With a large swing of his arm, the four blades hovering behind Mr Zheng were brought down upon the beast. Despite it not being exactly necessary for mages to move their hands when casting a spell, it helps enhance the visualization of the spell for the mages. And as a result, strengthens the effect of the spells.
This is exactly what is happening right now, the velocity and the strength of the swords have been enhanced, flying straight at the beast with speed barely traceable by the raw human eyes.
But even at such velocity, the blades still wasn't able to hit home, narrowly missing their target as the beast dodged to the side right on time, causing the swords to sink deep into the earth where the beast was. But before Mr Zheng was able to be shocked at their fast reflex, the beast was already lowering its body, ready to pounce on Mr Zheng at any second.
Every single alarm bell is ringing throughout Mr Zheng's mind as he watched the beast leaping into the air almost in slow motion from the adrenaline rushing through his head. Driving his mana into full turbo, he managed to muster up another spell in time, forming a sword right in front of him, hoping it could cancel out some of the force before he was hit but...
The attack never came.
Mr Zheng looked over just in time as the beast strafed past his right, becoming one with the shadows under the leaves behind him before he could react to any of it.
'...Why?' Was the only thought Mr Zheng could come up with. After all, it is obvious to even the most beginner of magus that this was a perfect chance to strike. Yet even so, despite making such a fatal mistake of underestimating his foe, it refused to attack Mr Zheng.
"Screw it, no time for this! Either way, I still gotta get Edmond back!" Mr Zheng snapped himself out the confusion. Wasting no time, he followed suit after the beast, exerting all the mana he could to fuel his legs, chasing down the trail carelessly left behind by the creature in wake.
——
It wasn't long until Mr Zheng once again caught glimpses of the dark fur moving through the shades of moonlight pouring down between the forest foliage above.
The beast heard him coming and turned its head, peeking at Mr Zheng for a split second before looking back to the front, picking up speed as it began focusing on traversing the difficult terrain. Which is not making it any easier for Mr Zheng, who was already trying his best to step on flatter ground, but still lost his balance a few times.
Worst of all, if Mr Zheng's memories didn't fail him...
They're heading straight towards a cliff side.
At this rate, Mr Zheng knew, he will lose the beast if he don't do something.
That was when Mr Zheng saw it, the beast dashed past a large tree in the distance, which caught Mr Zheng's attention. An idea immediately formed within his mind as soon as he reached it.
Generating one of his magical blades in one hand, he pulled his arm all the way back, before jumping and throwing it with all the force he could master, the blade propelled forward in the air as it rotated with inertia as Mr Zheng was launched backwards.
The beast didn't say it coming and the blade hit home right into the back of the beast's shoulder, causing it to stumble and let out a painful howl as its footsteps slowed, reverting from it's quadruple posture during the chase back into bipedal, holding it's shoulder as the blade vanished into nothing but mana, leaving only the wound behind.
Meanwhile, Mr Zheng tried his best to curl his body forward in mid-air, successfully allowing his feet to find support on the tree trunk, letting his knees bend to remove some of the the inertia, before pushing it all the way down, launching off the tree trunk as his knees glowed with sparks of light bursting forth, indicating he had overflowed them with mana in exchange of slight damage.
Sure, it definitely hurts as you can tell from the twisted expression on Mr Zheng's face, but for Mr Zheng, it was well worth it. Not only did he slowed down the beast, he also gave himself a huge boost, shortening the distance between the two by almost 3/4th than they were.
Now Mr Zheng could see it clearly, he felt as if he extended his hands he would be able to reach it, struggling to gain his balance from the maneuver, he ignored the pain in his knees and continued to chase after it.
Seeing this, the beast panicked, and it stumbled again its claws digging into the trunks of the trees beside and ripping them as he passed by, causing it to collapse upon Mr Zheng.
But Mr Zheng leaned backwards, slipping through the bottom with inertia right before the waves of trees buried him, while also allowing him to finally complete the spell he had been preparing.
Smacking the floor with his right hand and launching himself up, he swung it forward as he stood straight, causing a wave of dirt and roots to emerge, forming a wall almost 1.7 meters in height in the direction he swung at, glazing right past the beast into the horizon. And with another swing of his left arm, another wave formed a similar wall, which bends and connects with the first wall not too far forward, forming a den.
Yet the beast continued to run, certain that it could easily break through the weak gaps between the roots and dirt that form the dam. But just before it could reach the wall, it noticed the strange shadow that blocked the moon.
It looked up and that was when it saw, tens of blades hovering right above the wall with its tip facing down, right above where the weak points would be. And so it came to a stop, realizing that if it were to progress through, what awaits him would be pierced right through.
"I won't take your life." Mr Zheng said as he pulled his hands down, causing all the swords to plummet and slot into the holes, completing the dam. "Nowhere to run."
He slowly approached the beast as the moonlight finally was able to let him see it clearly. It looks mostly humanoid, in fact, it really just looks like a human, if it weren't for the head that resembles that of the wolf and the knees that bend forwards, standing on the tip of its feet, just like a wolf.
It kind of reminds Mr Zheng of werewolves.
And it could most likely be so indeed, if it weren't for the fact that the last of the werewolves went extinct during the early 6th century, right when the Great Fading of mana occurred.
How he wished to have a werewolf as a friend when he came upon this world, too. After all, this is a world of magic, a world where all the mythologies and legends make sense.
But at last, it happened. There's no way for Mr Zheng to reverse it.
Most likely, this is an artificial werewolf made by "them" to use as a bioweapon and spread it as an urban legend, huh?
Mr Zheng sighed as the "werewolf" went on quadrupals again, cautiously growling at him as he approached. "Look, I don't care what they told you, and I'm sorry for trying to kill you earlier.
"I'm not an idiot, you had your chance to kill me, but you chose to leave it at that and ran instead. So I'll leave it at that, it's a life for a life. I won't kill you."
"But please," He begged. "I just want to know where my student is. He's been through hell already, and I don't want 'them' to put him through any more misery."
The beast stopped snarling, its ears relaxing, and slowly approached Mr Zheng.
Mr Zheng swallowed nervously as it does, trying his best to now show any hostility and let it approach. To be completely honest, he wasn't exactly sure if the beast could understand him, all he knew was that the werewolf possess intelligence up to a point, so this was actually a gamble all along.
Well, at least it seems to have understood his words to a certain extend. At the very least, his emotions probably conveyed through. Even if the worst comes to happen, he still had one final trump card up his sleeve...
The werewolf walked in front of Mr Zheng on all four, finally allowing Mr Zheng successfully estimate the height of the beast a lot more accurately.
To his surprise, it's actually not as large of a figure as Mr Zheng first anticipated. In fact, it might be just a little taller than Mr Zheng if it were to stand straight. It might seem acceptable on words, but it became not as overwhelming when taking Mr Zheng's height of around 160cm into account.
That was when the beast reached forward and softly nudged Mr Zheng on the waist with its face, making a deep rumbling with its throat as it does.
It took Mr Zheng by surprise. He had an idea of what might happen, and yet he never saw this coming.
The beast continued to nudged a few more times before walking away, making this the second time it refused to do anything to Mr Zheng.
Mr Zheng watched as it continued to walk, absolutely puzzled by its behavior.
Yet despite Mr Zheng's confused gazes, it continued treading on. Finally stopping as soon as it got to a small distance away from Mr Zheng.
"Awooo!" It raised its head and howled to the moon. But since there is not a single wolf in the area, only the midnight breeze replied to the empty echoes of the howl.
It then turned to look at Mr Zheng one last time, before finally turning back and disappearing into the forest.
"…"
"..."
"...What the heck in the world was that?"