Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

Chapter 384 384 Wolfe on Wolf

The crackling of Lightning filled the air as the Dire Wolf Alpha shook out its deep silver fur and growled at Wolfe. It had anticipated that he might dodge, but the stabbing pain of the spell was not in its calculations.

Magical Beasts couldn't channel mana as easily as Wolfe could, but their natural resistance more than made up for the lack in most situations. This one in particular, where the magic imbued in the creature's fur was enough to stop the low-powered Lightning spell inscribed on Wolfe's sword and completely block his attack without so much as a severed strand of hair.

Wolfe heard the howling behind him as the Dire Wolves hit the barrier and felt the tug on his mana flow to keep the barrier at full capacity, but he didn't smell singed fur yet, so there was a chance that they didn't take any serious damage from the impact.

Wolfe circled his opponent and began to concentrate on creating a more powerful [Unholy Fire] enchantment to layer on the blade, with the hope that it would be enough to get through the monster's defences.

The Alpha could feel the mana flow as Wolfe tried to cast the Inscription, and as soon as he began to work, it increased the rate of its attacks, snapping and clawing at Wolfe in an attempt to make him lose his focus and fail the attempt to create the Magical Circle.

Wolfe frantically parried the claws to keep from burning through even more mana to keep his armour spell active, and the Dire Wolf began to look smug. It had him where it wanted him, on the defensive and struggling to get a spell off.

That was how it always dealt with Witches in the past. Once they faltered in their defence, they were done for.

But Wolfe had a lot more magical combat experience than most of the Nomadic failed Witches did and vastly more magical power. So, when he finally succeeded in finishing the enchantment and the blade lit up with Unholy Fire, the Dire Wolfe Alpha took a step back to reassess the chances of it being able to win this fight.

The ambush was its advantage, and now that it had been fended off by a well-prepared enemy, it would be much harder to win. But Wolfe couldn't afford to let the creature and its pack wander any closer to the Academy, as a monster like this would wipe out any patrol group in an instant without question or difficulty.

The two exchanged blows, and Wolfe noticed that while the claws were getting burnt and cracked, he had only broken a few of them with his attempts to parry. The flames had slowed down the bite attacks, though, as the wolf didn't want to get a mouth full of Unholy Fire, and that was helping Wolfe stand his ground and start to make a few offensive strikes of his own.

He pushed the claws of a wide strike upward, opening the creature's flank, and struck out with a burst of [Wind Blades] instead of his sword.

The underbelly of the beast seemed to be less defended, and deep streaks were cut in the monster's hide, dripping blood on the ground for a few seconds before closing up enough that the bleeding stopped.

The wolf snarled at him and unleashed a wave of air in Wolfe's direction, crashing against his armour and sliding him back through the dirt while the Alpha flew through the air with its claws forward.

Wolfe recovered in time to pour mana into his blade and whipped it forward with an overhead strike that cut a deep gouge in the creature's right shoulder, then sent them both tumbling to the ground as their bodies collided.

Wolfe rolled through the dirt, trying to keep the Dire Wolf from ending up on top of him where it could attack with all its limbs and pin his blade to the ground while the four-metre-tall monster did its best to bite through Wolfe's magical armour.

The struggle ended in a stalemate, with the monster's jaws around Wolfe's left shoulder, nearly biting through his armour, and Wolfe's blade cutting deep into the beast's left side.

He tried to take advantage of the breach in the enchanted fur and slide the blade in deep, but the Dire Wolf jumped away and snarled at him while carefully circling the area.

It was clear that it was going to run, so Wolfe began to prepare a [Gravity Array] to pin it in place.

Once it was immobile, he could deal with it as he wished, and for once, the creature wasn't intent on attacking.

The Array set, and the Dire Wolf Alpha's knees buckled, but then it seemed to shake off the array and leaped back into the trees with a frustrated howl that cascaded through the ranks of the pack.

Behind him, Wolfe heard dozens of large bodies running away, too fast for him to chase on foot, even if he wasn't worried about the Witches.

Wolfe turned back to the bus and waved toward the group.

"Is everyone alright?" He called.

"As alright as we can be. They managed to force a breach in the barrier, and you were too busy fighting to drive them out. Ella managed to use her magic to keep them off the bus, but it took some collateral damage." Christa called back.

Wolfe circled the vehicle and found a blood-covered Grok standing next to a very pleased-looking Reaper, along with five dead Dire Wolves, all at the Second Rank.

Second Rank Monsters were nearly impervious to First Rank witches when fighting one-on-one, and it was an incredible achievement for the pair of them, plus Ella, to have killed five of them while Wolfe fought their leader.

"Wolfe, you're driving this time. I'm exhausted." Ella sighed.

"No problem. As long as those things don't follow us, we should be fine. I just hope that they stay well away from the Academy's lines because the patrols aren't going to be able to deal with that."

The bus fell silent at the reminder, but Wolfe pushed it to a reasonable speed through the dark and made straight for the Academy lines. If trouble were following them, they would deal with it tomorrow.