Everyone paused in their tracks and looked at Jane who wore a confused face. “There's only… what is that like, twenty something wolves?” She said, seeing the situation from her hand.

“Twenty? That's all?” Jax asked. “Do you see any sheep?”

“Ya, they’re carrying a few of them in their mouths.” It must be known midnight wolves were roughly four feet tall and quite massive for wolves. Carrying a sheep in their mouth was pretty easy to do unlike more normal wolves.

“They also… look like they're limping. Hold one, we're gonna follow them for a bit to see where they're headed to.” Jane said, seeing the pack of wolves heading in a singular direction.

“Are you able to lead us to the wolf pack?” Jax asked as plans started brewing in his head.

Jane nodded. “I always know where my hands are.”

“Alright then, change of plans.” Jax got the attention of everyone. “We head towards the wolf pack, since they are injured and low on numbers we can deal with them. Jane, can I have you fly the hand not following the wolves to us so I can explain to them that we need to issue a warning to the town just in case.”

“Alright I'm on it.” Jane controlled her phantom hand to change course and head back towards them. it wouldn't take long to get here with its speed.

“If we get into a fight, will you be able to handle yourself?” Jax turned to Jane. “I know you're a classholder but that doesn't mean you can— or want to fight.”

Jane smirked, “I wouldn't say I'm combat oriented but I have been trained to fight and can definitely help you guys out a lot.”

“Good. Let's put those muscles to work then.” Jax said, then yelled to everyone. “Let's go!”

Everyone, including Jane at the front, began to jog through the forest heading towards the wolf pack that was roughly three or four kilometers from them. It was a silent trek through the forest, everyone was focused on their surroundings or preparing themselves for combat.

Guards in Redwood didn't see much real combat, so today was a little nerve wracking for some, but they were trained guards and this was their job. If their captain said to fight, then they fight— simple as that.

After Jane’s hand found its way back to them, Jax quickly explained the situation to the two guards on the hand. After hearing him, they promptly headed to town to issue the warning and make sure the remaining guards still in town were ready for anything.

After the hand left, everyone picked back up the pace and began to continue jogging through the dense forest around them.

“Oh they stopped!” Jane, who was running alongside Jax, announced to him. In response he raised a fist and slowed down into a walk.

“Why’d they stop?”

“Well… they made it back to the rest of their pack.” Jane saw Jax’s face warp into a frown. “But it seems all the wolves they came back to are also injured.”

“How many more wolves are there then?” Jax wanted numbers.

“Another fifteen or so. But they look exhausted and injured.” Jane answered and waited for Jax’s next orders.

‘Why are they all injured?’ Was the big question running through Jax’s head. Something had to have hurt them all— or they all collectively tripped and hurt themselves, but that was unlikely.

In Jane’s phantom hands vision, she spotted a faint flicker of movement in the far distance and focused her attention in that direction. Ever so faint as it was, Jane could hear rhythmic thumping slowly getting louder.

The two guards atop her hand seemed to notice it as well and tried to see what was all the way out there, but had no luck.

“This makes it easier. We surround the wolves and finish them off while they're still injured and grouped together.” Jax voiced his command but saw Jane’s face slowly put on a frown of her own.

“Is there something else?”

“Hold on, I'm moving my hand to get a closer look.” Jane flew towards the rumbling in the distance and the closer she got the worse her expression became.

Then she spotted it.

“Fuck…” Jane swore in an honest reaction to seeing what was charging at the wolf pack.

Animals, beasts, monsters, and demons; The creatures of this world had these four names they could be categorized in.

Animals were easy to understand, they were creatures without any special racial abilities. Every other type of creature had some sort of innate racial power that functioned somewhat like classes did— in that they were magical in nature.

The other categorizations were less specific but it went like this; beasts looked like animals, monsters didn't look like animals and were usually bloodthirsty, and demons were where oddities ended up— it was a little messy to be honest.

The problem with this method was people didn't know which ones were dangerous, you'd assume all monsters would be dangerous and while that was mostly true, that didn't mean animals were any less dangerous.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Midnight wolves were just animals but even fighting them one on one, a person might not be able to beat them because of their size, intelligence, and sharp fangs and claws. While some monsters, even with their racial powers, might not be dangerous to a normal person.

This is why roughly a few centuries ago a beastmaster made it his life's work to study the vast amounts of creatures in the world and categorize them by how dangerous they were to an average person. He picked to record them based on how dangerous they were because that would be the most informative thing for most people.

Was this gigantic scaled creature dangerous? Well no it's actually a herbivore and won’t do anything to you if you leave it alone. Was this tiny cute furball harmless? Well no because it's highly venomous and isn't afraid to bite you.

This rating system had been implemented, adjusted, and expanded upon by the rest of the world since its creation. Nowadays the ranking system used the common alphabet that was found throughout the continent to make it more universally understood by others.

