Mid-level Beasts

After spending some time restoring his magical power, Arias was ready to leave. But suddenly, he could feel something from not too far away. Though he could not use his magic to examine it like high-level mages, his hearing and his intuition could tell that it was heading toward him.

“Cloud Stride.”

As soon as he felt this oddity that was heading toward him, Arias immediately used the Cloud Stride technique. A pale blue light appeared under Arias’ feet. He twisted and turned his body, immediately moving upward by stepping on branches until he reached the top of a big tree. He chose to hide himself between branches full of layers of leaves that were thick enough to conceal his form.

Cloud Stride was a terrestrial-level movement skill. Without this technique, he would not have been able to dodge attacks from those muggers that easily. At the moment, he was not accustomed to using it with this body yet, but he was still able to draw out more than three out of ten fractions of its power. If he trained until he mastered it, even adept-level mages would find it difficult to catch him.

Arias heard a sound of a creature walking through leaves coming from inside the forest. The birds, startled, all scurried away in different directions. He guessed that it must be some kind of strong beasts that could scare off the birds like that. Or perhaps, it could be human.

Arias looked through the leaves to the source of that sound without taking his eyes off it. His aura had been erased with the Cloud-Shrouded Dragon technique. He was still unsure what the thing that was heading toward him was. Whether it turned out to be a human or a beast, none of that would be good news.

The bush by the roadside slowly parted as a huge beast emerged from behind it. It looked similar to a wolf that was about a meter and a half tall. Its fur was coal black with a scattering of white here and there. Its long silver fang protruding out from its mouth looked as sharp as a razor blade. In the middle of its back, there was something similar to two sharp red spikes sticking out from it. But the most peculiar thing of all was that it did not walk like an ordinary wolf. Sometimes it walked on four limbs similar to an ordinary animal. But other times, it would stand on two of its hind legs.

As the beast walked out of the forest, it stared at the bodies of two mages who had just died with a hungry look, saliva dripping down its sharp fangs. The way that the beast looked now was much more terrifying than usual.

“Why do I have to come across a silver-fanged wolf at a time like this? From the way it looked, this one must be turning into a high-level beast soon. Seems like I’ve found something troublesome.”

Arias watched the silver-fanged wolf that had just walked out of the forest with concern. Silver-fanged wolves were normally classified as mid-level beasts. However, some of them could raise their power level and evolve into high-level beasts. This one below was one of those that would be turning into high-level beasts. Normally, silver-fanged wolves did not have spikes sticking out of their backs and they did not walk on their hind legs like this one. From the way it looked, this wolf’s power level would probably enter the high level soon.

Owooooo

Suddenly, the silver-fanged wolf raised its head and howled. Its howl echoed throughout the entire area of the forest. The sound of its howl scared away low-level beasts within the area.

“Don’t tell me this one is a pack leader.”

The wolf’s behavior only added to Arias’ existing concern. It was silver-fanged wolves’ nature to live in packs. They split off to gather food and brought it back to their lairs. Every pack had a leader that ruled and gave orders. It seemed like this one with spikes growing on its back was the leader of a silver-fanged wolf pack.

A few minutes later, four silver-fanged wolves emerged from within the forest. Their sizes were not bigger than one meter, and they looked like normal wolves except for the silver fangs protruding from their mouths. All of them approached the pack leader with a mix of fear and respect before turning to look at their prey hungrily.

Although Arias had taken many lives, the sight of these beasts tearing apart human bodies was still not very pleasant. He could only turn his face away from the scene. If he had known that it would end up like this, he would have gotten rid of the two bodies long ago.

But suddenly, something unexpected occurred. There was a sound coming from the forest behind Arias, like a big creature was dashing toward the pack of the silver-fanged wolf at high speed.

Soon after, a large bull-like beast appeared running furiously toward the pack of silver-fanged wolves. Its body was brown, and its two horns were almost a meter long. The beast used its hoof to paw at the ground until there was a big hole. Dust was flying all over the place. Its eyes glared at the pack of silver-fanged wolves with anger.

“Why are there so many mid-level beasts wandering around like this? People say that there are just a few of them, but what about these two? Who would have thought that this is an iron-horned bull’s territory? And that silver-fanged wolf pack as well. How chaotic. If I knew that I would find myself in this situation, I certainly wouldn’t have lured those guys onto this route.”

Arias sighed, feeling tired by the chaos in front of him. But there was still concern in his eyes. At the moment, it was like he was being surrounded by a group of terrifying beasts. If they were to find him, he would surely end up in a dire situation.

The beast that was confronting the pack of silver-fanged wolves was an iron-horned bull which was a mid-level beast. The reason that it was charging toward the pack angrily like this was likely because the silver-fanged wolf pack had invaded its territory. By nature, an iron-horned bull was very protective of its territory. If other beasts invaded its territory, they would fight until one side retreated or died.

GRRR!

The silver-fanged wolves bared their fangs and growled. They slowly moved forward, one step at a time. There was no way they would retreat and leave behind their delectable prey; it was their first in several days. The truth was, even the iron-horned bull in front of them seemed like a feast from their perspective.

The pack leader made a sound that seemed like it was giving an order to the other four silver-fanged wolves. As soon as they heard their leader, the pack started to move into a circle to surround the iron-horned bull.

Seeing that the silver-fanged wolf pack was not going to retreat, the iron-horned bull prepared to attack. It glared at the pack with a fierce gaze and charged at one of the silver-fanged wolves with its horns. The bull’s horns plunged through the ill-fated wolf’s body, sending it into instant death. The remaining wolves gained an opportunity to attack, they leaped and sank their fangs all over the bull’s body.

“Now!”

This was the moment that Arias had been waiting for as well. As soon as the beasts were engaged in the fight, it was his best opportunity to flee. He used the Cloud Stride at its full power, wanting to get away as soon as possible.

As soon as he moved, the beasts below looked up at Arias with eyes full of bloodlust. But since it was still engaged in the fight, it could not do anything. At that moment, another silver-fanged wolf had been stabbed by the bull’s horns and was in critical condition. But it seemed like the bull was in a poor state as well. Its body was covered with wounds inflicted by the silver-fanged wolves’ canine teeth. The iron-horned bull looked like it was going to die at any moment. Its brown fur turned red with its own blood.

Arias did not care who the victor or the loser would be. The only thing in his concern was to get away from this place. Instead of heading back toward the road, Arias chose to go through the forest that surrounded it on the two sides. The road was too clear and empty, which meant that the beasts could easily spot him if they were to change their minds, stop the fight, and start hunting him instead, though the chance that they would stop fighting and start hunting him was quite small.

What Arias did was just him being cautious, just in case. Normally, silver-fanged wolves would not leave their game to hunt for another prey. As for the iron-horned bull, it was not a carnivore, so it would definitely not come after him. This made him feel slightly at ease.

Arias was half-running inside of the forest. His eyes kept monitoring for anything out of the ordinary while his ears kept listening for any nearby movement. He did not want to run into any beast now, not even the low-level ones.

Suddenly, Arias heard a noise coming from ahead of him. The noise was from a short distance away and sounded like it was coming from a fight. He was ready to avoid it, not wanting to interfere in this fight. However, before he could leave, he heard a voice of a woman crying out in pain.

Hearing the cry of the woman, Arias could not help but pause for a moment. He hesitated over whether he should get involved. Though he was not someone who cared about what others did, he was not a heartless person.

“I’m just going to take a look.”

Arias decided to dash toward the source of the voice. He did not immediately rush in and decided to hide himself among the trees to observe the situation.