(Arin's POV)
White.
That was all that remained of my world right now. A blinding, cold, and hollow white.
Sigma's artificial blizzard, the Whiteout, had successfully created a perfect isolation prison. The wind roared fiercely, scrambling the sense of hearing and freezing earlobes in seconds. Sharp ice particles slashed my cheeks unprotected by a helmet. It stung, like thousands of tiny razor blades dancing on the skin.
Around me, I heard the panicked voices of my friends muffled by the roar of the storm. Their voices faded in and out like a severely damaged radio signal.
BOOM!
A blue light flashed momentarily in the distance, then was extinguished swallowed by the thick fog. Erika. She was firing Mana Bullets in all directions blindly. The light only created a confusing flashing effect in the fog, hitting nothing but empty air.
CLANG!
The loud sound of clashing metal rang out. Kars. He was trying to form a shield wall, but I could hear his groans. Sigma's attacks came from above, below, the side, who knows. Kars could not see where the blows were coming from.
"My leg! Let go!"
Celia's scream was heard faintly, then moved away quickly. She was being dragged. The monster's tail must have appeared from under the snow, wrapped around her leg, pulled her, then disappeared again into the fog before Celia had a chance to cut it with her Halberd.
We were no longer hunters.
The Hexagon Formation had crumbled into debris of terrified individuals. We were prey locked inside a white box, waiting for our turn to be torn apart one by one by the ghost mastering this element.
"Calm down, Arin. Think," I ordered myself. My voice wasn't even heard by my own ears.
I stood still, letting the snow pile up on my shoulders. I turned off my fear. Fear would only spur unnecessary adrenaline and cloud judgment. I closed my useless eyes.
Eyes process light. Here, light died blocked by the blizzard.
Ears process sound waves. Here, sound was chaotic due to the wind.
What was left? What could not be fooled by optical illusions or sound manipulation?
Skin.
Skin processes pressure. Wind is moving air. And a fast-moving solid object must displace air. If Sigma moved, it had to push the air in front of it.
"Here, only pressure is honest."
I took a slow breath, cooling my burning lungs. I activated a side effect of the Grizzly Serum that I rarely used consciously.
Enhanced Senses: Tactile Focus.
I shut down the neural circuits to my eyes and ears, then diverted all my brain's processing capacity to the vibrissae, the fine hairs on the skin of my hands and neck, and the vibration receptors on the soles of my feet.
I became a biological radar.
One second passed. Two seconds.
The wind roared from north to south.
Suddenly, I felt it.
Not a sound, but turbulence.
To my left, nine o'clock. The natural wind current was disturbed and the air compressed. There was a large mass moving closer at subsonic speed. It made no sound, its feet didn't touch the ground hard, but its body pushed a wall of air in front of it.
I felt the air compression, solid wind, hitting my left cheek point one seconds before the physical attack arrived.
It was coming.
I did not jump in panic. An overreaction would only open a new gap. I just tilted my head five degrees to the right. A minimalist movement.
WHOOSH.
A giant silver claw passed right where my ear had been a fraction of a second ago. The wind from the claw was so sharp it cut a few strands of my loose hair.
So close and deadly.
"Got you," I whispered.
Without opening my eyes, I retaliated. I thrust my Adamantium sword blindly at the point of origin of that wind.
CLANG!
My sword hit something hard. The vibration traveled to my arm. Metal fur.
I took a step back due to the vibration. My attack did not penetrate, but I knew its position.
It was there. On the left.
However, Sigma was intelligent. This monster was not a wild beast relying only on instinct. It possessed combat intelligence equivalent to a war veteran. It realized I was reacting not to visuals, but to air pressure changes.
And it adapted.
Suddenly, the air pressure changed again. A large wave of wind came from the right. Very fast.
It was sprinting to the right!
My muscles tensed, preparing to slash to the right to cut its running path. But my Grizzly instinct screamed, WRONG!
That wind was too big and too rough for a monster that had just moved silently.
It was a feint.
Sigma performed an Aerodynamic Feint. It sprinted to the right to create wake turbulence, then stopped abruptly, and jumped slowly from the left in pure silent mode.
It used its own body to manipulate the wind.
I was fooled. I slashed to the right, cleaving empty wind.
SLASH!
A hot stinging pain pierced my left shoulder.
Sigma's claw, coming from the left in total silence, tore my Mithril shoulder armor. Warm blood spurted, contrasting with the cold storm air.
I staggered backward while pressing the wound on my shoulder.
"Smart..." I hissed while feeling blood seeping between my fingers. "You use aerodynamics to fool my skin radar. You learn fast, Big Dog."
Do not trust the wind. Wind can be manipulated.
Trust in one thing it cannot eliminate.
