535 CHPT 535: Unleash Intensity

"HWAUGH!" Ursula tried to stifle a Lupine roar as she threw her axe into the face of an Orc.

CHNK!

The blade bit deep into it's face, hitting so hard it's tusks busted into a thousand splintering shards. The Ice Empowerment on her blade spread a deadly frost bite along it's torn face, turning the skin black and blue as it crumbled.

The beast fell, swallowed up in a purple blaze.

(+400 EXP)

DING!

[You Have Leveled Up! You are now—]

FTHOOM!

A magic blast ripped through her armor and bit deep into her shoulder. She could see the Razorback taking aim for another as he swatted at and kicked the students around him.

A twisting ball of slobbery wet magic spun in its hands. The Orc pulled a thread from the collection of power and reared it back like a bow and arrow. The magic heightened as he strained its tensile strength to the max.

Ursula ran head on. Activating her HellSlayers Aura. Her breaths loud in her ears despite the chaos that spun.

FWOO!

The blast came in a flash.

She brought her arms up and ate the blast that knocked away her HellSlaying Aura in a blast of blueish white.

"RAGHH!"

She swung her axe into its face. The Ice bit deep but the Orc didn't budge.

It smacked her arm away and punched her in the face so hard half her helmet broke off.

She smiled with pure white eyes and kicked it in the jewels.

"OOOOUCH!"

The Razorback cringed before being overwhelmed by PitWolves, Primals and Samuel.

"Are you alright?"

Ursula turned to find Evelyn regarding her oddly.

"Did you get larger….? And gree—"

A blast hit and a blur came spinning their way.

Ursula's Prey Drive had her reaching for the student before she knew it.

In their quick shared moments she met eyes with a little girl. Too young to be on a battlefield as Ursula held her overhead by the ankle. Even so, she was drenched in Orc blood. Red cracks along her skin steamed like lava ran through her. Black deathish mist swirled in all three of her eyes. And each of her arms was a different color with extra fingers. Like spectral spider limbs.

The death goddess piloted the little girl like a kite. Suddenly Ursula didn't feel comfortable as those killer eyes scanned her with interest.

"Send me back into the high tide of war. I swim like the fishes…" The girl spoke but her mouth didn't move.

"You got it." Ursula reared her arm back and threw the young death goddess back into a trio of Orcs.

She spun with her blades in many hands into a fiery ash tornado and ripped through the Orcs like they were made of paper.

Suddenly there was less screaming.

Less blood fresh on the winds.

PWOOF!

In the distance, part of the mountain broke— crumbled.

And then like an alarm— like a cry from heaven. The sky shook as something howled with the descent of a glowing green star.

Everyone cringed. Samuel seemed to take damage from the sound as he scampered off. A shadow joined him. Bengal. She didn't even know see him on the battle field.

"Is that the Boss!?" A few students asked.

"Orcs don't howl." Tufani took charge, "Whatever it is, isn't Orc."

"What the hell does that mean?!" Chase asked in between heavy breathes as he stood in the remains of the Orc homestead.

"PitWolf possibly."

Speaking of….

"Where did they go?" Students all over the improvised clearing asked.

Ursula, Isaac, Warren and Maris knew the answer.

It was just hard to believe. Because they were destroying the mountain…

***

Stone. Snow. Wood shards. Trees and magical artifacts hidden deep. It all crumbled and deteriorated against his skin like raindrops from the sky. Like a stick held over a searing flame. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

He was thrown almost mile. Smacked with the flathead of a mountain beast gods axe. Purposeful. It wanted to fight Claude. The prospect of a war so bloody and violent was euphoric. They shared the same Battle Lust.

And my god…. Lust was putting it lightly.

Claude lay deep in the mountain valley, drowned in the rubble he ripped and rolled through like a meteor. Even so, his muscles were on fire. His legs shook. His fangs chattered as he chuckled and transformed.

If he was claustrophobic he would've died.

Wait…. Wasn't he?

Didn't the snakes that held and constrained him….

Instead, he was curious.

In the dark he reached out and touched the rock closest to him. A large flat shard of earth that functioned as his makeshift prison door.

He could hear his Wolves approaching. He could feel the threads of power they shared strengthen. He pulled on them.

The tips of his fingers glowed. It spread across the palm of his hand. Pulsing like lifeblood. Like Frosty's Dominance wave, the magic came in the same way.

Waves. Like a rock in a pond.

Boom. Boom.

Pit-Wolven Magic radiated from his palm. Each wave crumbling another layer of smothering stone until cold grey sand fell around him and the mid-day sun returned.

