Kaili stepped forward, and the pack of Magic Wolves crouched slightly under the terrifying pressure.
Only the Alpha Wolf glared at her venomously.
It stopped snarling and suddenly spoke, “With that shell on, you give me a familiar, dangerous feeling now.”
“Is it because death is approaching?”
Kaili felt the light armor clinging to her skin.
The one-piece armor was composed of different elements; it felt as if he had forged it with his own hands and personally dressed her in it.
She raised her sword.
Lightning patterns crawled along the spine of the blade, and tongues of fire licked the edge, letting out a faint, violent crackling sound.
The golden glow representing the blessing of the Goddess of War shone with delight.
“No, it was a red figure…”
The Alpha Wolf stopped speaking.
It felt it must be going mad to compare that terrifying human female to the swordsman before it.
That was a horrific existence that had overturned an entire legion single-handedly.
If its sharp intuition hadn’t led its cubs to flee, they would have likely died in that battle long ago.
Kaili said no more.
Her body leaned forward slowly, her center of gravity pressed extremely low.
The tip of her sword pointed at the ground like a spring compressed to its limit.
The next instant, the spring was released.
Bang!
Two afterimages crossed on the ground, charred black after the explosion.
Metal and Black Iron struck together, throwing off brilliant white sparks.
The Alpha Wolf’s sharp claws swiped toward Kaili’s carotid artery, but she anticipated the move.
She flicked the back of her sword upward.
With a crisp “clang,” the clawed blade was knocked away.
Kaili used the momentum to spin, fire trailing along the sword’s arc as she slashed the Alpha Wolf’s flank, leaving behind a crimson rift.
What flowed from the rift was not blood, but mist—a Magic Corruption as black as ink that let out a high-pitched shriek like a crying infant the moment it touched the air.
The Alpha Wolf retreated for the first time, but the rift “self-healed” in the blink of an eye.
The Black Iron writhed like molten liquid.
“A shell?”
Kaili took a breath, staring at that Black Iron body.
She remembered her Master’s teaching when she first started learning the sword and used it to chop wood: Do not look at the surface of the wood.
Your goal is not to hit it, but to sever it.
Imagine its internal structure, imagine its grain, imagine the scene of your strength carrying the longsword through it, rather than stopping at the moment of impact.
Kaili’s eyes brightened, and her voice grew low and raspy.
“Fine, then I’ll split the shell and the core together.”
As the Magic Wolf and Kaili fell into a fierce struggle, the rest of the pack began a suicidal charge.
The logic was simple: food or the corpses of enemies were necessities for them; they could even consume their fallen kin.
But if they wanted to survive, they first had to crush the throats of the enemies inside the inn.
The wolves at the front gate were the most numerous.
Li Qiuchen’s spear seemed somewhat overwhelmed, and Aili didn’t even grip her knife; the Magic Staff in her hand couldn’t keep up with the speed before her eyes.
A vicious wolf pounced again.
Li Qiuchen stood at the very front.
Having no time to shake off the wolf corpse hanging from his spearhead, he swung the spear like a club horizontally to block the pounce.
The Magic Wolf landed on the ground and glared venomously at Li Qiuchen before pouncing once more.
Li Qiuchen was about to mobilize the red Rune Tattoo on his lower abdomen when a heavy axe swung down from his side.
It slammed right into the Magic Wolf’s skull with a sickening crunch.
The Beastfolk girl Ruby gripped the handle of the axe, her fingers trembling slightly.
The Bell at her waist let out a crisp ring.
Ignoring the black blood flowing from the top of its head, the Magic Wolf stared at her with its eerie eyes, baring its teeth as it struggled against her strength.
Li Qiuchen shook off the wolf corpse from his spear and thrust it into the vicious wolf’s body.
Golden light broke through the Magic Corruption.
As the wound was exposed to the air, the Magic Corruption leaked out, causing the creature to quickly lose its vitality.
Compared to the infected they had encountered in Blackwater Town, the bodies of these Magic Wolves were weaker.
This was because Blackwater Town was thick with Magic Corruption, which constantly nourished magic creatures, allowing them to slowly recover even if dismembered.
Here, however, the air around them flowed naturally and would not heal the magic creatures.
The two Beastfolk youths who had followed her came to Aili’s side, holding spears and Knight’s Daggers to block the front door.
“The axe is too heavy for you. Switch to a spear.”
