Blood Battle

Bai Yi's expression was cold. His right hand gripped so hard that the stone axe's wooden handle gave off faint scraping sounds.

Ten pairs of ghostly green eyes flickered in the mist. The heavy breathing of ten gray wolves wove an airtight net around Bai Yi.

Outside the encirclement stood a wolf larger than the other gray wolves by a full size. It was the wolf king.

Sensing Bai Yi's gaze, the wolf king let out a low growl. In an instant, every gray wolf arched its back, ready to strike.

"Steel Spine Will, activate!"

[Steel Spine Will activated. Sanity -99. Current Sanity: 1/100. Received a 3x boost.]

[Warning! Your Sanity is below 10. You have fallen into permanent madness. You have fallen into cognitive distortion.]

[Exempted.]

Bai Yi showed no restraint and directly depleted all his Sanity.

The instant the sound of metal scraping erupted from his spine, searing pain clung to his bones. But Bai Yi forcibly suppressed it with his will.

[Strength: 9.3/3.1, Constitution: 9.3/3.1]

After glancing at his status panel, Bai Yi moved.

He shot toward the wolf king like an arrow loosed from a bow. At the front of the wolves' encirclement, a gray wolf lunged straight at him. Bai Yi could even see the little tongue trembling in its throat.

A burst of muzzle flash bloomed orange in the mist. The bullet passed through the gray wolf's mouth, blasting a huge hole through its head.

[Shepherd's Mercy (Damaged), Durability: 3/5]

After doing all that, Bai Yi did not pause. He ducked low and rolled.

Five sets of claws swept past his scalp, splattering foul wolf blood across the back of his neck. Using the momentum of his roll, he hurled the stone axe into the eye socket of an attacker at his side.

"Awoo—"

The wolf king moved. Instead of charging Bai Yi head-on, it began to circle around, its massive body nimbly concealing itself in Bai Yi's blind spot.

By then, Bai Yi had already pulled out the axe and swung it backhandedly at another gray wolf. The immense force made the axe howl through the air as it cleaved straight for the wolf's spine.

"Crack!"

Accompanied by a crisp snap of breaking bone, the entire axe buried itself deep inside, leaving only the handle exposed.

The instant blood spurted out, Bai Yi felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. A gray wolf had bitten through his flesh, its fangs caught on his collarbone with a teeth-grinding creak.

Bai Yi's pupils suddenly contracted.

He assessed the situation at once. Pointing backward with his left hand, he rammed the gun barrel hard against the wolf's teeth. The instant metal and fangs struck sparks, he pulled the trigger.

[Shepherd's Mercy (Damaged), Durability: 2/5]

The wolf's head exploded into a bloody mist from within. Bai Yi's left wrist was also dislocated by the recoil due to his improper firing posture.

He staggered into a tree trunk, and branches sliced three bloody gashes into his right leg.

The wolf king seized the opportunity and lunged from the shadows. Bai Yi was at his most vulnerable: the stone axe was still lodged in a wolf corpse beside him, his left wrist was dislocated, and his arm hung limply at his side.

In that critical moment, Bai Yi could only raise his left arm to block.

The wolf king clamped down on Bai Yi's left arm, its massive body pinning him against the tree and leaving him unable to move.

At the same time, the wolf king pressed its front paws against Bai Yi's chest. Its sharp claws had already pierced his flesh, and as it slowly exerted force, they carved three enormous wounds across him.

Bai Yi gritted his teeth. He released his left hand, caught the revolver with his right in midair, aimed, and fired.

Blood sprayed out. The pressure on Bai Yi's body eased, and he finally had a chance to catch his breath.

[Shepherd's Mercy (Damaged), Durability: 1/5]

That shot had only broken one of the wolf king's front legs. Its timely dodge had saved its life.

The wolves' assault stalled. The wolf king was licking the wound on its forelimb, while the other gray wolves began growling at one another under the stimulation of the blood scent.

There are six wolves left. The gun can fire one last time. Unless it's absolutely necessary, I can't let my only weapon break.

Bai Yi knew this was his last chance. Enduring the pain, he braced his dislocated wrist against the tree trunk and pressed down with all his weight.

The crisp sound of the joint snapping back into place was drowned out by wolf howls. He charged at the wolf king, pulling out the axe as he passed it.

Kill the wolf king, and the other gray wolves should scatter.

The wolf king's amber eye reflected a cold gleam. The instant its hind legs pushed off the ground, Bai Yi suddenly threw the axe into the middle of the pack. As five gray wolves instinctively dodged the weapon's landing point, Bai Yi's right hand had already gripped the journal at his waist.

The leather cover smashed hard into the wolf king's snout, and the beast let out a miserable howl. Bai Yi seized the chance to leap onto its back, clamping his legs tightly around its ribs.

The wolf king twisted and turned, trying to throw Bai Yi off. When it realized Bai Yi would not come down no matter what, it slammed viciously toward a tree trunk.

Crack!

At the last moment, Bai Yi rolled sideways, and the wolf king's head smashed into the trunk, caving in.

He pounced on it and looped the journal around its neck, using all his strength until he heard the crisp snap of its cervical vertebrae breaking.

The wolf king was dead!

