Book 3, Mountain Range of Magical Beasts – Chapter 12, Wolf Pack (part 2)
Linley was currently surrounded by around twenty Windwolves, and over a hundred deep green blades of air virtually locked Linley in, preventing him from fleeing.
There was no way to flee!
Linley suddenly moved. At high speed, he launched off the ground and, like an arrow, shot up in the air, aiming to land on a sturdy tree branch. But because there were simply too many wind blades, over ten of them still landed on Linley’s body.
“Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!”
The wind blades slashed at Linley’s sturdy leather armor, knocking him off course midair. Linley frantically grasped at a thick tree branch, and with a somersault, flipped onto the tree and began to climb up. Only after hurriedly climbing up twenty or thirty meters did he come to a halt and look downwards.
“That was really dangerous.”
Linley let out a breath. Right now, Linley’s body was suffused with a layer of stone-like armor which was in turn covered by a layer of earth elemental essence emanated a faint rocky glow.
Earth-style magic: Earthguard!
The Earthguard required the user to at least be a magus of the fifth rank. When magi of the fifth and sixth ranks used this spell, they used a large amount of earth elemental essence to form a rocky armor which had fairly strong defensive abilities. It could defend against multiple attacks from an opponent of the same level.
These wind knife spells only possessed the strength of the third or fourth ranks.
“Roaaar!” A fierce howl split the air.
Linley stared downwards, and saw that the wind was beginning to gather beneath the feet of those twenty Windwolves. All of them suddenly leapt up into the air, with the two leaders managing to leap up ten meters, landing on a large branch. Their powerful talons dug into the branch, giving them a very stable footing.
Windwolves possessed a tremendous sense of balance, so climbing trees was actually not too hard for them.
“I’m not afraid of you guys climbing trees. I’m only afraid that you wouldn’t climb up.” Linley felt the blood in his veins begin to boil. The more dangerous the situation was, the more potentially lethal it was, the more excited Linley got.
In terms of climbing ability, Windwolves were somewhat inferior to humans. Linley agilely clambered from one tree to another, while the pack of Windwolves howled with fury as they gave chase.
In the outer regions of the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, a pack of Windwolves was definitely the most powerful organization around. Even most warriors of the sixth rank, when faced with a pack of Windwolves, would elect to retreat. After all, no matter how tough they were, physically, even the body of a warrior of the sixth rank could not stand a direct blow from a Windwolf’s claws.
Linley and the twenty or so Windwolves thus began a game of hide and seek on the trees. The two Windwolf leaders were faster than Linley, and so Linley had no choice but to constantly change direction to dodge. Suddenly, the leading Windwolves shot out numerous wind blades, and Linley immediately was forced to change direction to dodge.
“Crack!” A tree trunk was severed by the wind knives, and the tree began to topple.
“Crash!”
The claws of one of the leading Windwolves reached Linley, raking at his back. The Earthguard armor trembled a few times, and the elemental essence flashed and flickered.
“Crash! Crash! Crash!”
The Windwolf leaders were simply too fast, and they were also extremely agile. Their fierce claws reached Linley’s back several times, as well as his head and other extremities, but fortunately, because the Earthguard armor was formed from elemental essence, it could be manipulated in terms of shape. Linley was currently using it to form a helmet as well. But under the repeated assault from the Windwolf leaders, the elemental essence on top of the armor was starting to flicker.
“These Windwolf leaders are simply too fast. The Earthguard armor won’t hold much longer.”
Grinding his teeth, Linley climbed higher and higher up. By weight, he was much lighter than the Windwolves, and his climbing abilities were also superior. By the time Linley reached the height of around eighty meters, the Windwolves could no longer climb any higher. All they could do was spit out one wind knife after another at Linley. Linley dodged the best he could; only if he absolutely couldn’t dodge did he allow his Earthguard to take the blow.
“If you fell from such a height, wouldn’t you die?” Linley was murmuring the words to a magic spell. To be able to maintain his calm under such a dangerous situation was something Linley accomplished thanks to constantly training his mental fortitude.
“Crash!”
A wind knife smashed against the Earthguard armor. Previously teetering at the edge of destruction, the Earthguard armor finally broke apart into countless specks of elemental essence, sparkling in the air. This knife was immediately followed by another one, which Linley detected right away.
“Most wind knife spells from these wolves are equivalent to a third level magus spell. They won’t be able to kill me, given that I’m a warrior of the fourth rank.” Linley continued to chant the words to his spell, allowing the wind knife to slash his body. “Swish, swish.” Blood erupted from the slash, as a terrifying wound appeared on Linley’s chest, leaking fresh blood.
Linley only frowned slightly, continuing to chant the words to his spell.
“Whoosh!” “Whoosh!” “Whoosh!” “Whoosh!”
