Facing Wolves and Tigers

"Whoa!"

The riders reined in one after another. Sitting astride his horse, Marcus looked at the two men before him, yet felt no sense of superiority. Vampires had far better vision and senses at night than during the day, and he could clearly see the young man in front of him, handsome and striking in equal measure. His face was clean-shaven and neatly groomed, his shoulder-length black hair combed back, and he wore a finely tailored velvet jacket. His black eyes were calm.

The young man was tall and powerfully built, but the giant standing half a step behind him was even more massive, making the young man seem almost ordinary by comparison.

The giant's dark brown hair hung loose and still damp. His brow ridges jutted out, his eyes were deeply set, and thick whiskers covered his cheeks. He wore a loose linen shirt, open at the chest. His broad shoulders looked like a blacksmith's anvil, and his arms reached down to his knees, thick as ship's masts. Even on horseback, Marcus had the uneasy feeling that the giant was looking him straight in the eye.

"I'm James Howlett. I assume you're here for me." James broke the silence and spoke first. At his words, Marcus's party slowly rode forward, surrounding the two men.

"Mr. Howlett, since you—"

"Is this everyone? Are they all here?" James cut him off, glancing around at the dozen or so riders with pale faces and blood-red eyes.

"They're all here... What did you say?" Marcus answered instinctively, then grew increasingly uneasy. He tugged awkwardly at the reins. His horse tossed its head in pain and backed away several steps, stamping its hooves.

James suddenly turned to Victor, barely suppressing his excitement. "Split them half and half? Leave the fat one to me. These guys are hard to kill. Destroy their heads, and don't get bitten."

"Yeah, right! Who said I'd split them with you? May the better fighter win."

Victor bared his lips in a grin, revealing canine teeth that were a little too long. As he spoke, he slowly advanced. The surrounding riders exchanged glances.

The horses let out shrill whinnies. Victor sprang at a tall, lean rider beside Marcus and slapped the horse's head, smashing it to the ground. The vampire rider had no time to react before he was pinned beneath the horse. A huge foot crushed his breastbone. A mouthful of black blood rose into his throat, then he felt several iron spikes pierce his neck. The next instant, his vision spun and the world turned upside down.

Thud!

A fine head landed nearby, along with a string of dark red tissue. It rolled twice, its eyes still blinking.

Victor plunged both hands into the vampire's neck and strained with all his might, tearing the head free along with a blood-soaked length of spine tangled with veins and sinews.

In the blink of an eye, the vampire riders were still frozen in their saddles, staring at the giant whose arms and chest were spattered with black blood. He threw back his head and let out a savage shriek that sounded nothing like a human voice.

Curses and screams erupted in chaos. The vampires leapt from their horses and lunged, leaving afterimages in their wake. Some of them gradually blurred, merging with the night until they vanished from sight.

"Crude..." James muttered, meeting the vampire rushing toward him. It was so fast that, in an instant, its split, snarling mouth, foul saliva, and fangs were right in his face.

James didn't unsheathe his bone claws. He stepped in and drove a Pao Chui into the vampire's chest. The plentiful Anjin left a hole the size of a bowl. He retreated and twisted his hips, his arm whipping through the air with a series of sharp cracks. His Heng Quan smashed into the vampire's head, shattering everything above the cheekbones. The creature's body collapsed limply to the ground, its head split in two.

The fight descended into chaos. The vampires had assumed James looked more like an ordinary man than the giant, so most of them had gone for Victor. But this man, who seemed to possess an almost aristocratic elegance, was even more terrifying in action. His punches followed such strange trajectories that the vampires, accustomed to simply rushing in to bite, found themselves seeing something entirely new.

James tested the vampires' strength with his opening moves, then, once he had a sense of it, relaxed a little and began using the repulsive creatures for practice. He moved with ease among four or five vampires, stepping through Bagua Kun Step. With his grandmaster-level martial arts experience and Beast Perception, neither their ability to vanish nor their blinding speed could touch him.

He flowed through various forms, and whenever his fists and feet crossed, part of a vampire's body burst apart. Still, he took care not to strike their heads.

As he fought, James assessed the gap between himself and the vampires. These dark creatures, whose stench made him gag, were almost on par with him in basic physical abilities, and he was only one step away from reaching Huajin in his boxing. They were even faster than he was.

On top of that, they could vanish and create illusions, and their bodies healed quickly, making them difficult to kill. They were formidable opponents.

James had been in this world for more than a decade. He trained every day, and it was the combination of his grandmaster's knowledge and experience in martial arts and Wolverine's mutant abilities that had brought him to his current level. If there were hundreds or even thousands of vampires like these, or if they formed an army, they would be an incredibly frightening force.

Fortunately, aside from lunging and biting, they had no real fighting skills or teamwork. It was like watching a group of ordinary people fight: one was a professional fighter with superb technique, while the others were just street thugs throwing wild haymakers. Though he was outnumbered, the fight was really a one-sided slaughter.

Those with great strength often grew accustomed to the simplest way of winning: overpowering their opponents. They paid little attention to so-called technique.

Victor, on the other hand, wasn't doing so well. The fight was downright "brutal," but the Sabretooth seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. The vampires circled and darted around him, raking deep and shallow gashes across his body with their claws. They didn't dare lunge in to bite him, so they could only keep moving.

Victor was simply too strong, and his fighting style was too terrifying. Any vampire that rushed him was caught in the giant's powerful "tiger paw," and the next instant, the beastlike giant would tear its head apart with his bare hands. He didn't care about their attacks at all. He simply traded wounds for kills, and the pain only made Victor more excited.

Watching his companions being toyed with and slaughtered, Marcus had no intention of joining the fight. There was only one thought in his mind: Could they be another branch of our vampire kin?

The vampires fighting James and Victor began trying to flee. James sensed the shift in the battle and stopped holding back. Having figured out their movements and fighting instincts, he broke into Taiji Hammer Technique, perfectly suited for smashing heads. Ban Lan Chui, Pi Shen Chui, Pao Chui—his arms blurred as he smashed the nearby vampires to pieces. Then he darted toward Victor like an arrow and started snatching up the "heads."

"Get out of my way!"

Victor roared angrily at James. In his haste and fury, he used Beast Perception to catch a vampire lunging at him from behind. His tiger-shaped clawing strike punched through its back, but failed to destroy its brain right away. The vampire seized the opening and lunged in, biting his shoulder.

Roar!

Victor quickly swung his hand back and smashed its head, ignoring the bite on his shoulder. Four puncture wounds oozed black blood for a moment, then healed.

He crouched low, moving on all fours like a tiger, and sprang at the remaining vampires.

Marcus had completely lost the courage to stay. As a vampire, he hadn't feared death in over a hundred years. Even vampire hunters armed with silver weapons could only ambush and kill lone vampires. No human or creature had ever faced a group of vampires and fought through them so savagely. Apart from their progenitor, Adam, no being this powerful should exist in the world.

For a moment, he felt something close to sympathy. The humans vampires casually toyed with and slaughtered must have felt just as helpless and desperate as he did now.

Marcus's stallion had already been eager to flee this terrifying place. Without waiting for its master to urge it on, it wheeled around and bolted. But after only a few strides, Marcus saw that the castle gates had been firmly shut. He hurriedly looked around, then leapt from the horse with agility utterly at odds with his build and scrambled up the wall. Like a spider, he raced toward the main building.

James had kept the entire battle in the corner of his eye. He immediately stopped fighting and pursued Marcus.

The vampire was fleeing toward the study where O'Hara was hiding.