Epic Of The Demonic Sage

"We need a bigger fire, Finch." Gellor called out as he struck a wolf down with his sword, cleaving it in two.

"A little preoccupied right now—" Finch clicked her tongue and dodged a wolf's attack, narrowly missing a strike at her chest.

"Got it!" Ariana dove forward and took care of the creature, backing up with Finch.

"He meant the fire!" Albus said, weaving back and forth across the wolves and attacking. "Need any help, Barty?"

"Yes, obviously! I'm in a bind!" Barty responded, trying to keep the horses calm while discouraging any wolves from drawing closer with measured air vortexes now and then.

"Tsk." Kiana shot out attacks and brought some wolves down, but also had to stop every now and then so she wouldn't accidentally hit members of Gellor's team.

Lucius was at the ready and watched each of the wolves being defeated by the members of Gellor's team. While they did their work, Lucius couldn't help but recall what he knew about the creatures.

'Barty called them as Long Claw Wolves… these are E Ranked Rune Beasts. So they're not really too difficult for a team along their skill level. If I recall from my previous readings with Master Kain, the gift that they have is Dash.'

Lucius was familiar with the Dash gift, he had seen members in the Inanis family guard who had these gifts and seen how they used it, and now this was his first time seeing the gift being used by beasts.

'While I can't compare the intellect of a human from a beast, the way that these wolves are using the Dash is perhaps more instinctive and better than even some of the guards. They've relied on it more often and thus can use it to its full capacity.'

The great example for their skill in using the Dash was the fact that Kiana herself was having some difficulty using the Sting Sniper to accurately hit all of the wolves in one shot.

A couple of the rune beasts had went down when they first attempted to jump at Kiana and Asher, but soon enough they were able to dodge and avoid the attacks from Kiana, and it took more effort on her part to strike them accurately.

'Of course, there's also the fact that it's quite dark and with members of Gellor's team on the move like Albus, it's not so easy to attack hostiles without hitting any of them either.' Lucius thought.

Lucius could have jumped into the fray of the fighting himself, but he was reserving the uses of the Wind Scar Sword and was waiting for the numbers to dwindle back down to zero.

"Just a couple more!" Albus shouted.

"Three!"

"Two—"

"More!" Finch cried out at the same time as the sound of more wolves howling come out from the trees and attack them all at once.

It became clear to Lucius that the first number of wolves that they've sent were mostly scouts that were in search of food, but now they had most of the fighting force of the Long Clawed Wolves attacking them.

"What are the chances that the Alpha comes out?"

"Haven't seen it!"

"Don't make it any worse by making that come true!"

Lucius glanced around the dark forest, silently cursing that he didn't have any particular spell to prepare for this situation except for fireball, but he wanted to avoid causing any more fires.

It was true that the human eyes adjusted to the darkness when given a chance, but with the light from the bonfire, it wasn't exactly enough to make Lucius or anybody else adapt to the environment properly.

Gellor who had mostly finished off most of the wolves that came at him, saw that Kiana was having a hard time with shooting down the creatures.

'I need to get closer to Lord Asher and make sure that he's really safe.' Gellor thought and glanced in the direction of Ariana and Finch dealing with the new batch of wolves.

On the other side, Albus was covering for Barty, but Gellor decided that there was enough time for him to close the distance without any problems.

Gellor turned his back and headed for Lord Asher and Kiana.

The moment that he turned, something huge bounded and leapt from the trees, aiming directly for the now vulnerable captain.

Kiana was still preoccupied with the wolves that were coming from all over, and Lucius quickly dashed forward past Gellor.

"Lord Asher—!" Gellor called out in confusion, but then glanced behind just in time to see himself saved.

Lucius smoothly chopped off the legs of the Alpha Wolf, quickly moved right past it and stabbed another wolf that was headed down Kiana's way, before finally piercing a third one that attempted to come at him from behind.

Gellor and the rest of the team saw him do it all in one fluid motion, eyes widening in surprise at Lord Asher's quick thinking and actions.

'That's… that's the fighting skill of Lord Asher?!'

'I heard that he did greatly against the war of the Gisir kingdom and was given a gift from the king as a result, but I didn't expect it to be that good!'

'Did he really need us in the first place?'

'He has incredible swordsmanship!'

Lucius didn't need to use the power of the Wind Scar Sword, so he went on to assist with dealing with the new threat and simply cut off the limbs of the wolves or beheaded them in one go, making it easier for everyone.

Gellor finished off the Alpha, and the rest of the team continued to do their jobs and before they knew it, it was finally over.

A number of the wolves had actually fled when the Alpha died, but Lucius and everyone had mostly dealt with everything else.

"Phew. We've done it." Albus said and wiped his forehead.

"It wasn't that big of a threat, Albus." Barty reminded as he leaned back against a tree, currently spent of his Aether.

"Lord Asher, you were amazing!" Finch praised.

"You saved Gellor's life!" Ariana added.