From Trash Rank to Untouchable

7

The Alpha was huge, far bigger than anything Eric’s mind could accept. It had to be 6’4’’ if not more, and its eyes were red.

Lightning wrapped around its body like a living cloak, snapping and crawling through its thick black fur. A single black horn jutted from its forehead, jagged and crackling with power.

Then it howled.

The sound wasn’t just loud, it was violent.

The dungeon walls shattered outward. Crystals burst. Stone ripped free. The shockwave picked Eric up like he weighed nothing and threw him.

He flew like a rag doll.

Instinct was the only thing that saved him. He curled around the vial and arrow, crushing them against his chest as he slammed into the ground and rolled hard.

Pain detonated through his body and something tore. Something cracked.

He didn’t know what but everything hurt.

He lay there gasping, the world ringing. He could feel wet warmth slid down his face and he wiped it with shaking fingers.

Blood.

His ears were bleeding. His chest burned as he coughed, and when he spat, red splattered the stone.

He laughed weakly.

This had to be a dream.

Any second now he would wake up in his run-down home, staring at the cracked ceiling, breathing in dust and regret. He would never take another dungeon job. Never follow an A-rank into hell.

Never again.

That’s if he survives.

Another thunderous crack snapped him back and Eric turned his head.

Regan had only been pushed back a few meters.

That was all.

The Alpha loomed over him, lightning slamming into the floor, but Regan was already moving, blade drawn with flames, stance low, eyes sharp despite the blood streaking down his arm.

“Eric!” Regan shouted. “You have one job! Do it properly and stop being a deadbeat!”

The words hit harder than the wolf’s howl.

Then Regan charged.

The Alpha vanished.

Reappeared behind him.

Regan twisted just in time but lightning slammed into his blade, the impact throwing him sideways. He skidded across stone, boots screaming, but he didn’t fall.

The wolf struck again, too fast to track, claws tearing through air, stone, and lightning alike. Regan ducked one swipe, took another across the ribs. Blood sprayed and he grunted but stayed upright, slashing back.

His flame sword met fur.

The Alpha retaliated instantly.

Lightning burst from its horn, tearing through the space between them. Regan leapt, rolled, barely avoiding having his legs blown apart. The dungeon shook with every exchange.

Eric watched it all, frozen.

He could see Regan was barely holding it back.

Regan’s movements were slowing. Blood dripped from his fingers. His breathing was heavy now, ragged. The Alpha wasn’t even wounded yet. It was playing with him, testing him, building pressure.

And Eric was doing nothing.

His fingers twitched around the vial.

I’m the one holding him back.

The thought crushed him.

He forced himself to move.

Pain screamed in protest as he pushed up onto one elbow. His vision swam and the world tilted. He almost blacked out, but he clenched his teeth and stayed conscious.

Regan was sent flying again, smashing into a pillar hard enough to crack it. He barely rolled away before lightning obliterated the stone where his head had been.

“Eric!” Regan roared again, fury edging into desperation.

The Alpha raised its horn.

Lightning gathered, too much and too bright.

This one would definitely kill Regan.

Eric’s hands shook violently as he popped the vial open. Wolfsbane sloshed dangerously. He fumbled the brush, nearly dropping it as his chest seized with another bloody cough.

Move. Move. Move.

He dragged the brush through the liquid and smeared it onto the arrowhead. His vision blurred and the smell burned his nose.

His hands were so unsteady he smeared it unevenly, sloppily.

But it didn’t matter.

It just had to work.

The Alpha fired.

Regan threw himself forward, lightning tearing across his back. He screamed, actually screamed, as he hit the ground, smoke rising from his armor. He didn’t get back up.

Eric’s heart stopped.

“No, no, no, no"

He didn’t aim.

He couldn’t.

Eric screamed as he forced himself upright, terror screaming through every nerve in his body and he threw the arrow with everything he had left.

“REGAN!”

The arrow spun wildly through the air and the wolf turned.

The arrow struck the stone floor, skidding to a stop only a short distance from Regan’s unconscious body but Regan didn’t move.

Eric stared at him, his mind refusing to accept what his eyes were seeing. No breath, no twitch. Nothing.

I’m too late.

The thought hollowed him out.