The battle was near. He felt inhumanely elated.

His clawed and padded feet dug into the ground stone hill as he climbed.

He reached the surface in two leaps.

Over two hundred PitWolves surrounded him. Lining the mountain battle zone like furbound sentinels. Some wore armor. Some missed ears and tails. Others were huge and scarred. Claude never felt so much similarity. So much power.

His hair stood on end. He could feel their excitement. Hear the flexion of their muscles. It sounded like a war tune. An ominous cacophony of twisting rubbing groans.

Even so he could practically hear the Bosses thoughts.

Or maybe those were his own. They were the same either way.

The giant emerged. Still far but so large it didn't matter. It's massive battle axe slung over its shoulder. Jewels and carcasses jingled as they hung from its serrated twisting tusks. Black eyes glowed like hunger from its deep sockets.

Claude was salivating. They all were. Eyes wide and teeth bared like rabid war dogs.

For once there was a synthesis. Not of power. Not of anything but his true self and what was newly gained.

All he'd read, researched and study as a child. And all the violence he wanted to drown the Pig in.

"Twenty feet... over a thousand pounds easily. Blind… but sensory abilities aren't a weakness. He can smell my power. Like Orcs he eats. But coming here first….alone, means he can't snowball power. He's at his base form. A boogeyman. Even so, he's ready…. So am I."

Claude unsheathed his spears.

"Frosty…."

The VanaWarg snapped at the air in understanding.

"Let's cut loose…"

Suddenly his skull throbbed.

"[Claude. Do you wish to risk a drawn out battle…. Here? With students and your friends injured. Your enemies looking for an advantage.]"

Claude hesitated. Even so his feet slowly pulled him towards the Boss. He wanted war so completely. His stomach curled and wrapped around his spine with a deprived hunger for it.

"[Claude!]"

Claude stopped and gripped his head with a savage growl.

"[You can have your violence. But give that bastard every ounce of it from your deepest recesses of power….right here. Right now. All at once. Make this a war of power before one of attrition. Unleash your intensity.]"

Claude's head stopped hammering. Arne wasn't an invading force. He was a harmonizing one as much as the wolves.

He dropped his hands from his head.

Like fire, rich verdant sparks of energy spiraled from his fur. Even in their small size, they held so much force he looked as if he was standing in a breeze.

"I am…. hunger…. I am.. the god." The Boss spoke like rain and thunder. Heavy booming tones laid over a steady shear.

Claude raised his head to face the titan. His Vigor Shroud exploded into a cloak of green fire that knitted his wounds closed.

Along the way he began doing things he couldn't perfectly explain.

He was pooling dominance.

As a concept— a human concept, it was social. An amorphous construct existing in the mind and hierarchies of many.

But in the current, it was a physical essence born from the mind that enacted on anything and everything.

The world glimmered. Strands of it—Dominance, collected over the shared age of the Tangent rose. Stripped from the trees like sap, from warring Orcs, playing PitWolves over generations. The Dominance was his own.

From the corpses who succumbed to enemy Dominance.

From the Mud Pitts that now swirled in brown hurricanes.

From the sky, as it fell like rainbow pellets of steaming rainwater.

Even from the shadows that scared adolescent Orcs.

It swelled around Claude and the Wolves. An impossibly heavy primordial social energy. It pulsed in waves, shifting colors of all forms in a tumultuous firestorm of personality and power.

From afar it looked akin to a black hole. But so close— so understanding of it on an instinctual level. To Claude, it looked like rainbows. Northern lights. Rivers and waterfalls wrapping jungling mountains. Lightning. All together.

The crux of his power. Togetherness. Power shared amongst minds. Unblocked by language and difference. Joined by it. The embrace of it.

The Boss took a step forward.

"I…. Am hunger….I am…. a god."

Claude dropped his spears and shaped the force.

"I am an Alpha."

It didn't feel so weird in those moments. It wasn't a declaration or puffing of the chests.

It was an introduction.

A parting message to one and a final word to another.

The Boss raised his axe, succumbing to his hunger.

Claude's weapon was already raised, held up by himself and many others.

Unleash your intensity. It was all in the supermassive energy spear of dominance held above him. So heavy his feet cracked the ground. So intimate.

He could see memories in the magical glimmer of its translucent blade edge. He could see a woman. Dark skin and cruel eyes. Domineering. Speaking.

"YOUR WEAK…. AND SO IS THAT SNIVELING LITTLE BRAT!"

His surprise waned. She'd been a dominating force upon him his whole life.

But not now. Nothing alive in this world held him. He was unleashed.

