There were only eight of them left. Some of their packmates had fled from fear during our chase, and others had been distracted by the meat pieces I'd thrown while running—desperate attempts at survival that had actually worked on the less committed members of the pack.
But those who remained? These eight were different.
I could see it in their eyes. More than anger. More than the simple rage of revenge.
There was resignation. Finality. A grim acceptance.
It was like they'd made up their minds—do or die. No retreat. No mercy.
They stood frozen at the edge of the clearing, muscles tensed and trembling with the effort of trying to move against the invisible restraint. It was obvious they could feel that someone powerful was holding them in place, that they couldn't even twitch without permission. They knew they were going to die no matter what happened next—whether they fought or fled, the outcome was already decided by powers beyond their understanding.
But they'd chosen to face it anyway.
I had to respect that, even as I prepared to kill them.
Without turning back, I addressed my instructor. My voice came out steadier than I expected, given the circumstances.
"You have already accepted me as your student," I said, raising my sword. "But let me see whether your teachings are truly worthy."
I planted my feet shoulder-width apart, the way he'd drilled into me yesterday. My weight settled evenly between both legs. My sword came up—not too high, not too low—held at a forty-five-degree angle with the point aimed forward. My working hand gripped the hilt firmly while my injured left hand hung uselessly at my side, still throbbing despite the healing potion.
The stance.
The stance.
The only thing my instructor had taught me besides how to swing a sword. He'd made me hold this position for what felt like hours yesterday, until my legs burned and my arms shook. I'd cursed him for it, called it pointless, wondered what the hell standing still had to do with actual fighting.
Now I understood.
The stance wasn't just about positioning. It was about readiness. About being centered, balanced, prepared to move in any direction at any moment. It was the foundation from which all movement flowed.
And as I settled into it fully—really, truly settled into it for the first time with actual intent rather than grudging practice—I felt something shift.
Like crossing a threshold. Like stepping through a doorway I hadn't known existed.
My breathing synchronized with my heartbeat. My awareness expanded, taking in the whole clearing at once—the eight frozen hounds, the scorched earth beneath my feet, the crimson trees at the edges, the ash-grey sky above, my instructor's presence behind me like a mountain.
Everything snapped into focus with crystalline clarity.
Behind me, I heard my instructor's breath catch—just slightly, barely perceptible—and then a low chuckle of satisfaction.
"Release," he said simply.
That's when all hell broke loose.
No more restraint. No more invisible hands holding them back. Just pure, concentrated violence unleashed in a synchronized wave of fur, fangs, and fury.
But I was already moving.
I took the advantage of the mongrel's numbness as they are just released.
My body flowed out of the stance without conscious thought, the sword sweeping up in a diagonal arc that caught the first hound across its leftmost head. The blade bit deep—deeper than my earlier strikes—cutting through fur and bone like they were paper.
The hound's head separated from its neck mid-lunge, tumbling through the air while its body continued forward on momentum alone.
I sidestepped, letting the corpse crash past me, and my sword was already coming around for the next strike.
A second hound tried to flank me from the right, all three heads snapping at my exposed side. But I'd seen it coming—not with my eyes, but with that strange expanded awareness that came from the stance. I pivoted on my front foot, my body rotating smoothly, and brought my sword down in a vertical slash.
The blade caught the hound's center head between the eyes and split it down the middle.
The creature collapsed, its other two heads thrashing in confused death throes.
Two down. Six left.
But I had no time to celebrate because three more were already on me, coming from different angles in a coordinated assault that should have been impossible to defend against.
Should have been.
My instructor's voice echoed in my memory from yesterday: The stance is the foundation. From it, all movement becomes possible. Stop whining and hold it.
I dropped into a crouch, my sword held horizontally above my head. The three attacks passed through the space where I'd been standing—a hair's breadth above my blade—teeth snapping on empty air.
Then I exploded upward.
My legs drove me up like a spring released, and my sword came with me. The blade caught one hound under its jaw, punched through the roof of its mouth, and into its brain. The second hound got the pommel of my sword smashed into its rightmost head's eye, the impact making a sickening crunch that I felt through the hilt.
The third hound managed to sink its teeth into my already-injured shoulder.
Pain exploded through my body—white-hot and all-consuming—but I'd been expecting it.