Ground vibrations.
Sigma, feeling on top for successfully wounding me, no longer played with feints. The wolf smelled my blood. It knew I was injured. Its predator instinct took over.
I felt a heavy vibration in the ground. Very subtle, but there.
Thump. Thump.
It no longer jumped from the side. It lunged straight from the front. Straight and fast.
A bite to the neck.
It wanted to end this by severing my head.
I waited.
One second. Half a second.
I did not dodge. If I dodged, it would chase me with a speed I couldn't match. I had to stop it.
My hand pressed the button on the Feather-Touch glove.
Mode: Overload.
Feather-Touch: 500% Weight (Max Load).
The gravity circuit in my glove screamed. I reversed its polarity not to the sword, but to my entire body. I turned my body into a three-hundred-kilogram statue in the blink of an eye.
I raised my thickly armored left arm, offering it forward as bait.
"Come on, bite this."
Gravity Anchor.
CRUNCH!
Sigma's jaws clamped down.
Its canine teeth, as sharp as daggers, pierced my sleeve guard, tore the skin, and sank into the flesh until touching the ulna bone.
"ARGH!"
The pain was immense.
But I did not flinch.
Normally, the momentum of its lunge would throw my body ten meters away. But with an artificial weight of three hundred kilograms and a stance planted into the earth, I was as solid as a harbor piling.
Sigma was surprised. Its neck jerked because its jaws locked onto an object that refused to move. Its momentum died completely.
"Now we dance, Dog," I growled while staring into its red eyes only ten centimeters from my face.
With Sigma tethered to my arm, I had a golden opportunity to slash its neck.
But I did not do it. My sword would not penetrate its thick neck fur. I needed more information to know how to kill it permanently.
I did something crazy.
I dropped my sword.
Then, I hugged the monster's large neck with my right hand, pulling my body close to its thickly furred chest.
In this clinch position or zero-distance grapple, amidst the roar of the monster's foul breath and the freezing blizzard, I sought one thing.
Rhythm.
I pressed my bleeding ear to its left chest.
Lub-dub... Lub-dub...
That sound. Loud and fast. Pumping hot red blood. A normal biological heart.
But then, my ear caught another echo. A strange secondary rhythm, beating out of sync with the main heart.
The sound came from below. From the direction of its right hip.
...swosh...
Lub-dub... Heavy. Slow. Full of energy.
That was not the sound of a blood pump. That was the sound of a mana pump.
My eyes opened wide in the darkness of this deadly embrace. A wide, crazy, and triumphant smile was carved on my face.
"Two..." I whispered right in the monster's ear. "You have two hearts."
One in the left chest to pump blood and oxygen to the brain and muscles. Another in the right hip to pump regenerative mana to all cell tissues.
That was the secret!
That was why it could heal instantly. A dual circulation system. The second heart acted as a healing booster and emergency reserve.
If I only destroyed the chest heart, the hip heart would pump mana to regenerate it in seconds. If I destroyed the hip, it could still move with the chest heart.
To kill it, I had to destroy both.
Simultaneously.
Sigma realized the danger. It felt my killing intent suddenly spike when I discovered its secret.
It released its bite roughly, tearing the flesh of my arm wider, then jumped backward.
It disappeared back into the white fog.
I fell to my knees holding my ruined arm. Fresh blood dripped heavily, coloring the snow beneath me bright red.
But I laughed.
"Hahaha... ukh..." I coughed blood. "I know how you work."
In the distance, I heard Rose screaming in pain.
"My leg! Where is it?!"
The Hexagon Formation was completely shattered. The team's morale had crumbled. They were blind, deaf, and terrified.
They needed a commander.
I stood tall, ignoring the screaming pain in my arm and shoulder. I took a deep breath, filling my diaphragm with cold air.
I channeled the Piston Heart to my vocal cords.
Technique: Aura Voice.
"Everyone! Be quiet and listen!"
My voice exploded.
That aura-amplified soundwave pierced the blizzard, vibrating the air until the fog in front of me parted slightly.
Silence for a moment. My friends' panicked screams stopped. Even the roar of the wind seemed stifled momentarily by the authority of that voice.
"Follow my orders or we are finished!" I shouted again. "I know how to kill it!"
"What is your plan, Arin?! I am blind here!" replied Erika from the distance. Her voice sounded desperate yet hopeful.
"Just listen! Do not ask!"
Sigma, hiding in the fog, growled low. The sound of its growl seemed to come from all directions. It was angry. It realized its Whiteout was no longer effective at terrorizing us. Its prey began to reunite. Their fear began to disappear.
I grinned in the dark, blood dripping from my shoulder and arm.
"Operation begins," I whispered.
"Time for heart surgery."