Chapter 40: Chapter FOURTY

Mia, trembling, had drawn her revolver to her right. She held it with both hands, but Ethan could see that she couldn't aim properly, her body was so overwhelmed with fear and nervousness. Training to fight safely and without any pressure had nothing to do with the reality of a life-or-death situation. Especially since she was just not used to shooting enough to counter the wendigo's superhuman speed, and the moon's light should only allow her to guess the silhouettes and not distinguish them clearly, unlike the Vila who had night vision.

The nightmarish creature didn't wait for the blonde to pull the trigger to pounce on Taure. Ethan immediately stepped in and grabbed the wendigo by the arm to keep it from jumping around the wyvern's neck. It was their mount and their only way out of those cursed woods, the animal had to be able to fly after they had defeated their assailant if they could. They had drifted too far for the rest of the squad to find them in a second, and they weren't the only ones caught by the wendigo. Ethan had to stall until the Sentinels found them because he honestly wasn't sure he could deal with the monstrosity on his own.

Throwing the wendigo down seemed to enrage it, but at least its attention had focused on the Vila and not Taure or Mia. The blonde was still trying to aim, this time controlling her breathing and trying to calm herself down, but her finger didn't squeeze the trigger.

"I can't shoot if you're that close, I'll hurt you!" she complained, still staying in a position to aim, in case the opportunity presented itself.

"Stay behind Taure!" Ethan growled, his voice deeper than usual, almost demonic, due to his semi-transformation.

The wendigo came back to the charge, throwing itself this time directly on the Vila which welcomed it with all claws out. He planted them in his shoulders when the creature reached for his neck with its wolfish snout and teeth as sharp and fine as needles. Still, Ethan's attack didn't stop it, and the fangs of the atrocity closed on his collarbone, making him scream in pain. He had been able to dodge his attack enough for the wendigo's jaw to mostly clamp down on his bone, preventing him from ripping out his flesh as it wished. It would have just torn his artery if it had hit him in the neck.

"Ethan!" Mia screamed, panicked but helpless.

Wendigos had no flesh, let alone nerves it seemed. If they felt pain, it didn't stop them at all, which made them particularly dangerous since they would stop at nothing and absorb every attack if it allowed them to reach their target. They were like animals whose primary instincts were devoted to hunting and killing their target. The only way to stop them permanently was to cut off their heads since even dismembering them was not enough to calm their ardor. They weren't even bleeding, and it made you wonder if they were alive in the first place. And yet, they were endowed with super-powerful strength despite their complete lack of muscle and flesh. Real abominations whose abilities didn't follow any logic.

Ethan had to use all his Vila strength to push the creature back and make it drop from his shoulder, allowing the wendigo to rip off a few chunks of his flesh in the process. The wound was extremely painful, but remained shallow and did not interfere with his movements. This time he tackled the monstrosity to the ground before it lunged at him again, smashing its head into the damp earth in an attempt to crack its skull. His assailant's sharp nails dug into the skin of his arm to force him to relinquish his grip, and his lower body shook as if possessed to escape. Ethan put his foot on the creature's lower back to hold it in place, but the wendigo was so hysterical that even his incredible strength as a Vila couldn't immobilize it. A first cracking sound sounded as the atrocity's skull cracked. The skin on Ethan's arm was completely raw from the wendigo's fingernails that kept scratching him, but he tried to ignore the pain for as long as possible. When they finally burrowed deeper into his flesh and scraped his muscles and nerves, the pain forced him to let go of his grip before he managed to explode his enemy's skull. He stumbled back, gritting his teeth under the pain of his raw nerves.

"Don't shoot!" a guttural voice ordered Mia as she was about to take advantage of the distance between her mate and the wendigo to pull the trigger.

A huge wolf leaped from the darkness to land on the creature who had barely had time to turn around to see that a new opponent had arrived. His powerful front paws pushed the atrocity to pin it against the ground and his sharp fangs closed with power around its slender neck. The abomination wriggled in all directions, scratching the animal's coat and skin with its hands and nails, while the wolf gradually nibbled its neck to break its spine and thus decapitate it. The action only lasted about ten seconds at most, until a dull sound of cracked bone resounded and a well-placed blow of the jaw finished separating the head from the rest of the wendigo's body. Even as he was sliced ​​in half, his limbs gesticulated for a few more seconds to flay the wolf who stood ferociously on the remains of his enemy, breathing heavily.

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"Zerkan?" Ethan finally guessed after calm had returned to the forest.

Arms wrapped around his neck and his brain quickly realized that Mia had rushed to hug him once the danger had passed. He winced when she involuntarily pressed down on the wound in his shoulder and closed his untouched arm around her waist to hug her back.

"I was really useless..."

"And it is for the best," declared Zerkan, who had regained his human appearance and was advancing towards the couple. "If you had fired, the noise would have echoed for miles. Even if they are not familiar with our weapons, someone would have suspected that the sound is unusual."

Mia broke away from her mate to face the Sentinel Commander smiling at him, grateful that he eased her guilt. Her smile soon died, however, when her gaze rested again on the wounds of the Vila.

"Let's go back quickly with the group," Zerkan ordered. "Chris will take care of your injuries."

Ethan wasn't exactly sure who he was referring to, though the only logical answer had to be the wizard who accompanied Zerkan. Even though he was not a healer, he must have brought with him some remedies to treat non-fatal wounds. The trio, followed by Taure who had by chance suffered very few injuries, therefore plunged into the darkness to head towards the rest of the procession. Mia, who was struggling to walk in the darkness of the forest and therefore couldn't see where to put her feet, clung to her soul mate's good arm, allowing him to concentrate on the contact of their skin rather than on the pain inflicted by the multiple gashes covering his limb.

"We haven't even arrived yet that we have already almost died," the blonde whispered as she walked, "What's next?"

I'm beginning to doubt that we'll come back alive, he thought without sharing his opinion with his better half so as not to panic her, preferring to keep quiet. If we are already struggling against a single wendigo...

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