The forest trembled.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Every footstep shook the frozen earth beneath Zekai's boots.
He slowly stood. Null Drakular rested loosely in his right hand.
His eyes moved from tree to tree.
"...What now?"
Another tree crashed somewhere behind him.
Then another.
Snow exploded upward like white smoke.
Something huge was moving. Not one. Many.
The cold air suddenly felt heavier.
Even the crows that had been circling above became restless.
They scattered into the sky with loud cries.
"...That's never a good sign."
The footsteps stopped. Silence. Complete silence.
Zekai slowly turned in a full circle.
"...Where are you..."
Nothing.
Only snow. Only trees. Only mist.
"...Don't tell me you're playing hide-and-seek."
Then—
A pair of crimson eyes opened between the trees.
Another. Another. Another.
They continued appearing.
One... two... five... eight... twelve.
Zekai's expression slowly stiffened.
"...Seriously?"
Massive shadows stepped out from the forest.
Each one towered nearly ten meters high. Thick silver-black manes covered their necks like crowns of fur.
Jagged scars crossed their bodies, and every crimson eye carried the calm confidence of an apex predator.
Alpha Wolfrezons.
Every single one stared directly at him.
"...Those aren't... ordinary Wolfrezons."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ARCANA STATUS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Alpha-class Wolfrezons detected. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
His eyes narrowed. "...Alpha-class."
His eyes drifted toward the corpse lying nearby.
The one he had killed. Compared to these monsters... it looked almost small.
Understanding slowly dawned on him.
"...That wasn't an adult."
"...It was the Alpha Pack's cub."
Silence.
Then Zekai sighed.
"...You're telling me..."
"I just killed someone's kid?"
The twelve Alpha Wolfrezons answered together.
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!!
The roar rolled across the valley. Snow burst from every branch.
Zekai rubbed the back of his neck.
"...Yeah... I probably deserved that."
One Wolfrezon stepped forward.
Then another.
Soon the entire pack spread apart.
Without realizing it...
Zekai had already been surrounded.
He slowly turned once.
"...Nice formation."
"So this is how wolves hunt."
He slipped off his coat. It landed softly upon the snow.
Only his white shirt remained.
He casually loosened the top button.
The freezing wind immediately bit against his skin.
He rolled one shoulder. Then tightened his grip on Null Drakular.
"...Come on."
"...Let's see whose hunt this really is."
None of them moved.
Instead—every Alpha Wolfrezon lowered its head.
Blue light gathered inside twelve enormous jaws.
"...Wait..." Zekai blinked.
"...All of you can do that?"
The blue glow intensified.
"Oh..." His smile disappeared. "...No."
Twelve beams fired simultaneously.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!
The forest vanished beneath blue light.
"Oh, no!"
Zekai slammed one foot into the snow.
His body twisted sideways.
One beam grazed past his cheek.
Heat burned across his skin.
Another exploded beneath him.
The snow erupted. He kicked off the blast itself, launching high into the air.
"I was almost roasted!"
The pine tree behind him disappeared beneath another barrage.
BOOM!!
Wood exploded. The trunk shattered into hundreds of frozen splinters.
Zekai landed briefly upon another branch.
"...That was close."
The branch suddenly vibrated.
Every Alpha Wolfrezon looked upward. Blue light gathered again.
"...Again?!"
The first volley passed.
The second didn't.
BOOM!!
A blue beam clipped his left side.
"Gh—!"
The explosion hurled him through a snow-covered pine.
CRAAASH!!
The tree snapped in half.
Zekai rolled across the frozen ground before finally stopping.
His shirt had been burned open. A deep scorch stretched across his ribs.
Blood slowly stained the snow beneath him.
"...That..." He pushed himself up.
"...actually hurt."
A pale blue glow spread beneath the burned flesh.
The wound slowly began closing.
Not quickly. Not completely.
Just enough to stop the bleeding.
"...Frost Heal." Zekai looked down in surprise.
"So that's how it works."
He flexed his arm. The pain remained.
But the wound no longer slowed him.
"...So this is why the Snow Monarch gave me this."
"It wasn't just healing me..."
He clenched his restored hand into a fist.
"It was giving me another chance."
The Wolfrezons didn't wait. They attacked together.
Zekai kicked off the shattered snow, disappearing into the swirling white before the pack could lock onto him.
For a heartbeat, only drifting snow remained where he had stood.
The Wolfrezons searched wildly. They weren't panicking. They were waiting.
They moved with terrifying coordination.
Two lunged from the front while another swept in from his blind side.
The fourth burst upward from beneath the snow.
The moment Zekai descended—
Four massive claws struck together.
BOOOOM!!
The impact blasted him backward.
"...Ghk!"
A claw raked across his back. Another struck his shoulder.
A third barely missed his throat. His body crashed through another tree.
His breathing became uneven.
"...These... aren't acting like beasts."
"They're hunting exactly the way a trained military unit would."
Too late. A silver flash appeared above one monster.
SLASH!!
Null Drakular cleaved downward.
The Wolfrezon's chest split open.
Before the corpse hit the ground—
Zekai had already moved.
He stepped across another laser.
Used it as footing. Twisted. Spun.
A horizontal slash.
SHHHHK!!
Another neck separated.
Blood painted the white snow crimson.
The headless body staggered three more steps before crashing into the clearing, forcing the rest of the pack to scatter around the falling corpse.
The remaining Alpha Wolfrezons stopped.
They didn't charge blindly. They watched.
Their crimson eyes moved from the fallen corpses... back to Zekai.
Then—they spread apart.
"...They're..." Zekai frowned.
"...changing formation?"
Three wolves lunged together.
Zekai ducked beneath one claw.
Stepped over another.
Kicked off the third. His body spun.
Null Drakular became nothing more than silver light.
SLASH!
BOOM!!
He no longer fought with desperation.
Every step carried purpose. Every dodge flowed into a counter.
SLASH!
BOOM!!
Every swing ended a life.
The sword no longer felt heavy.
It felt... like an extension of his own body.
SLASH!
BOOM!!
One after another—gigantic bodies crashed into the frozen earth.
Within moments... half the pack already lay motionless across the snow.
Six Alpha Wolfrezons remained.
Yet none of them looked toward the fallen bodies.
Their eyes kept drifting toward the deepest part of the frozen forest.
As though... they were waiting for something stronger to arrive.
For the first time... their formation faltered.
Fear appeared inside their crimson eyes.
"...Now you understand."
Zekai slowly walked forward.
Each footstep left a deep print in the snow.
"I'm not prey."
One Wolfrezon roared desperately.
It charged. Another followed.
Then the rest.
The survivors no longer rushed him.
They widened the circle, pacing through the snow with measured steps, searching for another opening.
Yet Zekai was breathing heavily.
✦ End of Chapter 55 — The First Pack (Surrounded) ✦