The members of the expedition looked dismayed, one carrier had been slain by the wolves, another had flown further into the ruins, and about half of the guards were injured, Marc included. The guards were hesitating about what to do, not knowing where to begin.

　　Marc shouted "Gather the corpses of the wolves inside the ruins! Josh, bring me one of the corpses, I`ll absorb its blood to heal myself. The rest of you take some bandages and treat your injuries."

　　Despite his altercation with a black wolf Edward wasn`t injured. He checked his backpack to see if he had any bandages inside but his rucksack and all of its content were in very bad shape. The wolf had bitten deeply into it, there were holes in the bag, and the bandages he found were having those holes too. On top of that, his bag was decorated with a good amount of wolf`s saliva.

　　The backpack is dead, long live Edward. This thing saved my life, if my arm had been bitten instead of that bag, it would have been turned into meat paste.

　　Edward then proceeded to tend to the injured. Fortunately, they were mostly suffering from light cuts, the leather jackets had served their purpose, protecting them from the bulk of the attacks. We got lucky. If the fight had lasted a few minutes longer I have no doubt the number of dead wouldn`t be the same. We were a few minutes away from collapsing. Edward disinfected the bandages with some alcohol before wrapping them around the injuries of the wounded guards.

　　Meanwhile, the other guards were bringing back the wolves` corpses from the forest. One of Marc`s mercenaries went to take the wolf that Edward had killed. Edward tensed.

　　"Hey that`s my wolf!! I killed it, it belongs to me." he interjected loudly making a few heads turned to him.

　　There is no way I`m letting them take that wolf. I need to get stronger, and for that, I need monster blood. How I`m supposed to become stronger if they take the beasts I kill.

　　The mercenary and Edward looked at each other in the eyes, the former clearly displeased.

　　Marc threw them a disinterested glance.

　　"Let him have it if he wants it that bad. I killed enough wolves for the lot of you."

　　Edward let out the breath he was holding.

　　Good, now how do I do this? Am I just supposed to bleed it and bath in its blood? This sounds like something someone in a cult would do. He giggled internally.

　　At that time Josh brought one of the corpses to Marc. Marc just concentrated and put one hand on the corpse. Under Edward`s incredulous gaze the corpse started to mummify, the blood flowing out of the body to be absorbed by Marc with just a touch of his hand.

　　What the heck? Does he have the power to directly extract blood from the corpses? And we are supposed to bleed them the normal way? That`s cheating!

　　Suddenly Marc`s injury flashed red and Marc threw up some blood, his face paling.

　　"Damn it!! That wretched wolf left a residual aura in the injuries. Humph! If I didn`t have to protect you all, nothing like that would have happened!"

　　Protect us? You were facing this regal wolf while none of the other wolves help it. You were basically on a one-on-one, and you are the only Awaken. If not you, who was supposed to face this wolf? We would have been killed in seconds. Moreover, the expedition was your idea, did you organize it without even checking what kind of monsters lived in the area?

　　Edward was fuming inside.

　　This guy is always so full of himself. That sounds great for the rest of this expedition, we just arrived in the ruins and our main expert is already injured and we lost a carrier. Well, maybe two&I don`t know where that other guy ended. And the icing on the cake is that powerful monsters are still roaming outside those ruins and we know we are not strong enough to deal with them. Will we even be able to come back at this rate?

　　He took a few minutes to calm down. Still, I wonder what happened to him. He was trying to heal and only increased his injuries instead. I will have to ask Adrien if he has an idea about what happened.

　　After helping the wounded Edward went back to the wolf he had slain. Having no idea on how to proceed he looked at how the others guards were dealing with their wolves. He watched as they removed their clothes, staying in simple underwear. They then took a big wooden bowl and put it near the head of their respective wolf. Next, they cut the jugular of their wolf with a knife, blood quickly flowing out. They placed the bowl carefully under it so that the blood wasn`t spilled. Once that was accomplished, they put their hand in the blood and started applying it to their skin as if they were trying to clean themselves. The blood was being absorbed at a visible rate, the skin glowing faintly once the blood was gone.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

　　Edward watched the process amazed.

　　We found the perfect natural-based formula to achieve flawless glowing skin. You just need to apply the blood of a fresh slain dark wolf three times a day. Dermatologists hate this simple trick.

　　Edward shook his head, smiling at the silly thought.

　　He imitated the guards, went into his underwear, and took his knife to cut the wolf`s throat. He parted the fur away before applying the knife to the jugular. He cut it surprisingly easily.

　　Is it because there is no fur protecting it or is there another reason? I mean those wolves were able to resist a full thrust of a spear without being pierced and yet the resistance I feel what cutting it isn`t that strong compared to what those wolves displayed.

　　The blood flowed into the wooden bowl.

　　Now is the moment of truth.

