Book 03, Mountain Range of Magical Beasts Read online

  Linley immediately began to mumble the words to another spell, but halfway through, his face suddenly changed.

  “Not good!”

  The low howl of the Windwolf echoed in all directions, and it was matched by howls from all directions as well. Linley swept his gaze across the area, and as he did, it was met by one pair of cold green eyes after another, hidden in the darkness.

  “It isn’t just one Windwolf… it’s a pack!”

  Linley’s heart immediately tightened. Even Bebe, who up til now had just been sitting off to the side and feigning boredom, sat up, all his fur straightening as well as he carefully looked in all directions.

  “Boss, looks like it’s getting dangerous.”

  “Grandpa Doehring, your prediction was way too prescient… ” A bitter expression was on Linley’s face.

  In the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, running into a pack of Windwolves was just as lethal as running into an extremely powerful magical beast.

  “Prescient my ***. I was talking about encountering a pack of tens of thousands of Windwolves. In a situation like that, unless you can fly, there’s no way you’ll be able to survive. The current situation is a bit better. At most, there’s twenty or thirty of them.” Doehring Cowart’s voice was casual, but his face was solemn. “But Linley, you must understand, I’m just a spirit without any mageforce. I can’t help you. It’s all up to you.”

  Linley felt miserable.

  “Twenty or thirty Windwolves, all at least of the fourth rank. Windwolves are very fast, and they can use magical attacks. I’m just a magus of the fifth rank.” Linley felt enormous pressure. Right at this moment, the howls of the surrounding Windwolves ceased.

  From within the pack of Windwolves, two exceedingly powerfully built Windwolves strode out. In terms of size, they were at least one size category larger than the previous Windwolves Linley had seen. The one which had been lucky enough to survive was respectfully walking besides these two, and even whining in a low voice, saying something to them.

  Their body and even their eyes were a full category larger than the others. This made Linley feel even more nervous as he began to consider what to do next.

  “These are definitely elites amongst Windwolves. At the very least, they are of the fifth rank. I hope they aren’t of the sixth rank!” Linley’s heart was tight, and he quickly began to contemplate how to deal with these opponents.

  Even if they were just of the fifth rank, a pair of Windwolves of the fifth rank, with the assistance of a pack of magical beasts of the fourth rank, all attacking Linley… Linley didn’t feel too confident. Even a Windwolf of the fourth rank had the same speed as Linley’s absolute maximum. Most likely, even using the Supersonic spell, Linley would not be able to match a Windwolf of the fifth rank in speed.

  The two leading Windwolves stared at Linley with their cold eyes, a murderous intent emanating from them.

  “Looks like I’ll have to go all out this time.” Surrounded by a pack of wolves, Linley’s forehead and back were all drenched with cold sweat. His heart tight in his chest, he began to chant a magical spell with even greater speed.

  “Hoooooowl!”

  Of the two clear leaders of the pack, one of them suddenly let out a low howl. Immediately, the twenty or thirty powerful Windwolves charged forward, as fast as the wind. Their white fangs bared, they snarled at Linley as they ran. At the same time, over a hundred deep green blades of wind appeared out of nowhere, carrying great power within each blade.

  *

  Book 3, Mountain Range of Magical Beasts – Chapter 12, Wolf Pack (part 2)

  Linley was currently surrounded by around twenty Windwolves, and over a hundred deep green blades of air virtually locked Linley in, preventing him from fleeing.

  There was no way to flee!

  Linley suddenly moved. At high speed, he launched off the ground and, like an arrow, shot up in the air, aiming to land on a sturdy tree branch. But because there were simply too many wind blades, over ten of them still landed on Linley’s body.

  “Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!”

  The wind blades slashed at Linley’s sturdy leather armor, knocking him off course midair. Linley frantically grasped at a thick tree branch, and with a somersault, flipped onto the tree and began to climb up. Only after hurriedly climbing up twenty or thirty meters did he come to a halt and look downwards.

  “That was really dangerous.”

