Ch 11 - The Dire Wolf

As soon as the other wolves heard their leader's howl, they fell in a daze. All the wolves stood like a statue for a few seconds and then an instant glared at the adventuring party in front of them. This time they looked more angry and ferocious and their eyes rolled and their eye whites were revealed as if they went insane.

It seemed the wolves just received some instructions from their leader.

The grey wolves without wasting any time quickly launched a fierce assault. This time they didn't even care about their safety and just charged blindly.

Razor and Bel replied to the assault with kind.

Razor kept swinging his sword graciously in the air and all the wolves that came across his blade were butchered in meatballs. His blade created a gust of wind-shaped blade aimed at the wolves cutting them in half.

Meanwhile, Bel attacked fiercely with his fire spells and explosions as he waved his hands.

The rotten smell of burning wolves polluted the air.

Artecia hidden in the trees provided cover and fired ice arrows striking her target with quiet precision. Every arrow she shot would hit the wolves on their head, killing them in an instant.

The trio's assault was working and the number of wolves started declining at a rapid pace.

All of a sudden I heard loud noises of footsteps approaching near the waterfall. The noise came from the same direction as from where the leader of the wolf was. It sounded like the footsteps of hundreds of wolves marching to the battlefield.

I stood motionless hugging the tree and gazed at the woods in the direction of the noise.

The woods in the distance started shaking and it was soon a huge army of grey wolves charged fiercely. The numbers were in hundreds or even thousands. The huge army of wolves poured out from the woods like an ant army when their colony was under attack.

Each and every wolf looked strong and healthy. Even their eyes had rolled and only eye whites were visible. They all reinforced the encirclement to kill Razor and Bel. The outcome suddenly changed, Bel and Razor pushed back against each other's back.

Where the fuck did a such number of wolves get here?

Is this the entirety of wolf species gathered here together or what?

It wasn't long when the other wolves sensed Artecia's presence. The remaining wolves attacked the tree where she was hiding. They attacked with their jaws and claws trying to pull down the tree. The tree started to shake when faced with such a fierce assault.

Artecia's nonchalant demeanor had long vanished, her brows wrinkled and attacked all the nearby attacking wolves.

She started chanting and a magic circle appeared in front of her bow and then she shot the arrow. As soon as the arrow left the bowstring it cloned itself into hundreds of arrows and rained down killing all the wolves in the vicinity.

But it wasn't long other wolves would take their place and attacked the tree instead. They were trying to tumble the tree to drag out Artecia on the ground.

If the wolves sensed my presence I would fall in the same situation as her. Thankfully I was very far away and the paste and mud on my body helped me hide my presence to some extent.

"Guys mind lending me some hand?" Artecia shouted while firing ice arrows nonstop.

The tree trunk was fiercely damaged by the claws and jaws. The tree won't be able to hold on for much longer.

Hearing Artecia's call Razor glanced at her situation,

"Alright Bel let's regroup first"

Bel nodded in reply while still casting spells on the wolves.

Razor then grabbed his sword close to his face and seemed to be muttering some spell. In an instant, the sword he was holding, a gust of wind started revolving around it. It wasn't long the wind breeze revolved more fiercely like a mini-tornado in his hands enveloping the entire blade.

It was then Razor opened his eyes,

"Aremis whirlwind blade."

He then dashed with his blade facing towards Artecia like a charging ram.

Any wolf that came in contact with the blade was sliced by the fierce tornado like a meat grinder. The blood and meat splashed all around paving a bloody bath and breaking the encirclement.

Bel stuck close to Razor keeping up with his pace and protecting the rear guard.

It wasn't soon the two came to where Artecia was and thwarted the siege of the wolves to take down the tree. The three worked together to kill the nearby wolves.

Bel looked Artecia had grinned,

"You don't need to say thanks. We two are equal now," said Bel while gasping for breath.

Artecia frowned, "Huh? It was Razor that actually helped me. You just happen to tag along,"

"What an ungrateful elf. No wonder you were exiled from your tribe," replied Bel angrily.

Suddenly an ice arrow went past Bel's face and landed near the ground. There was a scar on his cheeks that was frozen formed ice crystals on his face. A cold sweat ran on Bel's brow.

Artecia looked terrifying as she coldly glared at Bel,

"Watch your mouth brat. Just cause you are nobility and happen to be the guild master's brother, don't think I will just sit here and take it. Right now you are in the woods in the outskirts of your kingdom and no one would even come to know how you lost your petty life."

Bel was startled and frowned,

"You! You~ You!" he pointed his finger in shock, "Did you just threaten me? Did you just threaten the prince of Zephinya?!"

Artecia just glanced away and shot ice arrows at nearby wolves.

Bel turned his head to Razor,

"Razor! Did you just hear what she said?! She just threatened me-"

Razor swung his blade killing dozens of wolves and glanced back at Bel and then at Artecia.

He then let out a sigh,

"Stop bickering you two. Otherwise, all of us will die together."

Razor once again fiercely swung his blade and a gust of arc-shaped wind swept across the wolves. The arc-shaped wind blade cut down dozens of wolves.

He then turned his head facing towards a certain direction,

"Perry! What's the situation?"

Perry?

There was no immediate response.

After a few minutes, the guy in purple sitting on the tallest tree jumped down. He flexibly grabbed on to tree branches and came down quickly like a monkey. His arms and legs were quite long giving him nice mobility to go around trees.

He jumped from tree to tree and stood on the edge of the woods.

