Striking From The Darkness

A short time later, over a dozen kilometres from the Giant Shadow Wolf's initial confrontation with Redfire, the Wolf was swiftly navigating through a forest towards its destination.

It didn't care for the trail of destruction it left in its wake, it had already determined that none of its pursuers could match its speed.

However as the Wolf freely escaped, its lips slowly began to curve into a savage grin as it thought about the slaughter it would soon release on the weak 'Intelligent races'. The Wolf believed it was already free from the cultivators pursuit and it would soon be able to take revenge for its lost children who would most likely be enslaved by them.

The Wolf's destination was a very large river a few kilometres ahead of it called the Deep Blue River, it was over 500m wide and stretched across the Heldan Republic but most importantly it passed through one of the few ferocious beast Domains in the country.

This river was almost unnaturally deep and wide, hence its name, and was a well known pathway that ferocious beasts would use to traverse the country. This was because it was too large to blockade and even if you successfully blockaded the river, monitoring every current that passed, ferocious beasts would still slip by.

After millennia of conflict, the high-level ferocious beasts that had developed intelligence had thought of hundreds of techniques to avoid detection using natural environments. They could simply dig tunnels out of the range of a cultivators detection or cross the land to avoid these blockades, some had even developed brilliant Qi techniques able to disguise their appearance or alter their Qi energy.

In the end most countries, including the Heldan Republic, had simply forced the ferocious beast domains to swear never to slaughter their people and most of the time such rules were obeyed.

However this situation was an exception.

The Wolf was consumed with rage at the 'intelligent races' actions against it and as long as it reached this river it knew it would be very difficult to catch. It could freely enter and exit this river where ever it saw fit and as long as it was cautious of the higher level cultivators, it could ravage many smaller settlements, as revenge.

However just as the Wolf caught sight of its path to escape, a loud sonic boom was heard over its head.

It quickly looked up to find a massive crimson fireball bearing down upon it, the intense energy fluctuations given of by the fireball indicated the power behind it and if the Wolf didn't defend itself it would by seriously wounded.

The Wolf quickly guided its Qi energy to create a translucent black and white force field around it while repeatedly lashing out with its claws, creating dozen of black beams of light that swiftly shot towards the massive crimson fireball.

However contrary to the Wolf's expectation, as the black beams of light reached the massive crimson fireball it did not detonate the energy on contact creating a devastating explosion. Instead the massive crimson fireball was simply torn apart like a balloon, wisps of crimson fire scattering into the air like fireworks as they completely engulfed the Wolf's surroundings.

The Wolf tried to use its Qi senses to examine this mess of crimson fire but the unstable Qi energy completely obscured its senses, it wasn't until the crimson fire started falling down upon it like rain, with the occasional large cluster, that the Wolf discovered something in a large cluster of the crimson-red fire.

As the Wolf turned its attention to that large cluster of crimson fire, a blazing white ball of fire shot out like lighting towards it from inside the cluster of fire. Then suddenly the ball of crimson fire stop falling and accelerated towards the Wolf, a dozen tendrils of fire emerging from behind it like fiery fists as they attacked the Wolf.

The blazing white ball of fire directly impacted the Wolf's translucent force field, it seemed to contain some strange property as it quickly disintegrated the force field but upon colliding with the Wolf's body it caused no damage at all.

Meanwhile the tendrils of fire shot out like fists passing through the broken force field and quickly barraging the Wolf with many powerful blows.

The Wolf wasn't expecting this sudden close range attack, it was caught off guard when its force field was suddenly destroyed and it only managed to block a few fiery fists with its paws before one large powerful fist collided directly with its face.

This first hit disoriented it allowing the next few fiery fists to smash against the Wolf's left side, knocking it off balance before finally two fists merged together above the Wolf's head before they came crashing down upon it like a giant club made of crimson fire.

This last attack forced the Wolf's head a metre deep into the ground but even though the Wolf was left confused and defenceless for a brief moment, nothing further happened to it and this short barrage of attacks left only minor injuries on the Wolf's body.

Surprisingly the Wolf was given a moment to recollect itself as it quickly pushed against the ground, leaping backwards defensively. However as it re-examined its surroundings, it realised it was surrounded by a thick black mist, completely blocking out any light.

It quickly identified that it had been engulfed by a thick blanket of darkness affinity Qi energy, the natural properties of which were to block light and interfere with Qi senses. Combined with Redfire rapid barrage of attacks the Wolf had quickly lost all sense of direction and was now trapped in this field of darkness.

The Wolf immediately knew that it was in some form of trap or array, it quickly executed a few strange techniques resulting in strange flashes of black and white light being sent into the surroundings.