　　Edward put his hand into the blood and took some to put on his left arm. The blood felt warm, he could actually feel the warmth of the blood coming inside him as it was absorbed. It felt as good as slipping in a warm bath. He wondered if he didn`t feel this the first time he had been exposed to wolf`s blood because it was the first time he had been exposed to such blood, or if it was simply that he wasn`t paying attention after being exhausted by the fight. He continued to apply the blood to all the parts of his body.

　　I wonder what happen if you focus the blood on one part of your body only. Does only this part get stronger or does the blood get distributed in the whole body? Well, for now, I better spread it on my whole body. It`s no use if I only have one strong arm or one strong leg, I wouldn`t be able to move and make use of it properly.

　　The blood was used up quite quickly. Edward was feeling refreshed after absorbing it, it was as if his body direly needed the blood and Edward had been unaware of it for all this time. It was only now that his need was satiated that contentment was flowing through him. He looked at what was left of the corpse.

　　There is probably still blood inside. I need to learn the technique that Marc used as quickly as possible. It`s much more convenient and it will enable me to extract all of the blood instead of wasting some each time I kill a beast. Also, you are vulnerable when you absorb blood, if you have to remove your armor each time you do it, it means you will only be able to absorb blood when there are no more enemies nearby.

　　Edward looked at the guards, each one had finished with their wolf too. Twelve wolves had been killed in total. One by Edward and the rest by Marc, the guards hadn`t in fact managed to kill a single wolf by themselves, only managing to push them back and injured them lightly.

　　If you look at this like that, I managed quite the feat. Edward thought reassessing the weight of his contribution in the fight. But the situation was different, the guards were trying to prevent the wolves from getting in. If they had behaved the same way I did, they would have killed a few wolves but the wolves would have breached through much sooner.

　　The wolves were quite resistant, and unless one was going in very close combat to choke them or hit them in a weak point like the eyes, they were quite difficult to kill. The guards had only able to push them back without killing them. Marc had managed to kill them simply because as an Awaken he was vastly stronger than a common black wolf.

　　Marc and Edward had both used the blood of a wolf`s corpse. Which meant there were ten corpses left, that way each of the guards had one wolf each to use.

　　Once everyone was dressed up again Adrien approached Edward.

　　"We are lucky that beast made the wolves afraid, that could have gone very badly. I thought we were done for a moment. I regret participating in this expedition now. We are used to black wolves as they sometimes try to attack Agripin, but I have never seen anything like that huge wolf." Adrien said.

　　"Yes, I thought that with ten guards and an Awaken we wouldn`t be in much of a danger. It looks like I was wrong." Edward answered bitterly.

　　After a lull, Adrien continued. "You impress me though, you managed to kill a black wolf, and you were equipped with just a knife. I wasn`t expecting that from you."

　　Edward couldn`t help but smile at Adrien`s praise but he didn`t let it go to his head. His tactic worked because the wolf wasn`t expecting it, but it could have turned very bad very quickly. "I was lucky. My backpack is dead though."

　　"It`s okay, just take the one from Damien." Adrien told him with a sigh.

　　As Edward look confused Adrien added. "It`s the carrier who got killed by the wolves. Shit, I didn`t think he would die like that. We all knew some danger was involved when accepting to go in this expedition, but we never thought that it would go this badly."

　　Edward sneaked a glance at Marc, but the latter appeared to be focused on his injury. He whispered, "By the way do you know what happened to Marc? He absorbed the wolf`s blood and then he coughted up blood. I supposed the blood would make him stronger."

　　Adrien winced. "I only have a rough idea. Marc said something about a residual aura. My guess is that it detected when Marc absorbed the wolf`s blood and it lashed out. It`s the first time I`m seeing an aura-imbued injury. I didn`t even know it was possible to leave aura remaining in an injury. But if Marc can`t absorb wolf`s blood to heal himself, he will take longer to heal, which is quite bad for the expedition as a whole. Having our heavy hitter injured right at the start of the expedition isn`t a good start. Though, if he absorbed the blood of another beast rather than a wolf, I`m not sure if the remnant aura would be able to detect it."

　　Marc interrupted them. "The night is not finished yet. Make a bonfire, we will use it to burn the corpse of the drained wolves." He stopped in though. "Change of plans, we will make the bonfire tomorrow, I don`t want to attract the attention of a beast able to make that damn wolf flee. Just toss the corpses in a corner for now. Josh, Guerard you take the first part of the night watch. Sylvain, Luke you take the second part, David you will take the last part with me. The rest of you, get to rest."

　　This time Marc didn`t pair one of his guards with one of the villagers for the night shift. He and his team were taking care of the whole night watch by themselves. It seems this encounter with the wolves didn`t improve his trust in the villagers.

　　It seems that Marc is still focused on pursuing the expedition. What is he expecting to find in there? We are ill-prepared, someone already died and we have several wounded. To top it powerful beasts are roaming nearby. I hope we won`t have to face dangers in those ruins too. The best course of action should be to run back to the path during the day to avoid the beasts and from there to go back to Agripin or Gob閘iard to prepare a second expedition with more powerful experts.

　　He fell asleep on those worrying thoughts.