Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

To his utter surprise, his fist punched clean through the wolf’s skin, and his entire arm carried forward with the force and got buried deep in its warm interior.

It was especially surprising because, without a doubt, the wolf was more powerful and higher-leveled than the monitor lizard. But its skin, while muscular and tough, was nowhere close to the monitor lizard’s level of toughness at all.

In an immediate response to the fist in its chest, the wolf let out a sharp, guttural yelp of pure agony. Its body convulsed instinctively, thrashing wildly to shake Uhtred off, but his grip remained firm. He twisted his hand deep inside the beast’s innards, frantically groping for the essence core.

To his frustration, his fingers found nothing of the sort. But refusing to let the setback stall him, he wrapped his fingers around the first organ his hand encountered and pulled backward with everything he had.

What followed was an explosion of pure, gory mess.

As the wolf leaped backward to escape the intrusive pain, Uhtred’s anchored arm held onto the organ, and with the opposing force, ripped out its insides. Its intestines and internal organs came pouring out, completely gutting the beast. It collapsed entirely from the pain and blood loss, howling and thrashing on the ground in a painful death.

Uhtred didn’t stay to watch it die, though. He had mortally wounded the creature, and that was all that mattered for now.

Wheeling around, he sprinted at full tilt toward the rushing river. Already, upstream, the remaining four wolves had erupted into frenzied howling. Seeing their packmate suffer a terrible death within the span of a few seconds, they had entirely abandoned the elk carcass and were charging down the shoreline, straight towards Uhtred like a pack of demons.

But they had reacted too slow... or maybe it was Uhtred who had dispatched their haughty companion so fast.

Regardless, Uhtred reached the river first and dove straight into it. His goal seemed to be the center of the river, as he pushed hard in that direction, putting immediate distance between himself and the shore.

The wolf in the lead of the pursuing pack plunged into the water right after him, paddling with its feet through the rushing current with surprising speed. The remaining three stayed on land, howling and sprinting along the shoreline with their eyes locked on Uhtred to cut off his escape route on that side of the river.

The situation looked very bleak for Uhtred, but fortunately, the evolution of his body, combined with his compact frame, allowed the violent, rushing current of the river to push him forward far faster than the heavier wolf.

The distance between them widened with every passing second he swam into more violent currents. He let his head bob above the surface every few strokes, catching quick gasps of air before the water slammed over his head again.

Then, without warning, he stopped coming up.

Uhtred submerged himself entirely and dove straight for the riverbed, where he quickly pierced his hands into the mud and rocks, digging his fists deep into the river floor to anchor his body firmly against the push of the current.

Using the last lungful of air he’d managed to breathe in, he began to pull himself upriver, dragging his body forward along the riverbed, going in the complete opposite direction from where the wolves expected him to go.

He moved forward as fast as he could, trying to make the most of the air he had. And within seconds, he saw a heavy disturbance in the water a literal feet away from himself: it was the swimming wolf-hyena pushing downriver in blind pursuit of where it thought he had drifted.

But despite the close proximity and the possibility of the wolf sensing the disturbance, Uhtred didn’t even pause. This was an absolute do-or-die scenario, he couldn’t afford to fear if he would be spotted at this point.

Luckily, the murky, rushing currents provided the perfect cover, completely masking his underwater silhouette with froth. He bypassed the swimming beast cleanly and continued to push onward, the burning in his lungs growing more intense with every foot he covered.

When he estimated he had gone far enough, Uhtred broke the surface, gasping violently for air.

Without wasting time to catch his breath properly, he immediately started straight for the riverbank. He had slightly undershot his intended landing spot due to his lack of air, but the distance was already negligible enough.

He just needed to reach the shore and jog a few steps and he would reach his target: The carcass of the giant elk.

However, before he could properly reach the shoreline at all, the three wolves sprinting downriver realized their prey had vanished. One of them snapped its head back, spotting Uhtred far upriver, and immediately unleashed a furious howl, alerting the others as it turned and launched into a mad dash back toward Uhtred.

But Uhtred had built a very comfortable lead. He reached the shore and scrambled to his feet, bolting toward the mutilated elk despite his fatigue and the burning pain he felt from cuts on his side.

On paper, his current actions seemed entirely illogical and even suicidal. He had successfully broken away from the wolf-hyena pack and could have used the river to facilitate a clean escape. But he hadn’t.

Of course, part of it was due to the countdown on his mandatory quest, but the truth of it was based more on simple logic. If he fled downriver, there was absolutely no guarantee he would find a single safer Level 5+ beast in time, not to mention the four he needed.

Uhtred refused to leave a decision that dictated his literal survival up to random luck. Five Level 5+ beasts were here before him. He was not letting them slip away.

However, having that conviction and carrying it out successfully were two different things. The current situation was terribly bleak. But there was still some hope.

During the short time when Uhtred had come up with this plan, he’d spotted something in the elk carcass that could give him some leverage in his suicidal battle against these higher level beasts.

As he reached the massive, bloody remains of the elk, Uhtred skidded to a stop and dug his hands into the warm flesh, then with a loud grunt, he ripped out what he had come for:

A jagged-edged, shattered leg bone that had probably snapped violently during the elk’s desperate attempt to escape the pack before its eventual demise.

Uhtred tore it free like a barbarian, completely unbothered by the thick, warm blood coating his fingers.

The long bone was the equivalent of a crude weapon, with the bulbous joint serving as a sort of hammer while the sharp, jagged edge pointed outward from his grip. It was a large hammer-dagger mixed weapon, grimy with blood but still lethal.

Next, he grabbed the second thing he came for: the severed head of the elk... or more specifically, its wide, massive antlers.

He lifted it by those antlers, then held it up firmly in his left hand, essentially transforming the large bony structure with many sharp points into another improvised weapon. Though this one served more as a shield than a weapon. A sort of weapon-shield hybrid.

With both weapons in hand, Uhtred planted his feet firmly into the wet sand and turned to face the first of the snarling wolf-hyenas charging straight at him like a freight train.