The wolves snarled, their corrupted eyes gleaming with predatory triumph. They saw only a broken boy, bleeding and helpless, a pathetic end to their hunt. But Malrik's grin wasn't born of madness; it was forged in the cold, calculating forge of a mind that saw opportunities where others saw only death.
(Internal Monologue: They think they have won. They think I am cornered prey. They are so focused on the kill, on the scent of my blood... Blood. That's it. The blood isn't just a sign of weakness; it's a lure.)
His mind flashed back, not minutes, but perhaps only seconds before the magical ice attack had brought him crashing down. While scrambling through the trees, dodging the pursuing pack, his hyper-aware senses, amplified by mana, had registered a distinct, unsettling presence further back in the woods, moving slowly, deliberately. He'd dismissed it then, focused solely on evading the wolves. But the image of those shapes, the faint, wet, scraping sound they made... it clicked.
(Internal: The library. The restricted section. Creatures of High Corruption. Flesh Rippers.)
He'd devoured every scrap of forbidden lore he could find in the Lodge's ancient library during his long isolation, seeing knowledge as the ultimate weapon. The passage about Flesh Rippers, tucked away in a dusty tome on mutated forest life, had stuck with him due to its sheer, visceral horror.
(Internal: Mutated beings... formed when corruption twists lesser monsters beyond recognition. Not magical in the conventional sense, but physical horrors. They hunt by scent. Specifically, the scent of wounds. Of blood. The book said they could sense a single drop from a hundred paces... and they devour their prey until only bone remains. A biological clean-up crew for the truly corrupted.)
His eyes flickered over his own bleeding arm, his ice-torn leg. The first wolf he'd killed was also bleeding. The pack surrounding him now, surely they weren't untouched by the chase, by their own rough movements through the undergrowth. Any small cut, any scrape... that was enough.
(Internal: My blood is in the air. Their blood is in the air. And the Rippers... they are close. They follow the scent trail of conflict, of injury. They follow the promise of exposed flesh.)
The malicious grin spread, not from amusement, but from the sheer, brutal elegance of the plan forming in his mind. He couldn't fight the pack. But he didn't need to fight them directly. He could introduce a third party. A variable they hadn't accounted for.
(Internal: They are the hunters. I am the bait. But the bait can be used to catch a bigger, uglier fish. The Rippers hunt blood. The wolves are made of blood and flesh. My wounds are a beacon. The wolves' presence, their own scent, their arrogance in circling me... it makes them part of the lure whether they know it or not.)
The plan was simple, horrific, and his only chance. Use himself as the bleeding anchor. Draw the Flesh Rippers into the clearing. Let the insatiable, mindless hunger of the Rippers collide with the predatory intelligence of the corrupted wolves. Turn their own trap into a battlefield, a chaotic free-for-all where he, the weakest physically, might just be able to survive the crossfire.
(Internal: It's madness. Flesh Rippers are mindless, ravenous. They will attack anything bleeding, anything with flesh. Myself included. But the wolves are closer. And more numerous. The Rippers will engage the largest, most immediate source of fresh wounds and blood first. That's the pack.)
He needed to ensure the Rippers came now. His current bleeding was a start, but he needed more. Something to sharpen the scent, to make it irresistible, to guide the Rippers directly to this clearing, to this confrontation.
His gaze settled on his ice-torn leg. The wound was deep, painful, partially frozen but still weeping blood sluggishly. With a deliberate, excruciating effort, he flexed the muscles around the wound, gritting his teeth against the explosion of agony. He felt the partially frozen tissue tear further, felt the sluggish flow of blood increase, warm and sticky against his chilled skin. The scent intensified, a sharp, metallic tang in the air.
(Internal: Come on. Follow the scent. Follow the pain. The table is set. The main course is waiting. You want flesh? You want blood? Here it is. Enough for everyone.)
The wolves surrounding him registered the change. Their snarls faltered slightly, replaced by low, questioning whines. Their heads tilted, nostrils flared, testing the air. They sensed the increased flow of his blood, the shift in his demeanor, but also... something else. A new scent, faint but rapidly growing stronger, carried on the barely-there breeze. An unnatural, sickening smell of decay and wet stone.
Their predatory focus on Malrik wavered. They exchanged uneasy glances, their ears swiveling towards the deeper shadows of the woods from which the new scent emanated. Their arrogance began to crumble, replaced by a primal wariness. They were hunters, but they also knew the chilling reputation of things that fed on corruption itself.
The sound returned. A wet, scraping sound, closer now, accompanied by a low, chittering noise that was utterly alien, utterly horrifying. It was the sound of something moving low to the ground, something with too many limbs, too many sharp edges.
The wolves closest to the treeline began to back away, their tails tucking between their legs, the earlier laughter forgotten. The ice wolf let out a sharp bark, not of triumph, but of alarm. The air grew heavy, the ambient mana reacting violently to the approach of the highly corrupted beings.
Malrik lay there, a broken figure on the ground, the scent of his blood a siren's call in the darkness. His malicious grin remained fixed, a terrifying promise. He could hear the scraping, the chittering, the growing panic of the wolves. He could feel the ground vibrating faintly with the approach of unnatural forms.
He had set the stage. The players were arriving. The forest, which had been a hunting ground for the wolves, was about to become something far worse. A feeding ground. And Malrik, the seemingly helpless bait, watched the edge of the clearing, waiting for the nightmare he had summoned to appear. The fight for survival wasn't against the wolves anymore. It was in the middle of a maelstrom of teeth, claws, and insatiable hunger.
The first of the Flesh Rippers emerged from the darkness, a multi-limbed, grotesque shape that flowed across the ground like a dark, viscous tide, drawn by the scent of blood. The wolves snarled, a mix of fear and aggression.
The cruel game had just become a desperate free-for-all.