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Chapter 28: Between Life and Death
🕑 Added 2022-11-27 11:08:09 +0000 UTCJack quickly allocated all his bonus points equally.
The wolf stared at him with boundless rage. Time seemed to freeze. Slowly, Jack understood what happened. He remembered the wolf’s description.
Black wolves are mostly solitary creatures.
Mostly.
Well, these ones lived in pairs. They just looked the same. Fuck you, System! Why do you do this to me!?
Unfortunately, the System didn’t give favors. Sometimes, luck was on the table, and sometimes, there was misfortune.
Suddenly, Jack realized something. Last time he saw a black wolf in the forest, it had a scar above its snout. The one lying at his feet didn’t. He stifled a dry croak; he could have known. This was so unfair.
Fuck you, System, he repeated, this time with heavy bile.
The wolf didn’t give him time to think any further. It charged. The back half of the gymonkey army was only just noticing the wolf. It ripped into them with ease.
Monkeys were sent flying. Blood and body parts littered the ground. The wolf had seen Jack deal the final blow on its partner, but it understood that the monkeys were involved. It would give them no quarter.
Almost a dozen monkeys were slaughtered in the span of a few seconds. The rest were either injured or running away in fear. A growl came from the middle of everything as Harambe tried to stand and failed; his leg was thoroughly broken. After getting bitten like that, it was a miracle it was even still in place.
The wolf saw Harambe and pounced at him.
The five remaining brorillas saw blood. They formed a line before their big bro, determined to defend him with their lives. They flexed their muscles in unison to intimidate the enemy.
“No!” Jack screamed, already sprinting there, but the wolf was faster. It fell on the brorillas like a piano from the fifth floor, ripping into them as easily as it had into the monkeys.
Amoh’s leg went flying. His head followed soon after. The wolf also ripped out a chunk of Brodul’s shoulder as it broke through the brorillas, reaching Harambe. This was its goal.
Unfortunately, Harambe was in no shape to defend himself. He could only stare defiantly at the claw that came to behead him.
A hard fist smashed into the side of that claw, sending it off-course. A bare-chested human form stood between the wolf and the gorilla, tiny but full of resolve.
“Leave my bro alone,” he commanded.
Seeing Jack, the wolf’s eyes flashed with something between revenge and ridicule. He should have run, but he charged into death’s maw instead. The wolf would oblige.
Claws flashed and jaws snapped shut. Jack dashed back, desperately dodging the blows. This wolf was as strong as the rock bear, but its speed was worlds apart. It deserved to be the Dungeon Boss. Jack could only barely dodge, and not for long.
He danced left and right to distract the wolf, but those red eyes, full of rage and blood, followed him unerringly. He ducked under the jaws and tried to throw an uppercut, but a claw smashed into his side out of nowhere, sending him flying. He barely had time to defend; three long gashes now adorned his forearm.
Jack smashed hard into a rock. All air shot out of his lungs.
The five remaining brorillas made gorilla noises as they threw themselves at the wolf. The gymonkeys joined the fray, throwing a hail of stones and hoping to hit something sensitive. However, the black wolf was not an opponent they could beat. It was simply on another level.
Its body turned into a maelstrom of sharpness. Claws were everywhere, jaws snapped beside their ears. The wolf’s dark fur filled everyone’s vision, infesting it with images of gruesome death. The world became dark—magically so.
The gymonkeys screamed and ran away. The brorillas clenched their fists, and their faces spasmed as they struggled to resist.
Jack rose from the rubble and saw darkness flooding his world. The sun was replaced by a bloody moon, and the stars winked out one-by-one. The breeze smelled of blood and iron as terror slithered down his spine.
Something inside him rebelled. The Dao Root shook in outrage. Jack roared and punched, and the illusion broke like a mirror.
The wolf stared at him, its gaze filled with bloodlust. It had lost its mind to rage and lived only to devour Jack, whose body was covered in the blood of its partner. Jack looked around. The gymonkeys were running away, and the brorillas had fallen on their butts. Harambe’s wide forehead was wrinkled as he tried to shake off the illusion, but even if he succeeded, he was too injured to help.
Jack was left alone. He gritted his teeth and stared down the wolf. There was no retreat. He would live or die. His mind raced, his heart beat like a drum, blood shot through his veins and filled his body with power.
The primal instincts returned at full force, with Jack steady at the helm. He’d earned that right. His mind was ice and his body fire. Deep inside him, the Dao Root shimmered with the power to annihilate everything.
The wolf was not intimidated.
It’s using its Dao Root, Jack realized. It can create illusions. Can I do the same?
His instinct told him he couldn’t. He could punch hard and that was it.
The wolves had different Dao Roots, he analyzed as time seemed to slow down. The first one was less developed, something to do with sound or fear. This is illusions, maybe darkness, but I broke through. Can it be used again?
The wolf wasn’t inclined to answer. It charged Jack, who stood his ground. He had to fight. Every single scrap of skill he'd accumulated was poured into this fight. This was the culmination of everything. He’d fought so hard to reach the end. He couldn’t fall here.
Claws, jaws. Red lines on white skin, red eyes with black irises that never lost him. A body of darkness that fell on Jack like a freight train.
He resisted. The wolf’s patterns weren’t much different than the rock bear’s, it was just incomparably faster. Jack knew these patterns. He’d faced them for what seemed like eternity.
He dodged on instinct. He knew where to weave and where to duck, he predicted where the next hit would come from. His fistfighting skill, his greatest ally, shored up his weaknesses. For the first time since the skill reached the second tier, he felt it strained.
The wolf tried to bite him and missed. A claw came for his face but Jack had already turned, nailing a hard straight into the wolf’s ribs. They creaked but held. The Dao of the Fist was making his strikes harder, and Drill helped him bypass the wolf’s thick fur. Unfortunately, its skin was equally thick, and a large part of the damage dissipated before doing any harm.