He then reached out to his pocket and a small bag appeared in his hands. Using his hands as if rummaging in the bag looking for something.

Under the tree, the wolves spotted the man in purple named Perry. They attacked the tree trying to drag Perry down.

After a while, Perry took out a mysterious bottle filled with a green potion.

He quickly put the bag aside and then picked the bottle and hurled it to where the trio had gathered.

The bottle flew and landed in the crowd between the encircled wolves. As soon as the bottle hit the ground it broke and the shattering of glass resounded.

In an instant, there was a green mist that appeared and shrouded the nearby wolves. The wolves coming in contact with the green mist fell limb and fell to the ground. They even foamed from their mouth and died on the spot.

The green mist was definitely a formidable poison mist.

Perry didn't stop there, he quickly did some hand signs and muttered something. In an instant, the poison mist started changing form and moving as if it was alive. The mist quickly changed and swirled around the trio and killed nearby wolves.

In a short time, there was a poison mist barrier protecting the trio.

The wolves kept charging in the poison barrier like mindless zombies and dying like flies.

So this guy must be a poison mage, a very rare breed of mages.

Perry jumped from tree to tree and the wolves chased him from below. He lured the wolves in a certain spot and landed between the wolf pack. In an instant performed some hand signs and muttered some incantations.

The wolves charged at him like mindless beasts.

Perry looked at the wolves and his jaws opened wide-stretching like rubber. It looked like a python opening its mouth to swallow a big prey in one gulp.

Suddenly Perry unleashed a green mist of poison from his mouth. All the wolves that came in contact with the poison started to melt like candle wax. The poison was too strong that the wolves only left behind bare bones.

The poison mist stayed there killing the remaining wolves.

Perry quickly backed off and climbed onto a tree and sat on a tall branch.

His face looked quite pale.

That move must have consumed a lot of mana.

"Good work Perry." Razor praised him.

The trio now protected within the poison barriers started unleash long-range attacks on the wolves further dwindling their numbers.

Bel threw flame balls, Artecia sent ice arrows and Razor slashed gust of wind-shaped blades. The wolves that madly try to close distance to attack but would perish when they went inside the poison mist.

"Oh shit." suddenly Perry blurted.

I turned my head to where Perry was.

To my horror, there was a huge beast who appeared in front of Perry.

The beast was the size of a tree covered in beautiful dark blue and white fur thick covering all over its body. The long thick furry tail swayed like a giant snake. The huge beast's azure eyes were set on Perry as it snarled with ferocious killing intent showing its white jaws.

Perry was sitting on a tall tree but at this moment he was just a few meters away from the Beast at its eye level.

That definitely is Dire Wolf, the ruler class mana beast.

Perry had just consumed a lot of mana in his previous attack. So he was a little pale and didn't even notice the approaching dire wolf.

He quickly got on his feet and leaped away in the air. Using one of his fingers to cut a wound on his palm and fresh blood oozed. He then started muttering incantation in the air and the mana started getting absorbed from the environment into his body.

This method of using one's own blood to create a spell is quite powerful and mages only use it as a last resort. The blood used here acts as a catalyst and burns the mage's blood essence. This blood essence works as a mage's mana reserve and is even more powerful than the average mana. Although losing one's blood essence is equal to losing one's life essence.

Hence blood essence is only used in the most dire time as a last resort.

Perry had already used a big spell and now he had no choice but to rely on sacrificing his blood essence to cast a spell. The spell won't be powerful to kill this ruler class dire wolf but it certainly would harm him to a certain extent.

Perry in mid-air formed magical hand signs muttering incantation spells.

A magic circle appeared in front of Perry's hands and absorbed the blood and the mana in the environment like a vacuum.

The dire wolf eyes flashed a glint.

He raised his giant paw and smashed it towards the tree. The tree which Perry was resting was uprooted and hurled towards Perry. The dire wolf casually uprooted and hurled the tree like it wasn't a tree but some twigs.

Perry's face lost its composure and was quite shocked by the wolf's behavior. Instead of attacking himself, he launched a tree on him. He stopped his hand seals and the magic circle immediately disappeared.

With a loud thud, Perry crashed with the tree and swept across the battlefield.

The big log of trees fell on the ground rolling on the ground crushing all the wolves like red berries. The log rolled and rolled towards where the Razor and his group had gathered.

Razor's face was ashen looking at the scene.

Artecia and Bel also saw it was angry.

The big tree rolled in the ground and marched fiercely towards them.

Razor walked in the front and stood at the barrier's edge.

"Perry should be fine. That bastard can't be killed by a mere tree. It would take more than that to kill that foul-breath monster." Razor said with a smile on his face.

Razor raised his blade in the air and suddenly a gust of turbulent wind appeared on his blade. As soon as the log reached near he released his blade slicing the mere air.

The log was quickly cut in half and the two halves rolled by the side leaving the trio unharmed. The poison barrier and even the ground were split in half from Razor's fierce attack.

Artecia got down on the ground and stood with Bel behind Razor.

Both the mages ready their spells to engage in combat any second.

The rolling logged just killed hundreds of wolves in mere seconds.

Meanwhile, Perry was nowhere to be seen. There were only just a lot of squashed organs and wolf corpses all over the place.

It wasn't soon the Dire wolf came in the battlefield snarling and glaring angrily at the trio, especially at Razor.

Razor stared back at the Dire wolf,

"Hey! Dog's are supposed to fetch sticks and not throw them back on their master's face." then aimed his sword at the wolf.