Chapter 188: Dark Stains
"It’s a C-rank, early stage,"
She said, almost immediately gauging the strength of the other side. She couldn’t say it with absolute certainty, but by this point she’d had enough encounters with those creatures to form a rough idea.
That said, even if it turned out to be a bit weaker, the beast was still more than enough of a threat for the two of them.
The wolf, irritated by its failed attack, wasted no more time. It lunged again, claws extended forward, and Selena responded without hesitation.
She had sensed the enemy’s strength, but that didn’t make her retreat.
She met it head-on, something the her of a week ago never would have done, it would have been a foolish, potentially fatal choice. But the her of today was different. Stronger, and far more determined than before.
A monster of that level was well within her reach now.
An exchange of fierce blows broke out at once between the two, with Selena on the defensive at first while the wolf did everything it could to find an opening and tear the girl apart, without success.
From a distance, Lirien saw the scene and didn’t hesitate. She pulled out her bow, notched an arrow, ready to step in and ease the pressure on her friend.
But she didn’t have time to draw the string, because another identical beast emerged from the trees, this time not sneaking up, not with a sudden leap, but walking toward her with a slow, almost deliberate gait, its eyes locked on her as if it had already chosen her as prey.
’Oh, come on... was it really too much to ask for a few more seconds of peace?’
Lirien couldn’t help complaining inwardly. They had only just escaped that nightmare.
And now this.
But the wolf in front of her didn’t care about that, and she understood as much.
Lirien gritted her teeth. She realized instantly that she wouldn’t be able to help Selena, not with this beast closing in, ready to strike at the slightest misstep. She had to turn her bow toward the new arrival.
This one, too, radiated the same presence as the other wolf, perhaps a little weaker, but compared to her, still clearly stronger.
She understood immediately that defeating it wasn’t an option.
All she could do was keep it occupied until Selena finished her own battle.
Selena, for her part, didn’t need any help. She seized control of the fight in a flash, her body moving with a fluidity that, a week ago, she never would have possessed.
She counterattacked, a swift strike that opened a deep gash along the wolf’s flank. The beast roared, the wound driving it into a frenzy, and it lunged again, but this time without the same precision as before, the pain clouding its once calculated movements.
That mistake cost it everything, and Selena didn’t let the opening slip by, she seized it fully.
Without wasting a single moment, she dashed forward.
Sliding beneath the beast’s reckless swipe, she thrust her sword upward without the slightest hesitation.
The blade pierced straight through its chest, emerging from its back.
Its heart was skewered cleanly.
The wolf died instantly.
She didn’t stop to catch her breath. Her eyes immediately found Lirien, and she understood at once that her friend was in trouble. Lirien was a ranged attacker, strong, but still only at the peak of E-rank.
Against a C-rank, the gap was too wide, impossible to close without help.
Lirien fought with everything she had, firing arrows one after another, but the beast kept advancing relentlessly, dodging every shot with chilling ease.
Just as it prepared to strike, its claw already raised toward her, Selena appeared at her side in a fluid, almost imperceptible movement. She caught the incoming blow with her blade, deflecting it just enough.
Then came another merciless thrust, just like the one that had killed the other wolf, and the beast was slain instantly.
The two girls looked at each other, still catching their breath.
Lirien looked at her friend with shining eyes, the girl who had just taken down two C-ranks without much trouble.
A tired smile spread across her face as she said,
"Damn, Selena, you were amazing. Since when did you get this strong?"
Surprise and joy were woven into her friend’s voice, but it didn’t reach Selena’s ears.
She was distracted, her gaze fixed on the two now-motionless wolf carcasses.
Her expression was complicated, her eyes narrowing over something.
"There’s something strange about these two wolves," she finally said, her voice low.
"Huh? What do you mean, what’s wrong?"
Lirien stepped closer as well.
At first, she didn’t notice anything unusual, but then...
Her gaze caught a particular detail, and her eyes couldn’t help but narrow slightly, her expression shifting from confusion to something more serious.
What she saw was the beast’s fur, stained, not with blood, as it should have been, but with a dark liquid, an extremely dark one, giving off a strange aura.
"What is this?"
***
[Royal Capital of the Solren Kingdom — Royal Palace]
The throne hall was in turmoil.
Not the kind of chaos made of screaming and blatant panic, that, perhaps, would have been more bearable. It was something duller, more grinding.
Dozens of people moved back and forth with hurried steps, messengers coming and going with increasingly tense expressions, some visibly exhausted, as if they hadn’t slept in days. And in the middle of it all, seated on the throne, the king himself wore the same weary expression that had, by now, become almost permanently etched onto his face over this last stretch of time.
He listened to his subjects’ reports, one after another, without interruption, his face motionless but his eyes betraying the weight of every single word.
"Your Majesty, the city of Aldreth is on the verge of falling. The defenses won’t last another week."
"The Beast Kingdom has agreed to the proposed alliance... but the concessions they’re demanding may be beyond what we can afford."
"Our military supplies continue to dwindle. At the current rate, we’ll begin facing serious shortages within two weeks."
And more news still, one after another, each worse than the last, like pieces of a mosaic depicting a kingdom on the verge of total collapse.
The king listened to it all without ever interrupting, nodding faintly, his mind clearly already occupied with weighing priorities that seemed to multiply faster than he could manage them.
But among all those voices, among all that weight continuing to pile onto his shoulders, one finally managed to catch his attention in a way different from all the rest.
"Your Majesty!"
A new messenger burst into the room, his pace hurried, nearly stumbling in his rush to reach the throne. He dropped to one knee, still catching his breath from the run.
Seeing him, the king nodded, granting him permission to speak, already bracing himself for yet another piece of bad news, something that had, by now, become routine.
But he wasn’t prepared for what came instead, something entirely different this time.
"We’ve detected a strange spatial phenomenon, just now."