Chapter 52
Chapter 19: The True King of the Western Forest (2)
Kraaaaar!
Not only were his physical abilities extraordinary, but his senses were sharp as well; even with his vision completely obscured, the Wolf King's claws surged toward Jade with deadly accuracy.
And not just once, either—they came one after another.
The aura blades tore mercilessly through the empty air as they came slicing in with an eerie shriek.
But Jade was not in their path.
Fwoosh!
With astonishing agility, Jade dodged every one of them.
However, the difference was extremely slight.
He had barely avoided them by a margin no wider than a sheet of paper.
Swish! Swish!
The sight made the Wolf King even more excited, and he swung both hands wildly.
His frustration had been building as Jade seemed just barely within reach.
In contrast to the Wolf King, who was thoroughly worked up, Jade's expression remained calm.
To anyone watching, it might have looked as though he was struggling to evade the Wolf King's fierce assault, but the reality was different.
Shh-shhk!
He was rapidly adapting to the terrifying movements of the Wolf King.
At the same time, he was pushing his own body to its absolute limit.
Although he had sparred with Aruellia, a spar was still a spar, even if they had treated it like a real battle.
The tension was inevitably different from a situation where death could come at any moment, so while evading the Wolf King's attacks, Jade gauged the limits of his body.
Moreover, unlike in a fight against another person, the Wolf King's body was over ten meters in size, so Jade was steadily gaining experience fighting giant monsters as well.
“You rat bastard!”
Kwaaang!
Even as he kept increasing his speed, the Wolf King roared in fury at Jade slipping away like a loach.
He had driven Jade into what seemed like a corner before unleashing a decisive strike, but unfortunately, it had failed to reach him.
Once again, Jade had evaded it by the narrowest of margins.
‘I can see it now.’
The Wolf King's assault, driven by instinct, was certainly impressive.
Its speed was difficult to follow with the eyes, and Jade was avoiding about half of the attacks almost reflexively.
However, because the Wolf King possessed intelligence, Jade gradually began to discern a pattern.
In particular, the Wolf King was unable to make perfect use of his strength.
‘It must be a lack of experience. He probably never had an equal opponent because his overwhelming strength was enough on its own.’
Like Jade, the Wolf King was rapidly adapting to his own body, but the speed at which they did so was entirely different.
He was markedly slower than Jade.
Of course, the Wolf King's innate abilities were extraordinary, and in terms of sheer power, Jade would have difficulty matching him. But what mattered was whether he could properly utilize that immense strength.
Slash!
No matter how powerful an attack was, it was useless if it failed to hit the enemy.
Jade demonstrated that fact through his own actions.
As he evaded the Wolf King's assault, he continued inflicting increasingly significant wounds as time passed.
“You bastard!”
The Wolf King roared at the wounds that were gradually increasing in number.
His roar froze the beastfolk standing far away, much like a dragon's roar.
They had been paralyzed by nothing more than the sound of his howl.
But it had no effect on Jade.
The Wolf King's fear was laughable to Jade, who had not even been affected by a drake's fear.
Slash!
Instead, Jade took advantage of the Wolf King's howl to cut behind his knee.
He had already left sword wounds on both ankles and Achilles' tendons, so this time he cut into the back of the Wolf King's left knee.
Of course, his wounds were healing rapidly thanks to his characteristic regenerative ability, but Jade was leaving wounds faster than the Wolf King could recover from them.
“I'll kill you!”
“Your stamina and mana really are at a monstrous level.”
Despite being drenched in blood from the countless wounds covering his lower body, the Wolf King's momentum had not diminished in the slightest.
If anything, he was growing more savage as time passed.
The surrounding terrain had changed because of it, but Jade smiled.
He still had plenty of room to spare as well.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
As if to prove it, twelve fiery vortices had already drawn close around the Wolf King.
They were vortices of flame that had grown even more powerful after devouring the corpses of the wolf tribe.
“You think something like this can affect me?!”
Boom! Boom!
The vortices, which had swallowed dozens and even hundreds of wolves, vanished at a single gesture from the Wolf King.
His claws, brimming with aura blades, had effortlessly dispersed them.
However, Jade had never intended to land a telling blow on the Wolf King with the vortices in the first place.
“This is the real thing.”
“Kroooar!”
While the Wolf King's attention was briefly stolen by the vortices covering every direction, Jade prepared a powerful strike.
He prepared an enormous aura blade over ten meters long.
And that was not the end of his attack.
Kraaaack!
As the Wolf King crossed both arms to block Jade's enormous slash, the ground beneath him sank.
Noes, the superior spirit of earth, had concealed his presence and disrupted the Wolf King's balance at precisely the right moment.
Craack!
Jade did not miss the opening created when the Wolf King staggered after losing his balance.
He drove the enormous aura blade straight into the Wolf King's chest.
“Gaaaaah!”
Size aside, the aura blade Jade had prepared was no ordinary aura blade.
It had been compressed, then compressed again, so its durability and power were both extraordinary.
That was why the enormous aura blade sliced through the Wolf King's extraordinarily tough hide in an instant.
“It's time for you to go.”
Flash!
Intending to cut him cleanly in half in a single stroke, Jade drove the sword in with even greater force—when a blinding light suddenly burst forth.
And the Wolf King vanished.
The enormous silver werewolf, who had been spewing blood from his chest, disappeared.
At the same time, Jade caught sight of a bloodstained silver streak of light.
“When we meet again, I will tear you to pieces!”
Even while fleeing covered in blood, the Wolf King continued shouting until the very end.
He spoke as though he were the victor, for all the world to hear.
Jade let out a derisive chuckle at the sight and let his sword hang at his side.
But he had no intention of letting the Wolf King go.
“Noes.”
