3 The Lion vs. The Wolf (1)
At that moment every one of Alexander's instincts were screaming at him:
[DEATH] [DEATH] [DEATH] [DEATH]
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However, as if unconsciously triggering something inside his brain... Alexander's vital signs stabilized... His breathing was now controlled and his pulse was steady...
He gave the impression that every move that he was going to make, was the right one.
When he was like this, his body performed beyond its limits, giving him access to additional strength, speed and the sharpest senses a human could achieve naturally.
To the common soldier, this looked like some kind of blessing or divine power. It was one of the many reasons his people followed him... And parallelly, it was also the main reason he would be called a 'bloodthirsty fiend'. It depended on the perspective of the spectator of said state.
They felt instinctively drawn to his power of both the body and the mind...
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If one could give an accurate denomination for this state, it would probably be: 'Battle Mode'.
This 'Battle Mode', however, wasn't unusual in Alexander...
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In every battle or emergency, he became coolheaded and coldblooded. Nothing would break his focus. Only victory would be able to take him out of this state.
Losing one's rationality by panicking, by falling victim to fear, meant certain death in this type of situation.
Any lesser man would probably be dead by now...
But then, what was this 'state'?
What made Alexander capable of beating such impossible odds?
Was it a power of the Gods... a secret bloodline... or pure and simple luck...?
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Well, it wasn't any of that...
That was the state Alexander achieved when he conquered fear. When he became the master of his own life.
In other words... It was the physical manifestation of his unbreakable will... Of his dream... Of his very soul...
Once he was able to do it... to alter reality...
Even if only on a personal scale...
Even if he didn't do it consciously...
At that moment, he stopped being simply... Alexander...
He became... Megas Alexandros...
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What the activating of 'Battle Mode' right now meant, was that at a subconscious level, -maybe even conscious- his indomitable will had regained its original fire...
He was back...
Simply because he didn't have the luxury of doubting himself when in the face of death. His instincts reminded him of that fact.
He just couldn't...
Give up? Accept his death?
He had experienced death already...
He didn't want to go back to that silence...
He wasn't the kind of man to do that...
He's the kind of man that will spit on death's face and laugh about it while having a drink...
He wanted to gut the beast right in front of him and take its head as a trophy...
The rest would come after that...
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Alexander quickly took a step back. He predicted the beast would go for the bite.
And so it did.
The wolf thrashed forward with the enormous and sharp blades it had as teeth. It wanted Alexander's head.
But the young king managed to dodge.
Just as Alexander was about to counterattack, he was taken by surprise by a pouncing claw.
Focusing on the monster's head, one of the paws managed to get the best of his reflexes. Or barely.
Alexander did a double maneuver of kicking the nose of the wolf monster with all his strength, whilst getting the upper part of his body away from the knife-like claws.
That kick was strong enough to stun that monstrous creature momentarily. As it was a common weak point for canids, he took a risk and fortunately it had worked.
However, Alexander himself ended up with the shorter side of the stick. True, he did manage to barely evade the wolf's left paw attack, but in the 'barely' resided the fact of his right shoulder receiving a 1 cm-deep cut...
He had a serious hemorrhage going on, but still, without hesitation and relying on the adrenaline running throughout his body, he made his next move.
He took a handful of dirt that was wet from the morning dew and used it to cover his wound to try and stop the bleeding a bit.
Immediately after, and before the wolf could regain its senses, Alexander closed in again on it and threw as strong a punch as he could manage, using his left hand obviously.
The punch was directed towards the wolf's right eye and having his physical stats enhanced by Battle Mode, that punch was enough to critically damage it. He left it effectively useless.
***OOOwhhhOOooo***
This time it sounded more like a whine than a war cry...
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This would be the kind of situation when a cringy one-liner would be due. But Alexander was fighting for his life, not showing off to a crowd of tasteless women...
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With that howl-whine acting as his cue, Alexander gave a diagonal roll towards the left side.
Taking advantage of the opening he created crushing the wolf's left eye, he firmly grabbed his dagger, and in a horizontal slashing motion, successfully took it out of the beast's body.
All of that... was only to recover his dagger, without dying...
With the slashing, he just bought himself more time -again-. The wolf fell but looked like it was going to get up fast.
There was now blood everywhere, including on Alexander himself.
While the completely berserk wolf picked itself off the ground, Alexander used his master move...
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He made a run for it with the speed of a gazelle...
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