Ch 40: Wolves.

Only one of the wolves was here right now, but the others were coming at a rapid pace, Ethan was shaking on top of my back, his voice resonated in my mind.

"It's the wolves! Their leader could be coming at this very instant. Oh god we're doomed."

"Calm down, if we fight we'll live and if we give up we'll die, so all of us will fight."

Ethans shaking decreases and I let him down from my back, then I rush towards the wolf in front of us to try and cut it in half with my claws, the wolf didn't expect my speed and couldn't dodge my attack, I feel my claws come in contact with its face, it cuts through it with surprising ease leaving the wolf dead on the floor.

There was no time to relax though, as more enemies had arrived, five more wolves appeared, by sensing their energy and seeing how they look, I realized that two of them were evolved and that two weren't, the unevolved ones would die from a singular hit so they weren't a very big threat, the wolves were circling us, Nozomi was the first to attack, and had attacked two of the unevolved ones by piercing them with spikes of darkness that came from under them, killing them and absorbing their essence caused the remaining one to get scared, but after being barked at by its superiors it resolved itself to try and attack Ethan, the other two also try to attack him by using a mixture of a fireball and a wind cut, I use telekinesis to redirect the attack to the sky to protect him, and both me and Nozomi face them off while we let Ethan handle the other one.

I cut the gap between us with speed that even surprised me, it looks like my strength increased from that spring a lot more than I thought, the wolf that I targeted didn't expect such a high speed, and so it went on the defensive, it used body strengthening to be able and layered energy around it to protect itself, I used body strengthening on just one of my fore legs, covered it in lightning and swung down on the wolf, the barrier it created had shattered but it had dampened my attack, so when it had landed the wound was pretty shallow, when I tried to pull out my claw after the attack, I couldn't, I tried pulling harder until I broke free, but then i saw what the wolf was planning, a giant fireball with a diameter of 5 meters was above us, the wolf had used all its energy on one final attack, it shoots it towards us in a suicide attack, I try to push it with telekinesis but realize that there really wasn't enough time to push it away, and so I try to slow it down till I am able to raise my defense, I use body strengthening and make a barrier above me, the wolf starts biting and scratching me while I was doing that, I let go of the fire bomb and it comes crashing on the two of us, I was swallowed up by the explosion and was feeling the heat of it, my barrier was cracking and had shattered and I was left to tough out the rest of the attack.

I emerged from the explosion, slightly burnt, but alive and mostly well, I had absorbed the essence of the wolf that had disintegrated from the attack, looking around me, I see that we were in a crater that was 5 meters deep and 15 meters wide, Nozomi had been caught by the explosion too as she fought the other wolf which had killed the other one but she had survived, and ethan had won his battle, but more wolves had arrived when the fire bomb had landed on me, 10 more in fact and three of them were evolved.

It looks like this was gonna turn into a battle of attrition that we might not win if they keep doing attacks like that wolf.

"Rai, more of them appeared, I recommend you use this opportunity to train Ethan."

"So you do care about him!"

"He'll have to do more to get my full trust, plus it's for him to get in our way less."

The wolves had been preparing an attack, three of them had created a fire ball that merged into a larger fireball, and had launched it towards us, me and Nozomi use telekinesis to push back on it but the evolved ones push back on it, which causes it to stay in place, while we were holding it down, the 7 wolves try to attack Ethan, he retaliates on them by using using a water whip to hit one of them and had managed to jump up on the back of one of them, the wolf starts to flail around, but then Ethan uses body strengthening to jump off of it which causes it to fall to the ground from the impact, while in the air, Ethan had shot a glacial dagger towards its head and had killed it, he was now falling, and the other wolves had predicted where he was going and were going to kill him, two of them had managed to use body strengthening in anticipation of him, he uses telekinesis to throw himself out of the way and continues to fight.

I really need to finish this and help him, I increase the amount of energy that I used for telekinesis which helped push it towards them closer and closer, the increase their energy consumption even higher and manage to stop it, Nozomi uses wind on the fireball, which makes it burn more intensely and inches it closer to the wolves, it was now super close to the wolves, I decide to do something, I use an earth technique to make the earth rise and trigger an explosion, it took quite a bit of time and energy but I managed to do it, the fireball explodes swallowing the wolves inside its explosion, the wind from the explosion pushes us, looking at the explosion we see that it was around 8 meters high and was really wide that it exploded half a dozen trees around it, we didn't get any essence from them which suggested that they didn't die, immediately I turn to look at how Ethan was doing, he had managed to kill two more wolves but he was getting damaged, I could see a bite mark and a few scratches on him, I rush over to help him, killing one of them with a light beam and another was killed by Nozomi using balls of darkness that hit it and put many holes in it.

I kill two more by shooting them with lightning bolts, and the final one was killed by ethan shooting an ice spear at it, at that moment, the three evolved ones had come out of the hole, they were damaged and in a rough state, seeing clean parts in them made me guess that they likely used a lot of there remaining energy to heal and defend, if Ethan kills those three he would get a lot of essence, which might make him evolve.

"Hey ethan?"

"What?"

"I have a plan, there isn't enough time to explain it but it'll be for your benefit, trust me."

"I do trust you, if it weren't for you I'd be dead here."

Upon getting his confirmation, I make him levitate with telekinesis, he looks confused at me and shortly realises what I was gonna do, I put electricity on his horn, and his voice appears in my mind.

"Rai, don't tell me that you-"

Too late, I use telekinesis to shoot him towards the wolves, the wolves used the last of their energy to shoot fire, lightning and wind respectively, I manipulate Ethan to make him dodge them and then I speeden him up towards the first of them, his horn makes contact with the side of its head and kills it, I then move him again to the top of one of them where Ethan fires a glacial spear which cuts off its neck, and to the last one I shot ethan towards him at the highest speed and skewered its heart.

Ethan had absorbed the essence from all three and I was satisfied with how it turned out, but then I hear Ethan's voice with telepathy.

"You idiot! Why did you do all that?!"

"Hey, hey, you agreed to my plan, plus it all ended well"

"I agreed because I didn't know what you were gonna do!"

As Ethan was being outraged, suddenly a man had appeared, that man was of incredible beauty, wore very fancy looking clothes, wielded a fine looking sword, and most shockingly he had pointed ears, which made me realize something.

This man was an elf.