AAAAWWWWOOOOOooooooo
“?”
“Was that the Howl of a Moon Wolf?” Evelyn asked as she looked at her fellow coworker Martin, wearing similar leather armor as her, thus designating them as the nimble fighters of their group. “Should we stick to the plan and go around its territory or power through it?”
“Definitely around it.” Martin replied as he drew the big and long steel sword out of its sheath on his back, just in case it was required. “We don't have the numbers to deal with its Pack…” But then, as if remembering something, he smiled and turned his head towards the man beside him wearing partial metal armor around his torso, arms, and legs. “Unless, of course, our mighty boss says otherwise.”
Being called upon by his cocky yet still bootlicking subordinate, Jacob, the boss in question of this ragtag team of Adventurers, ignored Martin and instead centered his gaze on the fourth member of their party, a man with a sword by his hip and a bow and quiver on his back. “Paul, you're the Ranger of the party. You think we could rush through the Moon Wolf's territory now that it and its Pack are distracted by something? We could save a lot of time if we did.”
“It would depend on what is distracting it, and for how long it will distract the Pack.” Paul answered as he was the expert on Nightmare Monster’s behaviors. “Regardless, no matter how much time we save, it will not be worth it if they pick up our scents. Boss, I am sure I don't have to remind you of the large territories Wolf types possess.”
“No!” Jacob shook his head before addressing his party of four. “You hear that, people. The expert says no, then it will be so. We are sticking to the plan.”
“Yes, Boss.” The four adventurers answer before returning to their adventure.
However, half an hour later, the first sounds of yelps, growls, and howling reached their ears.
“Damn it.” Martin cursed aloud. “It seems, Dear Evelyn, Goddess Ani has heard your wish to fight and granted you the boon.”
“Fuck you, Marty.” Evelyng objected instantly to being singled out as the problem. “I simply asked a fucking question. It has nothing to do with me. Or are you picking a fight with me? You know, I would gladly stick my shiv inside your throat.”
“Argue later, prepare now.” Jacob, the Boss, suddenly interrupted their banter because he was long used to the two going at it most of the time. That said, he drew his sword and shield on his back before stepping forward to face the incoming danger.
At the same time, Martin drew his big and long sword from the sheath on his back, stepped slightly behind his boss, and flanked his Boss to protect his side. Evelyn did the same, only she took the right side as two long daggers appeared in her hands.
Paul, on the other hand, remained in the relative center of the group before taking off the bow hanging from his left shoulder and notching an arrow on its string.
Once all of them were prepared, they awaited the inevitable because, with every moment that passed, the sounds they heard became louder and louder, until all of a sudden, a rushing figure, holding a long and slightly glowing spear, stepped out from behind a giant tree and ran right to them, to both his and the Adventurers surprise.
“Ah…” The boy said and gawked before instantly stopping at their unexpected presence.
For a single second, five pairs of eyes looked at each other when the sounds returned to break up any silence between them.
“Get behind us and deal with the Spawn while I keep the big one busy.” Jacob urgently cried out.
“Ugh… Right.” The boy nodded and replied before rushing around the group of four and taking the rearmost position. As if premeditated, in the same instant, large numbers of wolf-based Nightmare Spaws poured towards them before slowing down at seeing the unexpected appearance of more prey.
Woof Woof Woof
In the same instant, the barking echoed from their mouths, the Nightmares Wolfs circled the group of Adventurers with their numbers in the thirties. However, when said wolves were at least double the size of the present humans, the outlook became that much more menacing. Yet, as the Pack growled and circled the group of five humans, the biggest specimen of them all arrived.
A monstrous Nightmare Wolf the size of a house with black fur covered with gray and silver patterns along its whole body.
Recognizing the Monster before them, the group of Adventures started to shiver from seeing the Nightmare’s mighty stature, its predatory nature, its menacing but pearly white canines, and the no doubt very sharp claws that could slash through a human as if it were butter.
However, as soon as the group began trembling, they called on their Essence to resist the Aura of Fear cast by the Monstrous Wolf before them. Yet, that was not the only Aura of Fear thrown at them. No, Wolf-type Nightmares were Pack hunters. As such, they could combine their menace as a group and produce an Aura of Fear just by their numbers.
