Larm Forest was a very dangerous place. So dangerous that humans dare not step foot in it. Well, it was human nature to step foot into the unknown regardless of the amount of danger. So, why exactly did no one dare step foot here?

It was due to the presence of five powerful creatures known as the Tyrants of Larm. These tyrants all possessed immense power and were said to be able to take down whole adventurer guilds by themselves. It was rumoured that the strongest of these Tyrants could take down an entire nation if they so pleased.

There was a nation that had suffered from a Tyrant's wrath before and this was a well-known fact. No one wanted to introduce such a monstrosity into their lives, so they dared not bother with Larm.

Right now, in the West, its resident Tyrant could smell a blossoming fire. The discoloured creature got off its arse and picked up a massive club that was twice its size and walked towards the entrance of its cave. When it got there, the sun was not visible. It was night time. Yet, the forest was bright. It could see and smell smoke. Tiny animals were running about, none daring to go near its cave, but they were running around.

The Tyrant sniffed the air, and it tilted its head to one side, confused. There was a forest fire, but strangely no humans. In fact, the forest fire shouldn't have been possible with the way the trees in the forest were. It was like the trees were willingly burning themselves.

The Tyrant put their hand in their nose, picking out boogers. With an annoyed yawn, the Tyrant kicked off to go investigate. Not as fast as a lightning strike, but very close. The Tyrant of West was going to meet a seemingly very boring sight.

Little did the Mad Witch of the West know that she was about to have her entire life turned upside down.

***

'Keke… My plan to annihilate this damned black wolf was underway! Kuro, my greatest nightmare! You shall suffer greatly!'

My excellent plan to defeat that wolf was a simple one that didn't matter on the wolf's stats. I would be bringing the fight to my home field which was currently covered in poison that my resistance had grown to the point of me not even noticing its effects.

Still, I was hungry since I didn't get to eat anything. So I went into the forest to go hunting. I found a giant centipede today. I didn't know why, but the centipede reminded me of something.

Not caring much, I simply killed it and ate it. I acquired the skills [Feelers], [Sensors] and [Poison Claws]. With feelers, the antenna-like thing on my head became something like a detector. I could tell the taste of things as well as smell within a simply range of 10m. Sensors also acted in a way that let me know on pure instinct whether my opponent was stronger than I was or weaker. It was practically [Prey Instinct], but a modified version seeing as [Prey Instinct] automatically integrated into it.

What made [Sensors] better was the fact that it didn't inflict the [Fear] status into me.

This was where I explained status effects. So this world really was sort of like a video game.

You see, everyone has a status. Your status affects your stats and abilities sometimes. For example, if I had the status [Desperate], there is a 25 percent chance that my stats would go up for a short amount of time. Like an adrenaline boost.

Then there was the skills themselves. Sure a skill can be effective if used smartly, but there is the option of combining skills to produce an outcome that the skills were not originally intended for. That's what makes skills the most dangerous part of this world. How they can be used, but could also injure you if you didn't have a counter for them.

For instance, the skill combination I tried performing earlier. Sure, naturally the skill worked. The problem was that I was getting injured in place of using it. So to use that skill, I would've needed [Mental Damage Resistance] to ward off the pain and mind destruction.

So now that I knew that, I would simply use that specific combination of skills at least once every day to ensure that I would be able to do it constantly without feeling any form of pain.

Then there was the time my unique skill [Analyst] was locked. Unlike normal and advanced skills, there was no natural counter for a unique skill. Why was this? Well obviously because it's a unique skill dummy!

A unique skill appears only once, hence skills to ward off those are practically non-existent. No one has seen such a skill before and the chances of them seeing it again are pretty low. In essence, one out of a million people possess unique skills. And going by the agent's calculations, the chances of a unique skill appearing twice in two different eras is a 3.142 percent chance.

'Hehe, pie.'

So meeting a person with a unique skill was more like a once in a life-time opportunity you wouldn't want to miss. Well, if the person also came to kill you, I guess you wouldn't want to meet them. From all this, I concluded that me having three unique skills was sort of above average.

Normally I should be celebrating that I truly did have cheats, but the fact that these cheats could kill me if overused scared me. I felt like there should be a skill that protected against soul attacks and according to the agent, there was a plethora of such said skills. The problem was that, we didn't know exactly what [Analyst] was doing to my soul, so [Evolver] and [God's Voice] acted as a counter for me, blocking the skill temporarily.