Vwoooom!
Though Jade had merely called his name, Noes understood his meaning with uncanny precision.
The command had been conveyed clearly into Noes's mind, so there was no way he could have misunderstood.
Boom!
Noes appeared in front of the Wolf King, who had crossed space and returned to his human form, and rammed straight into him.
As befitted his rhinoceros form, Noes smashed head-on into the fleeing Wolf King.
“Guh!”
The impact sent the Wolf King flying through the air.
He tumbled disgracefully across the ground after being struck by the unexpected attack.
Even as he fell to the ground, he could not understand what had happened.
He had no idea what had attacked him.
Thud. Thud.
As the Wolf King hurriedly tried to rise after crashing miserably to the ground, he heard footsteps behind him.
The color drained from the Wolf King's face.
He had recognized who was approaching from the footsteps alone.
“I never expected someone who wants to become the king of the beastfolk to know how to run away.”
“Y-you bastard...!”
“Don't you feel sorry for your subordinates?”
Flinch!
The Wolf King, standing in an awkward half-risen position, twitched and rolled his eyes.
The battlefield, which had somehow grown quiet, came into view.
Both sides had stopped fighting, as if it had all been a lie.
And everyone's eyes were turned toward him.
“Ah, perhaps you have nothing to feel sorry for. You'll die anyway.”
Thrust.
Jade indifferently drove his sword in.
Without a trace of killing intent, he precisely plunged the sword in his hand into the Wolf King's heart.
“N-no...! I was supposed to become the king of the Western Forest, the king of the Great Forest...!”
“What king?”
Jade scoffed at the Wolf King, who muttered with a face full of attachment to life.
He had been dreaming an utterly far-fetched dream.
Of course, the Wolf King was strong.
But compared to the Black Drake Jade had faced before, he was lacking in every respect.
‘Maybe if he grows a little more, but right now, he doesn't stand a chance.’
The Wolf King before him was certainly an existence that had surpassed the level of an ordinary werewolf.
However, he had revealed his ambitions too soon.
Instead of hiding and building his strength, he had become intoxicated by the little power he possessed and exposed himself.
That was how he had ended up in this state.
If they had met several years later, Jade would not have been able to kill the Wolf King so easily.
Perhaps he really might have ruled the western part of the Great Forest, just as the true Wolf King had claimed.
“Because of you—because of you, my great undertaking...!”
“You sure are talkative.”
“Guh!”
Perhaps because of a werewolf's characteristic regenerative ability, the Wolf King kept rambling even with his heart pierced, so Jade crushed his head as well.
After his heart, he crushed his brain as well.
Only then did the light disappear from the Wolf King's pupils.
“Kyuuuu!”
-We're here!
-You aren't hurt, are you?
Whid flew over as soon as the Wolf King went limp.
He flapped his wings and flew straight into Jade's arms.
Elestra, meanwhile, circled Jade once and examined every part of his body.
“It's nothing more than a few scratches.”
-That's a relief. He kept getting faster and faster, so I was a little startled.
“He couldn't properly use his body. He didn't have much experience, either. More importantly, would eating this help Whid?”
Huh?
Whid, nestled in Jade's arms with medicine smeared all over him, opened his eyes wide.
He had been startled by Jade's unexpected words.
But soon, Whid licked his lips as he looked at the Wolf King's corpse.
-Wouldn't it help? Monsters raise their rank by eating enemies stronger than themselves. That's why he had ordered Whid captured and brought here in the first place.
“He may be a dimwit, but he inherited the legendary Silver lineage. I don't think eating him could hurt Whid.”
“Kyuuuu!”
Whid flapped his wings as soon as Jade finished speaking.
He was expressing his willingness to give it a try.
Jade then pulled the sword from the Wolf King's heart.
“Judging by the fact that it chipped my sword, his body doesn't seem to be inferior, at least.”
-A werewolf using aura blades! I've never seen that before!
-We simply haven't encountered a werewolf that strong. Spirit mages are rare, but spirit mages powerful enough to contract with us are even rarer.
Crack-crack!
While the three of them were talking, Whid completed his transformation into giant form in an instant.
The medicine Jade had painstakingly applied was all scraped off as a result, but Whid did not spare it a thought and swallowed the Wolf King's corpse in one gulp.
If he had been in his true form, eating it would have taken a long time, but since he had died in human form, Whid could chew him up properly.
-How is it? Does it seem to be having any effect?
-He just ate it. Do you really expect an immediate effect? Compared to a drake, a werewolf's rank is lower, so it might not have any effect at all.
-It seems to taste pretty good.
Silestin's eyes sparkled.
He wanted Whid to grow by leaps and bounds after eating the Wolf King, if possible.
-Yeah. He eats everything we give him, but he absolutely refuses anything that tastes bad. It's amazing that he ate all of the Wolf King.
-Maybe it's easier to eat because there's no clothing.
Munch, munch.
With the two spirits watching curiously, Whid chewed and ate the Wolf King thoroughly.
In a sense, it looked like a relatively small(?) Gold Drake was eating an otherwise ordinary person, but no one there found it strange.
The Great Forest was a world governed by the survival of the fittest.
In a world where the strong took everything, what Whid ate was not particularly important.
“Hmm.”
Meanwhile, the war had ended.
The moment the Wolf King died, the wolf tribe had all fled.
The battle had already tilted as far as it could, so they scattered in every direction, each fending for themselves.
But the strange thing was that not a single member of the wolf tribe had surrendered.
Wham! Thwack!
And the beastfolk alliance had no intention of accepting the wolf tribe's surrender.
Their grudge had deepened as far as it could, so the beastfolk alliance doggedly pursued and killed the wolf tribe.
The elephant tribe, in particular, led the attack on the wolf tribe.