  Linley let out a breath. Right now, Linley’s body was suffused with a layer of stone-like armor which was in turn covered by a layer of earth elemental essence emanated a faint rocky glow.

  Earth-style magic: Earthguard!

  The Earthguard required the user to at least be a magus of the fifth rank. When magi of the fifth and sixth ranks used this spell, they used a large amount of earth elemental essence to form a rocky armor which had fairly strong defensive abilities. It could defend against multiple attacks from an opponent of the same level.

  These wind knife spells only possessed the strength of the third or fourth ranks.

  “Roaaar!” A fierce howl split the air.

  Linley stared downwards, and saw that the wind was beginning to gather beneath the feet of those twenty Windwolves. All of them suddenly leapt up into the air, with the two leaders managing to leap up ten meters, landing on a large branch. Their powerful talons dug into the branch, giving them a very stable footing.

  Windwolves possessed a tremendous sense of balance, so climbing trees was actually not too hard for them.

  “I’m not afraid of you guys climbing trees. I’m only afraid that you wouldn’t climb up.” Linley felt the blood in his veins begin to boil. The more dangerous the situation was, the more potentially lethal it was, the more excited Linley got.

  In terms of climbing ability, Windwolves were somewhat inferior to humans. Linley agilely clambered from one tree to another, while the pack of Windwolves howled with fury as they gave chase.

  In the outer regions of the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, a pack of Windwolves was definitely the most powerful organization around. Even most warriors of the sixth rank, when faced with a pack of Windwolves, would elect to retreat. After all, no matter how tough they were, physically, even the body of a warrior of the sixth rank could not stand a direct blow from a Windwolf’s claws.

  Linley and the twenty or so Windwolves thus began a game of hide and seek on the trees. The two Windwolf leaders were faster than Linley, and so Linley had no choice but to constantly change direction to dodge. Suddenly, the leading Windwolves shot out numerous wind blades, and Linley immediately was forced to change direction to dodge.

  “Crack!” A tree trunk was severed by the wind knives, and the tree began to topple.

  “Crash!”

  The claws of one of the leading Windwolves reached Linley, raking at his back. The Earthguard armor trembled a few times, and the elemental essence flashed and flickered.

  “Crash! Crash! Crash!”

  The Windwolf leaders were simply too fast, and they were also extremely agile. Their fierce claws reached Linley’s back several times, as well as his head and other extremities, but fortunately, because the Earthguard armor was formed from elemental essence, it could be manipulated in terms of shape. Linley was currently using it to form a helmet as well. But under the repeated assault from the Windwolf leaders, the elemental essence on top of the armor was starting to flicker.

  “These Windwolf leaders are simply too fast. The Earthguard armor won’t hold much longer.”

  Grinding his teeth, Linley climbed higher and higher up. By weight, he was much lighter than the Windwolves, and his climbing abilities were also superior. By the time Linley reached the height of around eighty meters, the Windwolves could no longer climb any higher. All they could do was spit out one wind knife after another at Linley. Linley dodged the best he could; only if he absolutely couldn’t dodge did he allow his Earthguard to take the blow.

  “If you fell from such a height, wouldn’t yo
u die?” Linley was murmuring the words to a magic spell. To be able to maintain his calm under such a dangerous situation was something Linley accomplished thanks to constantly training his mental fortitude.

  “Crash!”

  A wind knife smashed against the Earthguard armor. Previously teetering at the edge of destruction, the Earthguard armor finally broke apart into countless specks of elemental essence, sparkling in the air. This knife was immediately followed by another one, which Linley detected right away.

  “Most wind knife spells from these wolves are equivalent to a third level magus spell. They won’t be able to kill me, given that I’m a warrior of the fourth rank.” Linley continued to chant the words to his spell, allowing the wind knife to slash his body. “Swish, swish.” Blood erupted from the slash, as a terrifying wound appeared on Linley’s chest, leaking fresh blood.

  Linley only frowned slightly, continuing to chant the words to his spell.

  “Whoosh!” “Whoosh!” “Whoosh!” “Whoosh!”

