Luna's lungs begged for mercy. Every breath tasted like copper and battery acid but her legs refused to stop pumping.
Jagged branches tore chunks of silver hair from her scalp. Warm blood cascaded down her forehead blinding her.
She was Luna Fenrir the last surviving warrior of the Moonlight Wolf Tribe. Right now though she was just premium loot running for its life.
SWISH. THWACK.
A jagged stone ripped through the darkness and gouged a massive chunk out of her thigh. She choked back a feral whimper. Crude weighted nets and heavy hunting lassos slithered through the air like iron snakes cutting off every possible escape route.
The foul stench of human greed chased her.
"Break her damn legs if you have to just take her alive!"
"Do you know how much silver pelts go for in the Capital? That bitch is our retirement ticket! Don't lose her!"
"Keep the face intact! We get to play with her first before we dump her at the auction house so tie her up alive!"
Pure unfiltered rage boiled in Luna's veins. Her fangs dug so deep into her lower lip that dark blood spilled down her chin.
Just days ago her tribe's territory was a paradise. Now it was a smoking graveyard courtesy of a cowardly poison ambush by these slaver scumbags. Proud warriors died coughing up black blood and pups were shoved into rusty iron cages like literal dogs.
The only thing keeping her shattered body moving was the burning need to wipe these bastards off the server.
But her HP was practically zero. She hadn't eaten in days and half her blood was painting the forest floor.
SNAP.
Her boot caught on a rotting root. The world spun and she slammed face-first into the freezing mud. By the time she forced her head up a ring of dozens of torches had already boxed her in.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The earth violently quaked and the circle of hunters parted like the Red Sea. An absolutely suffocating pressure locked her lungs.
If someone from modern Earth saw this mechanical monstrosity they would have called it a cyberpunk gorilla stitched together from scrap metal and raw meat.
It was a grotesque pilotable golem dragging two massive steel arms across the dirt. But to her bloodshot eyes it wasn't just a machine.
A sound of pure broken despair clawed its way out of Luna's throat. Her body violently convulsed with hatred.
Slapping wet raw meat and bloody bones were jammed into the golem's mechanical joints. Muscles stitched from the flayed skin of her kin writhed over the steel frame. Severed wolfkin skulls dangled around its glowing mana engine like sick little hood ornaments.
It was a blasphemous Frankenstein-mech built from the butchered corpses of her family.
The scarred slaver captain perched on the golem's shoulder sneering down at her like she was garbage.
"Cornered at last. Feisty little bitch dug her own grave."
He casually kicked his boot against the blood-stained armor plates.
"How do you like the specs? Your friends and family made an excellent upgrade. And for the final touch I'm going to rip off that gorgeous silver pelt of yours and use it as my new pilot seat cushion."
His smug words flipped a switch in Luna's brain. Her eyes flared with eerie blue mana.
"Shut your mouth you disgusting parasite!" Her roar shook the fucking trees.
"I am Luna Fenrir! You can break our bodies but you will never break our pride! In the name of the Great Wolf God I will rip your throat out and feed your rotting flesh to the crows!"
She yanked a battered dagger from her waist. It was a meteorite steel blade the only thing left of her late father the strongest alpha of their tribe.
Embracing death she launched herself like a coiled spring. She vaulted through the freezing air aiming the black blade straight for the captain's jugular.
But the level gap was absolute bullshit.
WHOOSH. CRASH.
The meat-golem's massive steel arm swatted her out of the air like an annoying mosquito.
The sheer kinetic force of that metal monstrosity sent her tiny body flying backward like a ragdoll caught in a hurricane.
"Gah!"
Luna slammed spine-first into a solid rock face coughing up a geyser of black blood.
The impact was catastrophic. Her vertebrae shifted out of place and shattered ribs violently punctured her lungs. Her vision flashed blindingly white as ruptured organs twisted inside her stomach.
It was a critical hit that should have instantly triggered a game over.
There was zero chance of killing the pilot from this angle. She tasted the blood pouring down her chin and forced her blurring vision to focus entirely on his obnoxious laughing face.
Mutual destruction. That was her final plan.
Even if her body was torn to shreds and eaten by wild dogs she was dragging this bastard down to hell with her.
Pure venomous spite forced her broken body upright. Fractured bones grated against torn muscles screaming in agony but she completely ignored the damage warnings.
Squeezing out the very last drop of her HP Luna clamped her shattered jaw shut and charged forward again with a raw guttural howl.
Unfortunately the universe really loved shitting on the weak.
The sheer weight of that massive golem combined with her earlier impact had critically weakened the cliff edge.
CRACK. CRUMBLE. ROAR.
The exact moment Luna stomped down to launch herself the entire bedrock beneath her shattered like fragile glass. Her foot kicked empty air.
Below her a pitch-black abyss opened its massive jaws to swallow her whole. She was plummeting.
But in that split second.
"Ack!"
Her violent descent jerked to a brutal stop.
It felt like her entire scalp was being ripped off. Luna looked up through the agonizing pain. The captain was leaning out of his cockpit desperately clutching a fistful of her silver hair as the golem teetered on the broken edge.
"Where do you think you're going you dumb bitch! Alive you're my paycheck and dead you're spare parts for my mech!"
Staring up at that screaming greedy face Luna flashed a cold chilling smile through bloody lips. It wasn't the look of cornered prey but the arrogant smirk of an apex predator.
"See you in hell motherfucker."
Her right wrist violently flicked. The black meteorite dagger she had gripped until the bitter end shot out of her hand like a dark meteor aimed straight between his eyes.
It was an unavoidable one-hit-kill strike.
CLANG. SQUELCH.
But RNG was a cruel mistress.
A millisecond before piercing his brain the dagger's tip barely clipped the edge of the golem's steel plating. Sparks flew. The trajectory slightly shifted.
Dodging a fatal headshot by a literal hair the heavy blade mercilessly impaled his fat right cheek instead. Black steel brutally shattered his teeth and shredded the soft tissue inside his mouth.
"GAAAAAAAH!"
The captain shrieked in ungodly agony with a massive black blade jutting out of his face. Writhing from the severe brain trauma his fingers instinctively went slack releasing Luna's hair.
"No! Our merchandise!"
"Captain she's falling! Grab her!"
The slavers on the cliff screamed not giving a single shit about their wounded boss. They were only panicking over losing their precious high-tier loot.
The captain's pig-like squeals and their greedy shouts instantly faded into the distance.
Luna plummeted into the endless devouring dark of the abyss slowly closing her eyes.
Freezing winds slashed against her ears like icy blades. The blood-red sky filled with her burning hatred completely vanished replaced by absolute nothingness.
Her senses faded to zero as her consciousness sank into the pitch-black void.