Jason had hung his sacks on a tree just like him and his party used to do before advancing any closer to the wolves. He was crouching low on all fours and advancing on the group of wolves. Their music was loud now so he knew he was close. Going to a nearby tree Jason started to climb it, his claws piercing into the bark easily due to his increased Fortitude and their own natural sharpness. When he was halfway to the top of the tree he could see the pack.

They were eating a recent kill. They had killed what was essentially just a giant bear. Dire Bear probably. Although hard to tell what level it was. The alpha had already taken his fill and the ones eating now were the two second strongest with the two weakest circling around the kill waiting for their turn. Why do I never see any baby monsters, well besides Little Cub. Is there like a den or something that they hide their children until they’re at least level five or something. At level five Little Cub had experienced quite the growth spurt and went from being puny to slightly larger than a normal coyote.

Level 22 Forest Wolf

Level 19 Forest Wolf

Level 21 Forest Wolf

Level 18 Forest Wolf

Level 24 Forest Wolf

The five forest wolves were kind of strong and if it was the old partyless Jason he would consider crippling the alpha first and letting the alpha heavily injure most if not all of the other wolves before just coming in and cleaning up. If Jason had his party he would just rush forward and distract everything as the other two shot down arrows and poison until they died.

Now though Jason wanted to find a middle ground between the two. He was a lone hunter in the woods. These wolves were his prey and he would kill them. So he did what he normally did when he was alone. In his hybrid form he got on the thickest branch he could find that was close to the wolves and sat there staring at them. Then when he felt the time was right he jumped.

He jumped right at the closest of the two wolves that were eating. Landing on its back Jason wrapped his claws around its throat and ripped it out leaving the creature without a way to breath. Jason catapulted off of the back of the falling wolf toward the other eating wolf. The other wolf just managed to get its head up before Jason crashed into it and clamped his mouth on the other wolf’s throat.

He didn’t try to rip this one's throat out and instead as Jason’s momentum forced the wolf onto its side Jason simply reached his left hand down and gutted the wolf with his claw. After he did that he took two running steps and bounded back up a tree using his claws to get handholds. With a speed akin to running he ascended the tree and found the highest branch he could get on that was still able to hold his weight.

The entire encounter had lasted only a second. From Jason landing on the first wolf to climbing up another tree. Jason watched from his vantage point as the first wolf bled to death within a minute. The second wolf had tried to move and as a result all its guts had fallen out which killed him soon after.

Jason saw the other three wolves quickly raise their hackles and growl at the surroundings. They were looking up in the trees trying to find their attacker, but Jason had hid himself well in the foliage. They’re not going to calm down. I don’t have enough time to simply wait for them to calm down. I need to get down there and actually attack.

Jason slowly went across multiple trees where their branches intersected until he was a good distance away from the area the wolves were at. Then he descended onto the forest floor. He didn’t go slowly or sneakily towards them he got down on all fours and sprinted right to where he knew they would be. His increased Fortitude, even as slightly as it was increased, made it so that he was faster and stronger than before making his sprint in hybrid form a thing to behold.

It took him merely a minute before he was almost right on top of the three remaining wolves. Pushing from his legs he used his already outstretched arms to cleave through the side of the level eighteen wolf knocking it over. Jason had already ruined his sprint so he did the best thing he could which was turn the leaping strike into a dive roll over the fallen wolf. As he did so the alpha wolf narrowly missed his arms by its own dive and instead flew right by him.

Getting up from his roll and turning Jason regarded his three opponents while starting to slowly circle them. The alpha and the level nineteen both had their hackles raised and were growling at Jason warning him about coming closer. The level eighteen wolf though died from its wounds. I guess I’m now strong enough to kill any wolf level eighteen or below in one full power hit. The other two wolves I had to wait for them to bleed out, but this one’s health just went straight to zero. Interesting.

Jason was still circling slowly around his now two opponents. The trees obscured a lot of the vision, but from the five meter circle Jason was making around the two he could still easily see them. I’ll have to kill the level nineteen first although I expect that to take two really good body shots or one shot at a vital organ. Then I can move on and simply fight the alpha wolf one on one and rely on my luck and claws. Jason paused in his circling and realized a much better option.

