Chapter 7 Part 2

Mizubi quickly responded, "it's about a half mile east from here. They want us to kill about a dozen feral animals who are hurting and ransacking villagers in the area. Oh, and the occasional attack on people on the roads, of course. It shouldn't be a problem."

"ok, well I can provide backup as well as heal minor injuries during battle so I will stand in the back. Provide a shield or buff every now and again. If any go after me, I will trust you to deal with it." Engilram said.

A grunt from Krenn and a nod from Thordis and Mizubi signalises an agreement. They head out due east towards the iron wood forest, yes you heard me right. Iron wood trees are all around the main bulk of Stocaea. Pine wood trees surround pretty much all around Stocaea along the border to literally every other country. They aren't as tough as the iron ones of the oak species.

On the very edge of the tree line, the adventurers stop. Leaving Engilram confused. "Mizubi is listening for any weird movements or sounds from inside." Thordis said.

Mizubi's ears twitch. "sounds like the information we gathered was right. Twelve rather enormous wolves are slowly eating and destroying the ecosystem in this forest. Feral is correct. I don't think that letting them live will be an option. Sorry Krenn." He says.

A sad grunt and nod from Krenn shows he understood the circumstances of the situation, but just for insurance. "Krenn understands. Will kill cute puppies. But Krenn sad to kill pups"

"is he fond of wild animals? Also, I thought Lizardmen were more... sophisticated that he is." Engilram said.

"Krenn is a simple one. But he is very reliable in a fight. Once he uses his berserker blood spell, his power is quite striking. However, he becomes quite useless afterwards, so we ask him to keep it to only difficult situations." Thordis answered.

"how far away are the wolves Mizubi?" Engilram asked.

Drawing from his quiver, Mizubi doesn't answer. After nocking the bow to its anchor point, a light blue spell circle with 20 runes etched carefully and swiftly appeared around the arrow tip. He released the arrow and is flashed, whizzing past every tree and bush in its path. Dodging, weaving until you could hear the whimper of a wolf. Then howling. Then running. Then barking. "that far!" Mizubi said.

"ready yourselves! This may be a tough fight if we see twelve still in the pack." Thordis commanded.

Everyone took their stance in the formation. Thordis and Krenn in the front. Engilram a few meters behind them. And Mizubi retreating in the back for long ranged attacks. "keep your formation," Thordis commanded again.

"it's been a long time since i've been in a group like this." Engilram said.

Engilram starts off the fight with a crouched stance with arms rigid and outstretched, overlapping at the wrists. He is casting a spell yellow in nature. One circle on each hand, fifteen runes on both. It takes no time for Engilram to finish the spell and he yells out. "I have set up six launch pads about two meters in front of you both. Don't strike till at least two wolves are in the air. They are single use." "got it!" Thordis yells.

In a matter of blinks of time. Three wolves simultaneously charge the two warriors. Seconds later, three wolves trigger the pads, and they get launched into the air, roughly eye level with Krenn. Without even a moment's hesitation, Krenn swings his massive great sword into the head of one of the floating wolves. Smashing right through its head. Meanwhile, Thordis uses his sharpening spell as he is swinging his sword.

(narrator) I can't begin to tell you how difficult that would be to do. They may be copper plates. But they have the skills of tin or even iron at least.

Using his blunt sword as the tool he wishes to alter; the entire sword gets enveloped in a weird looking spell. It's not a circle, it's more like a ribbon wrapping around the weapon. Only one by the looks and roughly sixty runes, the colour doesn't matter. As the sword is swinging in range of the first wolfs head, it gets red hot and shapes into a blade so sharp it could probably cut right through a thick branch of one of the ironwood trees. Still glowing hot, the now sharpened blade slices the two remaining levitating wolves into perfect halves of wolf corpse.

One of the wolves triggered two launch pads on its approach, so the remaining two pads remain a secret to them. After seeing what happened to three of their pack. The wolves halt and strategically move around the formation. One accidentally pressing a paw on the pad, causing it to spin uncontrollably in the air as Krenn smashes its head into mush.

Mizubi spots the wolf that took his arrow. "ha you guys loose, I shot the alpha of the pack before the fight even began. Can you believe my luck," he says, anchoring and loosing another arrow. The wolf tried to dodge the oncoming projectile, but Mizubi's arrow the alpha in the back leg. "damn another hit but no fatal organs again? Maybe I'm not so lucky after all," He grunts.