So once again, having three unique skills was dope, but I could die or something worse would happen if I used them carelessly. I figured that the con of using [God's Voice] was having to deal with such a retard at times, but [Evolver] truly got me curious.

To be honest, what was the actual con of [Evolver]? Fine, it took energy, but that energy could be recovered through sleep, where it puts me in a form of stasis, meaning I don't get hungry. Sure, I would be defenseless, but if I found this ultimate fortress no one could penetrate and I kept on putting myself in absurd situations, wouldn't I simply becoming this ultimate being that is immune to everything?

No, there should have been a con for [Evolver]. The skill was simply too powerful for there not to be any.

Ah well, that's enough for my Tori talk!

It was night time. I could hear wolves howling. It was time to go bring justice to this damned wolf. I flew off from my nest into the night sky. I didn't use [Stealth] as I flew. In fact I was screaming at the creature.

If it wanted to fight, I was ready. In the forest, I saw four blurs. There were four wolves running through the forest. A brown wolf, a grey wolf, an ash wolf and finally the biggest amongst them, a black wolf.

STATUS

[Name: -

[Species: Timber Wolf 35/50       

[Status: [Hungry]

[Age: 1 year                     

[Rank: C-

[Titles: |Of World|, |Survivor|, |Savage Beast|, |Merciless|, |Man eater|

[Blessings:

[Level: 15      Exp: 120/1,030

[Health: 700/700      Stamina: 1000/1000    Strength: 690      Speed: 600    Defense: 540      Dexterity: 710    Intelligence: 125        Luck: 70

[Skills: [Blood Hound Nose], [Claw Attack], [Maul], [Night Vision], [Timber Wolf Howl], [Predator Instinct], [Murderous Aura], [Poison Resistance], [Magic Attack Resistance], [Physical Attack Resistance]

'Oi, oi… isn't he too strong? Like way above my league? No wonder it killed that boar so easily. Maybe I shouldn't do this.'

I was reconsidering my decision. I came to the conclusion that the best option was to retreat for now, wait till I got strong (At least having equal stats with it), then I could get my revenge.

I was about to fly back to the nest, but then the wolves paused. The black wolf sniffed the air around them. What was happening? There was something wrong.

One of the wolves then squeaked in pain. It kept scratching at its face as if there was something there. I tried my best to zoom in on them and there, to my surprise, was San. Hadn't I ordered them to stay back at the cave? What the hell was he doing?

'Oi! San! Retreat you little bastard!'

San heard my order and then left the wolf's face. It landed on the ground and stuck its tongue out at the wolves, before running towards the nest.

'What the fuck?!'

I couldn't hold the words back.

I flew at full speed towards the nest. Unlike the wolves there was no obstacle in my path since I was in the air, so I should have been able to get back earlier. I underestimated their speed.

These bastards were so fast that they easily caught up to San. San however jumped on the grey wolf's face and began playing around. The ash wolf tried to hit San, but the little guy dodged, making the attack hit just the grey wolf's face.

The last wolf however was about to pounce on San. I saw no escape route for the little fella. Normally, I should have just observed, but on instinct, I jumped in to safe the guy, taking the hit for him instead and tumbling to the ground with it in my embrace.

"Wawawa! Aga!"

I looked at the cheeky brat and he was screaming with a creepy smile on his face.

I didn't know why, but the thought of San almost dying pissed me off. I couldn't let that little bastard die.

I threw the cheeky brat away then got up to face the wolf. It towered over me like some kind of demon. Its dark violet eyes glowed eerily.

'Hehe. In the end, it seems I was going to have to undergo great adversity to truly become strong at an early stage in my life.'

'Let's do this! Like real men!'

The wolves all gathered up behind him. As if he understood what I said, he barked at the other wolves and they reluctantly left us alone.

Now that we were alone, I needed to figure out a way to beat this beast in a head to head confrontation. I started. I quickly flew around the wolf, circling it while shooting out black threads. The wolf didn't let the threads touch him, instead he swiped at them with his claws, completely destroying them.

He used his [Timber Wolf Howl] and [Predator Instinct] to set me off. [Prey Instinct] practically weakened me in the face of anyone possessing such an ability. Right now, my mind was all 'Run! Run! Run!' but I wouldn't. Once I knew it was just a trick, I could resist. Although I think it was mostly [Mental Damage Resistance] and [Evolver].

I then tried [Terror] on the wolf. It paused in its track once the skill hit it.

'It's go time!'

