Zich’s Windur flew straight towards Tim. Windur’s blades shone sharply, and Tim threw the knight he was holding in response.
“Urgh!” The knight let out a big breath. Although he was half-unconscious after failing to breathe properly for a long time, he was still alive. Tim straightened his nails and pierced the knight’s body flying powerlessly in the air. He planned to throw the knight to block Zich’s vision and use the body as a shield to pierce the two together; this was because although Zich said he had no intention of saving the hostage, he blabbered on about doing ‘kind acts’ and Tim judged that Zich wouldn’t treat the knight carelessly once thrown at him. However, he couldn’t have been more wrong.
Pierce. Zich pierced the knight’s body, forming a hole inside it. However, there wasn’t only one hole on the body.
‘What…!’
Tim had to twist his body away in shock when Windur popped out from the knight’s body.
Crunch!
Windur’s blade scraped his body, but it couldn’t inflict any injuries on Tim’s steel-like fur. Tim also failed to land a proper attack against Zich because he had to dodge. Above all, Zich’s attack caused Tim’s back to shiver.
Pwish! The knight’s body was shredded apart from Zich and Tim’s attacks. Blood, flesh, and bones poured down from the sky like rain, and Zich and Tim landed back on the ground from a good distance away from each other.
“You bastard! I thought you did kind acts! How could you turn a hostage into rags then!”
“I thought I clearly told you. I won’t care about the hostage while fighting you.”
“How could a bastard like you go on about kind acts?”
“I can’t cling onto things I can’t do. It’s stupid to feel guilty and worry about things I simply can’t do with my current abilities. Besides, even if I do kind acts, my specialty is beating up villains. Saving hostages is outside my specialty.”
“What sort of kind person are you!”
“I said I do kind acts. I never said a word about being a kind person. I am a bad person.”
‘This guy doesn’t make any sense!’ Tim was aware that he was someone who lived however he liked. However, if he compared himself to the guy who claimed to be a bad person who did kind acts, Tim began to think that he might not be so bad after all.
“Do you get it now! The kind of acts that I do aren’t really what most people think of! All there is to it is that villains are the only targets for my bad deeds! Don’t you think you can do that much!” Zich tried to persuade Tim once more, but Tim shook his head.
“That means I won’t be able to bother humans who aren’t bad guys.” Tim believed he couldn’t abide by that. He said, “Why would I have to do that? It’s only natural in this world for the strong to eat the weak. Are you seriously telling me to choose my prey with good and evil in mind? Ha! What sort of wolf person would do a damn thing like that!”
“When we drank together last time, didn’t you say that you were a weak person in the past?” Zich asked.
“Yeah, I did.”
Some might remember their past as beautiful memories, but for Tim, the past was simply a shameful history that he wanted to erase. “If I think about how damn weak I used to be, it pisses me off so much that it keeps me awake at night and makes me want to kill somebody. If my past self appeared in front of me right now, I would kill him without hesitation.”
Tim expressed a fury, stronger than any emotion he had displayed so far. The existence he probably hated the most was probably his past self.
“I’m sure you must have gone through a lot to have become so strong.”
“Yeah. They are stories you can’t hear without crying. There were seriously hard times, but I was able to overcome them! I threw away my weak past and was reborn again!” Tim stretched out both arms. Then, like he was announcing it to the world, he shouted, “I am strong!” There was pride in his voice that he couldn’t hide.
“Some suspicious guys wearing robes must have given you that strength.”
“Yeah, I am surprised that you know about them, but it’s true. However, the power that they gave me was just a trigger, and I am the one who honed and perfected that power.”
“What if the incidents you suffered through were caused by those robed figures?”
“…What?” Tim’s confident face collapsed instantly.
“I am chasing after those guys. They are part of a group that picks out people, makes them experience all kinds of suffering to ruin them, and turns them into villains. Just like what they did to you.”
“…”
“You changed according to their plan. Seeing your current self, those guys succeeded in completing their plan.”
“…” Tim didn’t say anything as Zich continued to talk. Zich’s words shocked him considerably.
“Although I am doing kind acts, my top goal is to capture those guys. How about it? Don’t you want to chase after those guys with me?” Zich stretched out his hands again. His eyes looked uneasy as he looked at Tim.
“…I don’t need to.”
The response he got back was disappointing. Zich gripped his fist tightly. “Do you not believe me?”
“No, I believe you. Truthfully, even I thought those guys were really suspicious. It makes sense that they had a scheme like that. Now that I think about it, they had perfect timing when giving me my power.”
Tim stared at Zich. “But joining you is another story. Yeah, those bastards are annoying. I really want to shred them into pieces. But I can do that just by myself! Do you seriously expect me to join hands with you and live like some domesticated pup? I refuse!”
“Even your current personality was created by those guys.”
“I don’t care! Whatever the process was, this is who I am today!”
Zich sighed. As he thought, Tim was the guy most like him; even his way of thinking was like him. Whether their past was manipulated by somebody else or not, both Zich and Tim thought their decisions were theirs alone. Furthermore, they both had the urge to kill off all the guys who played with their lives regardless of the outcome.
Thus, Zich was certain. ‘It’s impossible to persuade him.’ The uneasiness Zich felt when he first realized that Tim’s personality was the same as before the regression hit him again. ‘He’s been completed by those robed figures.’
