Huddled inside the cramped shelter, a few of the more terrified girls lost their composure, sobbing openly.
"Logan, what do we do?"
Logan dug his fingernails hard into his thigh, using the sharp bite of pain to force his racing blood to settle. He was the only guy here, the designated chief; panicking wasn’t an option.
Outside, the howls echoed one after another. Just going by the sound, there were at least five of them.
Hide?
This flimsy shack made of scrap wood and straw had a literal plank for a door. A few slams from a pack of starving beasts would rattle the whole thing apart. Once they broke through, everyone inside was wolf chow.
Taking the initiative was the only way out.
Yet outside of himself, his entire lineup consisted of defenseless girls. Trying to fight head-on in the open was a one-way ticket to the graveyard.
In a flash of inspiration, a bold, dangerous plan clicked in his mind.
"Stop crying!"
Logan’s low growl cut right through the weeping. He rounded up every girl, pulling them into a tight circle.
"I’ve got a plan, but everyone has to execute."
Staring at him as their single lifeline, the girls quieted down.
Keeping his voice low and fast, Logan laid it out.
"The wolves are starving; they aren’t walking away. So we hunt them down ourselves! No open-field brawls—we’re playing this smart. Close the gate and beat the dog. One at a time, let them in, and drop them!"
Not giving anyone room to freeze or panic, he started assigning roles instantly.
"Bai Nian, you and two others take the door. Open and close it on my mark—one wolf at a time, got it?"
"Woodcutting detail, grab those sharpened branches. The second a beast squeezes through, jam it and pin it down!"
"Chef’s kitchen knife, miner’s stones—use them as ranged weapons. Pummel them to death!"
"Chloe, keep your bow notched and ready for a clear shot."
"Gu Xinran, you and the musicians keep playing your instruments for stat buffs."
"As for the four hunters," Logan’s gaze swept over the girls holding crude machetes, "once the projectiles fly, you’re on me for melee backup!"
"Clear?!"
The rapid-fire instructions left the girls slightly dazed, but the heavy *thud-thud* hammering against the exterior wall snapped them back to reality.
The wooden planks were already groaning under the strain! Wait any longer, and they were all dead.
"Understood!"
Teeth gritted, the girls scrambled to their stations.
Bai Nian and two classmates braced their shoulders against the door panel, palms slick with nervous sweat.
Logan fixed his eyes on the shaking timber, counting down under his breath.
"Three!"
"Two!"
"One!"
"Open!"
*Creeeak—*
The door cracked open just enough for a gap.
Instantly, a grey shadow glowing with starving green eyes lunged straight through, blinded by the scent of fresh human meat and completely oblivious to the death trap waiting inside.
Bai Nian and the girls slammed their body weight against the panel, shoving it shut with a heavy *thud*, cutting off the rest of the pack outside.
Inside the cramped shack, the lone wolf barely made it past the threshold before three sharpened branches stabbed forward from different angles.
Though trembling, the girls kept their grip iron-tight, jamming the points into the beast’s flanks to pin its movement.
"Throw!"
Logan’s order followed instantly.
Two gleaming kitchen knives and seven or eight heavy stones whistled through the air, smashing straight into the trapped predator.
*Awooo!*
The wolf shrieked, bleeding from multiple impact sites. The agonizing pain spiked its feral rage; it whipped its body around, shoving hard against the wooden stakes until the wood let out an ominous, splintering *crack*.
"Move!"
Logan didn’t hesitate. The Miao dao materialized in his hand, and he launched himself forward like an arrow off a bowstring.
Following right behind him, the four hunters pushed past their fear, lifting their machetes.
Just as the wolf broke free from the jammed branches, a flash of cold steel cut across its vision.
*Splat!*
Logan’s blade drove straight into its throat, his wrist twisting with brutal precision.
Hot blood sprayed across the floor, draining the beast’s strength in seconds as it collapsed into a twitching heap.
Before it could even draw its last breath, the four hype-fueled girls swarmed it.
"Die! Take that, you fur-ball!"
"Chop its head off!"
"Wait, it’s a male! Let me hack its tail!"
Ten seconds later, Logan had to physically pull the frenzy-driven girls back.
"Alright, alright! Stop hacking, it’s turning into minced meat! We still need the carcass!"
Silence dropped over the shelter for a beat, followed instantly by muffled, hysterical cheers.
"Oh god... I actually helped kill a wolf!"
"We did it! We’re amazing!"
"You know, picturing it as my cheating ex really helped stop the arm tremors..."
Laughing and crying through the adrenaline, the girls quickly shook off the worst of the gore-induced shock.
Logan didn’t let up, quickly pulling his blade back and wiping the blood clean.
"Ready! Keep going!"
Drawn by the scent of their fallen comrade, the howls outside turned even more frantic.
"Open!"
Wolf number two squeezed through.
Met by the exact same wall of wooden stakes, flying rocks, and Logan’s lethal blade.
Then number three. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Then number four.
By the time the fourth carcass hit the bloody floorboards, the terrifying chorus of howls outside abruptly died down.
"Is it over?"
Gu Xinran stopped playing, asking quietly as everyone looked toward Logan.
Logan exhaled a long breath tainted with the smell of copper. "Looks like it."
Wielding his blade, he motioned to Bai Nian.
"Watch my back," she warned nervously.
Nashing his teeth, Logan yanked the door open and bolted outside.
The clearing was empty, save for the thick stench of blood.
He barely had a moment to relax before a series of dying whimpers echoed from the tree line nearby.
He snapped his head toward the sound.
By the trunk of a massive oak, the black-suited woman, Lin Bing, stood in total silence.
She hadn’t gone inside the shelter at all!
At her feet lay two motionless wolves, their bodies caved in with heavy blunt-force trauma and jagged lacerations.
On Lin Bing’s hands, a pair of metallic, razor-edged knuckle dusters glinted in the dim light.
She had beaten two adult wolves to death with her bare hands!
Logan’s eye twitched uncontrollably.
Recalling how she had calmly claimed to be a shipboard nurse...
Yeah, right. Pull the other one.
As chief, his system UI let him check her data: Class: [Mechanic], a starting class with zero combat modifiers.
Meaning this woman had relied entirely on raw physical attributes to slug two full-grown predators to death.
Taking in her long legs and seemingly slender wrists, Logan decided reality was severely broken.
"Not bad. You don’t look like a fresh high school grad," Lin Bing remarked casually, wiping a speck of blood off her knuckle duster.
Logan noticed her favor rating had jumped a staggering 10 points, sitting comfortably at 15.
He paused, then asked the real question: "If we couldn’t handle that pack in there, would you have just watched us get eaten?"
Lin Bing paused for a second, her voice dropping back into its chilling, clinical tone.
"People without capability getting eaten early to clear the board isn’t necessarily a bad thing."
She flicked her gaze toward him, adding an afterthought.
"Of course, that doesn’t include you. You’re useful, so I’d have pulled you out."
"Right then..."
Logan had her figured out now.
Cold, ruthless, a textbook sociopath.
In her eyes, the girls’ lives meant nothing; weeding out the weak was just natural selection. Her background was clearly shady as hell.
But none of that mattered right now.
They were tribeshates now, her combat power was absurdly broken, and she had an advanced class.
Good enough.