Elemental Cats

Nil layered the buffalo's path with traps that progressively increased in strength so that the buffalo would keep moving forward at a careful pace. There were a few times when the traps couldn't even budge a single hair on the buffalo, and the buffalo started regaining its confidence. But before it could build momentum, another trap sprung up and threatened to trip it, stable it, or chop off a foot or two.

Slowing down the buffalo gave Nil a lot more time to finish his preparations, but it still wasn't enough, and he used his magic to move around on top of the large flat sheet of metal. The sheet was already larger than the ship Toz, and the cats rode when they traveled to the battlefield, but it kept expanding. Nil absentmindedly shifted his body away from the buffalo by moving the metal under him.

He sat motionlessly with closed eyes, but he still made sure that he stayed within the buffalo's sight while he kept strengthening his magic.

Eventually, when he felt that he had prepared enough, Nil removed the traps in the buffalo's way and invited it on top of the metal sheet covering the ground with a provocative smile.

The buffalo was cautious enough to approach slowly but not cautious enough not to step on the metal. Nothing happened at first.

But after the buffalo's entire body was on the metal sheet, metal walls shot up in front of it, behind it, and to its right.

The buffalo panicked and turned around. But after making its demonic energy surge and barging through the metal wall behind it, the buffalo stopped in shock.

The ground and the battlefield that had previously been right behind it had disappeared and been replaced by a room of metal, very similar to the one that had sprung up around the buffalo after its entire body stepped on the metal sheet.

The buffalo turned around again to return to the first room, but the hole in the wall was gone.

The buffalo looked around with mounting panic, hoping that maybe it was looking at the wrong wall. But everywhere it turned its eyes, the buffalo only saw shiny metal reflecting its image.

The only exception was the hallway that led a few steps away before turning a corner.

The buffalo burst out with a surge of demonic energy as it broke through the wall that it thought had been the one it broke through the first time. The buffalo didn't need to be a genius to guess that the hallway would be riddled with traps, and instead, chose to go straight through the wall.

It didn't only want to avoid the traps. The buffalo also wanted to find a way out of the metal encapsulating it on all sides. So it tried to go to where there should have been traces of its passing.

But the metal on the other side was spotless. And there wasn't even a hint of the buffalo having walked there with its dust-caked feet.

The buffalo began realizing that it was out of its depth.

But instead of letting fear of the unknown overtake it, the buffalo roused the cooling embers of its anger toward the cats that had pestered it. With its anger as a source of motivation, the buffalo quickly realized that the metal was due to the same cat that used traps of metal to irritate it.

The buffalo also realized that its opponent couldn't be very strong since it relied on such weak traps to try and injure it, which meant that the magic it used wouldn't be of much significance, either.

The buffalo brought its demonic energy to a boil and bellowed loud enough to make the air and the walls tremble, though the walls' trembling might also have been caused by the bellow startling Nil, who controlled the walls.

After bellowing, the buffalo's body surged with power, and its muscles rippled, making the air shake with their might.

The buffalo lowered its head as it began charging. Its horned head hit the wall with enough force to send fragments of it flying to the next one right before the buffalo struck that one as well.

Since there should be a limit to the magic created by Nil, the buffalo thought that if it ran straight ahead and charged forward without a care in the world, it would eventually reach the other side and break out of the metal maze.

After putting its head down and breaking through wall after wall, the buffalo's energy dwindled at a pace incomparable to when it had walked on the road of traps. Considering it left solid metal walls in splinters behind it, it wasn't weird for its consumption to spike.

Since the buffalo was making steady progress in breaking through the walls, it didn't care about whether it used a little more demonic energy. After it got out of the maze and regrouped with its herd, lacking demonic energy wouldn't be a problem.

However, after breaking through walls non-stop for several minutes, the buffalo began realizing that it wasn't making as much progress as it thought it was. Or it had underestimated its opponent.

With how many walls the bull had broken through, it should have reached the other side of the maze or at least worn out the cat's mana reserves some time ago. If its own nigh-inexhaustible supply of demonic energy was showing signs of faltering, how was the individual responsible for setting up the maze of metal managing?

Each wall possessed a noticeable amount of mana, and creating so many had to use up a lot of it. If the being responsible for that had enough mana to sustain such magic, they had to be powerful. Powerful enough not to need such paltry tricks to defeat the buffalo.

The buffalo stopped moving for a few moments to recover, and it couldn't help but be confused.

Was it being tormented by someone who didn't dislike buffalos?