Awaiting them was death itself, carried on the snarling maws and bloodthirsty hunger of twenty-four black wolves, each one driven into a frenzy as they pursued from behind.
These beasts were no different from the ones they had encountered earlier. Their eyes were sharp and savage, twin points of killing intent burning with the promise of violence, as if they existed for no other reason than to rip their prey apart into a rain of torn flesh and bone.
Their speed was terrifying. In contrast, Voma and the girl at his side were beginning to slow.
The situation had already been dire, and after the blow the male one had taken moments ago, everything was deteriorating even further.
"Hey!" The girl shouted, her voice a mix of fear and desperation, as her weapon shot forward. The tip of the pipe she hold drove straight through the body of one of the wolves.
By any normal measure, her strength alone should never have been enough to pierce that thick hide.
Yet fate favored her hand in that instant. The sharphead found its mark in the creature's eye, a direct strike to its most vulnerable point. The impact was lethal, killing the bloodthirsty beast before it could unleash another snarl.
But one kill was nothing compared to the wave still chasing them. More than twenty pairs of claws and fangs still closed in from behind, each set promising the same brutal end.
Voma's body was at its limit. His legs, long past exhaustion, felt numb, as though they no longer belonged to him. Each breath he drew burned hot enough to scorch his nasal passages, and his entire body felt as heavy as if a bronze statue had been shackled to his back.
His mind wavered in and out of clarity. Reason was fading, consciousness growing dim. The only thing keeping him moving was a primal, unyielding instinct to survive, a fire that roared through his battered frame.
"Ah! There! Right there!!"
The girl's voice rang out from behind him, breaking through the fog clouding his thoughts.
It was as if her words were a cool breeze rushing through his mind. His vision cleared for the briefest moment. The eyes that had been drooping in exhaustion widened slightly, latching onto the direction she was pointing.
Up ahead stood a pharmacy.
Unlike the weathered, bloodstained buildings that surrounded it, this place was spotless. The walls were clean, untouched by gore, almost as if it existed in a different world entirely.
What stood out most, however, was the door. The entrance radiated a strange green light, its glow cutting through the darkness like a beacon of sanctuary.
The sight ignited something in Voma. It was as if someone had poured fuel into an empty tank, and his legs found new life.
He seized the girl's hand and pushed his speed to the limit, surging forward in a final desperate sprint toward the glowing door.
Behind them, the wolves were already upon them. The gap had shrunk to mere meters, five at most.
Then they leapt.
A chorus of bodies launched into the air in unison, their shadows blotting out the dim light behind them. Dozens of claws and fangs streaked toward the two humans, each intent on ending the chase in a spray of crimson.
But in that same heartbeat, Voma and the girl crossed the threshold, stepping before the pharmacy door.
From her position slightly behind him, the girl caught sight of something inside.
There was someone else in the pharmacy.
Voma saw nothing, yet he still clasped the girl's hand and leapt with her toward the radiant doorway brimming with the essence of life.
The girl's eyes widened, reflecting the golden light pouring from the gate. She plunged through the luminous veil, her figure swallowed by the brilliance before tumbling into the interior of an old pharmacy.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The wolves slammed onto the ground.
The moment they leapt toward the gate, they were repelled violently, as if an invisible wall had been erected there, barring their path.
And along with that came a transparent panel with a line of text on it.
[You are not belong here, please go to your destination.]
"Son of a…!"
The violent rebound snapped the bridge of his nose with a sickening crack, blood spilling freely down his face. He was thrown backward, crashing into the ground.
The fabric wrapping Voma's left arm slipped loose, revealing wounds that had already begun to fester with infection.
Not wasting even a second, one of the wolves lunged forward, intent on ending the human's life in a single strike.
Clang!
The sharp ring of metal striking echoed suddenly. The girl had leapt out from the pharmacy, swinging a brutal blow into the attacking wolf.
She planted herself before Voma, facing down the pack. Both her hands gripped an iron rod slick with fresh blood. Her legs trembled, but still she stood between him and the certain death.
The wolves growled low, circling, their amber eyes fixed on her. One finally lost its patience and charged.
The girl shut her eyes and thrust the rod forward, bracing for the impact. But she felt nothing.
When she opened her eyes, she saw the wolf's neck caught firmly by someone's hand.
Of course, it was Voma.
His entire body was drenched in the stench of fresh blood. From his back, it poured like a crimson waterfall, each droplet thick and warm. His left arm hung dead at his side, as if completely numb and useless.
But with his right hand alone, he still had more than enough strength to crush the throat of a starving beast.
"Girl, you're playing far too recklessly."
Without another word, he hurled the wolf aside, seized her wrist, and flung her back through the pharmacy's entrance.
By the time she registered what had happened, the image of Voma and the wolves had already vanished into the darkness beyond.
"Wait..." She reached out, her voice catching in her throat. But it was already too late.
.
.
.