While having a glimmer of hope, Zich had gone around looking for the robed figures. Judging by their previous actions, if they didn’t finish ‘corrupting’ Tim, they would still be near Tim and cause various incidents to corrupt him. However, Zich was unable to find the robed figures. Unlike Joachim and Evelyn, Tim’s transformation as a Werewolf Demon Person was already complete.
“Okay, I got it.” Zich decided to respect Tim’s decision; he stopped trying to persuade him. The only thing left was to battle while they had conflicting opinions. Tim also seemed to have grasped Zich’s intention as he lowered his body; he looked like a wolf ready to pounce on his prey.
Swoosh!
Zich and Tim ran towards each other; Windur and Tim’s sharp nails collided.
Crash!
Windur and Tim’s nails bounced off from the recoil. However, the two of them dug their feet into the ground and stopped themselves from being pushed back.
Crash! Crash! Crash!
They cut and sliced and pierced and swung. In an instant, dozens of clashes passed between them. Windur’s strange-looking blades danced, and Tim’s sharp nails ripped the space between them.
Swoosh!
Tim swung his knee. Since he was so big, his knee easily reached Zich’s face. If it hit Zich’s face, Zich wouldn’t end with just a broken nose and a fall to the ground.
Crash!
Windur’s sharp blade blocked Tim’s knee.
Tap!
Tim jumped by using his other foot that was on the ground. He spun once in the air and tried to kick Zich as he came down; just like his hands, Tim’s feet also had sharp nails. Zich bent his waist back and evaded Tim’s attack. A foot covered in silver fur passed right over his face. Zich was able to successfully evade two kicks from both of Tim’s legs. Even though he was a werewolf, as long as Tim had only two legs, it seemed as if he wouldn’t be able to make any more consecutive attacks.
However, Zich didn’t lower his guard. He knew how Tim usually fought.
Crash!
Tim’s tail fell down on the spot Zich had just moved away from. The mark that Tim’s fluffy looking tail made was enough to devastate a person’s body.
“Tch! You evaded that?” Tim clicked his tongue as he had been confident in this surprise attack.
Zich swung Windur again. Tim fought back after he landed on the ground and easily regained his balance. A fierce exchange of attacks occurred again. At this point, they were able to roughly assess the extent of each other’s abilities.
Tim smirked. ‘As expected, this guy is weaker than me!’
When he was human, he was weaker than Zich, but after he transformed and revealed his true strength, the situation reversed. In matters of strength, speed, and most physical abilities, Tim was superior to Zich.
Zich slightly frowned. ‘Has he been completed to this extent?’
The hand he was holding Windur ached. As expected, even though Zich was getting stronger at an unbelievably fast rate, it was strenuous to fight against a werewolf who finished their transformation. However, Zich was not fazed at all.
The flow of the battle began skewing toward Tim’s favor. With a bit more time, this battle would end with Tim’s victory. Tim also thought this. In order to win as fast as possible, he cornered Zich with even more force than before. However, in a short while, Tim twisted his face in annoyance.
‘This bastard, why isn’t he falling down!’ No matter how many times he hit, kicked, and scratched him, Zich completely blocked all his attacks. Tim’s attacks were definitely strong, and Zich’s bizarre-looking sword was being pushed bit by bit. However, that was it; so far, Tim had been unable to land a hit on Zich.
‘There’s no way this can happen!’ It felt like hitting a reed. Like a reed, even if Zich’s sword received a strong hit and lay flat, it’d soon bounce back again.
“Damn it!” Tim attacked even more strongly. He shifted his gravity to the front and put more strength into his attacks. Each of his attacks increased in force. Zich’s defense was getting slowly pushed back. Tim was smirking to himself when—
Slice!
Windur managed to dig under his arm and scratched his side. His metal-like fur was cut and his tough skin ripped.
Spurt!
Blood spurted out of the injury.
“What!” Tim was shocked. ‘What the hell is happening!’
He had definitely been leading the battle, but surprisingly, he was the one to first show blood.
“What the hell is going on!”
His injury was not serious. Even though the injury wasn’t critical, most people’s movements would have at least been hampered, but Tim had extraordinary regenerative abilities. His injury was already becoming faint. However, Tim was confused by this strange situation, and falling into confusion in the middle of a battle was definitely a disadvantage.
‘He fell for it.’ Zich automatically nodded his head after making sure that Tim’s attacks slightly but surely became duller than before. Even though Tim’s physical prowess was clearly above his right now, Zich had experience from his regression. Moreover, his opponent right now was his ex-subordinate, Tim Platt. He knew Tim’s fighting style and his movements very well. Zich had trained with him hundreds of times, and he couldn’t even count the number of times they went to battle together.
Moreover, even if his physical transformation was complete, the current Tim’s movements were more awkward and sloppy than the Tim he knew before his regression. Therefore, Zich was able to block Tim’s attacks easier than he expected.
‘Also, he’ll probably get even more easily agitated than before.’
Zich was the one who had fixed this hot-tempered personality of his, and he also knew Tim’s habit when he got extremely agitated.
“Uahhhhhh!” Unable to control his anger, Tim began to let out a storm of attacks. Compared to him, Zich’s eyes were extremely cold.