  Over a hundred sharp rocks coalesced, gleaming with earth elemental essence. The densely packed stones shot out at the twenty Windwolves, with thirty stones centered on the heads of the two leading Windwolves. Both of the Windwolf leaders were knocked to the ground. The stones were simply too densely packed. With one crashing sound after another, the Windwolves were knocked to the ground, one after another. Even the tree branches were smashed through as they fell.

  After using this technique, the vast majority of the Windwolves were smashed to the ground. But these Windwolves were very agile, and their fur was very thick. Although they were smashed downwards, many of them managed to get a clawhold on a tree branch, while others just suffered some superficial injuries. None of them died.

  “This injury looks bad, but it’s actually just a skin wound. Still, I can’t let it keep on bleeding like this.” Linley’s left hand suddenly blazed with flame, and then he pressed it against his wounds. A crackling sound could be heard, and Linley couldn’t help but wince and suck in a deep breath. The smell of cooking flesh wafted out from Linley’s chest. Just like that, Linley had ‘sealed’ the wound with flame, leaving behind a very ugly scar.

  While doing the above, Linley also took the opportunity to quickly flee, jumping from one tree branch to another. In the blink of an eye, he fled very far, and then directly threw himself towards the ground. Linley directly fell around eighty or so meters, but as his body was surrounded by a flow of air, his speed of descent was not too fast. By the time he reached the ground, Linley had already finished mumbling the words to yet another spell.

  That pack of Windwolves had also chased towards him, and quite soon, they drew close.

  The two Windwolf leaders were the first to draw near. Howling, they stared at Linley, a look of suspicion in their ice cold eyes. Why did Linley stop fleeing? These highly intelligent magical beasts were now suspecting that Linley had prepared some trap.

  “Growl… ” One of the two Windwolf leaders let out a low growl. Immediately, as though responding to an order, a Windwolf of the fourth rank directly leapt towards Linley.

  Linley suddenly leapt up and pointed at the distant group of Windwolves. In a low voice, Linley said, “Supergravity Field!”

  Earth-style magic – Supergravity Field!

  This was an extremely terrifying earth-style spell. Through controlling and utilizing a large amount of earth elemental essence, this spell allowed the user to manipulate the strength of the gravity in a localized area, causing opponents to suffer dramatically from the increased gravity. Only a magus of the fifth rank was capable of utilizing the Supergravity Field spell.

  And the more powerful an earth-style magus was, the more powerful the effect his Supergravity Field would have.

  “Rumble… “

  The very air trembled. With Linley at the epicenter, a circular area with a diameter of 100 meters suddenly began to glow with earth elemental essence. All of the Windwolves within this diameter suddenly felt an astonishingly powerful pull of gravity. That Windwolf which was charging Linley was also affected by it, causing him to collapse to the ground in mid-leap. All the other Windwolves felt rather shocked as well. The two Windwolf leaders let out furious howls, and ignoring everything else, directly charged towards Linley. But clearly, these two Windwolves now possessed less than half of their original strength.

  “Your speed has been halved, but mine is unimpaired.” Earth elemental essence was glowing and swirling around Linley as well, seemingly paired perfectly with the earth elemental essence glowing over the ground.

  The earth elemental essences used by the Supergravity Field utilized certain unique vibrations. Each individual earth-style magus would utilize it in a slightly different manner, and would have different frequencies of vibrations. If one could totally control the oscillations of the earth elemental essences, one could nullify the influence of the Supergravity Field.

  With the opponent’s speed halved, his own speed, comparatively, was now much higher. Linley agilely dodged his enemy’s attacks, while quickly beginning to mumble the words to another spell.

  “Rumble! Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!”

  Dozens of earthen spears erupted from the ground beneath the feet of the Windwolves. Those fiercely sharp edges directly penetrated into the chests of seven of the Windwolves, causing them to bleed profusely. Several of the other Windwolves were also seriously wounded by the earthen spears.

  “Hoooooowl!”

  The two Windwolf leaders were growing frantic.

