“Haus, how are you holding up?” Before Haus could speak, Pierce struggled to his feet and asked first.
He was somewhat concerned about Haus’s current condition.
Taking on six gray wolves at once must have been exhausting.
He might even be injured.
Pierce’s concern was not unfounded.
For an ordinary novice adventurer, facing six gray wolves simultaneously and emerging unscathed was nearly impossible.
Unless that person was Haus.
“Pierce, can you still fight?” Haus didn’t answer directly but instead asked Pierce in return.
“I still have strength.” As he spoke, Pierce took a palm-sized bottle from the pouch at his waist, quickly unscrewed the cap, and took a sip.
The cool medicinal liquid flowed down his throat, and the tightness in his chest and the stinging pain in his limbs were gradually alleviated by the healing potion worth one gold coin.
His depleted stamina was slowly recovering.
While Pierce drank the healing potion, Haus began observing the wolf king.
Its fur was gray, messy, and unkempt, with a longsword deeply embedded in its shoulder, crimson blood soaking the surrounding fur.
Meeting its eyes, Haus saw a mix of fury and sorrow, along with a hint of gravity.
The wolf king did not rashly launch an attack.
It was observing the human before it, whose strength it had initially misjudged.
A longsword made of the same material as the previous enemy’s, and leather armor covered in scratches, looking somewhat tattered.
Beneath that armor, a faint, elusive and eerie aura seemed to linger, as if a monster were hiding within.
The wolf king felt wary.
The black-haired human before it appeared ordinary on the surface, with a restrained aura, even less imposing than the golden-haired human in steel armor beside him.
Why, then, could he handle its packmates?
Could he be on the same level as that green-skinned enemy?
The Wolf King recalled the green-skinned monster their pack had encountered earlier.
It was similar in size to the black-haired human, but it looked even uglier and more ferocious.
Yet its strength was terrifyingly abnormal.
Wielding a long blade, it could easily harvest the lives of its own kind with casual Slashes, leaving them utterly powerless to resist.
Remembering the previous danger, the Wolf King now looked at Haus, whose aura seemed ordinary, with even greater wariness.
Its muscles tensed, and it dared not act rashly.
As the Wolf King remained motionless, Haus also refrained from attacking hastily.
He intended to buy a little more time to recover his Mana.
At this moment, the Mana within Haus’s body had recovered from around 20% to about 30%.
20% was roughly enough to unleash one [Slash].
With just a bit more rest and adjustment, his internal Mana reserves would reach 40%.
At that point, he could unleash two consecutive slashes without reservation, launching a frontal assault on the Wolf King.
Unfortunately, the Wolf King seemed to have seen through Haus’s intention to stall for Mana recovery.
Just as Pierce had drunk half of the healing potion, it charged forward without warning.
Its massive body, like a small car, brought overwhelming pressure and visual impact, making Haus instinctively want to dodge sideways.
But in the end, he suppressed that thought.
He couldn’t retreat; if he did, he would lose his momentum!
If he retreated, the Wolf King would pass him and attack Layla and Sylvia behind him!
He couldn’t retreat!
Haus’s expression tightened abruptly, his teeth clenched, and his hands gripped the sword hilt tightly.
Strong willpower suppressed his instinct to retreat, as Mana surged and churned within him.
He was about to activate the lv.3 [Slash], intending to face the ferociously charging Wolf King head-on.
But at that moment, a golden figure beside him had already rushed out ahead of him.
“Haah!” A fierce shout suddenly rang out.
Pierce clenched his fists, crossing his arms in front of him, and charged directly toward the Wolf King with his bare body.
The half-drunk healing potion had already been corked and casually discarded on the ground.
“Haus!” Another roar echoed as Pierce, still charging, shouted again.
Haus understood the meaning.
This was to tell him to prepare himself; once Pierce withstood the Wolf King’s attack and created an opening, Haus would immediately strike, delivering a fatal blow to the Wolf King!
“Understood!” With this brief exchange, both understood each other’s intentions.
Pierce channeled his remaining Mana into himself and launched a [Thrust] at the Wolf King!
Unlike his previous sword-fighting approach, this time Pierce had no intention of killing the Wolf King in one strike.
He only sought to restrain its mobility.
Thus, no matter what, the Wolf King could not avoid Pierce’s attack this time!
It could only watch helplessly as Pierce charged at full speed like a raging bull.
“Thud!” The hard scale-steel armor emitted a deafening, muffled sound.
Under the powerful recoil, Pierce was sent flying backward, tumbling into a nearby patch of grass, his figure eventually disappearing into the thicket.
Meanwhile, the Wolf King’s massive body came to an abrupt halt, its paws plowing two muddy trails on the ground before it began to stagger and slip.
In the moment the Wolf King was disoriented, Haus, who had long been prepared, decisively struck.
Just as with the previous [Slash] against ordinary gray wolves, when facing the larger and more resilient body of the Wolf King, the sharp blade enhanced with a level 3 Slash still pierced through the Wolf King’s body without any hindrance.
Moonlight flickered.
The dense, soft gray fur could not withstand the well-maintained, gleaming sword edge; The thick hide, far surpassing that of ordinary beasts, was torn open in an instant; The robust body wrapped in fat and muscle was smoothly sliced open by the blood-stained cold blade like soft cheese; But when encountering the tough tendons and periosteum inside, the sword suddenly halted, meeting resistance.
In the end, the fierce slash failed to completely sever the bones and tendons, only embedding itself a few inches deep into the skeleton.
However, Haus’s goal was not to cut the wolf’s body in half with a single strike.
His ultimate purpose was simply to kill the Wolf King, nothing more.
With a sudden twist of his wrist, the long sword lodged in the bone crevice was pulled out, then thrust diagonally into the abdomen, rapidly twisting and tearing apart the internal organs within the wolf’s body.
A torrent of thick, crimson hot blood gushed out, splattering all over Haus’s clothes, face, and blade.
An intense, pungent smell of blood instantly filled the surrounding air.
Accompanying it was a pained roar.
After succeeding, Haus decisively released the long sword and swiftly retreated to a distance.
Earlier, the injured ordinary gray wolf had struggled with immense brute force, and it took considerable effort to suppress it barely.
Now, this severely wounded Wolf King struggled with even greater intensity.
Fearing a last-ditch counterattack from the Wolf King, Haus chose to keep his distance, waiting for the beast to exhaust its strength before delivering the final blow.
This was Haus’s original plan.
But what happened next completely caught him off guard.
The Wolf King before him did not writhe in agony or thrash wildly as expected.
Instead, it slowly raised its trembling body, lifted its head high toward the moon in the night sky, and let out a long, mournful howl.
After the howl, the Wolf King collapsed to the ground, lifeless.