Awakening the Great Bloodline Chapter 167

Chapter 167: The Howling Mountain

The gorge entrance looked as though the shadows of dawn had refused to retreat. Fog lay low, obscuring the view, and a howling wind coiled through the gaps in the cliffs, screaming as it passed.

Then, from beyond the mist, a heavy sound ca thundering against the earth. A massive beast charging on four legs—yet with surprisingly nimble footfalls.

Soon, the wolf cavalry erged.

The body of the enormous pitch-black wolf was as wide as two horses set side by side, and around its mane, dark crimson steam rose and curled.

Krrawwrrarrack!!

As the beasts at the front let out a roar, dozens of wolves behind them joined in a howling chorus.

And at the very front stood the hound, Growl.

The forearms exposed beneath his breastplate were as thick as an adult man's thighs, and the deep cuts carved across his cheeks bore witness to his years of battle.

Without a word, he grabbed the rider standing beside him and drove his white fangs into the man's neck. Flesh was torn away and blood sprayed outward—yet his expression was that of soone savoring the sensation. One corner of his lips curled slowly upward.

"The hunt has finally begun."

The pursuit commander, Growl, laughed low and exhaled.

His nose tilted toward the sky. An unfamiliar scent threaded through the fog and undergrowth, pinpointing the enemy's presence. Where Calix possessed eyes that could perceive mana, Growl had been gifted from birth with a sense of sll.

"I'll devour the warm, breathing slabs of at first."

Growl licked his lips. Before the droplets of blood could soak into the rock beneath them, he raised his hand to indicate the path forward. As he leaned his body diagonally low, the wolves in the front row stamped their feet and surged ahead.

A second roar erupted. The deep, ground-shaking cry was the signal announcing the start of the hunt. The reverberating sound echoed through the canyon—and below, it gave way to the screams of refugees.

The rear of the procession crumbled. An old woman fleeing on foot caught her foot on a stone and collapsed. Parents scooped up their young children and fled in a panic, but running on two legs had its limits. Children wailed in terror, yet even those cries were swallowed whole by the wind and the howling of beasts.

And so the clash between the two groups was inevitable.

At the edge of the thicket, two n stood with their backs to thousands of cavalry. Royce, a middle-aged man wrapped in a grey cloak, opened his mouth.

"……Is that one the leader?"

The dark-haired young man gave a silent nod. Calix pressed his fingers firmly against the hilt resting in its scabbard.

'An ambush won't work. They've already caught our scent.'

He had realized that both sides now knew of each other's presence. Therefore, there was no need for any further lengthy exchange between them.

The wind blowing in from the gorge pushed coldly at his back, as if urging the battle to begin.

***

The highland's entrance. A low-lying fog rolled across the adow in waves. Rocks jutted up here and there between the parched blades of grass. Each ti the wind blew, plus of dust rose and settled over hooves and wolf claws alike.

Pheeeeeet!!

Calix blew the whistle without hesitation. At the charge signal, the cavalry hidden at the forest's edge ca thundering out like a peal of thunder. With thousands of soldiers on each side, there was no ti to even form proper formations.

The earth groaned under the beating of countless hooves, and sword tips split the morning dew, scattering light.

Calix led the charge into the battlefield. The Mountain Rabbits followed at his back, and from the other side, the wolf pack ca rushing in low, driving forward to et them head-on. The mont clouds of dust billowed up from both lines, the two different packs of beasts collided directly.

Craaang!!

With a dull crash, a spear tip pierced a wolf's throat, while another wolf leapt in from the side and drove its claws into a warhorse's chest. The screams of riders and the breathless snarling of beasts tangled together.

Calix advanced again and again, his head low over his horse's neck. In the instant that swords and Rite-Stone weapons scraped past each other, his blade clashed against a wolf's fang. As the wolf's jaw was wrenched sideways and blood flew in a mist, he twisted his upper body and threw the massive bulk off to the side.