He wanted Regan to move. To cough. To swear. To do anything. But the dungeon stayed cruelly silent, until the Alpha shifted its attention.

Red eyes locked onto Eric and the pressure hit him instantly.

His body betrayed him completely.

Warmth spread down his legs as terror overwhelmed whatever dignity he had left. His knees buckled, stone biting into them as he collapsed. The vial slipped from his fingers and rolled away.

He couldn’t move.

Couldn’t think.

Couldn’t scream.

The wolf began to walk toward him menacingly slow, like it was mocking him.

Each step echoed like a countdown and lightning crawled lazily along its horn, dimmer now, restrained, as if it didn’t even need power to kill something this small.

An ant.

That was what Eric was.

The Alpha lowered its massive head, breath washing over him in hot, rotten waves. Its jaws opened, wide enough to swallow him whole. Eric shut his eyes, tears spilling freely as his sister’s image flashed in his mind.

I don’t want to die.

Something shifted behind the beast.

The Alpha froze.

A faint scrape of steel against stone.

The wolf turned its head slightly, confused.

Behind it, standing where he shouldn’t have been, was Regan.

Blood soaked his clothes, one arm hung uselessly at his side. His face was pale, cracked with pain, but his eyes were sharp, alive, and burning.

He held his sword pointed straight at the Alpha’s chest.

The wolf huffed, almost amused, red eyes narrowing. Disbelief flickered across its monstrous features. This human should have been broken. Dead.

Regan stepped forward.

One step.

Another.

The Alpha didn’t move.

That was its mistake.

It saw Regan as nothing.

Too injured and too slow and its guard dropped.

Regan’s right hand stayed hidden behind his back. His left kept the blade steady despite the tremor in his muscles. He closed the distance calmly like a man already past fear.

Lightning crackled weakly along the horn, but the Alpha didn’t raise it in time.

Then Regan moved.

He lunged, not at the chest, but low.

His boot slammed into the arrow on the ground, kicking it upward.

The Alpha realized too late.

Regan caught the arrow mid-air with his hidden hand and drove it forward, plunging it straight into the beast’s chest beneath the ribline.

The Alpha let out a roar that shook the entire chamber.

It felt the wolfsbane burning through its flesh, eating into it from the inside. Then the flames followed, tearing through muscle and mana alike.

Not a howl.

A shriek.

Lightning erupted violently from its horn, firing wildly in all directions, tearing chunks from the dungeon walls, stone exploding outward.

Regan was thrown back, his body slamming hard against the wall. Pain ripped through him, but he refused to let go. Flames surged harder around his blade as he forced more power out of his battered body.

Eric was sent flying as well. His body crashed across the stone floor, vision blurring as the world spun. At this point, it was only his will not to die that kept him conscious.

The wolfsbane spread fast.

The flames spread faster.

Regan finally let go.

Black and red veins crawled across the Alpha’s chest, branching outward like corruption taking root. They ate through muscle, devoured mana, and snuffed out lightning itself. The horn split down the middle with a sharp crack, sparks flickering weakly before dying into nothing.

The Alpha staggered.

Its massive body crashed to the ground, shaking the floor, yet it still tried to rise. Claws scraped uselessly against stone as it struggled, breath coming out in broken, ragged bursts.

Regan forced himself up, every movement sending agony through his body. Blood dripped from his mouth as he sucked in a painful breath.

“One… mistake,” he rasped.

He raised his sword with both hands, arms trembling under the weight of exhaustion and injury.

And brought it down.

The blade drove straight through the Alpha’s skull.

The body convulsed once, then went completely still.

Silence fell over the dungeon.

Eric stared.

Regan stood among green-colored blood, broken stone, and a dead Alpha, barely breathing, barely standing. Flames flickered weakly around his blade before fading out completely.

And yet his eyes were locked straight on Eric.

“You had one job!” Regan barked, pain tearing through his voice as his body trembled, “and you almost got me killed, you slowpoke!”

Eric had nothing to say, and his shoulders slumped as he lowered his gaze in guilt.

Regan sneered and dragged himself closer, boots scraping against the stone.

“There’s a reason I didn’t let that monster kill you,” he said.

Eric slowly looked up.

“I wanted to kill you myself.”