Pain was just information now. Data to be processed and filed away. My lazy brain has already passed out from so much stimulus that almost all my senses were numb.
I dropped my sword—no choice, needed my hand free—and reached into my spatial storage bracelet even as the hound thrashed, trying to tear my arm off.
A kitchen knife materialized in my working hand.
I drove it into the beast's center head's eye, twisted, and pushed deeper. The knife punched through the eye socket and into the brain cavity beyond.
The hound's jaws went slack.
I yanked my shoulder free and stumbled backward, gasping. Blood poured down my arm—fresh blood mixing with old—and my vision swam with black spots.
Three down. Five left.
No. Four left.
The hound I'd hit with my pommel was thrashing on the ground, its smashed eye weeping dark fluid, its other heads trying to right its body. It wasn't getting back up anytime soon.
Four functional hounds remained, circling me warily. They'd seen five of their packmates die in the span of maybe thirty seconds. The simple revenge instinct was warring with survival now.
But they didn't run.
That resignation, that finality I'd seen in their eyes—it held them in place.
Do or die.
I bent down and retrieved my sword with my right hand, the blade slick with blood. My left arm hung useless at my side now, the shoulder joint grinding with every movement. I couldn't feel my fingers anymore.
The healing potion had helped, but it was designed for minor wounds and exhaustion. Not repeated maulings by supernatural beasts.
I was running on fumes and spite now.
The four hounds began to circle me in opposite directions—two clockwise, two counterclockwise—creating a rotating perimeter that would attack from different angles simultaneously. Smart. Professional.
These were the survivors, the strongest and smartest of the pack.
I planted my feet and returned to the stance, settling my weight, centering myself. My awareness expanded again, tracking all four hounds at once.
Breathing. Heartbeat. Focus.
They all lunged at the same moment.
Four directions. Twelve heads. Thirty-six teeth-filled mouths.
Time seemed to slow.
I saw the attack vectors, calculated the angles, predicted where each mouth would be in half a second, one second, two seconds.
And I moved.
Not away. Through.
I charged directly at the hound in front of me—the one it looked like I'd run straight into. Its three heads opened wide in anticipation of an easy meal.
At the last possible moment, I dropped into a slide.
My body skidded across the scorched earth on my side, passing beneath the lunging hound, my sword held out to the side like a clothesline.
The blade caught the beast across its belly—the soft underbelly where scales were thinnest—and opened it from chest to tail.
Entrails spilled out as I slid past.
I came out of the slide in a crouch, my momentum arrested, and immediately rolled left as another hound's attack passed through where I'd just been.
One down. Three left.
But the roll had taken me too close to one of the remaining hounds. All three of its heads descended on me like striking snakes, and I had no room to dodge, no time to raise my sword.
So I did the only thing I could.
I punched it.
My right fist, still gripping the sword hilt, drove forward into the hound's center head's open mouth. My knuckles connected with the back of its throat, and I felt something give way. The hound gagged, its head jerking back, and its other two heads instinctively recoiled in sympathy.
That half-second of disruption was all I needed.
I released the sword—let it fall from my numb fingers—and reached for my spatial storage bracelet again.
The last healing potion materialized in my hand.
I smashed the vial against the hound's center head, glass shattering, red liquid splashing across its face and into its still-open mouth.
Healing potions were meant to be drunk while resting, meant to work slowly and carefully to repair damage.
Forcing one directly into an active, aggressive creature's system while it was mid-attack?
The hound's body seized up, all three heads throwing back and howling as the magic tried to "heal" tissue that wasn't damaged, tried to knit together bones that weren't broken, flooding its system with restorative energy that had nowhere to go.
It collapsed, convulsing, foam pouring from its mouths.
Two left.
I bent to retrieve my sword, my hand closing around the—
Teeth closed around my calf.
One of the remaining hounds had gotten behind me while I was focused on the others, and now its rightmost head had my leg clamped in its jaws. I felt bone grind against bone, felt the teeth punch through my boot and into flesh.
I screamed—couldn't help it—and fell forward.
The second remaining hound saw its opportunity and charged, going for my throat while I was down.
No. Not like this. Not after everything.
My hand was still reaching for my sword, fingers scrabbling across the scorched earth. They found the hilt.