The more there were the stronger the effect.
As such, the resistance effect difficulty also increased, but that did not seem to bother the Adventurous at first glance.
No, they were Adventures because they managed to overcome their Fear.
Even after the appearance of the big bad wolf, combat did not ensue immediately.
Instead, the Nightmare Moon Wolf stared at the tiny humans before it and its Pack. Yet, it was the one in the front who took all of its attention because it could sense that one was the strongest.
With one growl, a member of its Pack pounced at the strongest one. The instant it was close to the strongest human, the human moved, dodged the bite for his head, and retaliated by swatting his subordinate wolf with the shiny and round thing attached to its left arm, right where the front left leg joined its shoulders, causing the subordinate to fly meters away as if its Pack member weighed a third of what it did.
Recognizing that it had no choice and that it could not resist the allure of all these juicy spirits before it, the Moon Wolf, Second Ranked Nightmare, stepped forth to face the strongest of the small prey, but not before growling and ordering its Pack to attack the others.
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Seeing the Moon Wolf Nightmare step forward, Jacob knew what he had to do, causing him to instantly rush at the house-sized enemy to keep the big one away from his team members.
That left Evelyn, Martin, Paul, and Adam, although they had yet to learn the name, to face the smaller wolves.
Seeing the odds that all of them survived, Adam kept silent before suddenly rushing at one of the wolves with his slightly glowing spear and piercing right into its head because it had not expected his sudden rush and possibly the deadliness of the spear he wielded.
Like a chain reaction, the wolves closest to the group jumped forward, teeth first to bite at the small humans before them, but the Adventures expertly dodged and retaliated.
Martin, who held his big and long sword in two hands, dodged right before slashing from above right on the neck of the wolf, thus separating the head from the body, causing it to become smoke moments after the Nightmare Wolf realized that it had been killed.
Evelyn, on the other hand, jumped with swiftness before her body arched and turned at just the right time to drop on the head of the wolf, only to stab it in the eyes with both long daggers, thus penetrating right through to the brain. Then, a burst of Essence passed through the daggers and diced the brain of the Nightmare Wolf in pieces, thus instantly killing the Nightmare Wolf that was at the very least double her physical height.
After that, the Nightmare Wolf became smoke, causing her to drop to the ground before rolling one and standing back on her two feet with her group behind her, only to face another incoming wolf.
Meanwhile, Paul, who enjoyed the protection of the three fighters around him, swiftly drew on the string of his bow before infusing the arrow nocked on it with Essence, such that when it was released, it was both fast and deadly before penetrating right through the forehead of a large wolf within the second row of Pack circling his fellow fighters, after all, there was only so much space for them to gang up on their prey.
In fact, he was the one killing the most of the wolves as his arrow could not simply miss being this close to his enemies.
Just as Adam upped up the odds for his temporary friends, a loud screeching reached his ears. He knew what it represented. But he had no time to pay attention to it. Instead, his spear went around killing any of the wolves because a simple slash of the Enchanted spear blade on Sun Bearer was enough to kill most beings instantly, yet not only was his glowing, but it also ignored physical defenses because the Edge of Light enchantment was designed to directly struck at that which hid behind those defenses.
Just like that, the fight went on for a few moments, causing the number of wolves to drop down drastically,
However, as Adam observed from time to time, the true game changer was the smoking effect of the killed wolves because no bodies were left behind. Thus, no clutter was left behind to interfere with the movements of the skilled fighters beside him.
In fact, their numbers decreased so much that it had allowed him to glance at the big fight not far from him, with a tiny human dodging, blocking, and parrying the claws and bites of the house-sized wolf.
Though, more dodges occurred because there was too much mass to offset if he parried or blocked.
Accordingly, the amount of injuries the man returned in kind were few in numbers, which mostly likely resulted from him delaying the Monster instead of going all out on injuring it. At the same time, Adam noticed the man flawlessly occupying its attention such that it did not notice just how fast the numbers in its Pack dwindled.