However the Wolf was confused after using these techniques, this wasn't an array, it was simply a massive cloud of darkness Qi energy that was interfering with its Qi senses and blocking its vision.

The Wolf had no idea where it came from but it knew it could easily escape by simply rushing in one direction.

The Wolf quickly dashed in a random direction but before it could move even a few dozen metres it was struck from the darkness, a giant palm over 20m wide made from crimson fire appeared in front of it, smashing it backwards from where it came.

Even with its large 10m tall body the Wolf couldn't stand up to sheer force behind this giant palm.

"AWOO!" The Wolf cried in anger pain as it rolled backwards from the force.

The Wolf quickly steadied itself and observed its surroundings, waiting for the next attack while trying to understand how Redfire could see through the darkness and precisely attack it.

"HAHA you're fucked now little pup!" Redfire exclaimed vulgarly, his voice seemingly coming from all directions.

The Wolf tried to ignore this voice and focus on understanding what had happened but then out of the darkness a crimson fist shot towards its face, fortunately this time it was prepared and managed to dodge the attack.

However this was just the beginning of the Wolf's misery, every few seconds it would be attacked from a random direction. Most of the time it would be by a fist or a palm of fire but sometimes it would be ball of dense fire energy that would explode on contact, singing its fur.

The Wolf repeatedly attacked into the darkness but nothing it did caused a reaction, fiery fists and explosions continued to rain down upon it without rest and Redfire repeatedly taunted the Wolf at the same time.

Slowly but surely the Wolf turned erratic, the feeling of isolation and constant danger started overwhelming it. Even though the Wolf was intelligent, its buried instincts and emotions were still prevalent in its decision making, eventually it lost itself in rage as all of its attention became focused on finding Redfire and tearing him apart, instead of trying to escape this black mist.

Meanwhile far above the ground, sitting on the metal boat in her human-like form with her eyes closed, was Do'Shan. Although she too was an Elemental, there was no need for her to change her form as she wasn't taking part in a direct confrontation.

A massive flood of black mist that originated from Do'Shan's body was pouring over the side of the boat like a waterfall, gradually spreading out into a giant semi-circular cloud of dark mist that was completely under her control. It spread over a kilometre around the Giant Shadow Wolf blanketing the area and ensuring the Wolf's containment.

This dark mist was of course darkness affinity Qi energy that Do'Shan was releasing. She was releasing vast amounts of it from her own body in a dilute low grade form to blanket the area while maintaining a portion of control over it.

At the same time that she was using this Qi energy to blind the Wolf, she was providing the perfect cover for Redfire to act. She could sense Redfire and the Wolf's location because she still maintained a small amount of control over the Qi energy and then transmit this information to Redfire so that he could attack freely.

Of course Redfire's main goal was not to kill the Wolf, even if he used his most powerful technique he didn't have the confidence to kill a Grade 6 ferocious beast with such a large tough body. His goal was to enrage it and forcefully contain it within this field of dark mist, stopping it from escaping.

However this wasn't easy on Do'Shan, the Wolf would naturally move around as they fought but as long as its movement was slowed, Do'Shan could ride above them in her shuttle. Shifting the field of Qi energy to keep the Wolf at the centre of this field, unable to find its way.

Her greatest worry was the Wolf trying to fly upwards towards her but fortunately Redfire's constant attacks and his infuriating taunting distracted the Wolf from seeing this simple solution. Its instincts and nature kept it from understanding what truly mattered.

Do'Shan was thankful everything had gone according to plan.

If the Wolf had noticed her presence during Redfire's fireball distraction or it had some strange ability that rendered her darkness field useless, she wasn't sure if they could have contained it.

Even so Do'Shan and Redfire wouldn't be able to keep this up forever but just 20 minutes of time was long enough for a high level cultivator to arrive and lock down this beast.

Do'Shan herself was already shaking from trying to maintain control over the darkness field, one could imagine the strain she was feeling from trying to maintain such a massive field, direct Redfire and control her shuttle.

Even Grade 6 cultivators would struggle to maintain their focus but fortunately Do'Shan was an experienced cultivator with arrays and this field of darkness Qi energy was in a sense a simplified array. She could apply her experience to it, optimising the energy and mental cost of maintaining it, allowing her to perform a feat that most at her level could not.

Looking down at this semi-circular bubble of black mist, one could occasionally hear the savage and angry roars of a Wolf and the vulgar yet excited cries of a man. There would even be flashes of crimson light and the occasionally streak of black light shooting out of the bubble, these attacks would savage the surrounding land and ignite fierce fires.

But for now, this land would need to burn, burn for the sake of containing this beast.