The ranks went;

E = The weakest creatures. Generally left for the most common animals like sheep, cows, birds etc.

D = An experienced warrior could handle. It's made of mostly animals but the more dangerous ones like lions, wolves or tigers.

C = A real danger for a group of trained warriors. Could be weaker beasts, monsters or demons.

B = Only combat oriented classholders could deal with.

A = A trained combat oriented classholder would struggle against.

S = A real danger for a team of combat oriented classholders.

Z = Death is the most likely outcome for all.

Even though this system had been modified many times, it still wasn’t always perfect since there were cases where weaker ranked creatures ended up being more dangerous in certain scenarios. They tried their best to make it as useful and informative as possible, but it's always just their best estimate.

They were also ranks for groups of creatures since lots of creatures did travel in packs like the midnight wolves. By themselves, midnight wolves were a ‘D’ class creature, but as a pack of fifty, they were on the higher end of ‘C’ class.

Jax was willing to take a chance to get rid of them before they caused more damage to Redwood because they were lesser in number and injured, meaning they should have a decent chance against them according to the ranking system.

As for what made Jane swear after seeing it, was a creature she could recognize from her time in beast studies at the academy.

It was a buffalo type beast that was the size of a small house and had two long ivory horns with a slight downward curve resting on its forehead. White fur rested on its entire hulking body that was relentlessly charging through the forest towards the pack of wolves.

It was called a frost buffalo and it was a lower ‘A’ class beast.

Nothing could stop its charge. Large redwood trees were shattered into shards of wood pieces if it so much as grazed the massive body of the frost buffalo while it’s each and every step left a crater of a footprint in its wake.

“What do you see?” Jax shook her shoulder after she didn't respond to him a few times.

“A frost buffalo.”

Jax’s mouth widened in shock before he snapped around to the rest of the guards. “We're leaving immediately!”

He then faced Jane and commanded her. “I need you to somehow tell the guards you sent to town to issue a call for reinforcements from the capital. It's an A class emergency. Can you do that?”

Jane nodded seriously— she could make the hands write it down on paper.

“It's almost made it to the wolves by now.” Jane warned him.

“Shit. Everyone run back to town!” Jax grabbed Jane’s arm and started running.

They ran through the forest, dodging trees, bushes or whatever else got in their way while being careful not to hurt themselves. Seconds felt like minutes, but time continued to tick and eventually Jane saw the frost buffalo arrive at the wolf pack from her hand.

A battle ensued— or more so a slaughter. The injured midnight wolves didn't stand a chance against the powers of a frost buffalo. It used its massive body to bash, its thick legs to crush and its horns to gore any and all wolves in its way.

The buffalo halted its charge and used its energy to instead turn back around and face the wolves— there must be some kind of grudge at play here.

It didn't take much for the frost buffalo to decimate most of the wolves since they were injured, while the few healthy wolves used the opportunity to escape by running away. The only problem was that the wolves were heading straight for Redwood— and the buffalo followed after it killed all the injured wolves.

Jane tracked the wolves and buffalo on her hand and could see that with the speed and direction of the two groups, they would definitely end up running through Redwood and causing immense chaos.

“Jax! They're heading right for Redwood now!” Jane yelled to him, the situation getting exponentially worse.

Jax turned to face her but he didn't have anything to say, his mind was still at work figuring out what the best solution for this crisis was. They couldn't let Redwood become the battle grounds for these dangerous creatures, they needed to either shift them off route or delay them long enough for the classholders from the capital to get here.

“I have an idea Jax, it's a little dangerous on my part but I think I can do it!” Jane said while the two slowed down into a walk.

“What's your idea?”

“I can slow down the frost buffalo— maybe even stop it in its tracks.” Jane started to explain. “All you'd have to do is stop the wolves, and then we just wait for reinforcements to come and clean up.”

“I can't have my friend's daughter risk her life like that.” Jax crossed his arms and shook his head.

“You got a better plan then?”

Jax furrowed his brows but he couldn't delay any longer, the more time they wasted the closer the beasts got to Redwood.

His face warped with indecision but eventually he gave in. “Fine! You’re a classholder, you know what you're doing.” Jax grabbed her shoulder. “Stay alive.”

“That's the plan!” Jane smirked. “The hand at town is already done with its work so I'll be off, see ya later!” She unsummoned her hand in town and re-summoned it next to her before she took off towards the frost buffalo.

Soaring into the sky, she locked onto the position of her other hand and sped up as fast she could towards it. Not taking too long since there were no trees getting in her way, she arrived overtop the buffalo then sent her other hand away to go help Jax.

Gliding over the frost buffalo, she looked down at its massive size decimating everything that got in its way and took a deep breath in. This would be quite dangerous, but she was confident in her abilities.

She was going to show this buffalo that the immovable was better than the unstoppable.