The Divine Wolf... or?

Chapter 125: A bloody craze!

Though Roland was eager to prove himself and avenge his fallen comrades, life wasn't always that easy. The wall of white fire behind him was still burning fiercely, and when he was about to go on the offensive, Ark commanded the fire to encase his figure. Though Roland was taken by surprise, he managed to use a large portion of his mana to disperse the fire.

Fortunately for him, the fire never managed to touch him, otherwise it would've been a completely different story.

Ark wasn't really surprised at the notion of Roland surviving his attack, and he wasn't really in a hurry when it came to defeating this man. Though he'd rather have a quick fight instead of a drawn out one.

The attack might've looked ineffective, but Ark knew that Roland had to spend at least some mana to get rid of it, and since Ark was focused in magic, he was sure that Roland would run out of mana before he did. Since that was the case, Ark just summoned even more fire, trying to engulf Roland within.

Once again, Roland's mana pool was put to the test, as he actively had to keep pouring out his mana to counteract the white fire. In Roland's eyes, these white flames were closer to a virus than actual fire, as it actively tried to engulf him, without ever giving up. Since just resisting the fire was going to get him nowhere, Roland decided to go all out to counterattack.

From Ark's point of view, he could only see the steady stream of fire engulfing Roland being slashed apart, before Roland came rushing out, with his sword ready in his hands.

The attack was a pleasant surprise to Ark, as the fight would end faster this way. Seeing the prey delivering itself to his face, Ark stretched his legs a little. Roland took this as provocation, but Ark couldn't care less. As Roland approached, Ark once again started emitting large amounts of flames in front of him.

The flames rose high enough to block Roland's entire vision, to the point of him not being able to see Ark any more. Even though the wall of fire was intimidating, Roland was able to spot a weak spot, and he readied his sword once more.

"Haaaah!"

With a shout, a part of the wall of fire was cut open, revealing Roland flying forward. Before Roland could even comprehend what had happened, the light in his eyes dimmed considerably. Blood splattered everywhere, and the originally red surroundings turned even redder. As Roland passed away, he didn't fall over on his knees, on his side, or fall backwards.

Ark's attack had completely made his legs disappear from the face of the earth.

The "weak spot" Roland had found was in reality just something Ark had devised to make it easier to get rid of him, and it worked excellently. Roland didn't find anything strange about there being a single obvious weakness in an otherwise very stable wall of fire, and he fell for the bait. When the blood splattered on his face, Ark felt a sudden throb from deep within his heart.

The throb didn't stop, and it kept growing stronger and stronger. Though he was a little alerted and apprehensive, Ark turned around to make sure that the cub and the mother were ok. To his delight, they turned out to be completely fine, and Ark had nothing to worry about.

With that being said, what Ark should've been worrying about was actually his own state, as he was the one who wasn't feeling too well. The throbbing was beginning to grow even more intense, and with each second that passed, Ark could feel his grip on his mind loosening. Though he had no idea about what happened when he lost control completely, he wasn't very eager to find out.

"Whooooosh!"

A piercing sound split the air, and was rapidly heading Ark's way. Ark didn't even need to look to know what was coming his way, and he instinctively put up a barrier of light around himself. More than 15 arrows slammed into the barrier made out of light, causing numerous cracks to appear all over it. The originally beautiful barrier now had cracks that resembled spider webs all over it.

As Ark looked over, he could see the old man commanding numerous archers to fire upon his position, to try and take him out.

Why did everything always have to be so difficult? Why couldn't they just be left alone? Because they were magical beasts? Did that mean they were supposed to just drop dead whenever humans came close to them? Being forced to constantly fight or flee wasn't a pleasant feeling, and after the strain of the weird throbbing in his body, Ark snapped.

His usually calm demeanour quickly devolved into the face of a rabid monster, and he activated his envoy of holiness skill.

All Ark could see was red, and to the outside world, Ark's eyes actually glowed with an eerie red colour. After his envoy of holiness skill displayed its usual phenomenon, Ark took a couple of steps forward. Calling them steps was a little generous, it was more like he was stumbling his way forward.

"AWOOOUUUUU!"

The hectic battle was suddenly interrupted by a feral howl. Looking over, both the humans and the demons were able to spot an abnormal wolf standing not far away, staring at them all hatefully. Though they were surprised at first, many just disregarded the wolf, sure, it was powerful.

But unless it was completely out of its mind, it would never attack such a group of people all by itself, which was just pure stupidity.

In reality, Ark had no idea of anything that was happening, as he had already basically lost consciousness, or at least control over it for the moment. He could still feel certain sensations such as fear, anger, and most of all, hatred. The hatred buried deep within his marrow was clawing its way out, and Ark went all-out from the get-go.

Since these people had messed with the wrong wolf, they were going to pay dearly for it.

A slight, chilly wind graced the battlefield, sending slight shivers down most peoples' spines, even some of the demons were affected by it. Though it was distracting for sure, it wasn't like anyone had the time to really care or do something about it for that matter.

