almost useless at his side. His vision blurred at the edges.
But he was alive.
In the distance, the howls of the remaining pack rose into the air. They were not howls of hunting or war. They were howls of confusion, of loss. Their leader had fallen.
Thiriel watched as shadows moved between the trees on the other side of the river. The wolves were fleeing, scattering in all directions, each seeking its own survival now that there was no one to lead them.
He dropped to his knees beside the Alpha's body.
The pain flooded him like a tide. The exhaustion was extreme. He extended his hand and placed his palm on the beast's chest.
He felt something.
A weak pulse of energy. Not from the heart, which had already stopped beating, but from something deeper.
With trembling fingers, he took his knife and opened the Alpha's chest. Dark blood pooled on his hands as he searched through the organs.
And then he found it.
A crystal the size of his thumb, black as night, pulsing with a faint light that seemed to absorb the light around it.
A magic crystal, he identified. High purity.
He held it before his eyes, watching how the sunlight bent around it. This crystal was worth more than all the missions he had accepted combined.
Thiriel carefully placed it in his spatial bag.
Then, finally, he allowed himself to collapse onto the bloodstained grass.
The sky spun above him. The clouds moved with a hypnotic slowness. Somewhere nearby, the river continued to flow, indifferent to the battle that had just ended.
I need... treatment, he thought. Arielle is going to kill me when she sees me.
A weak laugh escaped his lips, which quickly turned into a grimace of pain as his ribs protested.
But despite the pain, despite the exhaustion, despite everything...
He smiled.
Because since he had arrived in this world, he had been truly challenged. He had been pushed to the limit. And he had survived.
This, he thought as consciousness began to fade, this is what I needed.
The sound of the river was the last thing he heard before the darkness claimed him.