The cold, mechanical chime of the system resonated within the depths of Su Han's mind, marking his rapid evolution amidst the chaos.
[DING! SHADOW-STEP FLICKER: MASTERY 60%]
[DING! SHADOW-STEP FLICKER: MASTERY 66%]
[DING! SHADOW-STEP FLICKER: MASTERY 73%]
As he blurred through the shadows, systematically hunting the wounded Black Wolves, his proficiency surged with every calculated movement.
The increased mastery didn't just bring numbers; it brought a tangible surge in speed, making his silhouette appear like a flickering ghost.
His strategy—lurking on the periphery and delivering lethal strikes to beasts already weakened by the mercenaries—did not go unnoticed.
The core members of the Iron-Fist Mercenaries glanced at him, their brows furrowing momentarily as they registered his opportunistic tactics.
However, they didn't utter a single word of protest.
The group was currently locked in a brutal, high-stakes life-and-death struggle that demanded every ounce of their focus.
While the mercenaries were individual powerhouses far superior to the Black Wolves, the sheer numerical advantage of the pack was overwhelming.
Moreover, they were burdened with the heavy responsibility of protecting the two wealthy clients who had commissioned this hunt.
The temporary recruits, including Su Han and the malicious Wang Pen, were not under their protective mandate.
They had joined for experience and a share of the loot, and in the unspoken code of the wild, their survival was their own responsibility.
The Iron-Fist core team was already stretched thin, their defensive formation straining under the weight of a hundred snapping jaws.
Far from being annoyed by Su Han, some of the mercenaries felt a flicker of grim relief.
By finishing off the wounded beasts with his Venom-Tooth Dagger, Su Han was effectively clearing the battlefield and saving them precious time.
His efficiency allowed them to focus their steel on the fresh, more dangerous wolves that were surging from the treeline.
In stark contrast, the other two temporary recruits were paralyzed by a visceral, bone-chilling terror.
One was Wang Pen, and the other was a Level 4 Body Refining warrior whose face had turned a sickly shade of ashen grey.
The battle had reached a tipping point, a whirlpool of blood and fur where a single mistake meant total annihilation.
Even the elite mercenaries were beginning to sustain shallow wounds, their clothes soaked in a mixture of human and beast blood.
Suddenly, a piercing, blood-curdling scream ripped through the roar of the battle, echoing off the jagged ravine walls.
It was the Level 4 recruit. Driven by pure, unadulterated panic, he tried to retreat from a lunging wolf, his footsteps stumbling on the uneven earth.
But the pack was organized; as he stepped back, another wolf emerged from the shadows behind him like a silent executioner.
The beast's jaws locked onto his shoulder, and before he could even gasp, two more wolves pounced on him with predatory precision.
Within seconds, the man was dragged down and torn apart, his life extinguished in a gruesome display of primal violence.
The sight of their companion's brutal end sent a fresh wave of adrenaline and fear through the remaining survivors.
Captain Zhao's eyes turned into chips of frozen ice, her aura flaring with a sudden, lethal intensity.
"Kill them all! Don't let a single one get close!" she commanded, her voice ringing out like the strike of iron on iron.
The mercenaries' attacks grew more desperate and violent, their weapons carving through the air with renewed fury.
They knew that in such a massive ambush, losses were inevitable, but the death of a comrade still fueled their righteous anger.
Su Han, meanwhile, was a vision of singular focus, his mind racing to complete his mission objective before the situation spiraled further.
Suddenly, a violent, intentional force slammed into his shoulder, sending him staggering sideways into the path of two lunging wolves.
His heart skipped a beat as the realization hit him—he had been sabotaged.
He tried to execute a Shadow-Step to regain his balance, but the momentum was too great, and the wolves were already upon him.
A sharp, agonizing pain flared in his arm as a wolf's claws tore through his sleeve, ripping into his flesh and drawing a spray of crimson blood.
"Argh!" Su Han hissed, his teeth grinding together so hard they threatened to shatter.
His eyes burned with a sudden, crimson rage as he felt the warm blood soaking into his torn garment.
He barely managed to roll away from a killing bite, only for the second wolf to strike his back with its heavy, bone-crushing paws.
The impact was devastating, sending a jolt of pain through his spine as blood began to seep from the deep lacerations on his back.
Using the very momentum of the attack, Su Han gritted his teeth and forced a Shadow-Step, flickering several meters away to find a moment of breath.
He spun around, his gaze locking onto the source of the shove with a cold, murderous intensity.
Standing there was Wang Pen, his face contorted into a cruel, sadistic mask.
Wang Pen's eyes were glowing with a dark, malicious light, and a chilling, triumphant smile played on his lips as he watched Su Han bleed.
He had been waiting for this exact moment—a moment of chaos where he could eliminate his rival under the guise of an accident.
Su Han's knuckles turned white as he gripped his dagger, cursing the man a thousand times over in the silence of his mind.
He had expected Wang Pen to be a nuisance, but to attempt cold-blooded murder in the middle of a life-and-death struggle was a new level of depravity.