"I am a god."

"I am an Alpha."

The Boss reared his axe ba—

Claude threw the massive domineering world-spear with every ounce of physical strength available within him and beyond. The Wolves charged, guiding the spear onward like sled dogs of hell. In a fraction of time, he felt his muscles tear, his fingers break, his shoulder pop. His world went white. His ears rang.

After a few seconds his vision returned.

His hair caught in the wind as he stood on a cliffs edge.

He incinerated the back half of the mountain valley. No Boss in sight.

In Tangent where Dominance reigned supreme, the one who had it all was the god. Everything else…..

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

He stared at the spear punched into the earth miles away. It looked like a star.

"[Positively marvelous. Make a wish, mate.]"

Claude rested his hand on Frosty's head.

"You know my wish.."

[+1000 EXP]

DING!

[You Have Defeated the Polar Pig Tangent Boss! Collect your Loot and exit the Tangent!]

[You Have Leveled Up! You are now Level 60!]

[+5 Stat Points]

[8 Stat Points Available]

[New Skills Merged!]

[New Skill, (Overfang, The Dominace Spear LVW) Unlocked]

Claude looked down at the magical weapon summon in his hands.

It was marvelous. It fit in his hands like a glove….no, like skin. His own. Born from within.

A black shaft darker than midnight. Shaped and engraved with grips, everywhere he commonly gripped a spear based on his combat style. Veins of pure silver ran along its length intertwined and spliced with DeadBane Ore that glowed like the moon. The blade end was silver but had a rainbow reflection under the sun overlayed in solid greens. Ornamental fangs of many creatures and flowers surrounded the blades base.

It shook with power.

"They aren't leaving…." Claude looked down at all the students still trying to rationalize and defend what happened.

"I'll make them."

Claude leapt from the remains of the mountain.

He landed silently in the forest surrounding the students. Even so, some heard. Not him, but the landslide of Wolves descending the mountain.

"Everybody get ready!" Tufani yelled.

"Wait!" Ursula interrupted.

The crowd grew silent.

"Leave." Thankfully Claude didn't sound like himself.

Some of the students began to move. Not enough.

Claude took a step into the light.

"Get out."

"What the hell…."

He heard Chase mumble.

"That's not an Orc!"

Claude found Isaac. Their eyes met. He and Warren held a similar expression.

Realization.

Isaac nodded once. "Not a WereWolf." He could almost hear the Knight put the pieces together.

Time was running short— as was his power high.

"Now!" He sent a wave of Dominance.

It smashed into the students like a gust of wind. They turned heel and ran, dropping loot and tripping over corpses.

With Donna slung over Ursula's shoulder she spared him a single glance before joining the others.

"Follow." Claude waved off the animals. "Live in the wilds. Don't die here. Frosty, Loba, Diamondback, I'll meet you back home."

They went. Frosty hesitated.

"I'm fine. Go ahead, brother." Claude brought their heads together before shoving him away.

Frosty took off, looking back at Claude repeatedly. He calmed once Claude began walking.

"I'm just tired.."

"[Claude, I know you've forgotten in this madness, but you have to pass through Islandia. Remember how fishy that is. Speed up. Stay close to your pack.]"

Claude swallowed and broke into a jog. But his energy was waning fast.

Step after step.

[Mana 9% Remaining…]

[Your Stamina is critically low!]

Claude found the Tangent exit ahead. A glowing scar in existence between two trees.

He stopped mere inches from it.

"[Claude...]"

"You're a great guide, Arne. The best."

Arne was silent for moment, "[You know…..?]"

"Isn't it obvious?"

A thousand words went unsaid.

"[Thats why you got everyone out…. How'd you close off your mind to the others?]"

"Focus." Claude wiped a tear from his eye and growled.

"Don't let me loose my mind, Arne….. please. Don't let me."

"[You have my word and beyond. We'll survive, Claude. It what we're meant to do, us two. I'll guide you to the end, brother.]"

"And I'll stress you out the whole way. Let's get into it."

VWOOMP!

Suddenly he was stepping back into the cave. Islandia's unrelenting cold biting his skin and fur.

The one bat that once hung from the cave was now thousands. So many beady red eyes it placed him under an evil bloody glow.

And below them, at the cave exit, hundreds of hairless, undead black veined beasts crouched. Split only as a man approached.

No, not a man. A Vampire. One that smelled of gunpowder and blood. His thick stache cast shadows over his bared fangs as he rested a hand on his cutlass while the other held his rifle.

The General had come for revenge.

There was no need for a exchange.

The whole cave exploded into shadows and gunfire.