Narrowing his golden eyes at the sight, Adam suddenly spoke, causing the attention of the three fighters close to him.
“Can you deal with these numbers for now?”
Hearing the sudden question, all three thought that the boy wanted to run away, but Paul, the Ranger around whom everything revolved, almost instantly recognized where the sight of the boy wearing black and thick leather centered.
Seeing it, his eyes quickly scanned around and replied as the second in command. “Go, we'll be fine for now.” That said, Paul hurriedly put away the bow and arrow to draw the one-handed sword from his belt before facing a wolf as it got ready to pounce on him.
Nodding in reply, Adam waited for the right moment. When it came, one wolf died and smoked away, Adam rushed away from the group, but not in the direction Paul, the Ranger, thought he would.
“Did you just give him the permission to run away?” Martin urgently asked.
Wondering just the same, Paul heard the only female of the group retort. “Not everybody is as cowardly as you, Marty.”
“Damn, Bitch. I am anything but cowardly.” Martin replied with anger in his voice, but his actions were quite the opposite as they were carefully estimated whenever he attacked due to the big double-handed longsword in his hands, after all, one needed quite the expertise to wield something that big and long.
Seeing as his coworkers had the time to argue, Paul relaxed slightly before rethinking if allowing the boy to leave was the right move.
Dodging and slashing the throat of one wolf before finishing it by stabbing it in the eye, he took note of just where the boy had vanished before realizing that the boy might not have run away but instead was attempting to attack the Moon Wolf from a different angle.
Dodging, blocking, and slashing away the house-sized enemy, Jacob noticed a golden glow in the periphery of his vision. Unfortunately, he had no time to ponder about it, as every bit of his attention was spent on keeping himself alive and the wolf busy.
Then, all of a sudden, the golden glow increased in size before rushing at the right back leg of the house-sized nightmare. Once beside it, Jacob witnessed the boy, who had appeared from out of nowhere, slash at the back tendon heel.
As if the attack was perfectly timed, it happened when the wolf was over-extending its bite attack, and Jacob dodged and struck the big jaw from the side with his shield, thus knocking its head aside while blocking its vision of what came next.
Still, Jacob was sure there was another attack because the enlarged and glowing spear blade produced a unique sound when it slashed through the air.
That was also what alerted the big wolf of something going wrong, but by the time it tried to jump back, both of its legs simply failed to follow the command, and it dropped on its behind when slight pain emerged, only to grow and grow causing it to howl and growl in response.
Seeing the Nightmare threat before him lessened, Jacob retreated slightly and finally recovered his breathing and awareness of anything besides the giant jaws and claws. That was when he urgently glanced at his fellow Adventurers to notice that the wolf numbers had dropped significantly, yet still continued dropping because the wolves just kept going at them without any hint or regard for their own safety.
Jacob knew exactly why that was and used it as a reminder to press on the giant wolf even more to keep its attention on him, however, he was careful because one should never underestimate a cornered animal, much less a cornered Nightmare.
That was when they got the most dangerous.
Yet, just as Jacob stepped forward, another glow caught his attention before he noticed the glow flying right into the forehead of the Second Ranked Nightmare before him, causing house-sized Nightmare Wolf to cease moving. At the same time, the boy wearing black leather and a small backpack on his back jumped right after his spear on the stilled giant head, grabbing the shaft of the spear before twirling it through the skull of the Nightmare as if there were no bones there to stop it.
Following that, the Boy dropped from the head and used his glowing spear to pierce the chest and twirl it around before stepping away and making Jacob witness the golden glowing spear blade vanish only for a different light to separate from it and fly above the wolf before a bright light, reminding him of Noon on a cloudless Day, enveloped the wolf and the nearest two humans with it.
However, that was not where things ceased.
Instead, the boy stepped near the head again before kicking at the giant head without watching it at all.
“Bastard…” The Boy with brown curly hair and golden eyes shouted. “You DARE corrupt the Noble lineage of Man's best friends.” Not having released enough of his anger, Jacob saw the boy kick it a few more times. “I will enjoy eating you, Bastard.”