His sword tip forced its way between the beast's fangs and sliced clean through the bone. In that sa mont, the warhorse Lunos reared up high and crushed the wolf's skull under his hooves.

Grrrrk!

As another wolf rider ca charging from the left, Calix wrenched the reins and carved a half-circle. He swept his sword sideways, cutting down both the Corrupted and the wolf in a single stroke.

Cut, thrust, trample—it repeated. The path he carved behind him was piled with dozens of corpses in no ti.

Yet the surrounding field was already a lee.

The cavalry's front line had surged forward like a wave, but it was swept apart by the wolves' assault and scattered in every direction. So had their spears broken and drew their short blades to go for the enemy's throats. The rocks jutting from the terrain and the shallow slopes caused horses and wolves alike to slam into one another as they tried to build speed, tangling into chaos.

Then, the Mage Yelayen shouted.

"Calix! Verhas's hound is over there!"

Calix drove his horse through the lee, cutting across the enemy lines. His gaze was locked on the massive predator clad in thick armor at the heart of the highland—on Growl.

The enemy seed to recognize him as well. He licked his blood-stained fangs and smiled coldly. In an instant, the two of them were running toward each other.

The first clash was over in a heartbeat.

Growl swung his curved blade, and the warhorse Lunos reacted to the arc of the swing, dropping low. The precise movent caused the enemy's blade tip to graze past his shoulder, and naturally Calix's sword was deflected upward.

From below, rising up—he cut straight across the enemy's chest.

"Ugh……!"

Growl gasped and was thrown back. A single exchange. Yet it was more than enough to confirm the gulf between them. The speed differential alone was enormous.

Sure enough, the chest armor was split apart as if struck by lightning. Perhaps because the wound had been dealt with mana—blood poured in streams.

And still, the monster did not fall.

The mont he tumbled from the wolf's back, he grabbed a nearby subordinate by the scruff of the neck. Then he drove his fangs in deep and tore. The sound of a skull fracturing spread through the air with a chilling resonance.

Fssshhuk—

A thick reek of blood rose from around his mouth. The muscles across his entire body swelled as if ready to burst, dark crimson shadows rose around him, and his eyes blazed a sharp yellow. It went beyond recovering from a wound—he had grown stronger.

"We haven't even started yet, human!"

At the blood-soaked cry, even the wolf cavalry surrounding him flinched and drew back.

The hound Growl.

He was one—and yet, he was everything. A small opening appeared on his neck, and through the gap ca a terrible sound, as if iron were being ground against iron.

Skreeeeeee!!

With that spine-chilling roar, the wolf pack howled simultaneously. The frenzied beasts reared up on their hind legs and thrashed wildly, and having forgotten even pain and fear, they hurled themselves at anything in front of them.

"The slabs of at ahead are burning hot. You who have fallen—run. Rush forward!"

And the mont the cry that followed rang out—

Far away, beyond the gorge, the Corrupted infantry ca flooding in like a rising tide. Banners and drumbeats, and a dense shadow that coiled like a mass.

Calix twisted the reins and assessed the situation in an instant.

'Faster than expected.'

But he could not fall back yet.

***

Growl hurled himself at Calix and repeated the act of devouring his own allies. The speed gap had narrowed, and the force behind his weapon now held the advantage.

Calix took a mont to look around.

'I could definitely win this fight. But right now, drawing him in cos first.'

Past the highland, at the narrow path that led into the gorge, he could still see traces of the refugees. Whether from exhaustion or sothing else, they had not yet fully made it through.

On top of that, the pursuing enemy forces still had to be dealt with.

He gritted his teeth.

He had no choice but to accept his allies' mounting losses. And at last, in his line of sight, the final survivors slipping through into the gorge ca into view.

"Retreat! Fall back!"

Calix pulled out without hesitation. He unleashed a burst of mana to push Growl back, helped the allied cavalry around him, and made for the rear.

At this sudden withdrawal, Growl's eyes glead with savage intensity.

