With his only route of escape blocked, Lucian had no choice but to face the Bloodhound’s deadly gaze head on. Its body was as large as a bull’s! And that wasn’t the only thing, with such a huge frame, it took up the entire doorway, scratching at the frame a little as splinters of wood shot out whenever it inched further into the room.

  This was the first animal Lucian was facing in this world; and it would undoubtedly be ingrained in his memory for quite a long time afterwards as well. Ordinary dogs Lucian was used to, but the sight of this ghastly creature was something to behold even for him, who had seen some gruesome things in his time.

  Snarl! Growl!

  The beast’s nasty cries snapped him out of his thoughts, refocusing his attention on the situation at hand.

  It looked like a demonic form of a greyhound, but the similarities between the two practically ended at that. True to its name, its entire body was covered with a ghastly mix of blood red fur, and exposed flesh. If Lucian hadn’t already acclimated himself to this world by now, he might have thought that this creature was something straight out of one of his experiments.

  The exposed flesh made it look like it had been degloved from the shoulder down on the left side of its body, and even half its face was missing the flesh that accompanied the other half.

  But despite it having a stature most similar to a greyhound, the beast’s muscles were far from the skinny, streamlined muscles greyhounds used to hone their speed. Its legs were as thick as sturdy logs, each of them, with claws on the end of each paw that reminded Lucian of a set of kitchen knives rather than something an organic life form would be dragging around on its paws.

  Most striking of all though were the two deep, void-like eyes that stared right into Lucian’s soul. It’s sclera were a striking red color, with irises a pale white, looking somewhat like a blind-man’s eyes.

  It’s mouth was the most normal looking part of its body, which was quite surprising to Lucian, considering that dogs and wolves tended to have much more developed canines as they were what were primarily used to hunt, but this was just going off of information that was readily available from Earth.

  In this place, things were clearly different. This beast had teeth that resembled a wolf’s, but they were also the same size as a wolf’s set. Compared to its enlarged body size, as huge as a bull, this was actually quite small. However the sheer length and sharpness of the set of claws on each foot was more than enough to make up for this.

  Whether it be due to Lucian’s lack of fear, or the beast was simply interested in the first human who hadn’t run away or pissed themselves at the sight of it, it seemed to be taking this hunt quite slower than its previous ones.

  Spotting this, Lucian took the opportunity to take a quick glance outside of his window to see if escaping through there might be a viable option, but all he saw was an even more discouraging situation outside.

  ‘As expected, people’s true colors are revealed in times of extreme danger — especially like this one.’ He thought to himself as he scanned his gaze across the scene outside of his dorm for a brief moment.

  What would normally be a scene of encouraging and touching bravery and camaraderie between fellow Knights had quickly devolved into chaos and betrayal. The stronger teachers, who were all seasoned Official Knights, had gone from requiring the backup of the students to outright using them as bait to make their own escapes from this hellhole of an academy.

  ‘These Bloodhounds are not the biggest threat in this place anymore.’ Lucian switched his gaze back to the Bloodhound that was his biggest threat for the moment though, eyeing the beast as it forced the last of its large body through the door frame which now lay in shambles.

  Growl!

  It seemed the beast had had enough of waiting now, as it started to show more obvious signs of aggression and impatience. The frequency of its steps had increased, and instead of slowly circling the same spot, it had deviated to simply standing off against Lucian in a stare down, while it approached with the level of confidence matching its intimidating appearance.

  “Looks like the Bloodhounds made quite a big investment to attack the academy.” Lucian murmured to himself, before launching himself forward to finally engage the Bloodhound directly.

  He was a widely regarded scientist in his previous world, and thought that nothing could surprise him or get his blood boiling after the things he had seen and been through. But in this moment, in this medieval and backwards society, the thought of his life being in danger and facing off against this formidable creature didn’t make him feel fear, instead it awakened something in his body that had long been buried.

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  Joy.

  Excitement.

  An adrenaline rush like never before!

  Emotions seemed so hard to grasp for him in his previous life on Earth, but for some reason in this new world, in his new body, they came so much easier to him! It made him wonder whether the labels people had given him in his past life, like ‘sociopath’, ‘psychopath’ were all actually applicable to him, or whether he was something else entirely.

  In the moment though, none of this mattered to him. All that mattered was how the Bloodhound would react to his charge!

  “Come at me! Haha! Come! COME! COME!!!” His thoughts started to run wild as his sword swung incessantly at the beast. He’d already trained his body to the level of an Apprentice Knight, and although the difference in strength between the two of them was over double, that didn’t discount his stats as being worthless.

  It only meant he had to put that much more effort in to make a difference!

  His eyes had a sharp glint in them as his madness took over, thrashing his sword wildly at the beast in every direction his body could handle. But deep beneath the sadistic smile that covered his face, there was a deep insight.