I activated [White Viper Scales], [Sprint], [Peck] and [Poison Generation] for my new [Tori Original: Verwesen]. My body was immediately coated in white scales and possessed a yellow glow with a maelstrom of poison spilling from my mouth as a span like a fidget spinner.

My goal was to hit it right on the head and hopefully break its skull open or melt right through it. However, things weren't so easy. The wolf snapped out of his daydream and as if even more enraged, its aura blew out of proportion.

[You have acquired the skill [Murderous Aura Resistance]]

'Eh? Eh? What?!'

It opened its maw viciously. It was like the devil that had come to collect my soul. With that thought in my mind, I veered away, narrowly missing his fangs. In fact, some of my feathers had been bitten off. When I looked back, the wolf was glaring at me. It spat out the feathers then pounced at me.

I swerved it but barely. Without wasting time, it pounced on me again. In complete fear, I activated my plan too quickly. Using [Fire Breath], I blasted the beast's body with my weak flames. As expected, its coat was way above any damage my flames would cause, but then the spores which touched it earlier would set it ablaze.

'What spores touched it earlier?' you ask? Well the spores I placed on the black threads I fired at him earlier which he ripped to shreds. Yes, those threads were coated in my spores so now that they were set ablaze, even if the beast's defenses were high enough to ignore the flames, they wouldn't go out.

Now that they wouldn't go out eventually they would start leeching off his health points, right?

I flew back, slamming into a tree by accident and falling to the ground. I just got flight yesterday, so flying was still tricky, especially with obstacles all around me. And my confusing bird vision made it a bit harder.

Yes, even though I had spent roughly a week as a bird, the vision was still confusing me. You think it's easy having close to a 360 degree view on everything? Practically nothing escapes my view and it's so hard keeping up still.

Maybe my spirit animal was a bird?

Maybe that was why I reincarnated as a bird?

Honestly, I was really grasping at straws here. Why the hell was I reincarnated? Why was I thrown into hell? Did some great deity see me as deserving of this piece of crap reincarnation?

I wanted to ponder this some more, but the wolf pounced on me again. To be honest, its skill set was quite limited. All it had going for it were its stats.

It tried to bite my head off, but I ducked underneath it. I tried a peck to its belly, but it barely moved. Seeing that wouldn't work, I tried to fly off, but the wolf collapsed on me.

'Oi! No fair! That's a dirty trick!'

I complained, but that wouldn't work here. While I struggled to move from here, the wolf rolled all about on me, crushing my body and slowly draining my health.

[You have lost 10 health points]

[You have lost 5 health points]

[You have lost 7 health points]

'Ah! Stop that you damned dog!'

I still struggled under the wolf's weight. In a desperate attempt, I activated [Poison Gas Creation] to hurt the wolf's nostrils. This worked after I lost about 60 more health points. The wolf jumped off me and I slowly managed to move. I noticed I had the status [Broken Bones]

[Status Name: [Broken Bones]]

[Status Effect: The target's bones are all broken. All base stats decrease by 70% and target is inflicted with [Pain], [Internal Bleeding]]

'That… isn't good…'

My health points were going down fast. Like insanely fast. It wouldn't be long till I was left with only 50 percent of my original health.

That wasn't the only problem now. The ground was burning. Smoke was everywhere, making it a bit hard to breathe and see. Well, vision wasn't actually a problem seeing as I used other perception skills.

"Grrrrrr."

I looked back at the agitated wolf. I dragged my heavy body away. I had no chance but to fully activate the plan since I had already started it.

'Do it!'

I sent an order to the twig brothers. Ichi, Ni and San descended from the tree tops where I ordered them to hide and they came with Ichi's hand in the form of a large chainsaw. Honestly, where was he getting the idea for some of these shapes? Did he have access to my memories from before reincarnating? Maybe because I was its creator it saw glimpses of my past? Something like that?

They came down, delivering powerful blows to the wolf's head one after the other, so it were almost as if it were bobbing its head. They then landed, all making teasing expressions at the angry wolf whose HP I barely even scratched.

San whipped the wolf's ass, causing it to turn around and almost bite off his tiny head, but Ni shut Kuro's maw tight where as Ichi began the process of trying to cut it in half with his chainsaw.

Kuro slapped Ichi away with his tail and forcefully opened its mouth, wide enough to stick its tongue out and grab the arms into its mouth to be torn to pieces. It was left with San who continued to annoy the living hell out of the wolf.

