The crocodile's jaw snapped shut on air.
Lukas had already twisted out of the bite, abandoning his sword in the ground where it had stuck, and putting his agility to work.
He had a fraction of a second of open ground before the crocodile processed what had happened and came after him, and he used it.
He was moving before the beast fully turned, sprinting for the nearest tree.
The crocodile came behind him with the same ugly, efficient speed it had shown before with all that armored bulk moving faster than it had any right to.
Lukas hit the base of the tree and kicked off it, launching himself up and backwards into the air.
"Lukas!"
Melody's voice filled the air and his eyes immediately snapped to her, just in time to see his sword flying towards him.
He grinned at the sight, before catching it by the hilt.
He came down with the sword in hand, landing in a half-crouch, and the crocodile was already there waiting for him.
It lunged forward with its jaws, the same move it had been running all through the fight, confident in the armor that had let it absorb everything thrown at it so far.
This time, Lukas didn't try to pierce the plating.
He reversed his grip, turned the sword flat, and swung with his full strength behind it. The flat of the sword connected with the side of the crocodile's head like a hammer.
A loud crack filled the air and the crocodile was sent flying.
It sailed sideways and hit the same tree Lukas had leapt from hard enough to put a dent in the bark, its back slamming into the wood.
The impact forced a short, guttural sound out of it, but before it could even fall to the ground, Lukas was already there.
He flipped his sword back to a proper grip and drove it into the crocodile's underside, the one area where the armor plating thinned.
The sword met resistance, the plating pressing back against the edge for a half second, and then it gave. The sword sank through, point first, and pinned the crocodile against the tree.
The creature bellowed. The sound vibrated up through the hilt and into Lukas' hands with a note of surprise, as if the crocodile was feeling genuine pain for possibly the first time in its life.
It thrashed once, then a second time, the sword cutting deeper into its guts. Then it fell quiet.
[You have killed a C-rank Armored Crocodile.]
"Lukas!"
He turned immediately, pulling his sword free.
Melody was already sprinting towards a new wave of beasts coming in from the north side of the clearing, moving to intercept the ones that had angled towards her.
But the wave had split. The ones she couldn't reach were coming straight at him.
At the front was a wolf.
It was bigger than a natural wolf, its fur a pale grey-white and as it ran, frost crept out from each paw print it left in the soot.
The air around it was noticeably colder than the rest of the clearing.
It lunged before it reached him, covering the last few meters in a single leap.
He met it in the air with a slash. His sword entered through the lower jaw and exited through the top of the skull in one slash.
The wolf's momentum carried it past him as he stepped to the side, the body crashing into the soot behind him.
[You have killed a C-rank Ice Wolf.]
He turned immediately, and the rest of the pack was already on him.
He twisted, catching a set of claws on his sword and deflecting them to the side, frost crawling up the blade from the point of contact, climbing the dark steel in branching lines.
He shook the ice loose and kicked backwards without looking, his heel connecting with something solid. The wolf behind him stumbled, buying him half a second.
He used it. His sword flashed to the side, opening the throat of the wolf in front of him.
[You have killed a C-rank Ice Wolf.]
Then the pack spread out.
There were four remaining wolves, moving in a loose ring in a loose ring around him and they were doing it properly.
They were keeping distance from each other, staying at the edge of his peripheral vision, not giving him a clean angle on any one of them.
One of them feinted an attack, dropping its head and surging forward, and he felt his knees bend slightly in response before his mind caught up to the fact that the wolf hadn't committed to the attack.
The real attack came from his left.
He rolled hard to the side, the claws passing close enough that he felt them cut the air above his shoulder.
He came up out of the roll already moving, and before the pack could reset, he roared and surged forward.
His sword swept in a wide horizontal arc through the two closest wolves. Both of them went down, the cuts deep enough that neither got up.
He felt the displacement of air before he heard anything. A wolf dropped from somewhere above him, claws angled at his back.
He turned his sword behind him without looking and thrusted.
The wolf came down directly onto the blade.
The impact drove Lukas' arms down hard and the hilt slammed against his side, but he held his footing.
The wolf's own weight had done the work. It hung there, impaled, still trying to thrash.
With a grunt, he swung his sword.
The wolf left the blade and flew across the clearing, slamming into the last wolf just as it leapt at him.
The two collided hard in the air. The live wolf slashed through the airborne corpse with its claws on instinct, freezing the dead wolf solid on contact, and vaulted over it.
It came down fast, but Lukas was already inside its arc, driving forward from the side.
His sword sank into the wolf's neck, and he threw his weight behind it, slamming the beast into the ground.
Its claws found his foot as the wolf hit the soot. Frost bloomed at the point of contact, locking around his boot and climbing the leather, the ice hardening and pinning him in place before he could pull back.
[You have killed a C-rank Ice Wolf.]
And in that same instant, a fox landed on his back, biting deep into his shoulder.
***
A/N: Ladies and gentlemen, we are contracted! That means you can now support this book with your golden tickets!
Of course, I'll soon begin work on the character images. See you soon!