Another claw. He weaved to the left, ducked, then spun to narrowly avoid a strike. He smashed a fist into the wolf’s snout right as the top of its head slammed into his belly, sending him flying backward into the hill. He jumped back up just in time to dodge the wolf’s claw, which buried itself into the rubble.
Jack and the wolf danced under the bloody morning sunlight, while the monkeys and gorillas could only watch. Harambe had escaped the illusion by now but could only bite his lips. His eyes were filled with concern, hope…and faith in his bro.
Jack had no time to feel anything. The wolf’s speed was pushing him to the absolute limit. Surviving by the skin of his teeth was an achievement. Each strike he received bloodied him or cracked his bones, and each punch he dealt had little effect. He had no advantage. The battle was losing.
The Calamitous Punch was his only hope, but he could only use it once more, maybe twice. He had to time it perfectly.
The wolf pounced again, a whirlwind of death, and Jack danced between its claws like a leaf in the wind. One punch after another flew out, but they could only push the wolf back. Jack was losing ground. His retreat sped up, but that only increased his disadvantage.
The wolf went in for a bite.
There! His eyes widened. Calamitous Punch!
His fist shot out like an arrow, faster and stronger than before, smashing hard into the wolf’s snout. The impact was as calamitous as the name indicated, shaking Jack’s entire body and the gravel he stood on. The wolf was sent flying, then rolled on the ground and recovered. Its nose was bloody, but not much else had happened.
It had taken a Calamitous Punch in the face and survived easily.
Jack fell on his knees, panting. His secret weapon had failed. He had nothing else. Despair threatened to cloud his mind, and as the wolf pounced again, he almost stayed still and let himself die.
But at the last moment, his Dao Root pulsed like a second heart. The fear washed away, the despair evaporated. Jack jumped aside, dodging the strike. So what if he was going to die? So what if he couldn’t win? He would just punch until the end and go as a warrior.
He laughed in the face of the wolf, which looked at him like he was crazy. Its attacks intensified, its menace grew, and Jack simply did his best. He had abandoned all hope. He just lived to fight a little longer.
If anyone saw Jack right now, they would be terrified. They would see a bare-chested barbarian dancing chaotically between a black wolf’s strikes. He survived on the edge of the razor. His eyes were red, as were the wolf’s, and he was grinning. He looked like he was having fun, a madman with zero respect for his life. A terrifying man.
Jack’s world was clear. He was going to die, that was certain. He couldn’t beat this wolf. He barely had enough energy to fire off another Calamitous Punch, but even when timed perfectly, it couldn’t harm the wolf. His normal punches didn’t cut it. He could not escape. There were no tricks.
Therefore, he would simply fight and express himself in the purest way he could: by going down punching.
The monkeys disappeared from his mind, and so did the stakes. None of that mattered. Only the wolf’s attacks remained, and though Jack was growing tired, things got slightly easier. In the nick of death, he had unknowingly achieved a mental state perfect for battle, where he could act at his absolute peak. His world was this battle. Nothing else remained.
He entered the zone.
He read the wolf’s moves before they happened. He bobbed, weaved, and punched—if ineffectively. He let some strikes land on him, perfectly aware of what he could handle and what he could not. He assumed complete control of his body, clenching muscles he didn’t even know he had to move better. His skin was a substance he controlled, and he willed it to become harder, stronger, more suitable for someone who used his fists. His Dao of the Fist told him how.
Congratulations! Pugilist Body (I) → Pugilist Body (II)
He didn’t see the screen. He only felt himself become sturdier and took full advantage of that. He accepted some strikes to punch back. He let the wolf’s momentum bleed into his own attacks. He became a menace. If the wolf was a beast, then Jack would be a warrior.
At some point, he abandoned defense. He let it run on auto-pilot. What did it matter?
Instead, he focused on offense. His attacks were ineffective; they weren’t strong enough. Amidst the howling and growling and clawing and jaw-snapping, Jack swam like a fish, taking two light hits to land one. His fists smashed into the wolf’s body with greater and greater force. It was useless; he could feel the skin’s resistance nullifying his strength.
On instinct, his attacks turned sharper. His arm was straighter and steadier, almost longer. No energy escaped. The Dao of the Fist whispered how to punch, and Jack listened to it.
Punch after punch, he got stronger. His attacks hurt more. They were so direct that their energy didn’t dissipate easily, penetrating both fur and skin to impact the soft tissue underneath. For the first time after the Calamitous Punch, the wolf growled in pain. Jack hammered another punch in the same spot and the wolf jumped back, wariness in its eyes.
Congratulations! Drill (I) → Drill (II)
In the eve of death, Jack’s full potential was unlocked. He had only felt such clear-headedness in the ice waterfall. His skills were advancing at a breakneck pace as he was forced to his limit. His Dao Root flooded him with meaning that he absorbed like a dry lake sucking in the rain.
Exhaustion didn’t matter anymore. Jack had shelved it away in some hidden part of his mind. He’d fight like mad and just collapse when he ran out of steam.
He was growing stronger by the minute, but would it be enough? The wolf attacked again. They danced for a few moments. Attacks flew in every direction.
Jack was a worthy opponent now; he wasn’t winning, but he wasn’t losing either. The wolf also accumulated injuries. Punch after punch, he was getting through, but his body was on the brink of collapse.
Suddenly, something changed. The wolf slashed out with a claw, but Jack saw its entire leg get covered in darkness. He couldn’t tell the claw’s exact position. In such a high-speed, razor-sharp battle, one mistake could be fatal.
This wasn’t normal. It was magic; a Dao Root at work.
The bloody bastard had been holding back. It had been toying with him. Hot rage bubbled in Jack’s gut.
