"Bruce!?"
"He'd rather do the job himself than risk being torn apart by beasts..."
As Bruce plummeted towards the bottom, he swiftly pulled out the vial of red liquid from earlier. In the same moment he hit the ground, as much as the pain quickly spread throughout his body, forcing a scream from his lungs, he drank the mysterious liquid.
"As much as I'd like to worry about him right now..."
"We should definitely worry about ourselves... I really, really hope my magic works right now."
Stephan immediately bolted for the wolf at the front of the pack, and the wolf sprinted at him as well. A mutual dash towards the enemy, a head-on clash. Stephan swung his knife down from the air while the wolf lunged at his middle section for a claw attack. The wolf landed its blow first, but Stephan powered through, plunging his dagger right into the center of the wolf's skull. Not a single yelp from it. Not a single whine. It simply fell silent before it collapsed to the floor, blood spilling from its wound to create a puddle in the grass.
Stephan's wound was not deep, but it was still something he was not used to. He panted and grunted while winces of pain escaped him. Behind him, Xavier slid just in next to him, patting him on the back while his other hand was extended forward at the wolves with his palm open.
"You're one hell of a fighter for someone who just got transported here."
A piece of frost began to form on one of the wolves' paws. What was once a simple thread of frost quickly expanded into a sheet of ice, freezing the wolf to the ground.
"Let's keep this up."
Stephan coughed up blood into his hands before wiping his mouth, forcing himself to stand tall, pushing his body beyond its limits.
"You can use ice magic, too? Hell yeah!"
Stephan dashed at the wolf that Xavier had frozen to the ground. He raised his knife once more, ready to plunge it into another wolf's skull. As he brought the blade down... He missed. The blade scraped the wolf's forehead, leaving nothing but a scratch. Stephan could not stop the momentum from his blade, and it sank deep into his own abdomen. He screamed out in pain as he collapsed to the floor. Gradually, his breathing slowed while his body temperature dropped. He felt his eyes closing on him...
"Stephan!"
Xavier's look of determination mixed with fear had turned into pure terror. One of his friends dropped off a cliff, and the other was lying in front of him on the ground, bleeding out. Thoughts swirled through his head, faster than they ever had before, even in his previous life.
'Is Stephan going to die?'
'Did Bruce actually end himself?'
'Am I going to die?'
'Are we... doomed?'
As quickly as fear surged through his body, power and determination overcame it.
"No... This isn't what I want... This isn't what they wanted..."
His hair, previously a brighter brown with a downwards flow on the wavy end of hair, turned into a glowing, light gold color. It began to flow backwards, as if the wind was blowing directly into his face. His eyes increased in saturation and brightness, transforming from a deep, dark brown into a bright, glowing orange, a trail of light following in any direction he snapped his vision to.
[You have unlocked the element "Light."]
[You have unlocked the element "Dark."]
He exhaled, his breath visible in the cold, twilight air.
"I won't... let things end quicker than they started."
Xavier leaped up into the air, 15 to 20 feet above the wolves. In his hand, he conjured a spear of flames and hurled it towards one of the wolves. Before it could react, it had been impaled straight through the heart, dying on impact. Its blood splattered across the grass, and its body was now pinned. After a brief moment, the spear had disappeared into the air, and the wolf collapsed to the ground.
While still in the air, he conjured six sharp, blade-like missiles of ice behind him. He sent them forward towards the next wolf, the one that was directly below him. The shards of ice, one by one, impaled the wolf along the back, starting at the center of the neck and working their way down the spine. As the wolf had become paralyzed in pain, Xavier descended from the skies, using his momentum to fall direction onto the wolf's head, squishing it directly into the grassy grounds below. Its head exploded, and blood, bone, and brain matter spewed across the floor, defiling the beautiful scenery it had once been.
After he fell to the floor, he glanced in the direction of the last two wolves. He stripped a shard of ice from the wolf he had just slain with high-level finesse, slightly hopping into the air with a small spin move and throwing it at one of the remaining monsters. Though it attempted to dodge to the side, it could not fully evade the shard of ice as which embedded itself in the wolf's eye. The wolf winced in pain while Xavier began dashing towards it.
The final two wolves attempted to run, but they could not.
From the floor, a spike of shadowy darkness had erupted from below the non-injured wolf, piercing it through the abdomen and sending it upwards into the sky. As it fell, Xavier gripped it by the scruff, tossing it ahead. It landed in front of the final wolf, preventing it from continuing to run. As it slightly faltered back to try and dash for an escape, it felt a strong grip on its tail.
Xavier pulled back before grabbing the wolf by the top of its head. He slammed it into the ground, its head exploding on impact just as its pack member from before.
Xavier raised his hand from the disgusting mush of what remained of the wolf's head. His breathing was slightly heavy, and he was panting. Blood and small pieces of flesh coated him and his clothing, but this did not deter him from his goal.
He immediately turned around, running back towards Stephan. As he was bolting back, he felt a sudden, massive pain in his heart, forcing him to collapse to the ground. His hair and eyes settled back to their normal colors, his eyes beginning to close on themselves. He stretched his hand towards Stephan.
"Shit... Not yet... I still... have to save..."
Before he could finish his sentence, he fell unconscious just beside Stephan.
At the bottom of the cliff, Bruce had barely been clinging to consciousness. The physical pain was gone, and his body returned to its usual state, but the psychological impact had yet to subside. The red liquid had turned out to be an extremely high-level healing potion provided by God.
Before he lost his consciousness, he saw an older man with short grey hair and well-kept facial hair. He was wearing an expensive suit. He carried Xavier and Stephan into the sky, flying off into the distance beyond the forest.
Bruce lost his consciousness after witnessing their abduction.