NOVEL WEB Chapter 59 - Wood Wolves
With enough momentum built up, Tesilim went to do a drop kick on the stupid blade wolf, except instead of going straight forward, he teleported. The wolf became confused from seeing Tesilim disappear, at least until it got smacked by both of Tesilim’s feet when the elf appeared above it.
Tesilim’s actual teleportation spell allowed him to ignore or follow certain rules of reality as long as the correct amount of mana was spent. In this case, he decided to allow his momentum to carry through, causing his flaming-infused boots to slam into the wolf’s head as he shifted from being parallel over the ground to appearing vertically above the canine.
Taking the wolf by surprise, Tesilim managed to slam the wolf's head into the ground, killing it. Sadly, before he could rejoice, he was struck by yet another two blades of wood on his back, which were followed up by another wolf tackling him and biting his arm. Stumbling onto the ground with two slashes on his back, bleeding profusely, and an angry pup attached to his arm, Tesilim did the smartest thing he could do.
Disappearing from the wolf's mouth, Tesilim learned that he could indeed teleport with his boots out of a creature’s grasp, but the mana cost was incredibly high. The cost went higher the more “area” he was being held by, meaning if he was inside a giant monster’s gut, he might not be able to escape with his boot's current mana storage. Still, his boots had a decent chunk of mana left, and he decided to switch them from fire to water so he could get that sweet, sweet, healing passive.
Having switched his boots, Tesilim switched back to the fight. The wolf that had bitten him was looking confused. Meanwhile, the one that had slashed at him was glowing, which couldn’t be good. Even worse was that two more wolves were joining the fight. They were all in a pickle as it was five on one, with the wolf's boss being High D Rank, giving Lili more trouble. Thankfully, he still had most of his mana, and he knew that Lili and Alyx definitely had more hidden trump cards, one of which he heard go off as the gnome finished some incantation, and the heat in the area spiked as the sound of electricity buzzed. Taking a quick peak at the gnome, Tesilim saw a freaking red lightning bolt zap through five of the wolves near Alyx.
Sadly, he couldn’t keep watching the gnome fight as he had wolves of his own to deal with.
Two things happened, one after another. First, Tesilim felt the glowing wolf's mana reach a peak, and he decided to chant a quick spell, making sure to toss enough pure mana in there to the point where he felt the burn.
"By my will, a shield arise;
Protect and guard before my eyes."
A square barrier appeared in front of him as he got ready to tank the incoming attack. Then, a second after the barrier appeared, the wolf unleashed its magic, and a brightly glowing green blade shot toward him at speed.
The blade struck the barrier, and both shattered, causing a cloud of dust to rise in the hair, obscuring Tesilim from the wolf's sight and vice versa. Thankfully, that was good for Tesilim as he retracted his presence, losing the ability to feel the mana disturbances that the wolves made in the ambient mana. Instead, he focused on making himself as stealthy as he could. He then quickly moved out of the way and just at the right time as blades of wood rushed through the dust cloud.
Tesilim decided he needed more information about the current fight, and as he was mostly healed up, he switched his boots to air and quickly ascended into the sky. Looking around, he saw that Alyx had dealt with three of his five wolves, who were charred on the ground. Lili was still dealing with the boss wolf, but there were only three wolves harassing her instead of the five from a bit ago. Seeing as things were going well, Tesilim felt comfortable finishing things up. He had been thinking of unleashing chaos but decided against it.
Quickly landing and now having the attention of the wolves, Tesilim switched from body enhancement to activate his shield and decided to take the blades head-on. It was time for a proper magic missile, one fully empowered.
As he began his chant, Tesilim also began to draw the words in front of him as his finger was wrapped in red light. The runic letters were manifested into reality, and after practicing a bunch, he finally got the chant in sync with his drawing.
“From my palm, let flames take flight;
With fiery force, unleash your might;
Flame missiles, heed my call;
Strike my foes with searing flames.”
Finishing the chant right as the drawn words intermixed into a red circle quickly spinning in front of him, Tesilim willed for his pure mana to flow out, bringing more of the burning pain. He knew that it would be worse without being so high on combat juice, but it still sucked. The mana flowed through the circle before manifesting into eight flaming missiles that shot toward the wolves. The spell was one of the strongest he had done so far, at least not counting his Chaos Mana-infused ones. He had also spent a decent chunk of his normal and pure mana to give it its power. Adding to that was the fact his shield had blocked some blades of wood, bringing him to only having a quarter of his mana left.
