The bolt of lightning crashed into the head of the wolf with more force than I thought a bolt could carry, throwing the wolf back onto the adventurers fighting with Ren. The scaled beast knocked over half a dozen of the men, landing on a couple of them. Its snout smoked, scales blackened from the heat, but it was still conscious, growling weakly in its daze.
The bolt was easily strong enough to break through a tree trunk or two, on its force only, so the fact that the wolf had tanked it on the head proved their scaly armor wasn’t just for show. Still, the thing was out of the fight for the moment, and, as it turned out, it would never return to the fight. Before it could get up, a beast barged out of the forest in a blur of movement, pouncing on the wolf with wild ferocity, its snout clasping over the wolf’s neck before anyone had even realized what was happening.
The wolf thrashed on the ground as it suffocated, but it was useless. The beast above it overpowered it completely, keeping it locked in its vice-like bite.
The wolves and adventurer’s were all as surprised as I was at the newest addition to the battle, but Ren wasn’t distracted for a moment, and he took the moment of shock to decisively end his battle. His arm flashed out as the black blur of his blade cut through the wounded wolf’s throat, spilling out bright crimson blood in its wake.
The beast collapsed to the ground after a few staggered steps, letting out a pained whine as life drained out of its throat. I reacted just as the wolves around me decided to avenge their fallen comrade. I’d exhausted my Flux reserve enough that using any kind of wide-area attack was off the table, which made containing the nine wolves all the more difficult a task, but I was undeterred.
I leapt forward, ignoring the pain in my abdomen and shoulder as I brought down a punishing pole of flame on the head of the wolf furthest from me, the one closest to attacking the distracted adventurers. Leveraging the momentum of my strike, I pushed myself past the wolf and planted myself on the ground between the wolves and the adventurers.
Facing down nine massive, hungry, angry wolves brought a sweet thrill rushing through me, diluting my blood with pure excitement. My eyes glowed as I slipped into a trance, the world slowing as I began to move. Flux poured into my body, sewing up my bleeding wounds as it sped up my mind. The pain was as sharp as ever, but I braved it with a smile dripping with bloodlust.
Flames coated my limbs as scarlet claws formed on my fingers; the pole in my hands a blade from hell itself, clashing with jaws and claws. I weaved in between the wolves as I did before, faster this time, like a dancer on fire.
Without a way to keep all the wolves busy at once, I was forced to simply engage with them one at a time, switching between opponents every two blows to make sure none had the time to find another target. Fortunately for me, despite their increased intelligence, the wolves weren’t smart enough to immediately switch targets when I left them alone, a combination of their rage and frustration with me keeping them determined to deal with me first.
Ren and his group were left with the freedom to choose the next wolf they wanted to fight and slowly kite it back over to their side so they could deal with it. Our two sides fell into a good rhythm as the time passed, and with no more interruptions – or slip-ups on my part – I fell so deep into my trance I didn't even notice when Zayr showed up at my side, his scarlet figure dashing as he tackled a wolf with just his bare hands.
It was only when I mistook him for a wolf, thanks to the similar color of their armor, that I realized he was helping out, or that he was even there in the first place.
I was surprised to see him, but I didn't think on it long, just happy to have my work cut down a little. As much as I was enjoying myself with the challenge, I didn’t enjoy the stakes of failure quite so much. It was easier when the only other person depending on me was Ren – now that there were strangers whose lives hung in the balance, things felt a lot more serious, which dampened the fun I was having. So I was grateful that Zayr had shown up, since it took the burden of the others’ lives off my shoulders somewhat.
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Zayr, for his part, was about as strong as I’d guessed. As a Battle Mage, he fought with only his fists for the most part, and it was a fearsome thing to behold a man in armor throw down with a wolf twice his size and still come out mostly on top.
Still, while the two of us were able to hold our ground enough to keep the wolves distracted, we were far from strong enough to really handle them ourselves. And that fact only became more apparent as the time passed, with the two of us losing steam while the wolves only suffered some burns and blunt trauma.
Before long, I caught my second injury, as a wolf caught me on the thigh with its jaws. The teeth closed on my flesh like a bear trap, sending searing pain through my body, so immediate and intense I dropped my pole in shock. I retaliated by setting my thigh on fire, but the wolf was persistent, holding on even as the inside of its mouth began to smoke and sizzle.
Running out of time, I plunged a flaming claw deep into the beast’s eye, penetrating through the tissue and stopping only at the bone of its skull. The skull’s strength was far too much for me to pierce through with my claw, but the heat of the scarlet flame was more than enough to boil the brain behind the wall of bone, so the effect was essentially the same: the wolf lasted just over half a second before death claimed it, but even in the realm the spirits, the wolf refused to make things easy for me.
The teeth of its corpse held onto my flesh, forcing me to pry its jaws off myself. The pain was intense enough to bring tears to my eyes, but I fought off the urge to fall unconscious, knowing that doing so would spell certain death for me, if not the rest of the group with me.
Instead, I chose the even more painful option of Reviving as soon as I got the teeth of the wolf out of my thigh. The choice saved my life, giving me the strength to duck just as another wolf bit at the space my head had been occupying.
I spun and countered with a hard kick to the wolf’s chest, knocking it off balance in the air and sending it crashing to the ground next to me. I didn’t stay a second longer, though, making my way to the next wolf who’d been left alone for too long.
—
Two hours and eight Revives later, all twelve wolves lay slain, their lifeless corpses strewn about the forest floor. Ren and his band of adventurers lay next to their last victim in a heap of sweaty bodies, all of them exhausted but thankfully still alive, if a little bloody and worse for wear.
Zayr and I sat a little further away, resting against the base of a tree trunk. We’d sat out the fight with the last wolf, since our job was essentially done at that point. And we’d had an objectively worse time over the fight, so no one really expected us to help out, anyway.
There was a long moment of silence that fell over the clearing after the last wolf fell, as the fighters rested and the rest reveled in the shock of being alive still.
The first to try and break the silence was a noble boy named Will, one of nobles on the higher end of the social ladder, who made his way over to where Zayn and I sat with a look of reverence on his face.
Before he could begin what was surely going to be a heartfelt display of thanks that would inevitably turn into rambling flattery of Zayr’s heroic acts, I put up a hand and shut him down. “We can talk later,” I said, sparking a look of annoyance on Will’s – and strangely, Zayr’s – faces. “We don’t know if more of the wolves will be around, so it’s best to stay as quiet as possible and get out of here as soon as everyone is ready. I’ve never dealt with these wolves before, and I’m not sure how big the packs they travel in are. Best we don’t stick around to find out.”
My logic was flimsy, I knew, but the two boys didn’t know that. I was more of an authority on the forest than them, and they didn’t have the experience to question my reasoning, so they calmed down, letting me return to my peace and quiet.
About fifteen minutes later, the adventurers were all rested up enough to travel, and fight again if necessary, so we started our return journey. We weren’t very deep into the forest, and we hadn’t been attacked on the way in, since most animals didn’t have the guts to mess with a group as big as ours, so I was hoping for a peaceful journey back, too.
As the group started out, I fell into step with Ren, the two of us far enough behind the larger group to be out of earshot of them – and more importantly, of Zayr.
Before I could even open my mouth to ask the question I’d been wanting to ask since I found Ren, the boy had already answered.
“Yup,” he said. “I sensed him too.”