The pain that the old man on the ground was suffering from seemed to come and go quickly. He stood up with a normal expression, slightly out of breath, and said in a rough voice, "I had to kill these people with my own hands."

"I see," Glen said, nodding. Then he pointed at the old man's chest. "What's this?"

"It's a demon I made a contract with."

"A demon?" Glen frowned. "I heard that the price for such a thing is not low. You..."

"I can bear the price," the old man said as he started walking towards the direction where the attackers had emerged.

What kind of grudge could it be? Why is he going to such lengths? Glen remained silent and followed the old man without saying anything more.

...

"Are they knights or mages?"

In an extremely simple wooden house, a hunched elderly man with bone wings on his back murmured to himself.

He had hair as dry as hay, almost no teeth left, and his skin looked as if it had been exposed to the sun for too long. He leaned on a withered wooden staff in one hand, and in front of him was a medicine altar emitting a faint green and cold light.

"Whether they are knights or mages, they shouldn't be able to find this place," said a sinister middle-aged man dressed in commoner's clothes, who was standing behind the elderly man.

This man was the dark mage who had made a deal with Murphy.

"What a pity. Those puppets have been with me for so long, and now they're gone," the elderly man said with a tone full of regret. Then he asked again, "Haven't the others come back yet, Dyke?"

"They're still being chased by the knights. What a bunch of troublesome people," Dyke said irritably.

"They brought it upon themselves. However, I'm afraid I'll have to trouble you to go and deal with these uninvited guests. This feeling of being disturbed is really unpleasant."

"What a hassle!" Dyke complained. Then he turned around and pushed open the drafty wooden door of the house. "I'll make them regret ever coming here. This will be the stupidest decision they've ever made!"

...

"Old man, aren't you worried that they'll run away if you walk like this?"

Looking at the burly figure walking ahead unhurriedly, Glen asked curiously.

"They won't run away. In their eyes, we're just overconfident intruders," the old man said with great confidence.

Boom!

Suddenly, a mass of purple-black mist flew out from the dense forest ahead and directly attacked the old man!

The old man reacted quickly, as if he had been on guard for a long time. He immediately dodged to the side and was not hit at all.

The attack then flew towards Glen's face.

The latter tilted his head and easily avoided it.

"You're very unlucky to have encountered me. This will be the most painful experience of your lives!" Dyke emerged, surrounded by a terrifying aura of dark elements. His tone was filled with coldness and disdain for the ignorant and weak.

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"Fo... Fourth-level dark mage?!" The old man, who had just gotten up, said in an unprecedentedly solemn tone.

"Is a fourth-level mage really that powerful?" Glen asked out of curiosity.

"I truly loathe you ignorant mortals! The great fourth-level mage Dyke will show you what true power is!"

Before the old man could answer, Dyke roared angrily, as if Glen's nonchalant attitude had offended him.

The enraged dark mage raised his hands high and completed the incantation in an instant. A complex array pattern formed beneath his feet.

"Be careful!" The old man suddenly shouted at Glen.

Glen felt a sense of being locked on. He immediately lowered his center of gravity and shot forward like a bullet, directly charging towards the dark mage who was casting the spell!

"How stupid!" Dyke laughed out loud when he saw this ignorant mortal charging towards him.

A sapling suddenly grew out of the ground. The next moment, it expanded rapidly, enveloping both of them.

Glen felt as if his body was being pierced by countless tiny needles, and these needles were sucking his blood with terrifying force!

He didn't panic. The wolf venom in his body erupted instantly. Under his deliberate control, it flowed along those needles towards the strange tree, destroying every part of its tissue.

Dyke, who was controlling the strange tree, had been ready to drain his opponent into a dried corpse immediately. However, his magical creation suddenly underwent an uncontrollable change, emitting a series of faint cracking sounds one after another.

Finally, the strange tree created by the fourth-level mage collapsed right in front of Dyke.

Glen emerged, but before he could make a move, Dyke had already completed the formation of his second spell. With a wave of his right hand, he sent out a terrifying long chain crackling with electric light, which whipped towards Glen's waist!

Glen suddenly exerted force with his feet and performed a side somersault to avoid the attack. At the same time, black fur grew on his right hand, and sharp wolf claws emerged. With a howl that tore through the air, he lunged at Dyke's face!

The long chain behind him destroyed a large area of trees and vegetation, creating a deafening roar like the explosion of a large amount of dynamite! This sound drowned out the ear-piercing noise of the wolf claws colliding with Dyke's protective magic.

"A werewolf? Hahaha, with your fragile claws, it's impossible to..."

The mocking voice of the fourth-level dark mage stopped abruptly.

Glen's figure moved so quickly in front of Dyke that it left behind an afterimage. The claw marks almost filled the entire field of vision of the fourth-level dark mage!

From the moment of contact, Glen had already sensed the approximate strength of this protective shield. It wasn't so strong that he couldn't break it no matter what. All he needed was enough attacks!

The dense and continuous scratching sounds in his ears made Dyke extremely anxious. He tried his best to maintain the protective shield and didn't dare to be distracted to form an offensive spell for a counterattack.

This revealed a flaw in his psychological quality. Although Dyke possessed the strength of a fourth-level mage, he lacked sufficient combat experience.

Before he fell into the path of dark magic, he was known as a genius. He led a life that most people envied. He didn't need to undergo arduous training in the monster-infested areas, as his mentors would bring the required materials right to him.

Even after he became a dark mage, he hadn't encountered an opponent that forced him to go all out. Such smooth sailing had led to his habit of panicking when faced with difficulties.

"How is this possible?! I am a great fourth-level mage! You can't defeat me!" Dyke's hands trembled, and his eyes were bloodshot.

"I thought you were really powerful. Turns out you're just a grown-up baby," Glen said as he shattered the protective shield with one claw, quickly grabbed Dyke's face, covered his mouth and nose, and slammed the fourth-level mage's head into the ground. Streams of blood oozed out between Glen's fingers.

At this moment, the old man walked over. He glanced at Dyke, who was barely breathing, and said with a sigh, "He didn't even use many of his extremely destructive spells and yet he was defeated like this..."

"The outcome would have been the same even if he had used them. I didn't go all out either," Glen said as he stood up and clapped his hands.

"Does your transformation mean becoming a werewolf? And does this transformation also affect your personality?" The old man looked at Glen's gradually recovering arm and pondered deeply.

"Who knows..." Glen replied evasively.

In fact, the old man was more puzzled than he showed. As far as he knew, werewolves didn't seem to have the ability to partially transform into wolves. All the recorded werewolves only had two forms: human and half-wolf.

Moreover, every werewolf would experience a few seconds of painful transformation, but looking at Glen's smooth transformation, he didn't seem to be in pain at all.

"Hurry up. This guy can't be your target. There must be someone else, right? Aren't we leaving?" Glen had already caught the scent of another person in the air and urged the old man.

"There's no need to go. That guy must have already escaped. There's no doubt about that," the old man said calmly.