On the border between Hellion Forest and the plains of Ourouboros, a group of wolves tasked to scout the barrier laid prone within the bushes. The scouting group forced the biggest one of them all to venture past the barrier, knowing full well that any monster that came in contact with the barrier got repulsed while most were outright killed.
The scouting group surrounded the starlight black wolf in a horseshoe formation, forcing it to back into the barrier slowly. The black wolf growled ferociously, occasionally lunging at some nearby wolves. Despite being the biggest of the group, due to its disability, its fighting prowess was lower. But it was also due to this disability that its presence was hard to detect. Nevertheless, the black wolf could not escape this formation since the wolves never let him escape their sight.
Their persistence and vigilance told the black wolf this was planned. He's been with this scouting group for roughly a year, so he knows it wasn't done by them. Not to mention, they aren't smart enough to do such a thing. The retreating wolf looked behind him while trying to calculate who was responsible for this. The tips of his tail brushed where the barrier was supposed to be; the wolf braced for the oncoming pain… and yet.. nothing happened.
No disintegration, no burns, no force throwing him back. Nothing…
He opened his eyes then inched his tail ever so slightly more across the border. From the black wolf's experience, the barrier shouldn't be down until noon during an invasion. The wolf's tail started to wag slightly, elated that there was a possibility of escaping. He quickly turned around and dashed across the border then a u-turn back into the forest, leaping into some bushes. The scouting group frantically try to look for the escapee before one of them gets picked off; the leader of the group howls into the sky, alerting their alpha that he escaped.
Within moments of the howl, the escapee wolf feels the presence of their alpha, an S-rank mutated demon wolf. The black wolf freezes the moment he senses the alpha's glare and pressure from the alpha's mana lock on to it. The alpha emerges from a nearby bush, its silver coat waving in the morning breeze. The alpha orders the black wolf to perform a task, then forces it to comply by conjuring dense spikes of ice and blades of light around it. The black wolf cowers and reluctantly crosses the border once more.
'Fuck… Just because I have no mana they keep bullying me and now it's finally come to this… Fuck it all, once I perform this task I'll slip into the crowd of adventurers and escape during the chaos.' The black wolf hatches his plan while rolling around on the dirty road to the capital, tainting his fur to a muddy brown. He contracts his muscles and compresses some of his bones to decrease his size. The wolf takes advantage of the fact that no one can notice him without directly looking at him and travels across the dirt road prone.
Just like the wolf, the adventurers are expecting the barrier to come down around noon. The only reason why they are gathered outside the capital so early is because of the abnormalities of this year's invasion and reports of numerous beasts and monsters at the edge of the forest. Some of the scouting mages the Dean posted along the outer wall recently reported a group of demon wolves near the border as well.
Due to their complacency, roughly half of the adventurers are laxed, not even holding their weapons or just lazing around. The other third are preparing their weapons for battle or taking care of miscellaneous tasks, not even concerned they are on a battlefield where the enemies could appear at any moment. Only a sixth of the adventurers are on guard against the mist-covered forest, and these are the high ranked adventurers and mages tasked to monitor the battle that are positioned in the back or on the sides.
The black, er- muddy brown wolf, notices their complacency from the frontline's posture and gazes. Due to his lack of mana, unless it's a spell that detects physical objects, any other detection spell wouldn't notice him. Even with the former, due to his dirty pelt and lack of mana, the mages will just think he is a boulder on the side of the road. Granted, this in itself is suspicious, yet it's too early in the morning for most people's brain to work properly.
The wolf takes advantage of their carelessness to creep up to a young lady who was giving orders with her back turned towards the forest. 'Looks like that's my target. Seems like she's directing the adventurers on the battlefield. Just need to take her out and then hide.' The wolf pants slightly, as if he were laughing, while edging closer to the young lady. When he was roughly 5 meters away from her, he angled his body to face the lady then pressed his body closer to the road.
A portal abruptly appeared on the right of the young lady the moment he was about to launch. The wolf waited for something to happen, yet after a minute passed nothing occurred. The wolf could feel his freedom within its paws and threw all caution into the wind, pouncing on the unaware young lady. When his claws were about to graze her face, a hand shot of the portal, grabbing the wolf by its neck.
The hand raised the wolf to the point its hind legs could no longer touch the ground; an astonishing feat since the wolf was roughly 2 meters tall on his hind legs. A figure emerged from the portal, followed by an eerie voice.
"What's this cute puppy doing here?"
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Numerous bells rang off violently to greet the rising sun. Panicked voices echoed throughout the flooded streets. Legions of soldiers filed out from the inner walls, marching towards the battlefield. Footsteps stormed throughout the hallways, slightly shaking the walls of the inn. Cain tossed and turned in his sleep, attempting to not wake up. Alas, the continuous tolls of the bell forced him out of sleep.
'Motherfucker… Who the heck is ringing such a loud bell so early in the morning? Wait, why can I hear it…' Cain's hands hover over his ears, searching for the earplugs he usually wears while sleeping, yet finding none. 'Dang… Just how tired must I have been to sleep without something to block my hearing…' He reluctantly sits up and stretches in bed; almost falling asleep several times while doing so. Numerous shouting can be heard in the hallways, accompanied by the scurrying of what seemed like every resident of the inn; forcing Cain to stay awake despite his best wishes.
'Whatever happened seems to be recent and on a big scale… Meh, Maddison should know something about it if it's on this big of a scale.' Cain stumbled out of bed, wrapping himself from head to toe with a blanket. He yawns slightly while issuing a task to SRI.
—Spatial Requesting Interface (SRI)— (310ms)
Cain: Open a portal in an open spot next to Maddison.
SRI: Searching tag database for "Maddison"...
