Episode 15 : The Wolf King of Dogtooth Mountain - Part 1

"Gah!"

 Guin's mouth unknowingly let out a tremendous cry.

 At exactly the same time, the first of the wolves came flying through the air, biting its fangs ferociously and spitting out its fiery tongue.

"Whoa!"

"Gawl!"

 The wolf's roar and Guin's intersected for a moment. The next moment - the two beasts collide in midair.

 The loneliest, the most desolate, the most remote Nosferus.

 To the east of it, in the distance, stands Gutoushan Dzughetsdo, based on the eastern range of mountains that extend into the Canaan Mountains.

 It is not in the realm of human knowledge, nor has it ever been, nor has it ever been according to the order of the human world in any way.

 The Semites have never called Mount Gutou their territory, nor have they ever wished to do so. It was not a man's territory, but a beast's, or rather, the territory of the gods, the rulers and transcendents of the beasts, who had sent their guards there as a sign of their sacredness and inviolability.

 A black, towering, mute crag--

 Iwa Mokudoki, the desert wolf, the strong wind and the brutal climb without a good road, hunger and fatigue, and more than all of these, the absolute and overwhelming loneliness and helplessness that stand in front of him - knowing that, he dares to overcome these extremely difficult obstacles and to aim for the end. One man, knowing this, overcomes all these obstacles and aims to reach the end, and is now challenging the rocks.

 In the face of such a reckless, foolish, and pathetic outburst, Gou Toushan had already put it to the first test.

 Desert wolf!

 They are the bizarre and legendary beasts that inhabit the highlands of Nosferus. Originally, as their name implies, they were desert dwellers, running in packs through the sands of Nosferus like a white and ferocious mirage, terrorizing not only the Semites, but also the realms of the Id, the Glutton, the Sandworm and the Hill. Reliefs found in the very old eastern ruins often depicted hundreds of desert wolves running through the desert with their thick legs protected by soft hair, running softly and briskly through the sand. If we are to believe the coloration, the desert wolves of those days were all pure white, from the bristling head to the tip of the tail, and this provided the perfect protective color on the white sands of Nosferus.

 But... the desert wolves were literally the champions of the desert, the emperors of Nosferus, when Canaan was still a civilized city with an ancient kingdom in the center of the desert, and the Middle Plains were nothing but a jungle where hairy barbarians ran about. It was a long time ago.

 After that, the Imperial City of Canaan became an abandoned city buried in the sand, and furthermore, it became a distant city whose location was lost somewhere in the Canaan Mountains, and then, due to a gigantic cataclysm that no one knew the cause of, almost the entire area of Nosferus, east and north of Mt. At that time...

 Perhaps it was the same cause that made Nosferus a land of death, that drove the desert wolves out of the desert - the vast desert that had been their empire.

 One of the strangest legends of those days is this. One night, a part of the sky suddenly split open and death filled the earth. Around that time, the wolves and other creatures of Nosferus abandoned their homeland and began to move westward, and the desert was filled with beasts running madly. The beasts ran without paying any attention to each other, neither to those who were chasing them nor to those who were being chased. And in Nosferus, which had become uninhabited and uninhabitable, new and strange life, including the Ido, appeared from somewhere with a selfish look on their faces.

 Although there was no way to determine the truth of the legend, the only thing that was certain was that at some point in time, the desert wolves moved to the rocky mountainous area centered on the Guto Mountains and gradually adapted to the area.

 Their pure white fur, which is the perfect protective color in the desert but attracts enemies in the midst of black rocks, became a dark gray over time. Their body hair, which was not very long to begin with, became quite long and bushy after several generations in the high mountains with low temperatures.

 The only thing that could not be changed was their ferocious and vicious nature, and their gregarious habits, in which they formed packs to attack their enemies. Even the Semites, who shared their abode with all kinds of strange and aggressive creatures, such as the id and the sandworm, recognized these wolves as the most fearsome beasts of Nosferus. For the Semites who live near the rocks, fighting the desert wolf and taking its pelt is a quick way to make a name for themselves as extraordinary heroes, like Iraceli, the chief of the Gros.

 Having lost his horse, his food, and even his beloved warrior's greatsword to a sandstorm, Guin encounters a horde of such beasts at night in the mountains of Gutou.

 In the darkness, hundreds of pairs of eyes glittering in the shadows of rocks are gradually closing in on each other, little by little.

 One of the first to attack, after a brief struggle, was struck by Guin's dagger in the head,

"Caan!"

 And then, with a single, sorrowful cry of despair, he was slammed against the rock.

 As soon as they saw this, some of the animals around them snapped their fangs at them and began to fight each other for the carcasses of their comrades. They all looked as if they were on the verge of starvation in this harsh and desolate rocky mountain.