Li Qiuchen took her axe and placed a spear in her hand.
“Alright, Leader.”
Ruby’s fingers were still trembling, but she grinned, shaking droplets of blood from her sheep ears onto the ground.
“Are you hurt?”
Li Qiuchen gripped the axe and smashed a Magic Wolf into the ground, raising his hand to cleanly chop off its head with another strike.
“My friend’s arm was bitten by a Magic Wolf and had a Magic Infection. It splashed on me when I cut off his arm,” Ruby explained calmly as she stood side-by-side with Li Qiuchen.
An exclamation came from behind.
Kemel rushed out holding a two-handed Greatsword.
Encouraged by him, Kairui and several Beastfolk youths followed suit.
Wright put away his Magic Staff.
After bandaging the wounded Beastfolk youths, he came to Li Qiuchen’s side with a Knight’s Dagger and advised, “The situation is a bit off.”
“You mean the Magic Wolves?”
Li Qiuchen also sensed something wrong with the Alpha Wolf, which was gradually falling into a disadvantage against Kaili but was still fighting desperately.
Even though his elemental power was starting to dissipate, every time Kaili entered her state and swung her sword, that incredibly sharp Thunder-Fire Sword would accurately bisect the Alpha Wolf’s body.
The Magic Core exposed to the air let out a “sizzling” hiss.
Magic Corruption was consumed rapidly to make its body heal again, and those golden pupils dimmed.
After several exchanges, the lightning and fire elements on Kaili’s blade were exhausted.
She delivered an incredibly swift strike.
This time, the Alpha Wolf did not dodge or parry, taking the sword strike directly to its chest.
The Black Iron shell was only cut an inch deep.
It took the opportunity to crash into Kaili’s inner circle, its fangs aiming straight for her throat.
Kaili abandoned her sword—her left forearm blocked the attack.
The fangs pierced the bracer composed of metal and earth elements, making a tooth-grinding “creak.”
Her right fist, wrapped in silver-element claws, smashed toward the wolf’s ear.
The Alpha Wolf’s head was knocked aside, but it let out a laugh that sounded like metal plates scraping together.
“Not bad, but unfortunately—”
Its iron tail swept across, its afterimage pulling into a black fan shape as it slammed heavily into Kaili’s side.
The already thinning metal armor dented inward.
Her entire figure was sent flying, her legs carving long furrows into the ground.
She nimbly drew two Knight’s Daggers from her waist, facing off against the Alpha Wolf from a distance.
The Alpha Wolf shattered the Knight’s Longsword stuck in its body, turned, and howled toward the sky.
The howl was like a blade—the corpses on the ground began to move slowly and strangely.
“Come back! Don’t pursue them!”
Li Qiuchen shouted to the people behind him, but it was too late.
The wolf corpses that had died in the explosion stood up again.
At this moment, they looked more like eerie puppets being driven, their eyes flickering with red light.
Their movements were slow, but they were full of threat.
“Boom—!”
One wolf corpse suddenly exploded, blowing Kemel and a Wolf Tribe youth away.
One person’s arm was blown clean off, while the other’s abdomen was charred black.
Jocelyn pulled Kairui and two other Beastfolk youths into her arms.
The residual force of the Magic Corruption explosion did not harm them.
However, more wolf corpses began to surround Kaili.
Their movements were slow but determined.
This was the Alpha Wolf’s final resort; it intended to ensure this combatant from the Temple of the God of War died here, avenging its fallen kin.
Kaili looked at the Alpha Wolf and calculated the angles.
Her speed was fast, but the surrounding wolf corpses had formed an encirclement.
Forcing her way out would only result in being caught in an explosion.
But staying in place meant waiting for death—no, she still had help.
She remembered the reliable profile of the youth from the Northlands.
“Miss Aili, use that magic of yours to kill that Alpha Wolf,”
Wright whispered, nudging Aili.
“I can’t, it’s too close to my cousin.”
Aili’s hand holding the Magic Staff trembled slightly.
The Rain Spike Technique didn’t truly control every single raindrop.
At least when Master Lumin taught her, she only required Aili to mix the rotating rain spikes with the raindrops at the initial release, which was more than enough to cause area-of-effect damage.
Even though she had seen Master Lumin use the Rain Spike Technique to accurately kill several assassins with raindrops without harming her father…
She couldn’t do it.
“Give me your hand.”
Li Qiuchen reached out.