Some of the other team members had witnessed the shove, their brows darkening as they looked at Wang Pen with unconcealed disgust.
Yet, with the wolves pressing in from all sides, no one could spare the breath or the time to intervene in their private feud.
Su Han took a deep, shaky breath, the metallic scent of his own blood filling his nostrils as he prepared to settle the score.
The core members of the Iron-Fist Mercenaries felt a surge of silent fury, their eyes radiating a chilling frost as they glared at Wang Pen.
Captain Zhao's grip on her blade tightened, the steel humming with a lethal vibration as she desperately scanned for an opening to rescue Su Han.
However, she was shackled by her own duty; the overwhelming number of wolves and the safety of the two high-paying clients left her no room to maneuver.
If she abandoned her post and the clients fell, the reputation of the Iron-Fist Mercenaries would be dragged through the mud, and the mission would end in a catastrophic failure.
She gritted her teeth, her heart heavy with a sense of suffocating helplessness, as she watched the young boy being pushed into the jaws of death.
Meanwhile, Su Han didn't have the luxury of words or the time to plot his revenge against the treacherous Wang Pen.
The two Black Wolves were upon him like relentless shadows, their presence pinning him down in a zone where the pack's density made escape seem like a fever dream.
The situation was dire—not just because of the surrounding swarm, but because these two predators possessed a cultivation power two levels higher than his own.
His mind worked at a feverish pace, his eyes darting through the chaos to find even a sliver of a chance to return to the safety of the team's perimeter.
He realized that even if he dodged these two, the path back was blocked by more predators; a single slip would mean being encircled by an even larger, more lethal force.
"There is only one way out of this nightmare," Su Han thought, his teeth grinding together in a silent, determined snarl.
"If I can push my Shadow-Step Flicker to 100% mastery, my speed will double. Only then can I truly outrun this fate."
Time was a luxury he didn't have, but with his back against the wall, his survival instincts took over with a terrifying clarity.
"Wang Pen... you miserable cur! I curse your very ancestors for this betrayal," Su Han hissed internally, his eyes burning with a dark, vengeful fire.
"Just wait until I get out of this alive. I will tear you into a thousand pieces and feed your remains to these very wolves!"
He blurred through the thicket, narrowly avoiding a lethal swipe from one wolf while the second missed his throat by a mere hair's breadth.
Every desperate movement, every frantic dodge was being calculated by the system, pushing his mastery higher with every breath.
[MASTERY: 83%... 86%... 91%... 96%]
Suddenly, a massive, fur-covered paw lunged toward his face with the speed of a falling star.
He twisted his body mid-air, barely saving his head, but his shoulder couldn't escape the trajectory of the razor-sharp claws.
CRACK!
A sickening sound of bone meeting brute force echoed as Su Han let out a piercing, agonized scream.
"AAARGH!"
Driven by pure reflex and pain, he slammed his Tiger's Claw into the beast's flank, but the wolf only stumbled back slightly, its superior cultivation acting as a natural shield.
The disparity in their power was a chasm; Su Han could feel that his shoulder bone was likely shattered.
Without wasting a heartbeat, he reached into the system storage, retrieved a Level 1 Low-Grade Healing Pill, and swallowed it in one desperate gulp.
He barely had time to taste the medicinal bitterness before the second wolf launched an ambush from his blind spot.
His eyes were now a deep, blood-shot crimson, his adrenaline pushing his Shadow-Step Flicker to its absolute limit.
[MASTERY: 97%... 99%...]
"Just one more percent! Just one damn percent!" he roared in his mind, his muscles screaming in protest.
Suddenly, both wolves synchronized their movements, pouncing from the front and back simultaneously, leaving Su Han with zero room for retreat.
Cold sweat drenched his brow as the mercenaries looked on, their hearts sinking with the grim realization that the boy's luck had finally run out.
Captain Zhao's fists were clenched so hard her knuckles bled; she channeled her helplessness into her strikes, carving through wolves in a desperate, silent prayer for a miracle.
On the other side, Wang Pen's sadistic smile widened, even as he fended off a Level 5 beast with the help of the team's defensive circle.
Su Han attempted to leap away, but the second wolf's strike caught him squarely in the abdomen, sending his body flying through the air like a broken doll.
He hit the ground hard, the world spinning in a blur of pain and dirt, when a familiar, divine chime rang in his ears.
[DING! CONGRATULATIONS! SHADOW-STEP FLICKER HAS REACHED 100% MASTERY!]
[HOST'S SPEED HAS BEEN PERMANENTLY DOUBLED!]
A cold, lethal smile played on Su Han's blood-stained lips as he forced himself to stand, despite his agonizing injuries.
He stood a short distance away, his gaze locking onto the two predators who were already crouching for their final kill.
Six eyes met—four amber and predatory, two human and burning with the fire of a dragon.
All six eyes were a terrifying shade of red, reflecting a mutual, insatiable thirst for blood.
"Enjoying Su Han's rise to power? Make sure to add this to your collection so you never miss a breakthrough!"