The hellhounds were fast, incredibly fast.

True to their origin, they didn't seem to be on the same plane of existence as them. They seemed weightless, as if Earth's gravity had no effect on them, sliding over the wooden finish like ghosts. They zipped around the two wolves, almost seeming like actual smoke.

One engaged with Taekwoon while Hongbin found himself surrounded by the remaining two. They ran around him at high speeds, fast enough that his vision couldn't catch them. They would take turns attacking him, one at a time, keeping up their trap, leaving him with no place to go.

Whenever he would turn around, he would feel the sharp sting of teeth sinking into his skin, deep enough to cut through the thick layers of fur and loose skin. The hellhound would bite into him, draw blood and then draw back, retreating into the circle, and the other would then proceed to leap at him, snapping, drawing blood and then leaping back.

Very soon, he was bleeding profusely from different parts of his body, without being able to even get a single bite on one of them. On the side, he was vaguely aware of Taekwoon's yelps of pain as the hellhound tore into him. 

The hellhounds snapped at his feet, bringing him down to the ground. They bit at his neck, his shoulders, his back, his hips, anything to restrict his movement. And all he could do was viciously snap his head around, trying to be faster than the hellhounds. 

With him on the ground, it seemed they changed their strategy, no longer keeping up their circle and instead attacking him straight on. One leapt and got to holding him by the back on his neck, while the other focused on biting down on his back and hind quarters. 

However, this gave him the very advantage he needed, and he managed to twist his head and body around to grab the one near his face by the throat. As his fangs made contact with flesh, he pressed down even more to try and pierce it. If he could get a good enough hold, maybe he could bring it down to get to its windpipe. 

It took all he had to stop from gagging as his mouth and nose filled with the taste and smell of smoke, like there was something on fire. The hellhound's flesh felt like rubber, in that it refused to break no matter how hard he bit down on it.

In that time, the second hellhound made its way to grabbing him by the back of his neck, its razor sharp fangs tearing into his skin. For once, he was thankful that he had folds of skin on the back of his neck, or he would've been dead by now.

Not that he wouldn't in the next few minutes.

He kept his hold on the hellhound's throat, but he could feel the life slipping away from him. His senses began to get muddled, and he faintly heard Taekwoon trying, and failing, to keep up against his hellhound. He felt his grip loosening as his jaw began to go slack. His eyes slowly began to droop.

It was then that a blinding white light spread through the room, and Hongbin felt the hellhounds' grips on him disappearing. 

They then left his skin completely and he fell to the ground. Using the last bit of energy he had, he moved his head slightly to see what had happened, as he could no longer feel the hellhounds' presences anymore.

What he saw was Wonsik and Sanghyuk standing near the doorway, a blade in Sanghyuk's hand. Each of them had a hand on the wall nearest to them, their hands bloody and on what looked like drawings in blood. 

"Hold still," Wonsik commanded as he laid a cloth drenched in warm water on Taekwoon's shoulder. 

"Ow!" the latter yelped. "Be careful!"

"It'll hurt less if you stop squirming around and allow me to clean your wounds," Wonsik said. "Sanghyuk-ah, can you get me any antiseptic you might have?" 

"Sure," Sanghyuk said, standing up and making his way out of the room.

Taekwoon bit his lower lip to handle the pain as Wonsik cleaned out the deep gashes left on his skin. He threw his eyes around Sanghyuk's room, that had been temporarily made into a first aid center for Wonsik to patch the two of them up. Washcloths were hanging on the drawers while a large bowl of hot water lay beside Wonsik. Other important herbs also lay in the room, in order to accelerate their healing.

His gaze fell on Hongbin, who was lying on the bed, equally, if not more, torn up. The blood had soaked into his shirt, drenching the blue fabric. His wounds were having trouble healing and the blood was slowly staining the covers.

Sanghyuk returned with two bottles of antiseptic in his hands. "I brought everything I have," he informed Wonsik. "Anything else I can do?"

Wonsik nodded, beckoning him closer. "I've finished cleaning Taekwoon-hyung's wounds," he informed. "I want you to apply the antiseptic to the wounds for now. I'll clean out Hongbin-hyung's wounds and then make a healing paste while you disinfect his wounds. Then we bandage them up and hope for the best."

Sanghyuk nodded, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. He knelt down beside Taekwoon. "This is going to hurt," he said. "Brace yourself." 

Taekwoon nodded, looking away as Sanghyuk began disinfecting the wounds on his abdomen. In the meantime, Wonsik took a quick trip to the bathroom to throw out the lukewarm red tinted water and wash the blood off his hands as he filled it up with fresh clean hot water. He came out and grabbed some more white cloths and brought them to the bed, standing beside Hongbin. 

Hongbin wordlessly sat up, ing his shirt and throwing it next to where Taekwoon's blood drenched shirt lay. Wonsik quickly closed his eyes at the sight of the damage, taking a deep breath before setting the basin down on the side table. 

He began to work on wiping the blood away. Hongbin seemed to be taking the pain better than Taekwoon, at least he didn't try to squirm or anything, although he could tell it was affecting him due to his labored breathing. 

"Is there anything specific that happened?" Wonsik inquired.

"They came for Kang Minhyuk, just like in my dream," Hongbin said. 

Wonsik paused. "Just like in your dream?" he asked. "Nothing strange there," he sarcastically stated, cleaning out a specific gash that started from his lowest rib all the way across his chest to his shoulder. 

"They were lying in wait for us," Taekwoon spoke up from the other side of the room. "I think they knew we were coming."

"Either that, or they sensed us before we sensed them," Hongbin said. He looked at Wonsik. "It was strange," he told the younger. "Neither of us could smell or hear anything from the outside. It was like the house was covered in a veil that kept us from smelling the kills."

"A veil, huh?" Wonsik muttered. 

Silence spread across the four as the two humans continued to help the wolves. Each of them was immersed in thought, each going over their specific version of the night's events. 

"By the way," Hongbin said as a thought crossed his mind, "how did you kill the hellhounds so easily?"

Wonsik pointed to a sheet of paper on the dresser with a circular design with symbols on it. "Celtic sigil drawn in blood," he said. "The old books did have some good pointers, even though they're not specifically made for hellhounds, but rather, demons. It took both of us to amass enough energy for the spell to work." 

Hongbin then noticed that Wonsik had a bandage tied around his right hand, looking clean due to the cleaning he was doing. When he turned his head he saw Sanghyuk with a more dirtier and bloodier bandage around his left hand, and a bloody knife lying beside the paper with the sigil.

"And besides, we didn't really kill them," Sanghyuk said.

"You didn't?" Taekwoon asked.

Sanghyuk shook his head. "All we did was drive them away for now. I'm pretty sure there's a sigil to slow them down somewhere if we're able to properly adapt it, or even one to weaken them, but as far as we know, there's no way to kill them."

Hongbin let out a frustrated growl as he leaned back against the headboard. "Great, they're still out there," he muttered.

"Not to mention, they're probably not too fond of us anymore," Wonsik reminded. "We didn't accomplish much today, all we did was push them back a couple of steps. They're still out there, and wherever they are, they're probably not going to hesitate to truly come after us next."