I grabbed it.
Swung blindly.
The blade caught the charging hound across its leftmost head, nearly severing it completely. The beast veered off, stumbling, dark blood spraying in an arc.
But the one with my leg wasn't letting go. Its other two heads were coming around now, preparing to finish me.
I couldn't reach it with my sword—wrong angle, wrong position, and my body was twisted awkwardly from the fall.
So I did what I'd been doing this entire hellish day.
Something desperate and stupid.
I activated the spatial storage bracelet and pulled out the first item my panicked mind could grasp.
Spare clothes.
A clean shirt materialized in my free hand. I balled it up and threw it directly at the hound's center head—the one currently not biting me.
It was such a stupid, ineffective attack that the hound was actually surprised. Its center head flinched back instinctively, and that moment of confusion made its other heads—including the one clamped on my leg—hesitate for just a fraction of a second.
That fraction was enough.
I twisted my body with every ounce of strength remaining, swinging my sword in an awkward, graceless arc that had no technique whatsoever—just pure desperation and the leverage of my entire body weight behind it.
The blade took the hound's rightmost head—the one biting my leg—clean off.
The jaws went slack. The head, still attached to my calf by its teeth, fell away as the body collapsed.
One left.
The last hound—the one I'd caught across the head with my blind swing—was still alive but badly wounded. It staggered, its leftmost head hanging by strips of flesh and fur, blood pouring from the wound.
Our eyes met.
In that moment, I saw the same thing I'd seen at the beginning. Resignation. Finality. But now there was something else.
Respect.
This beast had watched me kill seven of its packmates. Had seen me refuse to die despite being wounded, exhausted, outmatched. Had witnessed someone with barely a day of training somehow survive through nothing but stubbornness and the willingness to sacrifice pieces of himself for victory.
Atleast that's what I wanted to believe instead b
The hound could try to run. Could flee like other of its packmates had done.
But it didn't.
It charged one last time, its remaining two functional heads opened wide.
I planted my feet—barely able to stand, my calf screaming in protest—and returned to the stance.
I repeated the mantra which I just made.
Foundation. Center. Focus.
The hound leaped.
I stepped forward—not back, forward—and drove my sword up in a rising thrust.
The blade entered beneath the beast's jaw and punched up through the roof of its mouth, through its brain, and out the top of its skull.
The hound's momentum carried it onto the blade, driving it deeper, until the hilt was pressed against its center head's lower jaw.
We stood there for a moment, frozen—the dying hound impaled on my sword, me barely able to support its weight.
Then its legs gave out, and we both collapsed.
The hound's body pinned me to the ground, its blood soaking into my already-drenched clothing. I lay there, unable to move, unable to do anything but breathe and stare at the ash-grey sky.
Eight hounds.
Eight.
And I'd killed them all.
Well, seven. One was still convulsing from the healing potion overdose, but it wouldn't survive either.
I pushed off the beast's body and took the knife and drove it into the hound's head through it's eyes, as I didn't have energy it force it down the skull.
Silence fell over the clearing, broken only by my ragged breathing and the crackling of some distant fire in the crimson forest.
I'd done it.
I'd actually done it.
"Outstanding."
My instructor's voice came from somewhere above me.
I blinked up at him through the blood and sweat and ash coating my face.
He was smiling. Not his usual amused smirk or sadistic grin. This was something different. Something that might have actually been pride.
"You crossed the threshold," he said, his voice carrying genuine satisfaction. "In the middle of combat, with death seconds away, you achieved the true foundation stance. That's how my teacher taught me and I did to you. You did it in one day because you had no choice." He chuckled. "Fear and desperation—the greatest teachers of all."
He held up the drop of dragon blood, still glowing with golden-veined darkness.
"Your form is still atrocious. Your technique barely exists. You fight like a cornered animal with good instincts and no finesse." He paused, his smile widening. "But you survived. Against opponents above your rank. While wounded. Using nothing but one day of basic training, cheap tricks, and the absolute refusal to die."
He crouched down, bringing the droplet level with my eyes.
"You've earned this."
I stared at the blood, then at him, then back at the blood.
"Will it..." I tried to speak, but my throat was raw. I swallowed and tried again. "Will it hurt?"