However, it was worth it. The wolf that had been glowing earlier seemed to have been weakened by its attack and was struck by two bolts, tearing it mostly apart. Two of the wolves managed to evade a bolt each, but Tesilim had been able to change the other's direction at the last second, allowing for a decent hit to their shoulders. He could have possibly hit both, but he had directed his attention to another wolf, causing it to be hit by both bolts, which it would have dodged otherwise.
Now, down to two and a half wolves, since two were pretty much out of commission, Tesilim switched back to body enhancement and rushed the last remaining wolves. One stood back, launching blades at him, while the other rushed forward. Tesilim wasn’t worried, especially after feeling another blast of heat from Alyx’s direction and hearing Lili shout, “Consuming Abyss,” somewhere in the forest.
Tesilim planned to do the drop-kick thing again, as he knew the wolf at the back wasn’t expecting it. So, once again, he flared his boots in fire mode as his feet were encased in flames. He then did the same jump forward with his feet going first.
Appearing above the wolf at the very back and rushing downwards, Tesilim was sad to see the wolf staring straight up at him, and he quietly cursed as the beast jumped to the side. Thankfully, Tesilim’s brain kicked in, and he teleported once again, spending even more mana, and reappeared at the wolf's side, striking in the stomach and bursting right through it, splitting it in half and killing it. The problem was that his boots used up pretty much all of their mana with his last stunt, and the teleportation had brought his own mana down quite a bit.
So, after the forced landing, Tesilim looked over at the last wolf, who had turned around and was running straight at him. Tesilim, unsure of how to approach the situation, placed his hand on his hips and felt the two daggers Lili had given me.
“Fuck me.” Was Tesilim’s only response as he unsheathed them and imbued more normal mana into his enhancement, with a bit of pure mana added on top for good measure. He then switched his boots to water mode to spend the last bit of their mana on healing. Then, with all of that done, he rushed the wolf.
The wolf lunged at him, which was dumb, at least in Tesilim’s opinion, because it left it wide open and allowed Tesilim to deal some decent damage. Tesilim simply crouched, then lunged upwards with both daggers, making them sink deep into the wolf’s body. Sadly, he was only able to recover one before the wolf landed. From there, the wolf rushed Tesilim but didn’t actually lunge, and more just tried to tackle him onto the ground.
The fight slowly devolved into the wolf throwing wood blades here and there while also trying to bite him, while Tesilim slashed and stabbed at it as he dodged
Thankfully, the fight came to an end as ten bolts of fire randomly struck the wolf. Tesilim looked toward where the bolts had come from and saw Alyx and Lili just standing there. Alyx looked to be in pristine condition, while Lili’s armor had some cuts, but it was flawless otherwise. His two companions were smiling at him, and Alyx was snacking on something.
“What the fuck! How long have you been standing there!”
“Since you did your little two-stab crouch!” Lili shouted back.
“Yeah, it's kinda fun watching you struggle!” Alyx also commented, though his usually energetic voice was missing, showing he was a bit spent.
“That's fucked up!” Tesilim answered as he approached his two companions, who just shrugged in his direction.
“Also, how did I not see or sense you?” Tesilim questioned as he had legitimately not spotted the two.
“Well, you were fighting for your life and had been focused on the fight. Also, stealth. You are still too low ranked to spot me if I don’t want you to.” Lili replied casually.
“Also your presence is still retracted, not that it would have helped since we barely stir the mana as it is,” Alyx added on.
“Okay, yeah, that’s fair. So, what now?”
“Well, we are too drained to risk the night out here. So, we are going to go to the nearest tower and rest there for the night. The place should be an hour or so away from here.”
After that, Tesilim and the party headed to the tower. Luckily, they didn’t encounter any more trouble on the way there. The tower matched the appearance of the ones adorning the wall in Wildwood City, except they were a bit thicker and less tall. However, they were still tall enough to peak through the canopy. The inside of the tower was rather bare and had no decorations.
Overall, the tower had five floors. The first was a lounge area with seats and tables, as well as a counter of sorts where they had to check in. From there, they were taken to the second floor, which was another lounge area, except it had a kitchen and tavern combo with guards and some adventurers hanging about. The third floor was a bathroom area with showers and whatnot. Then, on the fourth floor, there were large barracks where guards and adventurers slept. The fifth floor was inaccessible to them and was where Tesilim guessed important meetings, paperwork, and gear were stashed.
Tesilim and his two companions quickly hit the bed after showering and eating, as that fight had taken a lot out of them—especially Lili, who would have to consume more stuff to refill her soul.