After I had managed to convince the big, bad wolf to start moving up the valley, I focused on the incoming pack. Sadly, I was quite sure that I would need as much power as possible for my plan to work, so I was limited in my actions against them. But there were somethings I could do.

My runic magic easily worked with previously acquired resources, meaning I could easily use the viscous substance I got when using Blood Magic to fuel it. Looking at the attacking pack, that snarling, barking mass charging up the valley, I opted to maximise the affected area and prioritise weakening them. Combining the runes of Mist, Cold and Liquid Moonlight should create a cloud of extremely cold mist, far colder than normally possible, as water was replaced with the intrinsically cold Liquid Moonlight. Adding to that, I used the darkness-rune for devour and the blood-rune for strength, so the icy mist should greatly sap the strength of the attacking pack.

Channelling the power out of the collected blood-goo, the formation flashed and the temperature perceivable dropped as the mist followed the laws of thermodynamics and started its journey downwards. The goo turned black and all signs of life left it, showing that it was now useless. But it had done its job, my Astral Power was still close to full and the pack would be weakened when it reached us.

When the pack charged into the mist, quite a few whimpers were mixed in with the snarling and barking and my combat log showed that I was dealing damage, not a lot per wolf but massive damage due to their number. But obviously, it was not enough to stop them, nor did the caltrops we had spread manage more than cause more whimpers and some blood splatter on the ice.

The frontrunners crashed into Sigmir, who had braced herself as good as she could but still slid back from the impact. The rest piled up behind them, some crashing into the ice walls, others scraping against the cliffs but our position held. Adra started to stab downwards with her spear, reducing the pressure on Sigmir while Rai made sure that no wolf managed to get by her.

A short glimpse to the big, bad wolf showed me that it had crossed enough of the valley for my plan to work, so I pulled the trigger. The plan itself was rather simple, the wolf’s roaring howl had not only shattered the ice I had spread, it had also shaken up the snow below the ice and, much more importantly, the snow on the slope above us, almost causing an avalanche.

Triggering Overflow, I reached out as far as possible with my Ice Magic, spreading my arms to add emphasis to the magic I was casting. I doubted that the act of gesturing itself had a bigger, metaphysical meaning, but I could get behind the idea that my mind assigned the gestures a value and as my mind made the magic work, the gestures had meaning.

So, with my arms spread in tune with my Ice Magic, I took hold of as much of the snow above us as I could, before moving my arms together, almost in a clap but not quite. And there was no need to clap, my Ice Magic followed my mental command and the gesture, causing the snow to move. And move it did, two solid streams of white thundering down from each cliff, crashing together in the small valley.

Most of the grey, shaggy wolves got crushed outright by the impact, the rest was lucky enough to be too close to our fortifications and in the safe-zone I had created. But the impact of having the majority of their pack crushed behind them had them shaken.

And the initial impact was not all that happened, the snow did not simply settle, it followed gravity down the slope, creating an avalanche rolling down the valley. The five black wolves quickly got rolled under and the big, bad wolf saw the wall of whiteness coming and tried to run. But it was too late and it got buried as well. I doubted that any of the black wolves got killed, but they certainly were stunned. My Astral Power had taken quite the hit, the huge amount of mass I had influenced had cancelled out the fact that the influence I had exerted was rather small overall. I just had to get it to start moving, the rest had been gravity.

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Breathing heavy, I watched as the other three dispatched the few remaining wolves as Lenore landed on my shoulder, looking down the valley.

“I do like your handiwork. What’s next? I doubt you used that much snow just to wipe out the weaker wolves.” she asked.

“No, not really. The main idea was that we now have more than enough time to capture the black wolves. If Ylva can use them to gain strength, I’m all for it. And I’m interested in the bloodline of the big, bad wolf. Freki is a god, or at least a demigod, right? So, a close relative should have a special characteristic in its blood.” I was curious just what I would find, if I got my hands on the blood of that specimen. What was a god? What were their special characteristics? Were any of those still present in the diluted divine blood of the buried wolf? And, if yes, would i be able to extract any of it? I was a blood mage, so the blood of a god was the ultimate resource, the philosopher’s stone for blood mages, so to speak.

Lenore returned to her Hallow and I felt her Astral Power regeneration join with my own, replenishing my stores. Looking down, I saw that the others had taken care of the wolves in front of us and were looking down the slope, searching for more enemies.

As I did not know how long the wolves would remain buried, I used ice magic to create snowshoes for all of us and carefully made my way down the slope. The others put on their shoes and followed me. Finding the wolves was relatively easy, thanks to Lenore’s magic vision, allowing me to see their life-force through the snow, but I had no interest in simply digging them up. Using Lenroe’s vision as a guide, I stretched my mind magic through the snow, pushing torpor at them, slowly pulling their minds into sleep. That their brains were shaken and the combination of freezing cold and oxygen deprivation drew them into oblivion helped greatly, allowing me to put them out without struggle. I doubt they even realised that there was something messing with their brains. I tied the torpor into a lasting curse, keeping them out as long as there was no brutal pain to wake them.

We had to be rather careful as we dug them out, as there were broken bones that would have woken them if handled roughly, but we managed it before any of them expired. I was curious if I could use the weaker black wolves as a guide, maybe they had the same bloodline but weaker, allowing me to detect it in the differences.

We secured the wolves in ice-casts, holding them on their back and giving them nothing to extend force against with anything but their back-muscles. Those were obviously weaker than their legs. The normal black wolves were bound in normal ice, the bigger one in Hard Ice and then it was time to find out what Ylva needed to advance herself.

She left her Hallow and the big, black wolf turned insane, trying to twist out of the binding, snarling and snapping like a rabid animal.

“I have to devour him, to absorb his strength, but I doubt that it will be enough to allow me to overcome the divide. Not from a single wolf.” Ylva told us, after looking at the snarling wolf.

Now, I was getting curious. “You absorb the strength during the digestion-process? And what about the strength that dissipates after its death?”

“I’m not sure. I just feel that his strength would strengthen me.”

“Would you mind if I try something? If it fails, we can always hunt for more wolves.” I offered. My mind had changed from, ‘I want to escape and get away from them.’ to ‘I want Ylva to advance if these wolves offer the possibility to do so.’ Strengthening Ylva was almost as good as strengthening Sigmir, so I was happy to put forth the effort.

We moved the wolves out of the valley as I needed more space for the next step and Adra put a ward around the space I wanted to use, to prevent sound from escaping. Her wards were used to keep us from being detected so they had a sound-dampening aspect to them, hopefully it would be enough.

To hopefully corroborate my theory, I summoned Elding and asked a few pointed questions about spirit-advancement, learning that indeed the relevant power for a spirit, and most likely a spirit-beast as well, was the Vital Astral Power of the devoured spirit. It was the power that I was using if I used my Blood Magic on myself when I had no more Astral Power remaining and was overdrawing my magic, possibly causing harm to myself. Spirits could use their own power to slowly, very slowly, nurture their young but it took a great amount of time to do so without harming themselves.

So, I had an idea that could work, I just had to make my idea a reality. I think Adra had a slightly worried look on her face, as I started sketching out my ritual. I must have had that special smile on my face as I did so. Oh, well...

For science!