 In the meantime, as their comrades flew away, the hordes of them all began to fly at Guin. Immediately, a roar of great menace and anger filled the air. The sound of gnashing jaws and the stench of the beast was pressing down on Guin.

 Guin suddenly shifted his dagger quickly to his left hand. The next one came rushing for his throat at the same time that Guin's right hand was held out in a fist.

 His fist smashes the wolf's snout, sending it screaming into the air. Without even looking at him, Guin, with his back against the rock, swipes his dagger to the left and kicks the attacker with his right leg as hard as he can.

 It was a fluttering movement, as if his huge body was dancing. To Guin, both hands and both legs were nothing but deadly weapons with the same power.

 Now the wolves are coming after him, like ants after butterflies, and they are coming at Guin. Guin, without even a flinch, gives him a tremendous kick to the hot, gaping mouth, punches him in the eye with a dagger slippery with the blood of the beast, and delivers an explosive counter-punch to the one who comes running at him.

 Neither the seemingly endless number of dark demons, nor their hideous, ear-splitting mouths, nor the foul smell of blood and beast, nor the blood- and fur-soaked screams of the screamers at his feet could make Guin flinch even a little. Rather, all human reason, enlightenment, and even emotion had already vanished from his mind.

 He was nothing but one giant beast of prey. A fierce Leopard, its fur dyed in blood, its fangs drenched in wolf's blood and brain plasma. His strong limbs knew neither fatigue nor weakness, and, fueled by the relentless vitality and destructive lust of the wild, the spirit of nature alone, he howled and howled, biting down with the fury of a champion the filthy hyenas and marauders who dared to ravage the King of Beasts. He bit them, cut them, and splashed them.

 If Linda or Remus had been here, they would have seen a giant beast of destruction and death, even more terrible and frenzied than the one that had appeared at the Fountain of Ludes and had wiped out a platoon of Black Knights all by itself, and they would have slumped down in fear and trembling, wondering if it was their guardian god they knew. And they would have slumped down. It was not a man. Even if it had taken the form of a man from the neck down, it could not have been a man, this blood-stained creature that roared wildly at the throats of its enemies. If it had been a man, no matter how skilled and how well-trained the warrior within the warrior, it would have been impossible for him to hold out even against half these wolves for half this time.

 There was nothing but a Leopard - a huge, bloodthirsty beast of prey. He even enjoyed fighting - his red-hot eyes, his bloodshot and sometimes fang-licking mouth, his agile, strong and easy gait, all showed it. He was unmistakably the same kind of wolf that had come for him, to ravage him, to pull him down, to slaughter him, and to feed on his flesh and blood. And the wolves knew it. This was not a tragic battle of fate between man and beast. This was a struggle between beast and beast, based on the sacred and inviolable law of the law of the weak and the strong, a blind battle between wildness and wildness, in which neither mercy nor pity could enter.

"Gwah!"

 Guin barked. At the same time, from his blood-stained hands, he threw away with gusto the remains of the dagger that had snapped off when he had struck the giant of the pack.

 Quickly, taking care not to lose the advantage of the rocks behind him, he dodged the ones who jumped at him, grabbed their tails, grasped their thick tails in both hands as if they were clubs, and swung them from side to side. Some of them are hit by the bodies of their comrades and are blown away into the darkness.

 At that moment, a short, angry bark came out of Guin's mouth.

 Taking advantage of the opportunity, one of them crawled from behind onto the rock that Guin was standing on, and suddenly jumped off the rock and landed squarely on Guin's left shoulder!

"Gwaaaaah! Walloo!"

 Guin barked again. Raising his arm, he threw the carcass of the one he was grabbing at the one coming at him from in front, and grabbed its jaw with his right hand and tried to pull it off. As he throws the carcass at the one coming from in front of him, he grabs its jaw with his right hand and tries to pull it off. As it raises its fangs more and more in an attempt not to be released, he counters by tightening his muscles, wrapping his left arm around its neck and pushing its jaw upward with his right hand.

 With a strange cracking sound, the fangs lost their power, and the wolf, its neck snapped, fell to the ground with its head twisted slackly on its back.

 But by that time the next one had already taken over this new advantage and was about to leap over Guin's head from the rock. The champion, who had lowered himself to the ground and slammed him down between the rock and the ground, looked around emotionlessly with his binoculars, which were glowing red.

 The smell of blood on the wind, the roar of his kind and the scream of his despair became a call, announcing to all sides the terrible battle that was being waged there. The number of wolves he had killed or rendered incapacitated must have been no small number, and yet the pack of wolves surrounding him, their heads low and eyes glaring, ready to attack him one after the other, showed no sign of abating.

 On the contrary, the hundreds of pairs of eyes, like stars of hell burning brightly in the darkness, seem to have increased in number the more they are cut, like ghouls in a frontier zone.