A breached fort.
As The Wolf Emperor reformed its aqueous body inside, it saw a cloud of smoke hanging over the spot where The Tyrant had landed.
"Die!" It howled, lunging and closing the distance in a single bound. With its body transforming back to its original, corporeal form, it lashed out with a paw as large as a man's torso.
The swipe tearing through the smoke was so wide that the tip of the wolf's nails scraped along the wall behind, leaving no room for any creature cowering inside to escape.
But, bafflingly, the attack passed through without mauling or uncovering its prey.
The Wolf Emperor paused in confusion. By its reckoning, the human could not have turned invisible so quickly, yet no trace of him was left.
Was the smoke a distraction? it wondered. Had the human changed costume and teleported to hide amongst his minions?
The Wolf Emperor, sweeping its gaze across the humans manning the walls around it, snorted derisively. "If you've hidden among them, Tyrant, then I will simply have to consume them all!"
It tumbled to the side as a lightning bolt zapped past, throwing up a plume of burnt soil.
Bali The Beast Tamer captain yelled, “Arrowgeniusyyy, use
“On cooldown, captain!”
“Huh?”
The Wolf, rolling out of the tumble, flicked its open mouth and vacuumed up a chunk of the fort wall, along with a Qi Master who was waiting to jump down and grapple it.
Through the breach, the Grey Wolves began to spill like bugs out of a rotten log split in half.
The Beast Tamer, witnessing this short sequence, witnessing their defences overcome, realised it was over, that his team had failed.
Still, as members of The Empires, they were accustomed to losing, to finding the small victories that could be had while losing.
“Supports, defensive buffs!" The Beast Tamer ordered. "Everyone, retreat to the keep!”
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Within the smaller structure, they would be able to repair the walls faster than the Wolf Emperor destroyed them. The trade-off, however, was that the smaller space would restrict the number of Spells they could cast (AN: see post-chapter note for an overly-detailed explanation). They would run out of resources before reinforcements from the navy arrived, assuming they'd even been sent.
But, perhaps, they'd buy enough time for the surviving trainers to evacuate.
The retreating players leapt down from the fort's walls and sprinted for an inner keep, passing the giant blue wolf, which ignored them to circle the fort, biting open one breach after another.
On top of the wall, near one hole, a figure had been spearing wolves handsomely.
Dan, now watching the tide of the beasts pouring through below, was reminded of Big Bro’s parting advice.
Their opportunity to be heroes had come...the rugby ball was boiling hot! The stadium audience were waving their black and silver flags! The call had been made: shove the head of the ostrich under the sand or the kiwi would be bullied to death!
“You heard, Big Bro!" His team's captain roared nearby. "Plug up the holes, boys!”
Dan, swapping to his trusty sword, joined his teammates in throwing himself down into the breach, landing right in the swirling tide of wolves, which splashed against his rock-hard chest.
Distributing his
The blocked wolves attacked him back, but, with the stat buff he’d received, their teeth shattered on his hardened flesh.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Two more teammates landed behind Dan to enter the brawl.
A variant wolf, twice the size of its kin, leapt for Dan's throat. Before it could reach him, his fist shot out and jammed itself down the beast's oesophagus, so deep the teeth went up to his shoulder.
When the variant wolf couldn’t free itself, the nearby wolves began to grip Dan’s sword arm to weigh it down. But this could not stop him from raising the weapon and thrusting its glowing point through the wolf's abdomen - again and again, each thrust causing a spurt of hot gore to bespatter his chest.
He threw the defeated wolf off his arm. "MORE!"
Discarding all sense of self-preservation, he waded deeper and deeper into the ocean of wolves, allowing himself to steadily drown in blood and fur.
Around him and his reckless teammates, the bodies steadily accumulated.
When The Wolf Emperor noticed the meatheads stalling its forces, it released a howl that caused its wolf army's teeth to glow brighter.
With the damage buff, the wolves were now able to wear down the health of Dan and his friends, who began to be toppled one by one.
Nevertheless, when Dan looked back, he spotted the last of the trainees and Villagers ducking inside the inner keep, as the doorway was sealed shut by a Fighter’s tower shield.
Him and his mates had done their job. A hard tackle might’ve been about to put him out of the game, but it didn’t matter anymore. The ball was already flying to the man on the other wing who had 20 yards of open grass before him.
When Dan’s Stamina bar was depleted and he was dragged to the ground at last, he didn’t resist, nor did he scream.
With his muscled back pressed against the soil and his Adonis-like head whipping and snapping about as a wolf tried to saw through his neck, he gave a final, handsome smile.
“Sick.”