Chapter 24 - Pack extermination (1).

Walking alongside the tracks, Bilal was doubtful as he had walked quite a considerable amount of distance already but no cave/shelter came into his view. His legs started tottering so he took the support of a nearby tree and sat slowly on a nearby log to catch his breath. Unsure of his progress he asked the System:

"System, how much distance have I walked already?"

[From the previous location, Host has travelled 11.6 kilometres/ 7.2 miles in 25 minutes.]

"Woah" he murmured and pondered for how much distance does he have to walk more. Getting up from the log he started walking again because he knew, he couldn't find the location with just thinking about it.

Looking up to the sky he saw that even the orange sun has almost faded and strangely there is no clear presence of any moon nor any other celestial body in the sky. Although clearly suspicious about that, he brushed off those thoughts because that shouldn't be his concern right now, finding shelter was.

Taking larger strides and slight jogging he started putting more efforts in it, and his efforts didn't go to waste too as after a few more minutes of continuous jogging, he saw a Moss filled rocky structure sitting solitary in the middle of his path. Concluding that it's most likely the wolves' den, he thought of checking for the heat signatures of any living being inside, but quite, unfortunately, he didn't even have the time to confirm before several shadows started spurring out of the cave entrance and stood there like sentinel guards protecting the area.

They were quite fast in their movements but yet not a single bit with comparison to the 3 big elites he encountered a while ago, they were not at all concerned about stealth as they came howling loudly, they lurked outside of the entrance seemingly protecting it from Bilal. They were glaring and growling while looking at him via their glow in the dark eyes.

If there was someone else he would've started running the very moment he saw that action, but to their misfortune, Bilal wasn't the same person that he was an hour ago. He knew to turn around and showing you're exposed back towards a beast is no different than hitting their foot with a sharpened axe. Especially with the pack and vicious animals like wolves and hyenas.

Responding to their deadly glares with a slight frown as he unsheathed his shamshir and stood in a causal sword fighting stance neither too tense nor too loose. Seeing this as a provocation they very soon jumped onto him fantasising to hound Bilal to death, while not analysing and scaling him much, they were on the level of absolute beginners nowhere near the level of the hunting team.

'They must be the guards of the Den' he concluded and waited patiently.

Surely according to his not-so-long-ago memory, he concluded their size was roughly the same but they had no teamwork and had almost non-existent battle experience. Their claws and fur didn't seem that thick and sturdy either as in comparison to before.

These following reasons became their heralds in their doom and the reason for an easy fight for Bilal, which then ended with a bloody massacre, each connected strike and consecutive dodge resulted in felling of more and more wolves, just within a short period of 5-10 minutes all those wolves got swept clean and were taken care of very easily.

The area looked like a battle ridden ground from afar very much filled with blood oozing and slightly twitching corpses of wolves. Some were mangled, some were beheaded cleanly and some were penetrated throughout.

He killed them all without even a literal scratch on his body through his biker jacket had quite some cuts on the back region, it still was acceptable as it was made by reinforced cloth.

'No wonder he said slash and dodge works best on the beast and fools' Bilal recalled from the Swordsman module, he was really eager to know what would the Intermediate and Advanced level of Swordsman module would contain.

A simple beginners module made him such an expert, he was wondering whether he would transform into a god of war after absorbing the knowledge of the expert module.

He didn't let his glee become his demise and took some deep breaths and asked the System "Scan the cave and list the number of wolves inside"

[Scanning….. 30%... 67%...complete]

[13 heat signatures detected]

[Lifeforms identified: Wolves]

[10 Adult wolves, 5 Wolf pups]

Taking the numbers on the note while standing at the entrance, he decisively entered the dark cave.

With the help of System's night vision function, he navigated properly in that low light area and avoided deep trenches connecting to the deeper levels located at the range of a few meters inside that cavern, welcoming him at a nearby stalagmite roof pass were 5 more wolves, appearing to be specifically waiting for him.

Killing them was very efficient and didn't consume much of his time either, finishing them quickly he arrived at the main den entrance where three more wolves got intercepted by him.

Only two were remaining, he planned on killing them both and find a suitable corner to rest.

Fortunately, they too were inside the main den, sparing him the astonishing efforts required to find them separately in the maze filled cave within almost negligible surprise he slew them too.

And lastly he encountered those wolf pups as well, their fur was a light shade of grey with hazel eyes and cute little fangs, they would've been a sensation, super-rich Arab sheikhs would've spent a hell lot of money just to add them to their personal collection, girls would have gone crazy after them, now he was absolutely sure this place isn't earth, Earth didn't have this hell lot of dangerous and intelligent and cute wolves.

They extinguished the killing intent he had towards them too, but he knew he had to kill them the Hunter-Gatherer module strictly prohibits this behaviour and marks it as foolishness.