  Within the area of effect of the Supergravity Field, they had less than half of their original speed. They simply had no way of stopping the agile, nimble Linley. If they fought him head on, they could kill Linley, but they simply couldn’t get near him! Based on Linley’s ability as a magus of the fifth rank, dealing with them wasn’t too difficult.

  “Hoooooowl!” A low howl.

  Without any hesitation, the two Windwolf leaders turned tail and ran. The ten or so surviving Windwolves also fled with them. Covered by darkness, in the blink of an eye, the Windwolves disappeared from Linley’s field of vision. Seeing this, Linley quickly ran over and caught up to three heavily injured Windwolves that hadn’t managed to flee in time.

  “Crash! Crash! Crash!”

  Linley landed three successive kicks on the skulls of the heavily wounded Windwolves. The sound of splintering skulls could be heard, and the three Windwolves immediately collapsed. Including the seven Windwolves that had been stabbed in the chest by the earthen spears, a total of ten Windwolves had been slain. But because Linley had just exerted himself too vigorously, the wound across his chest had split open once again, and fresh blood began to flow out again.

  *

  Book 3, Mountain Range of Magical Beasts – Chapter 13, Danger (part 1)

  “Whew. They finally left.” Linley finally let out a deep breath.

  Linley knew very well that he only had the prowess of a warrior of the fourth rank. Engaging in close quarters combat with Windwolves of the fifth rank was tantamount to suicide. Only by using magic could he hope to survive. But if it weren’t for the fact that he had sufficient speed, how would he have the chance to cast any magic spells. Fortunately, he was quite fast, and so he managed to get this favorable result.

  “Even if a magus of the sixth rank was present, he wouldn’t necessarily have done better than me. A magus of the sixth rank, in terms of speed, wouldn’t have been able to shake off the pursuit of those Windwolves. When surrounded and attacked by a pack of Windwolves, he might not even have the chance to cast any spells.” Linley felt all the more certain that his decision to not let up on his physical training was a very wise decision.

  Linley glanced at the Coiling Dragon Ring on his left hand. Ever since he had grown up, he had begun wearing the ring on his fingers.

  “And it’s a good thing that I have this Coiling Dragon Ring! Otherwise, how would I have been able to utilize so many spells of the fifth rank?”

  For the
average magus of the fifth rank, after utilizing two spells of the fifth rank, they would most likely be out of mageforce. But Linley was different. He had just used six spells of the fifth rank; three casts of ‘Shattered Rocks’, one cast of ‘Supergravity Field’, one cast of ‘Earthguard’, and one cast of ‘Earth Spear Array’.

  The reason for this? The Coiling Dragon Ring.

  In years past, Doehring Cowart had come across this ring by accident. One time, when Doehring Cowart cast a spell, he found out, to his astonishment, that a spell which was cast through the Coiling Dragon Ring would only require a sixth as much mageforce and spiritual energy to achieve the same effect.

  Clearly, through the Coiling Dragon Ring, one could more clearly sense and manipulate elemental essence. Additionally, it placed a much lower demand on spiritual energy and mageforce.

  A sixth. What did that represent?

  A Saint-level magus could normally just utilize the terrifying ‘Annihilating Tempest’ spell a single time. But with the aid of the Coiling Dragon Ring, he could use the spell six times! Such a terrifyingly powerful treasure caused Doehring Cowart to be uncontrollably excited. He considered this discovery to be the blessing of the earth mother, which is why he named the ring the ‘Worldring’.

  The divine treasure, ‘Worldring’.

  This was the name which Doehring Cowart had bequeathed upon it. Based on what Doehring Cowart had said, although the Yulan continent had some exceedingly powerful treasures which could make it much easier for a magus to cast spells, there were virtually none which were had the same degree of effect as the ‘Worldring’.

  But after obtaining this Coiling Dragon Ring, when training with it, Linley discovered something.

  “Not just earth-style magic! Wind-style magic, and even my miniscule amount of fire-style magic, when channeled through the Coiling Dragon Ring, only requires a sixth as much spiritual essence and mageforce.” Looking at the ring, Linley felt happier and happier.