As Mizubi is anchoring yet another arrow at the alpha. Engilram surveys the situation. "four wolves down. Five to go. One injured alpha. Not a single scratch on these young new sprites. They have quite a bright future." He says to himself.

Taking out a short staff from his bag, Engilram casts debuff magic on the remaining five wolves. "I'm going to use a slowness debuff on the wolves. Go crazy. The only one of these wolves I predict that can move afterwards is the alpha." Sticking the staff to the ground and targeting every wolf he can see. Engilram casts a spell circle on each individual wolf of twenty-five runes. "with this many wolves, the effect won't last long. so make you move now. I should finish casting in three seconds," he says. Finishing the cast he yells "status effect slowing," "just as I thought," the effect completely failed on the alpha.

The second that the spell took effect, the hulking mass that is Krenn speeds towards the closest wolf. Not even a single second passed. But the beast manage to close the ten meter distance between him and the wolf in less time than anyone in the team, chopping the head of the wolf clean off. A second later, Thordis does the same. "too slow," Krenn said, smirking.

The wolf notices the dangerous situation they are in and howls. "no way." Engilram said. "back away from them. The alpha just cast counter magic!" he yelled to the warriors.

The two hop back from the remaining two wolves and Engilram was right. The grey aura around their bodies disappeared, and they continued at normal speed. "Mizubi! You need to kill that alpha now! It's going to keep casting spells until the remaining wolves are impossible to counter or attack." Engilram screamed.

"ok but protect the others while I prepare a certified kill blow." Mizubi answered.

"how much time do you need?" Engilram nervously said.

"ten. Maybe fifteen seconds." Mizubi answered.

"I can give you fifteen no problem, just get the job done." Engilram said. He reached down into his bag and grabs a low-grade mana potion which regenerates about 3% of a person's mana and chugs.

Just as Engilram finishes the potion, the wolf howls again. "that's new orders for the beta's" Engilram said.

"hold on, how do you know that?" Thordis said.

"a friend once taught me to always use mage sight in a battle, however he used it all the damn time. Like it's a joke that it's even a thing. Anyway, that howl had no mana in it at all." Engilram explained. "other than not detecting mana in the alpha. It's just a hunch." He continued.

"well, looks like your hunch was right. The others are tight together now." Thordis sighed.

The alpha howls again. "no magic again, must be more orders! But that makes no sense. Are they moving?" Engilram asks.

"no!" Thordis answered.

"then what was that for? Wait. Four killed by pads, two killed after slowness. That's only six. Hay Mizubi! You sure there were twelve?" Engilram said.

"my ears miss nothing." Mizubi replied.

"then there are three wolves missing! Keep an eye out." Engilram said.

The alpha howls again. "watch out! That's a haste spell!" Engilram yelled.

Three massive, hulking wolves come flashing into the battle from the woods. Each of these new wolves is at least four times larger than the alpha. Two of them charge at Krenn and one at Thordis. An inch from Krenn and Thordis' faces, a lime green see-through wall separates the two.

"thank you Engilram!" Thordis said.

Engilram had quickly set up a shield for the two, way faster than he should have. Looking over at him, he is panting and sweating. "you're welcome, but I rushed the incantation so it won't last a single hit. Take advantage and stab the fucker!"

Engilram rushed the spell, meaning he wasted a ton of mana and cast an incomplete spell. Doing exactly what Engilram said, Thordis and Krenn took advantage of their good fortunes. Thordis thrusted his extremely sharp sword through the weak shield and stabbed the enormous wolf directly through the left side of the ribs and through its heart. Killing it in a single strike.

Krenn, on the other hand, is having much more trouble with the two wolves on him. He swung his great sword, and both wolves dodged and lunged at the now vulnerable Krenn, slashing his heavily armoured chest, ripping right through his armour and tearing into his green flesh. This causes Krenn to go flying backwards far behind Mizubi.

In that instant, Mizubi let loose his supercharged arrow at the alpha and talk about overkill. The shot aimed directly at the head of the alpha and hit its mark. Once the shot hit the wolf in the nose, it released a ton of energy in a contained ball shaped explosion. Completely disintegrating the alpha in the white-hot inferno around it.

"shit, well done!" Engilram said.