Can’t I just use my breath attacks? Apparently his ceasing of the circling made the two remaining wolves nervous as they both got even more aggressive and wary. Jason just stood there and considered the two of them. Then he got down on his haunches and leaned slightly forward onto his hands. Opening his mouth he willed one of his skills to activate.

His one remaining eye changed its colors from black to a pure fiery red. Jason felt his primal energy rush up towards his open snout from muscles all over his body. This time the wolves definitely felt something was wrong and both of them at the same time rushed forth to attack Jason. They were too late.

Fire exploded out of Jason’s gaping maw and immediately the two wolves were consumed by it. One even tried to immediately jump out of the flames but was immediately pulled back by the skeletons. Jason kept the flames going for seven whole seconds making perfectly sure they were nice and cooked. After Jason closed his mouth and let the essence meander its way back into his muscles he took a look at his surroundings. Maybe I should’ve used corrosive…

Jason immediately took off running. He didn’t even bother collecting anything from the wolves and ran on all fours as fast as possible from the location. Jason had forgotten one very important thing. Fire causes forest fires. As Jason sprinted the flames grew higher and higher behind him consuming the corpses and any tree in its path. Jason looked back for a second and then moved even faster. That’ll stop eventually right?

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Jason that same day ran into another group of wolves who were fleeing the flames. They were injured and weakened and Jason made sure to take advantage of that. Without warning he had killed the weakest wolf outright and left another to bleed to death. Then instead of running and using guerilla tactics or his breath attacks he had just engaged in a brutal melee with the two last wolves.

His Luck made itself useful then as even with less Fortitude and Endurance than his opponents he still managed to hit vitals while swinging wildly and barely got any scratches in return. The wolves attacks would miss as he or they knocked into something. One time one wolf as it was trying to pounce and bite Jason’s neck had missed and actually had gotten the other wolf’s neck instead.

After the fight Jason quickly gathered all the blood he could into various makeshift waterskins and threw them into his empty sack then started running again.

It seemed that on this particular day Jason’s Luck was very active as he ran into five more wounded and weakened packs of wolves. Each one in more hideous shape than the last. It was only due to their weakness, surprise, and luck that Jason was able to kill all five of the packs before he decided that he was way too low on all the stats to actually continue fighting.

Health

15 / 150

5 hp / hour

Stamina

34 / 120

80 sp / hour

Essence of Ferality

112 / 130

5 e / hour

Ferality still hasn’t done anything in fights yet. I’ve been trying to just let it do what it wants because that’s like the entire meaning of Ferality. A thing gone wild. But it hasn’t done anything yet. Maybe it doesn’t think I’m in a dire state… I have fifteen fucking health though how is this not dire? It has to be something else. As Jason was collecting the blood and hearts from his last pack he decided it was time to get back to the desert.

I don’t want the fire catching me if it’s still burning and spreading as quick as it was in the beginning. I also need to get back to my party. Sandy dunes here I come. Jason picked up a heart and ate it to give himself some more health regeneration.

Yet right as it went down his stomach his muscles started to vibrate and practically roar with delight. Jason immediately looked down at his body which now had the muscles pulsating occasionally. He could practically see the remains of the heart in his stomach being destroyed and turned into that orange fiery essence which was then filed into his muscles. He took a look at his regenerations and confirmed what he thought.

Health

5 hp / hour

Stamina

80 sp / hour

Essence of Ferality

15 e / hour

Instead of improving health or stamina all it did was improve the essence regeneration and probably not for long. In the past when I was eating hearts I got the improvement so long because it took so long for the hearts to be disgusted. It’s hard for the human body to digest hearts and even my more animalistic physique found it hard, but now. Jason closed his eye and felt his stomach where he could practically feel the hearts being crushed and digested. Now I’ll be done digesting this within five minutes. I traded a few hours boost for a five minute boost to a stat that I’m not using much. What the fuck? Jason whined to himself.

Then sighing Jason looked at the stars that were just appearing in the sky and tried to find some familiar ones. Not familiar as in he saw them on Earth, but familiar as in he can use them to figure out where he is right now. The Earth thing would never even work as these stars were completely different from the star formations on Earth. After finding a familiar star Jason found that he was mostly east but also a bit to the north of where the ziggurat was located. Well I would’ve been even further north if not for the fire chasing me South this whole time.

After getting his bearings Jason tightened his two sacks and took off sprinting once more. Careful to keep an ear out so he could avoid animals. He wasn’t in a situation to fight right now.