Aris jumped headfirst straight into the middle of the wolf pack. He had not even counted them, but there were around thirty of them, a little fewer than the previous pack that had beaten him so badly.
The first wolf that had gone on guard after spotting Aris stepped back, making the others retreat as well, creating an opening where the Mad Beast was about to land.
It was a wise decision on their part, because Aris had intended to split open whoever happened to be standing at the point of impact.
Aris landed right in the middle of the pack, inside a perfectly clear circle. He was surrounded on every side, but unlike last time, he did not care. His stress completely gone, the former king's primal instincts drove him to attack the moment his feet touched the ground.
The first wolf his blade rushed toward had no time to do anything. Unable to move because the entire pack was packed tightly around the circle, dodging was impossible. Its head flew into the air while Aris immediately moved on to the next one.
The pack lost two wolves in less than a second.
Realizing that their tight formation prevented them from moving well enough to dodge, they shifted together once more. This time, the pack spread out, giving each wolf enough space to evade the Mad Beast's attacks. But that repositioning cost another wolf its life.
The pack was at a disadvantage simply because it had spent the first ten seconds defending itself. They kept circling around the Mad Beast without attacking, while the Mad Beast simply followed their movement without even realizing it was surrounded.
Another wolf lost a leg this time, collapsing onto the ground. As a result, the wolf beside it could no longer move properly in the right direction, and a pile-up formed around it within seconds.
Those few seconds of disorder allowed Aris to kill two more wolves that were too focused on their positioning instead of watching the Mad Beast. His blades pierced their throats without difficulty, black blood spraying into the air like fountains.
Aris was once again covered in black blood. But it had stopped bothering him a long time ago.
Suddenly, the pack changed tactics and went on the offensive. The wolves behind Aris rushed at him, completely breaking their formation.
Aris sensed them coming but did not change the direction of his gaze. Instead, he continued charging straight ahead, cutting straight through the pack in the same direction.
The wolves moved aside at the last second to create a path. But it cost four wolves their lives.
Now outside the circle, Aris faced the attackers behind him as they lunged at him with their jaws wide open the moment he stopped.
He sliced through the first wolf's eyes in a single swing of his blade, while his right hand grabbed its head and smashed the blinded wolf into the second one.
The third wolf that came at him took a blade straight through the skull, thrown by Aris. Meanwhile, the fourth wolf, caught by surprise after stepping back, received the second blade through its own skull.
Aris was used to it by now. Beasts of this kind, whether small or large, all fought the same way.
The wolves were ultimately only different because of their size and intelligence. They also had the ability to move as a group, which had caught Aris off guard the first time.
But in the end, they were still four-legged beasts that closely resembled dogs. Their attack patterns repeated across every species, and their only real weapons were their fangs.
They did nothing but leap at Aris with their jaws wide open, always trying to catch one of his limbs.
But that was coming to an end.
With a single leap from them, Aris was now capable of making four movements, allowing him to eliminate four attackers at once with ease.
If Aris had still been aware of such things, he would have pointed out that beasts indeed grew stronger the more they ate. And yet, there were still fennecs, foxes, wolves, and Koekitsus.
That was simply because the fennecs Aris had encountered had nothing to eat except their own kind.
Being small, they were easy prey for the larger beasts that fed on them, while they themselves needed to consume a certain amount before they could truly evolve. But with their means, it was impossible.
Aris, however, had cheated.
His experience as a human and his extraordinary abilities had allowed him to feed directly on the weak the moment he arrived.
No beast could stand against him and the more beasts he hunted and devoured, the stronger he became.
In the end, after crossing an unknown distance that could only be considered vast, Aris had perhaps devoured more beasts than any other creature he had encountered in the western lands.
Including the wolves.
His last victory had perhaps been due to luck.
But this time...
A wolf pack could no longer stand against the Mad Beast.
Aris drew two more blades from the belt he had carefully made to carry the first ones. The moment they left their sheaths, they lodged themselves into the two wolves already on the ground.
The blind one never even saw death coming. The other was skewered like nothing more than a skewer.
Only about fifteen wolves remained in the miserable pack. And strangely enough, none of them wanted to attack anymore.
Aris had never encountered any wolves other than those from the previous pack, so he did not know whether he had already become strong enough to make them flee.
But now, the answer was right before his eyes, even if he had become too beast-like to realize it. Aris was not a Koekitsu. He did not take pleasure in the fear he inspired in his prey.
So even as he watched the wolf pack lower their ears and slowly back away while growling, he retrieved his four blades and finished the job.
The rest was not difficult.
Killing frightened animals was no feat for the Mad Beast.
*
Aris was now sitting in the middle of his massacre, devouring a wolf's thigh as if it were nothing more than a simple chicken leg.
His group surrounded him. Around fifty fennecs and twenty foxes were tearing into the flesh of the wolves cut apart by the cruel blades of the Mad Beast.
Aris no longer paid them much attention. He knew they were there, but did not care.
He continued eating his wolf calmly when, all of a sudden, he felt a gaze fall upon him.
A gaze he knew all too well.
Aris slowly raised his head, his eyes drifting toward a rock in the distance.
Standing on top of it was a Koekitsu.
The same Koekitsu that had confronted him last time.
Although he had no real way of knowing, he was certain of it.
"That bastard is smiling again."
The same vicious and mischievous grin was drawn across its face as its four tails swayed in the wind, making it seem almost unreal.
Yet Aris knew it was truly there, watching him as if it were waiting for something from him.
Aris did not take his eyes off it. He still did not think he was strong enough to defeat that monster, but he was certain he had grown enough to face it.
"In some time... no, in a few days... I'll tear your hide off. You and all your kind will die by my hands..."