Chapter 13: Riddle

And here I am, in the third floor. Right now, I'm surrounded by a mountain from three sides. And there is only one way to go. Forward.

So, I guess I will go forward. I can see the sun light but no sun. While walking I see something coming towards me.

I think it is some kind of, I want to say lizards hopping toward me. Idiots. I start to infuse the ground around me with my mana and wait for them to enter my range. As they get closer, I see what they look like.

Five lizards with elongated limbs and, frankly they look like Komodo dragons with overgrown legs. And just as they enter the range of my mana, I will my mana to impale them. As I give my command, my mana takes a shape of spears and impale the lizards from beneath the ground.

That was easy. After taking care of the lizards, I continue to walk forward. I guess there are no other monsters for a while.

I come before four-way intersection with a pillar in the middle. And on the pillar, I see a tablet on it after walking forward for about ten minutes. I come before the pillar and take a look at the tablet. And for some reason there is a riddle written in English on it.

'When the moon is out, towards the night I howl

When the rabbits about, these forests I prowl

My cousins are angry, you might say they're sure

But you might tame me, if you have the right fire.'

Hmm. Riddle. I guess I will have to guess the answer and that answer will tell me which direction I am supposed to take. This is something new.

So, what is the answer? Howl, prowl. Hmm. What could it be? Think, think, think. Aah, wolf. Okay. Let's say that the answer is wolf. So, how does that tell me which direction to go?

Three direction. South, west and east. Ooh, I don't want to think. Alex did enough thinking for ten lifetimes. Easiest guess would be west, since west and wolf both start with w.

So, I guess west it is. I turn west and walk down that path. I suddenly get disoriented after walking down that path for about ten minutes and everything gets dark. After few seconds I get light again and see myself at the exact same beginning point when I first came to the third floor.

So, did I go the right way or not. I guess I will find out after going forward. I walk forward while waiting for the lizards, I see something I did not expect.

Grey wolf with a size of truck glaring at me down the road. So, I guess I was right about the riddle's answer, but wrong about the direction.

I can see the pillar behind the wolf. That means if I get the direction wrong, I will start from the beginning, just with more powerful enemy along my path. Got it.

After getting to that conclusion I continue to walk toward the wolf. It simply waits for me. As soon as I get into range it opens its mouth toward me and shoots icicle spear. I dodge it. It shoots another one, I dodge that too.

Seeing that its spears are useless, the wolf takes a deep breath and spews frost toward me from its mouth. As soon as I saw that, I do something of my own too. I take a deep breath too and spew fire toward the wolf.

Let's see which one got stronger lungs then. We spew frost and fire at each other for almost five minutes. And I'm running out of breath already. When my breath runs out, I will run out of oxygen and that will lower my flame's firepower.

In turn that will cause my flame to lose to the wolf's frost. So, before I ran out of breath, I start to pump mana into my fire breath. As always, my flame starts to change color after I pumped more mana into it. And as my flame's temperature and pressure increase, it starts to eat away at the wolf's frost breath.

This is exactly what I wanted. And just as my flame was about the devour the wolf, I feel something behind me. I see another wolf forming from frost behind me and pounce on me.

I beckon to Fenrir in my Soul Palace and as soon as he heard me, he jumps out of my shadow and tackles the clone. And as soon as I he tackles it, it shatters into million pieces of ice. Knew it. After getting rid of the clone Fenrir just stands next to me and observes the wolf on the other side.

And just as my flame devoured the wolf, I run out of breath and stops breathing fire with no other choice.

But the wolf stopped spewing frost too. After all the steam clears, I see it standing where it was before. But with slightly singed fur. First it looked majestic with its silver fur, but now it looks worse for the wear.

And before I jumped at the wolf, Fenrir runs up to the wolf and throws fire ball at it. The wolf spews another icicle spear at Fenrir's fireball and pounces on Fenrir too. Wonder what brought that on?

They crash into each other, but Fenrir manages to overpower the wolf and push it to the ground. And before the wolf get up, Fenrir lifts his right claw and swipes at the wolf, decapitating it in a split second.

The wolf disintegrates as it dies on the ground. After dispatching the wolf Fenrir turns toward me and jumps into my shadow and disappear.

This kid is getting better at fighting. And when he decapitated the wolf, I noticed something interesting. When he swiped his claw down on the wolf, I saw a dark energy covering his claws. But that is not the interesting part. What was interesting is that dark energy covering his claws where rotating and vibrating like my mana katana.

That means after observing my katana, Fenrir managed to copy its properties. So, that means his claws can cut like my mana katana or even cut better. His claws are part of his body yet much more sturdier that his flesh so, he can control the energy more efficiently and make it rotate and vibrate more.

And that means this kid is getting smarter too.

Okay, now that the obstacle is gone, I can reach the pillar and see the riddle to confirm my guess.

'When the moon is out, towards the night I howl

When the rabbits about, these forests I prowl

My cousins are angry, you might say they're sure

But you might tame me, if you have the right fire.'

Yup, still same. So, I did choose the wrong path. So, I need to think deep and find the right path to progress. I can go with process of elimination, but that will be much more troublesome that just solving the riddle.

So, answer is wolf. And what does wolf symbolize about directions?