Bai Yi rose to his feet and faced the remaining wolf pack head-on.

The howls of the five gray wolves turned into whimpers. With their tails tucked, they began backing away slowly.

[Remaining talent effect duration: 7 minutes 17 seconds]

Bai Yi's clothes had become strips of rags. The bite wound on his left shoulder exposed stark white bone. His left arm had been bitten through by the wolf king's fangs, his wrist was swollen and purple, and the claw marks on his chest continued to bleed. He holstered the revolver at his waist.

But when the remaining five gray wolves stopped retreating and charged again, the blood-soaked man smiled instead.

His metal spine vibrated at high frequency, and Bai Yi's speed surged again. He slid forward, dodging their attack while reaching the axe.

Bai Yi pulled out the stone axe with his right hand and charged once more.

The stone axe came down with all his strength. Massive momentum combined with the impact, embedding the axe deep into a gray wolf's skull. As Bai Yi twisted his body to the right, he gripped the axe and spun the wolf around with it, sweeping the other gray wolves away.

Then he yanked hard, pulling the axe back into his hand. With a sharp turn, he charged toward the gray wolf behind and to his left while hurling the journal hard with his left hand.

The gray wolf instinctively leaped backward, but Bai Yi was already beside it. While it hung in the air with nowhere to brace itself, Bai Yi's axe descended again like Death's scythe.

One swing severed its head!

The second gray wolf's neck was more than half cleaved through. Bai Yi had no time to pull back the axe. Instead, he rolled aside to evade the third gray wolf's attack, arriving at the second wolf's right side.

He grabbed the axe handle backhandedly and pulled it free, then drove it into the third gray wolf's neck in the same motion. Three gray wolves fell.

The final two gray wolves finally realized that what stood before them was not prey waiting to be slaughtered, but a brutal hunter. They turned and fled.

[Remaining talent effect duration: 6 minutes 13 seconds]

Bai Yi had no time to rest. Night was already falling, and he had to return to the shelter as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, the talent had not ended yet. Bai Yi dragged away every wolf corpse he could manage. The ones he could not move had to be left here for now; he would come back for them if he had the chance. Hopefully, the bodies would still be there then.

He staggered to the shelter door, opened it, and dragged all the spoils inside.

The shelter filled with the stench of blood, but Bai Yi had no time to care about that.

[Steel Spine Will effect ended. Sanity restored: 100/100.]

Bai Yi fell to his knees in a pool of blood, and more than twenty wounds across his body began seeping blood at once.

Supporting himself with the stone axe, he trembled his way to the table. The discarded journal had reappeared on it.

Pain constantly surged through his body, but it did not affect him. Compared to the pain brought by his talent, this was nothing.

[Bai Yi: Excessive blood loss]

Bai Yi felt his body growing weak, while warmth spread all over him.

He knew it was because he had lost too much blood, but he had no medical supplies on him. He could only check the plaza to see if anyone sold medicine.

At that thought, he suddenly remembered that the wood and stone he had gotten from today's draw were still sitting by the Wishing Well. Earlier, he had only brought in the lighter and the stone pickaxe blueprint.

Bai Yi looked at the strips of cloth on his body and decided to use what he had on hand to stop the bleeding first.

Starting with the puncture wound in his left shoulder, Bai Yi found a larger piece of cloth and put it in his mouth. Then he picked up the longest strip, straightened it, wrapped it around his fingers, and forcefully stuffed it into the deepest part of the wound.

"Nnngh—"

A low roar echoed through the dilapidated cabin.

It was not that Bai Yi had masochistic tendencies. The wound was simply too deep, so the blood would not flow out in great amounts but would instead seep into the cavities within his body. Packing the wound with cloth could block those cavities and prevent blood from flowing inside.

After tightly packing the wound in his left shoulder, Bai Yi treated the wolf king's bite wound on his left arm the same way.

Afterward, he caught his breath and began treating his other wounds. The rest were minor, and he only performed simple hemostasis.

As for the three wounds on his chest, Bai Yi could do nothing for the moment. First, they were too deep, with flesh already turned outward, and needed stitches. Second, he did not have enough cloth strips for bandages. He could only leave them for now.

After the rudimentary treatment, Bai Yi glanced at the sky outside. There was only a final sliver of daylight left. He struggled to his feet, walked out of the shelter, and shut the door behind him.

By the Wishing Well, Bai Yi laboriously lifted three units of stone. There was already wood stored in the shelter, so he did not need to carry any more.

Any resources I gather in the future have to go into the storage box immediately.

Bai Yi muttered to himself.

There was no helping it. No matter how cautious a person was, there were always limits to what they could notice. Who knew where they might slip up?

Just as Bai Yi was about to head back, he suddenly heard rustling from deep within the distant mist, like the slick sound of something swallowing as it drew closer.

His expression changed, and he immediately ran toward the shelter.

At the same time, the thing in the mist revealed itself. It was the Rotting Corpse Bai Yi had seen on the forum. Its speed was completely unlike the zombies in movies—it was so agile it was nearly as fast as Bolt.

[You saw a Rotting Corpse. Sanity -5.]

The Rotting Corpse had followed Bai Yi's blood and wolf blood all the way here!