"thanks! I'll give Thordis some backup. Heal Krenn!" Mizubi said.

Engilram ran over to the injured giant and surveyed the injury before starting his healing spell. "this looks bad," he says. Engilram takes another mana potion from his bag. This time of high grade. These heal 50% of a mage's mana over the course of a single minute. After chugging the potion, he starts a healing spell called Healing of the Mother. It's one of the spells that church priests learn during training. It slowly heals deep wounds but is not effective enough to save from fatal wounds. It is six rune circles and 120 runes. Evenly split onto both arms and glowing a light green and specs of gold.

"Krenn won't be healed for another ten minutes. You guys are on your own for the rest of this fight," Engilram yelled to the others.

It's not looking good for the two of them. A knight and a ranger vs two wolves and two abnormally large wolves. "why are they still attacking? I thought they would scatter once the alpha is dead." Thordis said.

"I probably should have said, but there are two alphas in a wolf pack. A male and female. I killed the male and I'm guessing that the highly aggressive female charging you right now was his boyfriend." Mizubi said.

Looking back at the pack, Thordis notices one of the massive wolves striding after her. Now running from the widowed female, she screams, "are you fucking kidding me? These massive ones are the females! I can't catch a break."

Mizubi knocks an arrow at the two spinning in circles and looses it right in the females left eye, staggering and slowing it down. Stopping her sprint away from the bitch. Thordis pivots, jumps at the she-wolf, and performs a downward strike to her head. Too bad for Thordis. The sword she sharpened had snapped in half on impact with the wolfs head.

"well, that's unfortunate." Thordis said, looking at her broken sword.

Growling at Thordis, the female alpha swipes her paw at her, sending Thordis flying into one of the ironwood trees. With one adventurer still on their feet, things are looking bleak. The alpha female slowly approaches Mizubi, swatting away the occasional arrow shot at her. Now right in front of Mizubi, the wolf stands on two paws like a bear to downward strike. On the way down she is stopped and pushed far back by a launch pad.

"did you seriously predict that?" Mizubi said.

"nope, I refocused some of my attention to move it there." Engilram said.

"you definitely earned that iron tag their priest." Mizubi said.

"just focus on defending yourself ranger." Engilram says.

As Engilram looks back at Krenn. The wound on his chest fully healed. "hay big guy. Get up. We are in dire need of backup right now!" Engilram shouted.

Krenn's eyes snap open, and he leaps up. "back. Will get dangerous." He said.

As Engilram backs away from Krenn, he crouched down. Yelling and growling, accompanied by a blood red aura surrounding Krenn is the spell known as berserker rage. It's a potent spell that fuels a person's rage using mana. There are two spell circles that surround the whole person and containing a total of 100 runes.

A lot of twitching, yelling and heavy breathing indicates that the spell completed. Krenn charges at the three wolves who are just standing idly by as the alpha just picked off everyone. A blink later and he is in front of the biggest one, grabs its head and just. Pops it off like an orange still on its tree.

After a light snacking on the wolfs neck flesh. The two smaller wolves were next. He picks them up by their tails and just starts swinging and smashing the wolves to wherever the momentum took them. Eventually turning their bodies into bloody, broken messes in his hands. The berserker blood spell timed out, leaving Krenn completely motionless.

The alpha female just watches in horror as the rest of her pack is slaughtered. Taking advantage of the alphas distracted state. Engilram casts his last spell. One that would kill the bitch that previously injured an unsuspected Krenn.

Using the staff to amplify. The spell swirled with purple, light blue, and grey colours. Comprising 6 rune circles and 150 runes etched into it. This spell is called thunderstorm, and it brings down a bolt of lightning that turns the target to ash. Or at least that's the desired result.

A darkness envelopes the area around the female, forming clouds of blues, purples and dark grey just like the spell colours. As the last remaining wolf looks up. She sees her inevitable defeat. Instead of trying to run, she sits. Possibly wanting to reunite with her male partner. The bolt races down like a flash of light. Completely frying the wolf. Her insides, nothing but charred meat. Completely blackened. The corpse frumps over ending the battle. The spell clouds depart, leaving nothing but the sunlight that the adventurers bask in for a few moments. Before treating injuries. Engilram painfully drinking yet another one of his mana potions. And all three of them carrying Krenn's useless body back to the side of the road where the carriage had dropped them off.