‘Is this… the end?’ Samuel thought as he closed his eyes.

Image of a man flashed through his head, causing a warm yet somewhat bitter smile to spread across his face. The man in his memory wore a black plate armour with red etchings. Having a sword strapped to his left and a young woman with long arctic hair to his right, he looked the picture of an imposing knight.

‘No! It is not. I will not let it be.’ A turbid breath escaped Samuel’s mouth, carrying his fears and indecision away. A resolve burned within his heart as he looked at the direwolf with no fear.

‘I will become the knight I want to be. I will protect the people I want to protect. And right now…‘

“I will wash the floor with this pup and save Zack. Like a true knight. No matter what!” Samuel muttered, his voice carrying no hint of impatience or any emotions.

An intangible pressure spread around Samuel. Adrenaline coursed through his veins. The beats of his heart quickened. As he began chanting a spell, a dense colour reminiscent of thunder crackling around his arm.

The direwolf will attack me. As long as I can take the hit, I can use this forbidden spell and it’ll be over.

Samuel’s smile turned from a bitter one to one carrying a reckless bravery, his resolve to see it to death evident in his eyes.

The direwolf’s jaws neared him in the blink of an eye, barely giving Samuel enough time to prepare his spell.

However, the attack he expected never came.

Instead, his eyes widened in shock as beads of a warm crimson liquid splashed over his face.

Moments earlier…

Zack stood to the side, watching the scene play.

“…I will save Zack.”

Carried by the wind, Samuel’s muttering landed in Zack’s ears, making him shiver.

Samuel’s voice reverberated in his mind as his head began hurting. His heartbeat slowed to a crawl. His icy hands shook as if frost-bitten.

Is he planning to get hit by that thing to use his spell? But what about him? Will he… And why? To save… me?

‘Save me…’

‘I… I’m going to be saved?’

‘Again…?’

‘The same way?’

‘The same thing once again?’

‘And will he also… also leave me forever?’

‘Leave me like mother did?’

As if something within him snapped, the light in Zack’s eye dimmed.

Cold sweat began lining his back.

Something akin to an all-devouring flame seemed to burn away at him from within. Like a colossus breaking free from its suppression, the flame-like sensation flared to life, attempting to devour him and make him its own.

His heart, on the other hand, felt cold as ice. His hand reached for his chest, feeling its erratic beats.

His dark pupil, which seemed to reflect the abyss itself, stared at the direwolf rushing towards Samuel.

The more he looked at the direwolf, the worse the searing sensation flooding his chest became. Like a trigger, it blasted open the dam he put up against his pent-up emotions, letting them run awry.

His vision shook as an icy breath made its way out his mouth.

‘Is this… anger? My anger? I hate it. I hate people getting hurt to protect me. I hate this world for forcing people to do that. I hate everything trying to hurt them. And more than anything, I hate me for being too weak.’

‘This world… Does it even need a direwolf like that? And why? More than anything, I hate it for attacking my friend right now.’

He walked a few step forwards, picking up one of the sticks which he and Samuel used to draw the ring earlier that day. His distant gaze passed over it briefly before returning to the direwolf.

‘And if I don’t do anything right now…. Don’t stand up right now… Don’t fight against it… WHEN AM I EVER GOING TO DO IT?’

His legs stopped shaking as he got up, ready make a run.

‘That’s why… it needs to die. I’ll kill it. Erase it. Destroy it. Do whatever it takes. Kill everything I hate. Get my revenge on that man who killed my mother. And then… this world.’

Thoughts flashed through his head in an instant. The grip on the stick in his hand tightened.

‘Today, for the last time, I showed weakness. And for the first time… I will become stronger!’

Zack charged towards the direwolf like a beast out for blood, deep resentment and a tinge of madness flowing past his abyss-like pupil.

His own running speed, coupled with the relatively short distance between him and Samuel, as well as the time the direwolf would need to get there, allowed Zack to make it in front of Samuel barely an instant before the direwolf.

While in the middle of charging towards the somewhat courageous boy while it was helpless, the direwolf’s gaze landed at the puny black-haired boy, who jumped in the middle of it and its prey.

Looking into the puny kid’s lone eye, a sense of unease washed over it. However, in the next instant, its pride as a mutant beast turned its unease turned to rage, allowing it to draw upon even more of its latent power, charging to rid the world of the black-haired boy.

Opening its maw even wider than before, it prepared itself to bite off the head of the annoyance before it.

As soon as it felt something touch its tongue, it began its jaws.

Something pressed against both his lower and upper jaw at the same time, resisting the movement of its mouth closing. Assuming it to be the puny kid’s skull or bones, it added more force into it.

However, instead of the flavour of human flesh it enjoyed flooding his mouth, half its vision darkened. A bitter, metallic taste filled its mouth — the taste of its own blood. Next, a searing pain filled from his tongue to the front of its head.

Its remaining bloodshot eye opened wide, its gaze meeting with that of the black-haired boy barely inches away. His face was stone cold, looking at it with eyes full of resentment.

Within his raven-black eye, which seemed to reflect the depths of the abyss itself, it saw a bloodstained stick protruding out of one of its eyes.

The direwolf realised what it bit on was not the black-haired boy’s skull, and was instead a stick lodged into its mouth. Taking the advantage of its mutated jawbones, which reinforced its lower jaw coupled with lack of bones between the top of its mouth and its eye, the stick pierced through, destroying it.

Along with the pain, the rage at its dignity as a mutated beast being trampled filled its head as it charged relentlessly, lowering its head like a bull to slam against the black-haired boy with all its momentum.

In the next instant, a bitter-sweet sensation of impact filled its body as the scent of blood wafted through its nose, filling its surroundings.