Chapter 884 - The Wolf Clan (Patreon)

POV Nathaniel

As I step away from the evil something beacon thingy, I pick up Biscuit again and gently kick the black wolfy with the tip of my shoe.

He gives me an angry glare, but changes his form again, back to a wolf pup with fuzzy fur and a round belly. I pick up Biscuit’s disciple as well and hold both of them. Then I wait.

Sandra the Cockroach appears a few seconds later, making it seem like the lazy guys over at Xyphos did not even try to stop her. Like escaping the tutorial is easy.

She now stands here carrying nothing with her, just her body, mind, and some clothes that have seen better times. Even the black dagger is gone, but I do not think she will need it anymore. The presence I feel from her is easily comparable to that of her version from the second floor.

Lissandra scans the area, and under her gaze, the two big wolves whimper. She glances at Biscuit and his disciple in my arms before looking at me.

“Have you betrayed me, little pup? Have you told them how I planned my escape?” she asks as she takes a step closer.

I return her gaze and give a shrug. “Dili is a good ant,” I say simply.

Her eyes narrow. “Is he now?”

“Come on, stop complaining and being lazy. You could escape like this anyway without having to kill a Ruler just to abuse the triggered system’s recursive frequency rebound loop or whatever theoretical instability something you were blathering about.”

“You truly are annoying, little pup,” Lissandra says and then looks somewhere else. I look there as well, but unlike her, I do not see anything, so I give up trying to pierce through.

“Your heart?” I ask.

“It was of an avatar, and because of my nature, it was also not as compatible, so it will take a while to make adjustments. Nevertheless, I am fully capable of addressing this.”

“Obviously,” I nod seriously. “Now I will ask you to slowly get ready to leave so they do not hunt you here and hurt this cute wolf clan of my bond’s disciple. But not to that place, it is mine now.”

A smile marks her face. “Only if you can take it, but, as per our deal.”

“As per our deal,” I confirm.

“Very well, I will keep an eye on you until you return to the tutorial. Show no shame, little pup, because these flea-ridden mutts are already testing my patience,” she says, releasing a burst of her mana that shoots through the planet and towards the many signatures watching us from the distance.

Then, without even leaving a blur, she launches herself towards the sky, immediately turning into a tiny dot. Soon after, her presence disappears entirely, leaving only the wyvern noticeable there, waiting to bring me back to Xyphos.

The length of my stay was never clearly specified and was talked about as a reasonable amount of time according to Dili. But with all the trouble they currently have on Xyphos, I guess I can get a bit more out of it. But I am a reasonable person, so I will try not to trouble him too much.

As I begin to walk where the little wolfy points with his front paw, I think over how long I spent in the mental space training. Ruby said it was 599 days, or maybe she just gave me the wrong number out loud. Who knows, but at this point, everyone must agree it is confirmed at least 650 days. A weird amount of knowledge and experience of training keeps awakening in my mind out of nowhere, but that is expected after 660 days of such rigorous training.

I am pretty sure people forget things like that all the time, so it is normal, especially after 670 days of training.

It is a bit of an annoying feeling, but a normal one.

After all, I am normal.

I lift Biscuit higher and give him a gentle kiss on top of his head and hold him closer to my chest.

“Wolfy, your clan sucks,” I say to the pup.

“It was Big Fang that got angered by what master did and decided to put him inside the barrier! He did not even let me speak to my grandfather and hid us! I tried to challenge him to a fight, but I lost. So I asked them to imprison me together with master at least!”

“I thought as much,” I say and squeeze him too. “It was brave of you.”

“Do not compliment me, human. I did it for my master!”

“Sure, sure. So they did not like him using that much of his primordial energy?”

“We have rules against that, otherwise the system will adapt, and we will weaken.”

“So you are saving it for something? Some sort of prophecy?”

“Are you stupid, human? There is no such thing. It is common sense for you to wait for your enemy to put their guard down, sneak behind, and bite where it hurts the most.”

“Oh.”

“Stupid human.”

I shake the wolf pup until he angrily howls towards the sky.

“Biscuit hasn’t awakened since then?” I ask.

He stops biting into my fingers and looks at me. “I worry the master’s use of our primordial energy devoured his memories as well,” he says in a more serious tone. “In such a case, it will be nearly impossible to regain them, and he will never-”

“Sure, sure,” I shake him again, causing him to cut off.

“Brute human, you do not take this seriously. Do you realize-”

“And you, stinky little wolf pup, you do not know Biscuit as much as you might think,” I sigh.

That causes him to stare at me with those golden eyes for a while in silence, and I even stop walking, looking back at him with mine.

“Master is going to be okay?” he asks quietly.

I squeeze him higher into a hug where he presses against my chest, and I hold Biscuit in my other arm. “Yes. There are things even Biscuit would not devour and things even I would not sacrifice. We are similar in that way.”

It might be a play of the light, but his golden eyes might seem a bit wetter.

“... I see… stupid human.”

“Yup,” I rock him a little and begin to walk again.

“I do not stink,” he adds in a quiet voice.

“Stinky, stinky, stinky boy.”

“You! Stupid, stupid, stupid human!”

