Just like he had always done, Laden waited till night fell till he prepared to head to the Spirit World.

Activating the tattoo on his shoulder, he felt the familiar hypersensitivity before everything grew silent.

"What’s that smell?" Laden said while opening his eyes.

The view in front of him instantly made him take a few steps back.

"Remain as quiet as possible," Prime said from inside Laden’s Nascent Space.

He didn’t even have to hear those words for him to know what he was supposed to do.

In front of Laden was the familiar gigantic wolf that had almost taken his life the last time he was here, but this time the wolf was in an even worse state.

Apart from the usual rotting parts of the Corrupted beasts, even the normal parts of this wolf were currently melting off of its body.

It was only able to remain stable and whole because of the faint golden light that was currently emanating from its head.

The Corrupted beast’s eyes were closed, and it was in a very bad condition; that was why Laden was still unnoticed.

"This must be the aftereffects of its battle with that Tiger spirit beast," Laden said in his mind.

While moving backwards slowly but surely, Laden was creating quite an expansive gap between him and the beast, resulting in him letting his guard down.

"Don’t relax," Prime suddenly shouted from his mind.

The sudden shout startled Laden greatly, making him almost jump in his spot, while startled Laden’s leg stepped on a dried piece of clay on the dry and parched land, producing a sonorous sound.

The sound moved the air insanely, and in no time, the beast heard due to the deathly silence in the surrounding areas.

"Huummph," the beast groaned as it slowly opened its eyes to scan its surroundings.

Its eyes moved over Laden once without any reaction, and it wasn’t until the second scan before the beast finally noticed something.

Its rotting muscles instantly tensed up as it got ready to stand up and rush towards Laden with extreme anger.

"We are so dead," Laden muttered before turning around to run as fast as he could.

Behind him the beast had an expression of intense anger as if it were saying, "You got me like this and still have the guts to appear in front of me."

While Laden was in his sprint, he wanted to summon Prime so they could merge and he could move much faster, but he suddenly heard Prime’s voice.

"Stop, we have to fight," Prime said with a serious voice.

"Why? Let’s escape this monstrous and disgusting beast," Laden said anxiously.

"Don’t you think that woman says anytime we enter the Spirit World, our arrival point is based on what fate decides?"

"Why did you think we got spawned here then?"

"Fate," Laden muttered.

"So if we run now, do something else, and leave the Spirit World, do you think the next time we come here we won’t appear here again?" Prime continued.

"By that time, our situation probably won’t be so optimistic; the Corrupted beast might be completely healed then."

"So we should fight it while it’s still injured," Laden said in an unconvinced tone.

"Exactly, that’s the best thing to do," Prime pressed harder.

Though a part of Laden knew that Prime was probably only saying this because of his battle-crazy tendencies, another part of him knew that what Prime said was true.

"Damn it then, let’s fight," Laden said with a crazy expression as he stopped and turned around.

He had always hated the Corrupted beast for the destruction they brought to life in the spirit world, and now that he had a chance, he would try his best to take care of it.

"That’s what I am talking about, and now let’s hope we move further in our accustomization after this," Prime said excitedly.

The Corrupted beast forced itself to a stop in shock, seeing Laden, who had been previously scrambling away, now backing at him with a fiery gaze.

But its shock didn’t last long; it instantly got into a battle stance despite still being injured.

Prime appeared beside Laden and then dove straight into his body, resulting in blue fur growing over his arms and face.

"Let’s get the battle started then," Laden said with a smile.

Seeing Laden’s taunting smile, the Wolf-King opened its mouth and spewed a large ball of flame, flying straight at Laden.

"Injured animals mostly try their best to fight with the only advantage, and due to neural stimulations, they get crazy aggressive. I need to take that into consideration," Laden thought seriously.

He watched the scorching fireball fly at him with astonishing speed, but he didn’t falter. Instead, he got ready to dodge to one of the sides.

"Two more," he said with his eyes wide open.

Laden saw two more fireballs heading straight to the sides he could dodge to.

"Smart," he thought.

"I have to dodge this somehow; I can’t tank this at all."

Coming to that decision, Laden utilized one of the combat techniques he had in his arsenal, sending one foot forward as if he was about to charge at the fireball.

Using his outstretched foot, Laden twisted his spine extremely harshly, bending his body so low he could smell the dry ground.

But it didn’t seem to be enough.

"Haaaaaa," Laden shouted out in pain as the fireball passed by his back, burning him hard.

Thankfully, it just barely scraped him, allowing Laden to get back up quickly.

"Bastard," he cursed out as he looked at the satisfied expression on the beast’s face.

"I need to use my advantage," he said before charging forward.

Laden had figured that the beast was probably using ranged attacks because it was currently in a bad physical state, and since he mainly focused on Close combat he felt he had an advantage.

With a burst of speed, Laden arrived in front of the Wolf-king ready to send a punch towards it when it noticed a thing in its eyes.

"Ohhh shit, shit," he said with a wide, wide mouth.