Season of Sacrifice (Blood of Azure Book 1) by Jonathan Michael (best ebook for manga txt) 📕

“Fuck! Calm down! And check your talent! Get your claws out of my hip.”

I loosen my grip with my right hand, realizing I’ve left a mark of black rot. My left is hardly a nuisance without a hand to dig into her.

Ellia brings Persia to a stop. All around us, dozens of eyes reflect the terralight. Some bright yellow, some silvery white, some deep blue, some reflecting the red glow of Cerise, but all fiercely glowing in the night. Fear petrifies me.

I come around once I realize I’m being thrown from Persia’s back. And I soon find out the forest floor isn’t as soft as it was in the Broken Forest. Ellia, far more capable, manages to land on her feet only a few paces away. With her claymore ready for action, she fearlessly taunts the pack.

We’re surrounded. Countless dire wolves, all as large as Persia, creep toward us. I curl into a small ball, hoping the dire wolves will attack the others and forget about me and it’ll all just go away.

The hair-prickling growls are too close. The first few come bounding toward us. Persia mutilates the first one with a swipe of her paw while another leaps onto her back, clenching down with its gnarly blood-stained fangs. Ellia swings her heartless blade, decapitating the third with ease. Then spins, maintaining momentum, and slices deep into the shoulder blade of a fourth, removing its forelimb.

Persia frees herself from the grasp of the dire wolf on her back just in time for another two to clamp down on her. Ellia swings her blade with a precise finesse that allows her to strike the beasts one after the other. Her movement is flawless. She slices off the leg of one, rendering the beast inactive, and moves onto the next. She doesn’t look over her shoulder once to see whether her blows are effective or not. Pure confidence. She dances forward, to the side, backward, as though it’s choreographed. She maintains constant movement with both her feet and her sword as one wolf goes down after the next.

I shake the awe of Ellia’s brilliance and witness Persia being overcome by several wolves. She drops to the ground. Ellia sees the same thing, momentarily distracted, and one of the wolves takes the opportunity to get inside Ellia’s blood circle.

The wolf gouges out a small chunk of Ellia’s leg, dropping her to the ground. She tries but can’t rise to her feet. The major threats have been nullified. The inflicting wolf, and all the others, turn their attention away from her, setting their hungry eyes on me.

The wolves charge. Don’t hesitate. That’s what Stone has always told me in the event of a Lost Soul attack. Hesitation warrants an undesirable outcome. So, I don’t hesitate to get to my feet, turn, and run.

I manage thirty or forty paces before they’re nipping at my heels. My adrenaline is high, and my legs are moving faster than I realized they could, but it won’t be enough. Not for a beast with four legs the same length as my two legs. One pinches at my calf, and it instantly feels hot and wet beneath the sharp pain. There’s a large chunk of flesh torn from it. The sight of it is nauseating. My leg crumbles under the weight of my body with my next step, causing me to trip over my own feet and soar headfirst through the air with my arms outstretched.

The peppered wolf clamps its jaws around my leg and drags me back the way we came. I dig my nails into the dirt and flail, but to no avail. The other wolves trot back to the battle scene where Ellia and Persia lie wounded. They treat me as a helpless, wounded piece of meat. Wounded, sure. Helpless, never.

A wave of emotions flushes through me. The pain recedes as my body grows warm. Rage to fury. The warmth becomes overbearing. All fear absolves into anger. My body convulses. Fury to berserk. The wolf eases its lockjaw and I kick free inadvertently as I try to cope with the overwhelming emotions. The wolf steps back. I bounce to my feet and charge the beast recklessly. It flinches and shuffles backward a few paces. However, it doesn’t take long for it to remember I’m the prey. It bulls toward me.

“Perfect,” I quietly think aloud.

It bounds into the air, heading for my throat with its jaws wide and fangs glistening with blood-tainted slobber. I drop to a full slide on my rear, thrusting my arm high as it leaps over me. My fist melts into its underbelly as it bounds overhead. When I retract, a glob of entrails and blood come pouring down over top of me. I confidently rise to my feet, legs strong, muscles tense, covered in wolf’s blood. Black rot consumes the lifeless wolf at my feet.

I rush back to Ellia and Persia, bracing myself for another duel.

Ellia sits propped up against Persia. The last of the wolves are toppled over her. One with its lower jaw removed from its skull and another with her claymore protruding from its spine. She looks up at me with a cold, empty stare.

“You’re alive,” she mumbles.

I help her remove the dead weight and pull her to her feet. She’s missing a chunk of sinew on her thigh. If it were me, I wouldn’t be able to stand.

Then, I remember the damage done to my own body. I look down to see I’m covered in blood. Much of it my own. My calf has a small bite, and my lacerations have reopened. The pain drops on me like an anvil as my berserk emotions fade. Exhaustion swathes over me, and my body gives out.

Ellia, on the other hand, not only remains standing but walks with