"Shi-!" I exclaim in surprise as I throw myself to the side in a desperate attempt to avoid the huge lounging wolf's maw that suddenly appeared and is now trying to rip my head clean from my body.
Just barely managing to dodge the lunging wolf's maw, I roll to my feet and draw my katana in an attempt to counter attack, but immediately abandon the thought in favor of dodging a swipe from the claws on the wolf's right paw that is aimed to shred my upper body.
Coming to my feet once again, I immediately draw and slash, sending a wind-blade towards the beast before immediately Blinking behind the beast to slash the thing with my katana proper, aiming to pincer the thing between my wind-blade attack and my katana slashes. With the wolf distracted by the wind-blade that is coming from in front, I manage to hit the beast with my slash, but my attack does minimal damage as it gets stopped almost immediately after breaking through its fur and hard skin and the only result I have to show for my sword attack is a little spot around the sword cut, its fur gets painted the color of its blood. The wind-blade slams into the best a moment later, and the beast lets out a yelp as the wind-blade cuts a slight furrow into its front legs and part of its neck.
Snarling, the beast whips around and tries to bite me once again, but I back away as I swing my katana in an attempt to hit its head as it lunges towards me. Stopping mid lunge, the beast draws back and observes me for a moment before it starts circling me back and forth, trying to find an opening to leap, no doubt.
Taking a moment to gather myself and take a proper sword stance, I observe the huge beast that is seeking to lunge at me at the first good opening it gets: The beast seems mostly unharmed by my attacks, the wind-blade left a clear cutting line along its forelegs where some blood is trickling down, but other than that, the wound is rather shallow and doesn't seem to affect it to any significant degree what-so-ever.
On the other hand, my regular sword attack seemingly didn't do anything to the beast as it seems completely unaffected by my sword attack; The only evidence that I hit it all is the small red spot of blood on its fur where I hit it, but otherwise it seemingly only served in getting the beast even more eager to rip my face off; Which I really don't consider a win.
"Tough bastard…" I mutter as I carefully observe the beast that I assume is the pack-leader continues its pacing to and fro in a half circle around me as it seeks its opening to lunge.
Suddenly the thing disappears and I instinctively throw myself into a forward roll just in the nick of time, as I sail through the air I can feel the wolf's hot breath on my feet and I hear the beast snap it's jaws shut just centimeters away from my feet, in an attempt to snag my feet and stop me from escaping it's reach.
'Shit, that was way too close!' I exclaim in my mind as I roll onto my feet and turn towards the giant and very angry wolf that is growling dangerously at me as it slowly approaches me and shows off its impressive teeth. 'I forgot that the damn thing could teleport! I need to take this thing out of the equation before it takes my head off when I am distracted...'
Pulsing my Mana, I send a quick but weak lighting bolt towards the beast before I take a stance and prepare to send a wind-blade flying at the wolf, should it decide to teleport out of the way, whether to attack me or simply to dodge.
Surprisingly, It does neither and simply takes the weak lighting attack and simply shrugs it off as if it was nothing before it resumes stalking closer to me in a zigzag pattern as it seeks a good angle of attack.
'Well that didn't work… How about with some more juice then?' I muse as I gather and condense more Mana from the surroundings to make a more potent spell.
The wolf doesn't seem very keen to let me, however, as it immediately jumps at me and starts attacking me furiously to keep me from being able to focus my mind on the task of gathering and condensing Mana from the surroundings.
'So it can tell when I start gathering Mana to cast a spell like I thought… Damn. What now?' I ponder my options as I keep a close look on my opponent and my surroundings. I can hear the clacking of claws on stone as the rest of the wolf's crowd below the rock and seek a route up to their leader. '... Should I try to lure it in and hope that I can manage to finish it off before it tears me apart?'
The sound of claws scrambling up the rock quickly grows louder by the second however and I realize that I don't have the luxury to ponder my options any longer: Either I kill the leader and hope that most of the rest of the pack gives up and just leaves, or I have to try and make a run for it.
… "Run it is!" I exclaim loudly in an attempt to shock and delay the Wolf alpha's reaction, if only for a second, as I Blink away as far as I can from the giant boulder, and start running as soon as my feet hit the ground. A few seconds of running later I spot a massive tree branch through the thick foliage above and immediately use Blink once again to get up onto the tree branch which I promptly start running along.
The branch is massive: Easily 5 meters in diameter across, with relatively few vines and other foliage clinging to its stem.
Running along the branch towards the tree stem, I glance behind me to find nothing, but a glance down below onto the ground reveals the Alpha wolf stalking me with sharp eyes as it easily keeps pace and keeps me in its sights.
"C'mon damnit, just give up and go away damnit." I mutter as I continue running as I look for a way higher up where I can hide from the beast's sight.
Half a minute of running later I am starting to get a bit winded, unlike the Alpha below me who has me in its sights like a hawk and its prey and I decide that my best chance is to climb the tree and then try to move away under the cover of the foliage: Hopefully the Alpha wolf can't teleport as far as I can, because then I'm screwed…
With plan in mind, I blink up onto the next giant branch above me, and the up unto the next before I take a moment to look behind me, only to find the Alpha wolf stalking along the first branch that I blinked onto.
"Shit. It can teleport almost as far as me… FML!" I exclaim as I do a running turn, take an iai stance and send a wind-blade flying at the beast.
Waiting for the wind-blade to arrive before the giant wolf, I Blink down onto a different lower branch just as the wolf dodges the attack in the hopes that it will be distracted enough to lose sight of me as it dodges my wind-blade.
Continuing running away, it only takes half a minute before I see the familiar form of the wolf stalking behind me once again and quickly gaining on me.
"God damnit this thing is tenacious!" I exclaim as I do a running turn once again, take an iai stance and prepare to send yet another wind-blade flying towards the quickly approaching giant wolf: This time however, I start gathering and condensing Mana into the blade as I prepare to draw.
As the Mana density continues increasing within the sword, the wolf seemingly grows increasingly angry as it somehow manages to push its body even more to reach even higher speeds.
'I've got one shot at this, so keep the fuck cool and just do it. No unnecessary thoughts!' I reaffirm to myself as I steady myself for the quickly incoming death machine on four legs.
As the wolf crosses the 50 meters mark, it disappears from sight with a split second distortion of the area around it.
"Here goes!" I exclaim as I Blink up 2 meter into the air, right above my previous position.
Taking a split second to reorient myself and to spot my target, I forcibly explode all the Mana that I stored within the blade as I draw it, to spectacular effects: The force of the draw overwhelms my body and as the slash completes, a giant beast of a wind-blade, one that sets my bones to vibrating, goes flying off straight towards the open maw of the giant wolf that is trying to take a bite out my chest.
Unfortunately, the excessive force of my draw and my inability to curb it transfers all the excess momentum to my body, and since I am currently in the air, it results in me quickly starting to spin at speeds way too fast for my comfort.
Quickly using Blink once again back to my previous spot, the spinning abruptly stops as the momentum is somehow nullified by my Blink spell.
That said, unfortunately the same can't be said for my head, as the damage has been done: It keeps spinning and I can't see straight for the life of me.
Falling the 2 meters down onto the hardwood branch, the air is knocked out of my chest as I painfully try to breathe through the pain, dizziness and the resulting feeling of sickness for the whole world spinning like a carrousel.
"God damn... I feel like shit!" I exclaim weakly between painful breaths as I Iie helplessly and wait for the spinning in my head to stop enough so that I can at the least focus on my surroundings once again.
"I really hope I at least killed the damn wolf though. Would really suck to be eaten..." I mutter as I try to focus my sight enough to try and make out my surroundings.
End of chapter 38.