"Jove [Zeus] is said to have come as guest to Lycaon...But the sons of Lycaon wanted to test Jove, to see whether he was a god or not; they mixed human flesh with the other meat, and set it before him at a banquet. When he realized it, in anger he overturned the table, and slew the sons of Lycaon with a thunderbolt. But for Lycaon, their father, Jupiter [Zeus] changed [Lycaon] into the form lykon, that is, the form of a wolf." - Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 176 (trans. Grant)
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Alex, Devana, and Hecate rushed out to the front of the camp and their faces became ugly. Over 100 werewolves were attacking the druids and witches, which numbered less than half of that. Furious, Devana and Hecate ran out to opposite sides to counterattack.
Devana jumped on top of a house for high ground, took out her bow and began firing arrows at blinding speed. Hecate began chanting. Soon, ice spears formed above her head and began impaling the werewolves. There were four men watching all of this from a distance.
"There they are..." One of the men said. "Adrian, you and Lycaon go suppress Hecate. You can injure her, but don't kill her. Cristian, go kill Devana and her people on the other side. The three men executed the orders promptly and went in their specified directions. "Oh...Lycaon," the apparent commander stopped him.
The burly werewolf leader turned around. Despite him being a giant of nearly two meters even before transforming, his response made him seem so small. "Yes, Lord?"
"Don't let her escape again..." the commander said in a cold, nonchalant tone. He was short and skinny, with glasses below his parted blond hair. There was nothing physically imposing about him, yet somehow, every word of his carried tremendous weight.
Although Lycaon had large tracts of dark hair covering his chest and arms, as well as a short beard that looked like it would grow back by the afternoon if he shaved it that morning, he felt a solemn chill at those words. "I won't fail you, Lord." He went to support Adrian, the chosen.
As Hecate was throwing an ice spear at a werewolf, it was suddenly smashed into tiny fragments. A man came out in full heavy plate armor with a giant two-handed sword that was glowing brightly. He had casually destroyed her ice spear like it was nothing. Instead of being upset, Hecate showed a toothy grin. She always appreciated a challenge.
*ROOAARRR*
She looked left to see a giant werewolf who had just turned, sprinting on all fours in her direction. It was the one who kidnapped her the previous night, Lycaon. She knitted her brows, realizing this would be a very difficult fight. On the other side of the battlefield, Devana supported her men with ranged fire.
Devana's attacks were much weaker than Hecate's ice spears, which could kill or severely injure a werewolf with each attack, but Devana won in firing rate. Although her arrows would only cause slight injuries against the thick hide of werewolves, she was able to fire multiple times per second, severely limiting the wolves and giving her people breathing space.
That was very important now because their side was severely outnumbered and many were already injured from the night before. Humans had a much slower healing rate than werewolves, which was just another unfavorable factor in this current battle. Devana's keen eyesight caught a human running into the melee from the side of the werewolf camp.
He had a spear and light armor. Then she saw a ball of light appear next to him. "A chosen..." she frowned. A moment later, a giant of a white horse appeared next to the man. He jumped onto the steed and charged into the enemy formation of druids. The horse was shockingly fast and powerful, far more so than any common horse typically seen on Earth.
The horseman cut into the druids and instantly broke their formation. Alex, in his invisible state, was watching from a distance. 'Wtf...does he have a horse as a General? Is that possible?'
'If the beast is very powerful, a king among its species, then it is possible, albeit very rare, Sir,' Scott answered.
Alex frowned, watching the horseman suppress the druids and witches. 'This won't do. They won't last long at this rate...I guess it's time to eat horsemeat.'
For the past few minutes, Cristian had been steadily picking apart the enemy formation from horseback. He would have already slaughtered them, had it not been for having to be careful of Devana's arrows. A headshot would be terrible. In any case, it was only a matter of time now. Despite Devana's strength, the numerous werewolves behind him were gradually gaining the upper hand through numbers.
He was about to send a spear into the chest of a wounded druid when he suddenly saw a strange red light out of the corner of his eye. The next moment, he felt a bit unstable and looked down. His horse had a large hole in its neck, charred black, and was in the middle of turning into light motes.
"Marengo! Damn!" Cristian fell down, barely catching his balance when he hit the ground. Feeling uneasy from not knowing where the attack came from, he rapidly sought cover behind the werewolves.
*Pew*
Cristian's eyes bulged as he watched the arm of a werewolf be shot off at the shoulder, not far from his head. 'Sniper!' he thought as he continued to retreat further back. Alex sent several more shots in Cristian's direction trying to take him out, but he wasn't exactly a sharpshooter and his target was getting further and further away.
'Tch. Got the horse instead. The big fish got away...' Alex looked over at Lycaon and Adrian. They were a bit too far away so he doubted he could hit them. He also saw Hecate sweating while fighting them, using a variety of defensive and movement spells to hold them off as they tried to get into close range with her.
She actually looked far stronger than either of them, but they alternated charging in and harassing her, making it difficult to chant long enough to unleash a deadly spell. More importantly, she was wincing. Even from a distance, Alex could tell she was still injured from last night. 'In any case, she won't die soon.' Unfortunately for her, Alex was petty. 'Since it's all the same, I'll just eat the little fish.' He began to snipe off the werewolves.
Meanwhile, on the werewolf side, Cristian ran up to the commander who ordered him before. He was out of breath from desperately escaping after almost having died. "Luca, I'm sorry, but there's a terrible sniper on their side somewhere."
"I see that. Look." Luca pointed to a spot on top of a house.
Cristian looked and his mouth hung open. Every few seconds, a laser beam would shoot out from thin air and create a casualty on the werewolf side. "Invisible? That's trouble. At this rate, he'll kill all the werewolves first."
"...That's alright. Let him kill them," Luca indifferently smiled. "We'll just have to kill faster. We have fewer targets anyway."
Alex was happily shooting the werewolves. Occasionally, a few would breakthrough to his position, and then helplessly run around in circles searching for an invisible sniper, before a laser beam blasted their heads off from another roof 30 seconds later.
*BOOM*
Alex's hairs suddenly all stood up. On instinct, he dived off the roof he was on.
*BANG*
The house he had been on ripped apart like it was hit by a meteor. He got up off the ground, luckily not sustaining any serious injuries due to landing on grass. He looked at the house which had been nearly torn in half. 'What was that?' He climbed another roof to try to get a better view to see what was happening.
*BOOM*
*BANG*
A barricade set up by a few witches exploded, along with two of them hiding behind it, sending pieces of them in all directions. He saw it now. In the back of the werewolf camp, there stood two men next to a terrible black weapon of war mounted on two wheels. Smoke emitted from its front. On a battlefield like this, this was a world-renowned harvester of lives.
It was an artillery cannon.