I coughed a bit and leaned against the tree. My skills looked numerous, but in the face of true raw power, they were nothing but mere party tricks. If I wanted to stand at the top, what I needed was not brains, or tricks. It was all brawn. I needed power for in the face of true power, all could only bow.

'Guys… go back and hide.'

So for now, I would simply live to fight another day. I coughed up a bit of fire. The sparks were reflected by a shiny substance hanging between trees. My black threads which were not actually black.

'From the very beginning, my plan wasn't a head to head confrontation. I simply wanted to trap you here, where I laced the floor with a bunch of leaves I already dried out during the day. Didn't you wonder why the ground was burning? Now that they lack moisture, do you know what would happen when fire touches them? I'm guessing you wouldn't since you are just a dumb dog. Mitsuki was right. Cats were always smarter.'

Damn it! I cringed so hard to the point where I was proud of myself. I said one of those cringey lines the wise mentors on their death beds in shounen novels always do! Yes, I became a damned novel character. Unlike them however, I wasn't dying today.

I coughed the fire out. It was me adding an ember to an inferno at this point.

"AWWOOOOOOOOO!!!"

The wolf howled.

[The spawn San has been destroyed]

A message popped up and an automatic voice rang in my head. I paused in my tracks and looked back. The wolf was looking at me, the way its body was on fire and the ground around it burnt made it look like a beast from hell. I saw San's body burning before my eyes. It was a lump of charcoal.

I knew I should have ran. With the threads I had tied all around and the way I had reinforced them, it would have taken the wolf quite a while to escape. So right now was the perfect time to run. So… why didn't I?

Why did I turn back with my severely wounded body? Why despite the odds was I able to fly at the creature? Why… why was I crying?

***

I looked all around me. My nest was in flames. There was so much smoke it was getting hard to breathe and see. My body felt numb. My feet especially. I saw blood dripping down then before me there was the wolf. It was covered in scratches, but it didn't have any serious damage on its body.

Damn it, all my preparations were still useless. I was still too careless. No, now I was going to die. I didn't want to die. Not now! I hadn't become a badass phoenix yet! I hadn't built a mansion yet! I hadn't gotten my monster girls yet!

I couldn't die now. Not after barely living in this piece of shit world.

I suddenly lost all sense of reasoning. The only thing that was on my mind was Survive. To survive I needed to Kill.

Kill. Kill. Kill. I couldn't die here. Not now! So I would kill.

An adrenaline boost caused me to surge with power as I flapped my wings hard, allowing me to meet the wolf on an eye-eye level. Through the pain of my leg being gnawed at by a wolf, I used my other leg to scratch the damned wolf's face.

Not even thinking I just let lose my attack. My claws had been transformed into bronze, then coated with my poison. I scratched the beast's eye out. Blood jutted out like a fountain and seeing as it had never known anything as painful as losing its eye, it let go of my leg which I hadn't expected. With how hard I was flapping my wings, I flew straight back, spiraling in the air till I fell on the ground pathetically.

'Ugh… Uuuggh! Aaaagghh! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! This hurts! This really, really hurts. My vision was all red now with blood. My body felt very numb and heavy. I doubted I could move now. Still, I couldn't simply die here, right? With all my will power, I stood on my one functional leg.

Not thinking straight, I activated [Fire Breath] and [Poison Generation]. I opened my beak wide as my stomach was getting gassy. I felt like I was getting the worst sort of stomach ache imaginable. The air literally burnt my nostrils. It was like the very atmosphere was acidic.

I saw a weird liquid leaking from my beak. It had this sort of green with a mix of bright orange in it. It looked so beautiful, yet it was destroying my beak.

Yes. This would be enough to injure that damned wolf.

I looked at it. The beast must've sensed my plan, because now it wasn't squirming about in pain. It looked at me, it's eye showed a sign of pure determination and rage.

Well, this was the kind of fight I wished for in the first place. To be put on the battlefield and feel the rush of a life death situation. This was all my fault for envying a bloody boar. No regrets now!

"Stop."

The skill deactivated. My body collapsed, my willpower was drained. This was all because I heard a voice resonate in my head. With [Auto Mapping], [Sensors] and [Feelers] I saw a being in about a 200m radius from where I stood.

In the next second, I could only hear a big boom and a massive dust cloud appearing. Next, the big black wolf had been replaced by a single creature. The creature possessed a sort of grey skin. It looked short. Its white hair settled down on its head. I looked around searching for the wolf but it was no longer there.

I remember golden eyes staring at me, before my mind itself collapsed.