Looking at the creature that had simply stopped outside Merlin's reach, he realised certain features. This was the puppy of a blood wolf, with its characteristic blood-red fur and golden horn. Seeing its size was only the size of his own palm, Merlin dispersed all his accumulated mana, even resulting in a backlash that slightly injured his organs. But that was nothing a good night's rest couldn't resolve.
But the more important thing was the blood-wolf in front of him. Blood wolfs are an extremely rare breed of monsters. They were different from the magic beasts that were formed after the mana burst affected the animals left on earth in the 4th year, due to the fact that they did not originate from earth.
These Blood wolfs were a solitary race and during the history of the apocalypse, only 6 sightings were known. Both cases were of adult Blood wolves tearing rifts in the fabric of space to fit their massive 20 meter bodies. One of these wolves had a third eye, and had in fact collapsed an entire city of survivors with one look. Another one had caused the space around itself to collapse and enter the void in between realms, creating a massive 6 km radius hole in the fabric of space.
Blood wolves were known as walking disasters, and every time one appeared, and everyone ran away as fast as they could from such a creature after rumours about its strength spread. Thankfully they were solitary creatures and never pursued anyone fleeing form them, not ever actively hunted humans.
But this sort of calamity was staring at Merlin, while sitting like an obedient dog. Merlin stared at this terrifying creature and instantly made a plan.
He quickly took out the blue elemental orb he had gotten from the store, and place it in front of the blood wolf. It was a water elemental orb of high purity, and good size. But he willingly gave it up to the wolf as a distraction, as even if it was merely a pup, it was still part of that terrifying race, who would be considered as an even bigger calamity that Zero if angered.
He piously offered the elemental orbs, since he remembered instances where people offered elemental orbs and crystals in exchange for the blood-wolf sparing their lives. And it seemed like the adult blood wolves had already awakened wisdom and understood the concept of exchange, allowing the puny humans to leave.
This is why everyone assumed that blood wolves loves to snack on elemental orbs of all kinds, and Merlin was relying on this assumption.
The pup moved closer to the strange new toy that was placed in front of it and began sniffing it. As soon as Merlin saw the wolf moving, he put all his mana into his legs and dashed to James, who was about 50 meters away.
Reaching James' position in an instant, Merlin picked him up and threw the confused James over his shoulder before dashing once more vigour, straight past the blood wolf puppy and towards the bay bridge he had instructed all his subordinated to go to, completely ignoring all the zombies in his way.
By now, the puppy had already begun playing with the blue ball, gleefully nudging it around with his nose and then following where it went.
But then, it held the ball with its soft paw, and looked around, only to see that all the zombies around it were ignoring it once more, and the two 'good' creatures had already left. He became extremely sad once more, as he became lonely just as he was when his parents lost him in the black space while they were travelling.
Just like that time, the wolf pup was extremely lonely, and couldn't even make a sound, until it suddenly appeared in an area surrounded by creatures. But they all were weird as they just ignored the little pup, until it felt something new running slightly away from it.
So it decided to follow and see what it was, and then it noticed that the new thing was being attacked by the bad grey creature. So it rushed over to stop the bad grey creature, but then the new red thing suddenly became stronger and killed a lot of the grey things round it, and faced the little pup.
So the pup stopped and looked at the new thing, only to see that it was similar in looks to the grey things, but it was red, and had the thing his parents had. The blue energy inside the red thing was less, but the same as his parents.
Then suddenly, it took out another thing that had the blue energy inside it and offered it to the little pup, who began playing with it.
But now, the new red thing, and new peach thing had both disappeared. But he soon felt it again, that blue energy from his parents. He felt it again from a little ahead.
So he decided to go there.
…
Merlin was still running with all his might, when suddenly the space 100 meters in front of him began to ripple, before tearing apart to reveal a red puppy.
Merlin's face suddenly turned pale as he realised something;
'This puppy has already awakened some wisdom, and therefore can already manipulate space!'
Merlin was already despairing. Only he knew how terrifying blood wolves could be. He had once visited the city that had been annihilated by the three-eyed blood wolf. It was simply a city of humanoid statues made of iron. Not only had the humans turned to iron, but also everything within 3 km of where the blood-wolf was located. Signs of rust on human bodies and trees was very unnerving, and the true disparity in strength was clearly visible.
But in his despair, James, who had been released form Merlin's grasp, got his footing and spoke.
"Merlin, what is that puppy doing? I think it wants to climb up to your shoulder?"
"What!"
Merlin looked at his feet and saw the puppy trying to climb up his shoe. He was overcome with fright and fell backwards form shock and complete fear, waiting for his inevitable demise with his eyes closed.
But nothing happened after a few more seconds.
Suddenly he felt a slippery object move across his cheek, leaving behind a trail some substance. Opening his eyes, he saw the puppy was licking his cheek.
"Hiik!"
"What, what happened sir Merlin?" exclaimed James, unaware of the true identity of the creature in front of Merlin.
But the puppy soon stopped licking, seemingly remembering something and got off Merlin.
Slowly and warily getting up, Merlin looked at the returning blood wolf pup and was shocked.
"Woof, Woof!"
It had returned with the elemental orb Merlin had used as a distraction, and was calmly sitting there, waiting to be rewarded.
Merlin was dumbfounded by how similar this blood wolf resembled a dog, and he unconsciously reached out for the head of the puppy.
When he regained consciousness, his fingers were already enjoying the sweet bliss of a dog's fur.
…
After a few minutes of enjoying the puppy in his arms, rubbing the fur across his face and thoroughly enjoying the fluff, he realised that the surrounding zombies were already closing in, and James had been trying to clear them out.
"Hey Foveros, want me to take you home?"
The puppy simply looked at Merlin's eyes and whined slightly. But this was enough for Merlin, who was in love with all things dog, and even had tamed a few dog magic beasts in the future.
He held Foveros, which he had named his first tamed beast back in the future form the suggestion of his party member Jonathon, who was a Greek teacher before the apocalypse. He said that Foveros meant terrifying, and the beast they had tamed was truly terrifying. At 6 meters tall and 10 meters long, how could it not be terrifying?
With Foveros in hand, and James in the other, Merlin began his slow walk back to the bridge, killing zombies along the way with only his feet, skipping across the hordes by crushing the skulls of some unlucky zombies.