  Lucian had given into the suppressed emotion, the excitement, the madness, but that didn’t mean his mind had completely been disregarded.

  To the hound, each swing of his sword might have looked random and erratic, but to Lucian things were different. He let go completely, letting his instincts guide him, letting the muscle memory take over and guide his blade to where it should be.

  Every stroke he made contained the resentment of his death, how he had died so unknowingly, to such an insignificant figure.

  ‘Never again.’ He affirmed.

  So far, none of his strikes had managed to hit the target, but the acted as enough of a deterrence to stop the Bloodhound from utilising its terrifying claws against him as well. It was a trade off that protected his body from accumulating any injuries that could kill him. In fact, he had no doubts in his mind that if those claws struck him, he’d probably die in one hit like everyone else did.

  “HRAH!” He shouted, with a flash in his eyes that seemed to contain some sort of enlightenment. He wasn’t just sitting back mindlessly as he let his body’s instincts go to work, he was observing each action carefully, and had managed to spot an opening in the Bloodhounds’ thorough defence!

  The sword in his hands quickly hacked sideways, with the brown-orange afterimage following closely behind. As it did so, Lucian’s body spun, and he gained a sudden exponential increase in momentum through the exertion of his chest muscles.

  With the force he had built up, he made an intense slash towards the beast! The blade had the illusion of splitting the air where it ran through, and it neared the Bloodhound’s throat at a speed comparable to its own!

  If any of his dorm mates were still alive and watching this scene right now, they would be gawking at this scene in awe. Lucian, an Apprentice Knight, had delivered a strike with an agility comparable to what an Official Knight could deliver! This was something only those with secret killing techniques could do!

  Shocked by how fast the sword was drawing in, the hound froze for a split moment, before it tensed the muscles in all four of its legs and made for a leap backwards in an effort to dodge the fast coming blade.

  Slice!

  It managed to avoid the sword piercing its throat and ending its life right there, but it wasn’t quick enough to avoid the blade entirely. It could only shift its body enough to ensure that Lucian’s sword would strike a less lethal part of its body, rather than its throat.

  The blade sliced a vicious slash of the Bloodhound’s shoulder and opened a wound a good few inches deep, perhaps even half a foot, extending all the way from the chin down to its collarbone. A mix of black and red blood sprayed out of the wound in great volume, and the hound staggered a little, struggling to maintain its balance thanks to the rapid blood loss.

  Lucian’s smile widened even further, creepily eyeing the beast’s body before licking his lips ominously. The sight would have made even the bloodhound hesitant to fight back if it weren’t already enraged, in a frenzied state.

  “Now!”

  But Lucian’s eyes formed crescents much similar to his smile as he charged inward, making sure not to let himself get complacent. The hound tried to dodge, but Lucian had predicted its movements, and the small area limited to his room only gave him more of an advantage against the bull sized beast.

  He swung his rusty blade once again, this time aiming for where the Bloodhound would be, not where it used to be. As expected, the beast didn’t seem to have that high of an intelligence as it did just as Lucian had predicted. It staggered backwards into the frame of Lucian’s shoddy bed, knocking it to pieces in the process, but Lucian’s sword had already swung down once again by this point.

  Hack!

  With not nearly as much momentum behind the slash as his first time, he could only deliver a strike as powerful as his Apprentice level power afforded him. His sword landed square on the Bloodhound’s nape, digging a few inches deep, but only half about as deep as the first wound, and nowhere near as long.

  “Whimper…”

  The hound seemed to have woken up from its frenzied state at this point as the realisation that it was in very serious risk of losing its life had finally hit it, but the return from madness also brought along the intense wave of pain, arriving all at once from the wounds Lucian had inflicted.

  “Die!” Lucian wasn’t the merciful type, and he wasted no time in sending a third, and final strike down onto the same wound at its nape, finally delivering enough power to sever the beast’s head from the rest of its body.

  An overwhelming sense of accomplishment and content rushed Lucian immediately after he executed the Bloodhound. He stood in the now quiet room, breathing heavily while gazing at the corpse of the beast.

  *THUD*

  His body collapsed to the ground after a few moments to catch his breath, and the exhaustion had finally caught up to him. The adrenaline started to wear off, and he could feel the intense madness, joy, excitement and every other intense emotion start to leave him all at once.

  Like a ravaging tsunami gently receding with the tide, his mind gradually regained full control over his body.

  ‘Ouch, fuck…?’

  But just as he thought things were over, a fresh wave of pain originating from his stomach washed over his body, and he was instantly given chills. He looked down, only to see blood pouring out of a fresh wound, even able to see a slight bit of intestine trying to escape a 5 inch long incision to his abdomen.