Hounds

Wind nearly ran back into the preparation room before the door could close, but stopped himself. The prospect of spending more time in the arena, when escape was on hand, frightened Wind more than the ghoulish hounds ever could. In total, there were eight of the creatures, plus one larger hound that ran at the forefront of the pack. It seemed to lead the others, commanding them with its insidious howls.

Taishen looked at Wind, even his hands trembled. The man gripped his longsword with both hands and stared at Wind. He swallowed dryly before speaking:

"Well shit- I'll take on the big guy and a few small ones, you take care of the rest as a best as you can."

Although they were intending to escape, Wind and Taishen still had to defeat the beasts before they could make their attempt. They needed the announcer to send in the healers, revealing the torch in the process. At the moment, the torch was nowhere in sight.

Taishen ran ahead of Wind, his longsword held in a defensive position, ready to intercept the hounds. When he got closer, he pulled a dagger from his belt and threw it at the large hound, then dashed to the right side of the arena. The dagger hit the beast in the foreleg, pommel first. The weapon dealt little damage, but it caught the creature's attention. The large hound and three members of its pack split off from the group, chasing Taishen.

The remaining five hounds followed Wind, who ran the opposite direction. Calm, but certainly not relaxed, Wind felt the cogs churning in his mind. What could he do against five vicious monsters that could tear him apart in an instant. From the looks of them, and the fact that the monsters spent most of their lives digging their claws into rocks, Wind judged that the claws would bypass his armour as if it didn't exist. In fact, it looked like the claws could cut through most things.

An idea flashed through Wind's mind, he barely managed to hold onto the idea as he dodged a lunge from one of the hounds. The creature flew past him as if thrown by a giant. It struck the wall behind him, as he had intended. But unlike he had intended, the creature began to run across the arena wall, following his path.

With no other choice, Wind began his plan. He transferred his weight to his nail and tossed it as hard as he could at the closest beast, striking it in the foreleg. The creature stumbled and slowed down. Caught by surprise, the hounds running behind it had no chance to stop. They tumbled into the fallen creature, tripping over it and falling into a flailing pile.

While the beasts scrambled clumsily and slowly to their paws, Wind leapt into the air and brought out Gild's bow. He began firing arrows down on the creatures.

Too focused on learning to throw his nail and learn its enchantments, Wind hadn't had a chance to practice with the new bow; however, he had bow-hunted plenty of game back on his grandfather's island. Firing down at a closely clustered group of enormous hounds, it was almost more difficult to miss a shot than to hit.

In a few moments, he had skewered each of the hounds several times. The wounds wouldn't be instantly fatal, but as the arrows returned to him, they would start to bleed. If he could survive long enough, they would grow more and more tired, and potentially even die.

If he could, Wind wished to stay in the air, far from the four disgusting hounds. Unfortunately, the fifth disagreed with his sentiment and launched itself from the arena wall. It's mouth opened wide as it flew towards Wind, and its arms lashed out in front of it.

Unable to do anything else, Wind kicked off an arrow as it flew back to him, using air attunement to achieve the precision and reaction time necessary for such a move. He narrowly avoided the hound's desperate clawing. As it passed by him, it lashed out it with a heavy tail, managing to bat him towards the ground as if he were a falling leaf.

Wind careened towards the ground. He tucked his feet into his chest as he dropped, kicking off the ground the moment he approached it. Between his decreased weight, and the force of his kick, he didn't suffer from the impact.

Only a metre off the ground now, Wind slung the bow back across his shoulder. He recalled the nail and regained his mass, then turned to face the group of four hounds as he fell gently to the ground. He used Wind attunement to ready himself for the fifth creature's inevitable return.

By now, the four hounds had managed to stand, untangling themselves from one another. The four stalked slowly around Wind, forming a wide circle around him. Several of the creatures limped from arrow wounds in various parts of their powerful legs. Wind waited carefully, his nail held at the ready. Wind focused on the Tal enchantment, waiting to change the weapon's form at a moments notice.

His readiness paid off when air attunement sensed the fifth hound's ambush. It had launched itself into the air, coming down on wind from behind and above him. Smiling grimly, Wind turned around. He transformed the nail into a long, winged spear and planted it in the ground, then braced with both of his arms. He pointed the spear tip upwards, directly towards the falling hound.

While Wind faced the fifth creature, the other four began to close in on him. Fortunately, Wind wasn't caught unaware.

Wind saw the hound flail in the air, attempting to turn around as it realized its fate. In spite of its efforts, the creature continued plummeting towards its inevitable death.

The instant the falling beast impaled itself head-first on the spear, Wind braced against the impact. He then lifted the spear with all his strength, barely able to do so under the creature's weight. He then used the hound's own momentum as he spun around, dragging the spear with him.

The beast's trajectory changed, redirected into two of the four incoming beasts. Its heavy body flew from the spear, an arc of blood trailed from the wound in its skull back to Wind's weapon. The now-corpse smashed into the two charging hounds, the sound of bones shattering echoed through the arena, accompanied by the cheering of the crowd. The creature's necks had shattered as they ran into the incoming corpse, making three dead beasts.

Wind wasted no time watching the aftermath, instead, he spun towards the other two hounds. Wind raised the shaft of the spear, the jaws of one of the beasts snapped shut around the shaft, mere centimetres from Wind's face. The weight of the hand drove wind into the ground. The last hound flew past, tracing a long scratch onto Wind's left shoulder as it passed.

The beast that had tackled Wind shook its jaws back and forth, playing tug of war with Wind, trying to wrench the weapon from his grasp. As it pulled its jaws back with all its might, Wind spoke:

"Aeven!"

The weapon turned ethereal and the creature flew backwards under its own strength. Wind used the opportunity to scramble to his feet, his breath coming in ragged gasps as it made its way through breathing holes in the half-mask. His breath came out in curls of steam, blood fell from him in rivulets, and his hair was matted to his head from sweat. He looked like a bloodthirsty spirit, risen from the lands below.

The crowd let out a gasp as the striking look.

Wind heard his title being chanted.

"Eurus! Eurus! Eurus!"

Grimacing at the adoration of the vile crowd, Wind turned to face the hound that he had tricked. He held his nail-spear tightly. Cancelling Aeven, he rushed towards the beast. It was still recovering from throwing itself backwards at full force.

With all his strength, Wind leapt into the air, transferring his weight to the spear. He flew several metres up in an instant. Wind recalled the spear to him mid-air, the weight of the weapon caused him to fall. He plummeted down at high-speed, directly above the fallen-over hound. The nail was stretched out as far ahead of him as he could manage.

His spear pierced straight through the creature's scales and into its neck. As he fell, a moment behind the nail, Wind grabbed the very end of the weapon as tight as he could. He transferred all of the weight from the weapon back to himself. He then used his weight and momentum to push the spear down further, directly through the other side of the hound's neck and into the arena floor. The creature died instantly.

Saving himself the effort of pulling the weapon out, Wind turned the weapon back to its original form, allowing him to easily retrieve the weapon from the corpse's neck. Wind pushed his hair out of his eyes, then turned to face the last remaining hound.