The wind was just distracting at worst, but as seconds trickled by, the wind was growing fiercer and fiercer for each and every one of them. When most people were starting to notice that something was actually amiss, the wind had already escalated into a full-blown typhoon, with rain and fog blocking most of their sight.

After a long time accumulating, Ark released an attack that contained more than half of his entire mana pool! The typhoon was still picking up its pace, but at this rate, it wasn't going to hurt a single soul, until Ark combined it with this new attack of his. Holy swords and spears materialised out of thin air all around the typhoon, and quickly started rotating along with it.

Ark wasn't done yet though. Since he still had plenty of mana to spare, Ark conjured up large amounts of white flames, and he ignited the ground under the entire battlefield.

The fire spread quickly, and screams followed soon after, as many fell victim to the deadly flames. Before anyone could really try to escape, another batch of horrifying screams resonated throughout the forest, as Ark had commanded the weapons of holy light to tear their way through the people inside of the typhoon.

The original white fog inside of the quickly revolving typhoon was hastily dyed crimson, creating an eerie typhoon that looked like it was made completely out of blood.

Ark's expression was all but normal, as he looked completely deranged when he took over a hundred lives in a single sweep. Maybe he should've been feeling some sort of remorse, but all Ark could feel on the inside was complete emptiness, like his soul was nothing but a deep dark abyss.

The typhoon soon faded into nothingness, as it had lost too much mana to be able to sustain itself without Ark's constant supply. As Ark scanned the battlefield, all that was left was death and decay. He could still see a few humans and demons hanging on by mere threads, and that wasn't acceptable in his eyes anymore.

A second later, all that could be heard was the sound of those people gurgling on their own blood, as Ark had torn their throats apart. Even going this far, Ark felt like it was natural, that it was something that he should do, and he could still see nothing but red. When Ark was just about to do something, a concerned voice echoed from behind him.

"Papa?"

When Ark heard this voice, it was as if he was hit by lightning. His originally red vision turned back to normal, and the weird throbbing, as well as the unlimited hatred vanished. All that was left was… nothing. Ark felt completely empty. Staring into empty space, Ark was bewildered. What was going on?

What was he doing just then? Where was he? What happened? Nothing was making sense in his head, and everything that came up in his mind just turned blank, and he just couldn't put his finger on why.

The little cub didn't give up when Ark didn't answer, and it walked closer to him, and cuddled with him a little. The cub didn't know what was wrong with Ark, but it knew that whenever it felt scared or uneasy, it would just lay down next to mama, and everything would be all right. As time passed with the cub lying next to him, Ark could feel some warmth returning to his cold heart.

The emptiness he was feeling was slowly fading away, and he was gradually going back to normal.

With unease still in his heart, Ark frantically tried to wrap his head around what had happened just then. In his memory, all that was left was just a blank space, one filled with endless hatred. Just the memories of all the hatred was enough for Ark to get a headache, and he was having a hard time adjusting.

Since he had nothing else to go off of, Ark looked around a little to see if he could figure out what had happened. The sight that filled his vision was beyond words. Blood. Blood everywhere. That was Ark's first impressions of his surroundings. There was nothing but pure, crimson blood.

On the ground, on the trees, on the hills, and even in the air. Blood was all around.

As Ark looked around even more, he noticed another thing. Corpses. Corpses everywhere. Not only were there corpses everywhere, they were not even fully intact. The gruesome sight of limbs and guts strewn about everywhere was enough for even Ark to feel like he needed to puke, and Ark had been through a lot.

He was pretty sure that if it was his first day in this world, and he saw this, then he would probably puke until there was nothing left in his stomach, and then puke some more on top of that.

With his mind full of doubts, Ark decided to look even closer, and that's when he noticed it. The wounds that had caused all of these dead bodies lying around. It was the light element, in the form of sharp weaponry, which seemed to have cut these people into small little pieces. Some other corpses were nothing but dust, there were not even any bones left of them.

Now, where had Ark ever seen these similar attacks before? That was right. It was himself. He had used similar attacks all the time, and another flame that could burn a corpse to that extent is not easy to find.

Ark could easily draw the conclusion that he was the one behind all of this. As this thought crossed his mind, Ark couldn't help but almost fall over. Had he really done this? Why could he not remember a single thing except for hatred? And most importantly, why? Why would he go this far?

He could clearly remember up until the point where he killed Roland, then it all turned fuzzy. Did something else happen that caused his outrage?

As that thought crossed his mind, Ark suddenly got a frightening thought. After snapping his head around to look, he could see the cub's mother walk over slowly, concern and some slight fear written all over her face. Even though her expression would normally be a cause for concern, Ark knew why she seemed scared.

Even he himself was scared of himself after what he had done, of course others would be scared of him too. At least she was fine, that was all that mattered right now. If she had died, Ark wouldn't know what to do.

Dangerous thoughts started to cross Ark's mind. Out of all the primitive emotions he was feeling right now, the most prominent one was fear. Ark was scared. He didn't know what was going on, he didn't know what to do now, and he didn't know what was wrong with him. The fear of the unknown can be brutal sometimes, and Ark was experiencing it first-hand right now.