"So you're running now. I'll butcher every last coward!"

He roared once more toward the sky. The shadow at his feet stretched long, and black mist seeped out of it. Growl's form blurred—and in the next instant, he slid smoothly onto the back of a wolf several steps away.

"Catch them! Kill every last one!!"

As the order to pursue rang out, thousands of wolves surged forward in a frenzy. They crossed the adow, entered the forest, and pressed all the way to the mouth of the gorge.

As the terrain gradually narrowed, it began to drag at the speed of the cavalry.

Wolves knocked their flanks together and stumbled, while horses ca to sudden halts trying to avoid the cliffside walls. Dozens were lost simply from the chaos of fleeing.

"Formation reversal!"

At that mont, Calix wheeled his horse around and launched a counterattack.

At the gorge's entrance, sliding down along the slope, the wolves in the front row were knocked down in a heap before they could even react. Royce and Marik, the Mage Yelayen, and the top-rank knight Helmut Barben—a small elite force charging in to buy ti.

The narrow passage erupted into utter chaos in an instant.

Horses and wolves crossed one another's paths, each hunting for the other's life, and the screams of beasts, cavalry, and humans intermingled. Even amid the chaos, Calix glanced back at intervals.

Nearly all of the refugees' figures had vanished beyond the mist.

And that was the mont.

Crack!

Calix instinctively thrust his blade out and deflected the attack. It was neither Growl's sword nor a wolf's claw. On the ground lay a snapped arrow, broken in two.

He turned his head in the direction the arrow had co from—and t eyes with the elf Airien atop the cliff above.

The true ti to withdraw had arrived.

Calix put the whistle to his lips and blew it three tis in long succession. It was the unmistakable signal to retreat.

The Mountain Rabbits used the terrain to open up an escape route and withdrew in stages.

The hound Growl, apparently mistaking their movent for a genuine rout, drove forward all the more ferociously. Heavy footfalls echoed one after another through the narrow passage.

Inward. Deeper still.

Not only the wolf cavalry—the Corrupted infantry following behind also poured into the gorge in a flood.

Basim, who had been watching the situation from atop the cliff, quietly murmured.

"They've……taken the bait cleanly."

His voice was low, but to those present, it was like a revelation announcing the turning of the tide.

***

The wolf cavalry that had flooded into the gorge were packed so tightly together they could feel each other's breath. The sheer cliff faces flanked the narrow passage on both sides, and thin wisps of dust and grit drifted down from above.

Thud… thud……

Then, mixed into the noise of battle, ca a peculiarly discordant resonance. A low, dull rhythm flowed down from sowhere beyond.

The wolves' ears shot upright, and they stopped in their tracks, ignoring their riders' commands. A single pebble fell—tok—from a wall, and fine grains of sand followed like a light drizzle.

Boom!

This ti it was closer. The surface of the cliff trembled—faintly, but unmistakably. Thousands of wolves shifted about nervously, and even Growl ca to a halt.

"Wait! This is……turn back! Turn back!"

Too late. With the pressure of those still pushing in from behind piling on in the narrow passage, wolves and the Corrupted were still shoving against one another even in that very mont.

Up ahead, Calix raised his hand high—then slowly lowered it.

Only then did Growl's gaze climb to the clifftops. A silhouette flickered there, slightly shorter than that of a human.

Dwarves.

Basim stepped forward and raised his lever high one final ti.

"Bring it all down!"

Ruuuummmble!!

Hundreds of boulders, stacked in precarious towers, ca crashing down all at once. Dust and gravel scattered like rain, and through the gaps, jagged rocks of all sizes tumbled and rolled.

Wolves tucked their tails and yelped, and the Corrupted stared blankly upward. Growl gnashed his teeth and glared forward, but Calix's eyes held no expression at all.

In that mont, the rocks roared and rent the mountain apart. With an explosive crash, the cliffside collapsed entirely, and enormous boulders ca thundering down into the gorge.

And so, ruin arrived.