Over a hundred sharp rocks coalesced, gleaming with earth elemental essence. The densely packed stones shot out at the twenty Windwolves, with thirty stones centered on the heads of the two leading Windwolves. Both of the Windwolf leaders were knocked to the ground. The stones were simply too densely packed. With one crashing sound after another, the Windwolves were knocked to the ground, one after another. Even the tree branches were smashed through as they fell.
After using this technique, the vast majority of the Windwolves were smashed to the ground. But these Windwolves were very agile, and their fur was very thick. Although they were smashed downwards, many of them managed to get a clawhold on a tree branch, while others just suffered some superficial injuries. None of them died.
“This injury looks bad, but it’s actually just a skin wound. Still, I can’t let it keep on bleeding like this.” Linley’s left hand suddenly blazed with flame, and then he pressed it against his wounds. A crackling sound could be heard, and Linley couldn’t help but wince and suck in a deep breath. The smell of cooking flesh wafted out from Linley’s chest. Just like that, Linley had ‘sealed’ the wound with flame, leaving behind a very ugly scar.
While doing the above, Linley also took the opportunity to quickly flee, jumping from one tree branch to another. In the blink of an eye, he fled very far, and then directly threw himself towards the ground. Linley directly fell around eighty or so meters, but as his body was surrounded by a flow of air, his speed of descent was not too fast. By the time he reached the ground, Linley had already finished mumbling the words to yet another spell.
That pack of Windwolves had also chased towards him, and quite soon, they drew close.
The two Windwolf leaders were the first to draw near. Howling, they stared at Linley, a look of suspicion in their ice cold eyes. Why did Linley stop fleeing? These highly intelligent magical beasts were now suspecting that Linley had prepared some trap.
“Growl...” One of the two Windwolf leaders let out a low growl. Immediately, as though responding to an order, a Windwolf of the fourth rank directly leapt towards Linley.
Linley suddenly leapt up and pointed at the distant group of Windwolves. In a low voice, Linley said, “Supergravity Field!”
Earth-style magic – Supergravity Field!
This was an extremely terrifying earth-style spell. Through controlling and utilizing a large amount of earth elemental essence, this spell allowed the user to manipulate the strength of the gravity in a localized area, causing opponents to suffer dramatically from the increased gravity. Only a magus of the fifth rank was capable of utilizing the Supergravity Field spell.
And the more powerful an earth-style magus was, the more powerful the effect his Supergravity Field would have.
“Rumble...”
The very air trembled. With Linley at the epicenter, a circular area with a diameter of 100 meters suddenly began to glow with earth elemental essence. All of the Windwolves within this diameter suddenly felt an astonishingly powerful pull of gravity. That Windwolf which was charging Linley was also affected by it, causing him to collapse to the ground in mid-leap. All the other Windwolves felt rather shocked as well. The two Windwolf leaders let out furious howls, and ignoring everything else, directly charged towards Linley. But clearly, these two Windwolves now possessed less than half of their original strength.
“Your speed has been halved, but mine is unimpaired.” Earth elemental essence was glowing and swirling around Linley as well, seemingly paired perfectly with the earth elemental essence glowing over the ground.
The earth elemental essences used by the Supergravity Field utilized certain unique vibrations. Each individual earth-style magus would utilize it in a slightly different manner, and would have different frequencies of vibrations. If one could totally control the oscillations of the earth elemental essences, one could nullify the influence of the Supergravity Field.
With the opponent’s speed halved, his own speed, comparatively, was now much higher. Linley agilely dodged his enemy’s attacks, while quickly beginning to mumble the words to another spell.
“Rumble! Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!”
Dozens of earthen spears erupted from the ground beneath the feet of the Windwolves. Those fiercely sharp edges directly penetrated into the chests of seven of the Windwolves, causing them to bleed profusely. Several of the other Windwolves were also seriously wounded by the earthen spears.
“Hoooooowl!”
The two Windwolf leaders were growing frantic.
Within the area of effect of the Supergravity Field, they had less than half of their original speed. They simply had no way of stopping the agile, nimble Linley. If they fought him head on, they could kill Linley, but they simply couldn’t get near him! Based on Linley’s ability as a magus of the fifth rank, dealing with them wasn’t too difficult.
“Hoooooowl!” A low howl.
Without any hesitation, the two Windwolf leaders turned tail and ran. The ten or so surviving Windwolves also fled with them. Covered by darkness, in the blink of an eye, the Windwolves disappeared from Linley’s field of vision. Seeing this, Linley quickly ran over and caught up to three heavily injured Windwolves that hadn’t managed to flee in time.
“Crash! Crash! Crash!”
Linley landed three successive kicks on the skulls of the heavily wounded Windwolves. The sound of splintering skulls could be heard, and the three Windwolves immediately collapsed. Including the seven Windwolves that had been stabbed in the chest by the earthen spears, a total of ten Windwolves had been slain. But because Linley had just exerted himself too vigorously, the wound across his chest had split open once again, and fresh blood began to flow out again.