Somewhere fifty meters away from the pharmacy…
Unlike what most people would imagine themselves doing in such a moment, Voma walked in eerie calm, one hand gripping his shoulder, his boots crunching over the cracked asphalt.
All around him, dozens of black wolves prowled, their eyes never leaving him. Their frenzy from moments before had burned away, replaced by something colder, more calculating.
This was no longer the chaos of rabid beasts. This was the silence of true predators.
Calm. Patient. Certain in their kill.
The reason behind this tense and unnerving standoff was simple, yet primal in its nature. The wolves sensed danger, a mortal peril radiating from the human figure standing before them.
Their instincts screamed in unison. If they dared to lunge at this prey, if they dared to close that final gap, death would claim them before their jaws ever found flesh. It was not the scent of ordinary prey they inhaled, but the scent of a cornered beast that could kill them even as it lay dying.
So they waited.
Patient as shadows beneath the trees, they waited for one among them to break the deadlock. They waited for the man to bleed out, for his strength to collapse entirely, for his body to sink into the soil. Only then, when life had left him, would they begin to feast.
Yet, despite the grim noose tightening around him, Voma's thoughts were elsewhere.
"Where did those other creatures go? A moment ago there were so many of them... The damage to the city is too great to have been caused by just a few."
He shook his head slightly. "No, why am I even thinking about that right now? Those beasts are waiting for me to bleed to death as it is."
The truth was unavoidable. He was spent. Every technique, every shred of supernatural power he possessed had already been unleashed. There was nothing left to call upon.
Now his body stood broken, wounds covering him like battle marks on an old ruin. His stamina was scraping the bottom of an empty well. His mind felt clouded and sluggish, and pain stabbed at him in relentless waves. It was a dead end without even the illusion of escape.
"Haaa... phew... haaa... phew..."
Voma adjusted his breathing, drawing in air with deliberate rhythm. His chest swelled each time he inhaled, then sank as he exhaled, as though he were following an ancient pattern.
He didn't know why he was doing it. His conscious mind had not decided on this action. His body had simply taken over, acting on some primal knowledge, as though it understood better than he did what needed to be done to tilt the scales of survival, even slightly, in his favor.
With each cycle, his breaths grew slower, deeper, steadier. His mind began to drift, like a lantern's light dimming until the flame was only an ember. The ringing in his ears receded into nothingness. The stabbing pain in his back and his left arm, though still very much present, seemed to lose its grip on his awareness.
It was not that the injuries had healed, nor that the agony had vanished. He had simply forgotten them, cast them into some dark corner of his mind where they could no longer gnaw at him.
"If I remember correctly... that place should be nearby."
While Voma's mind hovered in that strange state, one of the circling wolves lost patience. Hunger, far older than fear, took hold. With a guttural snarl, it sprang forward, claws tearing at the ground, jaws wide enough to crush bone.
Whoosh!
Voma's arm moved, fast and precise, as if the pain in his muscles had never existed. His fist met the wolf's skull with pinpoint accuracy.
It was a strike that seemed light at first glance, nothing like the exaggerated blows of an arena brawler. But the moment his knuckles connected, the force traveled inward like a quake through stone. The impact rippled into the creature's brain, and the wolf's body stiffened mid-lunge, its nervous system shutting down as if a switch had been thrown.
The moment the beast crumpled, Voma moved.
No hesitation. No pause to celebrate. His body blurred forward, driving straight ahead, pushing through the thinning gap before the other wolves could react.
The world seemed to narrow to a single path, lit not by sunlight but by the dim glow of instinct.
The forest floor crunched beneath his feet as he ran. Behind him, the remaining wolves hesitated, momentarily thrown off by the sudden, decisive burst of violence. The predator had become prey in their eyes, but in that instant, the prey had revealed the fangs of a killer.
Voma's lungs burned with every breath. His vision swam at the edges. His legs screamed with exhaustion, but he ignored them all. Pain, hunger, fatigue, these were weights he could no longer afford to carry. Only forward motion mattered.
The air was heavy with the scent of damp earth and blood, his own blood. Each drop that fell marked a trail for the wolves, a silent invitation to follow.
And they would follow.
But Voma was not running without a destination. Somewhere ahead lay a place he remembered, a location that his mind had latched onto in the haze. A place that, if he could reach it, might shift the odds, however slightly, back in his favor.
Every step was a gamble against death's patience. The wolves would not remain cautious forever. Hunger was a more ruthless master than fear.
His body moved on pure instinct now, every muscle acting without conscious command. His mind remained strangely still, as if a thin sheet of glass separated him from reality, allowing him to see everything with unnatural clarity but keeping the panic locked away.
The trees began to thin. Shafts of pale light broke through the canopy. The terrain dipped slightly, the ground softening beneath his feet.
Voma's breath came faster, not from exertion, but from the faint spark of recognition. The place he sought was close. He could almost feel its presence, like a faint hum beneath the earth.
But behind him, the forest came alive again with movement. The wolves had made their decision.
The waiting is over.