I feel the one winged wyvern’s presence trailing us the entire time as I walk through this ancient forest. That is likely also the reason no one attacks me. Well, and the nuclear warhead times a gazillion cockroach somewhere there as well.

There are a few truly scary monsters and even a few wolves I notice, but we are left alone, making our way as the wolfy points the way.

When I feel Biscuit’s body move in my arm, I stop, and finding a nice spot under a beautiful tree, I sit there, placing him onto a patch of grass and letting go of a wolfy who jumps around excitedly. He speaks of it being way too soon for him to awaken, that their elders said it would take longer, yet it means very little, does it not? I have noticed that the powerful I meet are wrong all the time. After all, they are just like all of us, they just had a little more time to live and gather experience.

It almost begins to look like Biscuit will stop moving and go back to sleep when I reach out and boop his nose.

All the movement then halts, and the squirming starts again. He twitches his legs, he whimpers, growls as if biting against something, and then in one snappy movement, opens his eyes wide, staring right at me.

Inside his eyes, I see my reflection. For some reason, my expression isn't as usual, to the point it makes it difficult to recognize. But I can see one thing clear as day: a recognition.

He weakly moves his paw to reach towards me, but notices that a part of it is missing and almost pulls it back, but I quickly lean closer and press my nose against the stump.

Biscuit tries to reach towards me, to communicate, but our bond is gone. He switches to try the telepathy he usually uses with the others, but fails to activate that as well, and his expression twists in pain.

“Take it easy, okay?” I say and put my hand on his head, giving it a gentle stroke.

When I let go, the wolfy is there, sniffing at Biscuit, pressing against him, licking him, and constantly asking him if he remembers him as well. He grows to the size of a dog, coiling himself around the corgi pup, and then even bigger to lick him with a tongue that covers the entire corgi. When he is finally done, Biscuit stares shell shocked, his fur wet and because of it, he looks even smaller.

The best corgi of the weird ass giant wolf ridden planet somewhere in a forgotten galaxy on an ancient battlefield woofs and shakes himself, he pushes onto his feet and stares at the spot on my waist and then looks up at me.

I, of course, know what he wants, and from the pouch there, get a few pieces of deer jerky I have been saving. Some of them crumbled into dust, but Biscuit devours it all from the palm of my hand while clumsily, yet excitedly, jumping around on three legs.

There is no need for words as I pick him up again and he nestles with his nose against my neck where I feel his warm breath, as he keeps dozing off even while he tries to keep himself up. The wolfy meanwhile follows by my side, now at the size of a horse.

I feel a tug somewhere at the back of my neck as the wyvern gets my attention, reminding me we have to leave. It is just as the wolves begin to come close. All of them are colossal, matching the trees around us. At first, you can see a glint in their eyes in the darkness before they step out and watch you.

The wolfy grows in size too, and though he is young, he matches most of them. He is the only one with pitch black fur and golden eyes.

Soon, we are joined by the biggest wolf so far. The brown one with blue eyes and fangs that make him seem like his expression seem permanently twisted in a growl. And the very same primordial energy Biscuit uses to possess flickers around his paws, moving like smoke with each step he takes.

"That much should be enough, system slave," he tells me as I stop and turn to the wolfy, "And you, HOW dare you-"

His words stop as he notices me pointing a finger at him that I turn into a finger gun. Though he doesn’t recognize the gesture, he must subconsciously understand it is meant as something like a threat or a challenge.

And he doesn't like it.

Pantophagic energy around his paws rises up to his knees, and his shadow grows in size, rising from the ground.

"I don’t think I will get along with an asshole like you," I say and then mimic shooting.

In a flash, like an attack from some orbital sci-fi satellite weapon, a beam of mana shoots down, drawing a clean, brilliant line, just big enough to cover the entire wolf.

His own power and his primordial energy rise to defend against it. Here on this planet, without the presence of the system, he is not worried about it adapting, so he devours it, attacks against it, and howls towards the sky.

But the color of the beam continues to change, in quick succession it shifts hundreds of times, as well as its frequency, as it adapts and modifies to pierce through that devouring shadow. It becomes dozens of times as wide as the wolf, it becomes as narrow as a pencil.

And more than anything, it feels like someone testing their output after a long time where they had to survive on tiny bits of mana. All to the point of even getting rid of that scary efficiency just to be playful.

But then, enough is enough, and the beam rings like a hit against a drum. It becomes almost material and breaks through the ground, pressing Big Fang deep inside of it, while creating a deep hole.

As it stops and disappears, tiny particles of mana remain floating in the air like dust caught by sunlight as they flicker over the hole and the now unconscious Big Fang.

I almost let it pass and continue walking, but then I remember the image of Biscuit trapped inside of the barrier. I know not even for a moment would he consider the wolves his enemy, he would for sure even try to help them as friends of his disciple… yet.

I gaze over and find a few wolves that seemed the most aggressive towards us and, in quick succession, point the finger gun towards half a dozen of them.

Orbital strikes come down, imprinting each of them into the ground and leaving them there unconscious and smoking like they have been steamed out.

It is difficult for me to do, but if I try hard enough, I too can be shameless.

Then I begin to walk again, and the wolfy quickly, obediently walks by my side after pointing where to go. Once in a while, he cowers as he glances towards the sky.

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