SRI: "Maddison" found (34ms)
SRI: Processing request…
SRI: Request processed (230ms)
SRI: Performing request…
SRI: Request performed (145ms)
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A portal opened up in front of Cain, revealing the rising sun lighting up the plains. He spread half of his mana zone through it while checking the blanket wrapped around him to make sure it wasn't dragging on the floor. After ensuring that the blanket wouldn't get dirty due to his laziness, Cain looked up at the portal, preparing to walk through and get blinded by the sun.
Instead of the expected blindness, he saw a dark brown figure shedding off dust while lunging from somewhere "off-screen" on the right of the portal. Starting from when he detected the being's fast movements with the mana zone, it took Cain a few seconds before realizing that Maddison was the blur's target. His half asleep brain ordered his arm to shoot out towards the blur to stop it from attacking her, only to realize he was still standing at the edge of the portal. He reluctantly left the comfort of his room to discover just what it was that tried to attack Maddison.
What greeted him was a large dirty black wolf, slashing and gnawing with its jaws and paws, trying to get Cain to loosen his grip. Every attack tore through Cain's clothes, yet not a scratch could be seen on his skin before the clothes mended himself.
—Dms: Cain and Dresil— (7ms)
Cain: Is the wolf's attacks hurting you since you're still in my clothes?
Dresil: Nope. I can remove my vines away from the attacked areas as long as the attack isn't faster than 0.1ms.
Dresil: I can abandon my consciousness from the affected vines with 0.01ms, although there'd be some pain. But not as much as getting attacked.
Cain: Sweet.
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"What's this cute puppy doing here?" Cain's voice startles Maddison and the surrounding adventurers who are then further shocked by the sudden appearance of such a large demon wolf. Maddison stumbles slightly, almost losing her balance. She eyes the wolf who is still frantically attacking Cain, and the person in question, amazed that not a single scratch is appearing.
Once Cain sees that Maddison has regained her composure, he questions the origin of this incident. He opened his mouth to speak, but before any words could come out, his eyes glanced upon the movement of the hundreds of thousands of monsters and beasts leaving the forest. It would appear that the wolf's attack was a signal for the invasion to commence.
The bells stopped ringing and a horn was blown. The adventurers that were idling around scrambled to prepare for the upcoming fight, some even getting injured in the process. 'The Dean isn't expecting me to heal them from their own stupidity, is he?' Cain questions himself after detecting the changes in his surroundings with his mana zone. The wolf's attacks lessen as his focus shifts from attacking to trying to hurt Maddison in any way.
'Why is this little pupper so persistent on harming Maddison? Oh, I wonder if I can read the memories of beasts/monsters.' Cain's sudden thought caused him to look at the wolf with an indifferent gaze, as if it were a specimen. The wolf immediately stops attacking once he feels the chills down his spine and looked into Cain's eyes. The wolf chose to stop trying to anything and just exist there, held above the ground by Cain's grip, limbs floating aimlessly; with the occasional twitch of his hind legs to find stable ground beneath it. He was hoping this would prevent the human from doing whatever it was he was thinking of doing when the human looked at him with that terrifying gaze.
Cain operated some mana through the wolf's tag and navigated to the hippocampus or similar structure within its brain. Due to Cain's uncertainty, his mana spent a few minutes floating around aimlessly while looking for its memories. He took this time to confirm some things with Maddison.
"I assume that's the invasion, then? How many monsters do you think are there? Also when do the adventurers fight?" Cain questions Maddison on the side who is just recovering from the previous shocks. She looks at the legions of goblins, trolls, ogres, demon wolves, wyverns, cockatrices, hobgoblins, and many more species running towards them, attempting to estimate their numbers.
"The adventurers won't move until the Dean fires a flare-type spell into the air. There seems to be roughly 200,000? Maybe more… It's at least twice as big as any invasion we've had before and… oh god… There's a lot more S-rank monsters as well." As Maddison was speaking, a few wyverns, that were bigger than normal with different colored streaks running across their side, emerged from the mist with roughly 5 cyclops behind it. They let out roars and howls which froze the weak-willed adventurers. Murmurs about how this is the end began spreading across the battlefield.
"So those are the beings who disturbed my sleep?" Cain's cold and apathetic voice froze the voices those who were nearby. The wolf even began to shake slightly. `'Damn… Just who did I run into this time…?'` The wolf thought to himself while Cain looked into its eyes with slight shock written on his face. 'Ay, it worked!' Cain thought to himself while letting go of the wolf. "Behave and sit on my right and I won't eat, ahem… kill you."
Cain's voice nearly gave it a heart attack. Despite being almost as strong as the alpha, the realization that it was just a snack to the human destroyed any remaining will to fight. The wolf followed Cain's orders obediently and sat on Cain's right.
—Dms: Cain and Dresil— (7ms)
Cain: Make sure I didn't accidentally damage the wolf's brain and heal it if I did.
Dresil: Understood, Master.
Dresil: Are you keeping this one?
Cain: I plan to, although idk where it'd stay. It's quite an interesting pupper.
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"Hey Maddison, when do demon wolves gain intelligence on par with humans and what rank would this wolf beside me be?" Cain questioned Maddison while staring at all of the snacks delivering themselves to him. Maddison stared at Cain in disbelief, questioning why this man, who is still wrapped in a blanket, is being so carefree right now.
"They usually become as smart, or even smarter than us at S-rank. Although the wolf besides you has no mana fluctuations, by its size it should be borderline S-rank." Maddison replies while gathering up the courage to ask Cain a question. "So um… are you just going to be standing by or will you play an active role in this fight?" Her wavering voice reaches Cain's ears, only to be answered with a slight yawn.
"I'm planning on killing them. All of them. My sleep was disturbed because of those fuckers."