Aili instinctively obeyed the command and took his hand.
He continued, “Circulate your Mana.”
Following his guidance, Aili began to circulate her Mana.
It was an incredibly mysterious feeling.
The water elements, which she used to have to struggle with all her might to soothe, now seemed to follow a fixed orbit, obeying her commands completely.
No, in fact, they were obeying that guy’s commands.
It was like learning to write as a child; when the posture was wrong and the handwriting was ugly, her father would hold her hand and guide her stroke by stroke, powerful and safe.
It felt like sitting in her father’s lap, watching beautiful characters take shape at her own pen tip.
She clearly felt that Mana following his allocation.
The control over every drop of rain was incredibly precise.
Two clouds of thick mist rose from the Magic Staff.
One cluster gathered in the direction of the Alpha Wolf, while the other surrounded Kaili.
After the Rain Spike Technique was released, both Li Qiuchen and Aili sat slumped on the ground, exhausted, like two collaborators who had just completed a perfect work of art together.
Aili suddenly felt that this guy didn’t seem so annoying anymore.
Looking at his excessively pale face, she felt that the magic seemed to have been led by her.
Though the consumption seemed much larger than when she usually cast the Rain Spike Technique?
Li Qiuchen’s gaze skipped over the battlefield, locking onto a patch of grass out in the wilderness.
Just now, in the moment he was guiding Aili, he had borrowed her Mana to activate Perception.
In that patch of grass, dark green energy from the Law Orbit of Dui was slowly gathering.
That Illusion Magic user hadn’t actually gone far…
The Alpha Wolf sensed danger and was about to issue a command when the rain washed down.
One by one, the Magic Wolf corpses didn’t even have time to self-destruct before they fell to the ground like punctured balloons.
Their bodies were pierced through, and the Magic Corruption leaked out and was quickly extinguished.
The thick mist accurately surrounded Kaili; not a single drop of rain fell on her.
Instead, the wolf corpses around her fell one after another.
The rain fell on the Alpha Wolf.
Rain spikes pierced its Black Iron body bit by bit, falling to the ground.
Its Magic Corruption gathered at its head to resist the scouring of the rain spikes.
Those golden lava-like eyes were like flames that would never be extinguished, staring at Li Qiuchen from a distance.
The flesh on its body was pierced by the rain spikes, falling to the ground and turning into bloody water, revealing white bones.
Yet, it still had not fallen.
Until the rain stopped, it still had a single breath left.
The rain mist rose.
Those eyes, burning like lava, still stared at Li Qiuchen through the mist, as if they had something to say.
Li Qiuchen exhaled and signaled for Ruby to help him up.
After calming himself for a moment, he walked slowly toward the Alpha Wolf, supported by Wright and Ruby on either side.
Li Qiuchen stopped twenty paces away from the Alpha Wolf and said to it from a distance, “Your Illusion Magic friend hasn’t gone far. I can see that he was likely planning to briefly control me, using your remaining husk to give me a surprise?”
Li Qiuchen paused for a moment, staring at the distant patch of grass which seemed to shake slightly.
Wright’s eyesight was excellent; he clearly saw a hunched figure retreating at high speed.
Li Qiuchen continued, “Too bad. Having heard what I just said, he has fled now.”
The Alpha Wolf’s golden eyes slowly went out in the wilderness.
It no longer counted on its despicable human friend.
***
Taya Culture /Tip:
[Goblin Magician Association]
Characteristics: Grassroots, practical, commercial. Led by Goblin Magicians, it is composed of some human and Elf mages and is open to all races marginalized by the mainstream (such as Orcs, gnomes, etc.).
Style: Believes in “Utility is truth, money is the direction.” They do not pursue the brilliance of spells or the perfection of theory. Instead, they focus on how to achieve maximum results with the lowest Mana consumption and the cheapest materials. Magic potions, engineering Enchantment, and civilian magic appliances are their strengths.
Influence: Through trade associations and underground networks spread across the Continent, their products penetrate every aspect of daily life. They possess a massive underground cash flow and are known for the “Goblin Vaults,” collaborating with many powerful merchant groups. Although not fully recognized by the traditional magic world, their economic strength is not to be underestimated.
Controversy: Often ridiculed for the “crude” appearance of their magical works and potential side effects (such as occasionally exploding boiler carts). However, they believe that the arrogance of the Magic Association is the true culprit hindering the popularization of magic for the benefit of the people.
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