After cracking its head in one direction and then snapping it back it suddenly seemed to grow larger. It looked like it had decided to try and kill them, "Vuldara switch!" Samuel yelled at his friend who quickly looked at him.
She nodded and turned around and took the woman from Samuels arms, switching places with Samuel whom drew both blades, the shadowy creature didn't wait but had already charged at Zalbas.
Zalbas was quite occupied with dodging left and right while holding both arms up to cover his vitals. Whenever the shadow missed an attack Zalbas instantly countered by throwing left hook after right hook.
It was leaving almost no visible effect on the creature, but it was like Zalbas was completely untouchable in combat. Samuel did not want to attack out of turn so he quickly analyzed the creature as best as he could.
Mana sense was being blocked by all the shadows surrounding the creature, but he saw that when it attacked - it was like the shadows became sharp scythes made out of the creatures darkness.
Suddenly it reared back and slashed six different scythes at Zalbas, who did a backflip out of its range. While in the air he took a deep breath and exhaled it when he landed.
A cone of fire exuded from Zalbas mouth as he literaly spit fire at it. The fire instantly seemed to take effect as a shriek was heard from the creature, "You don't like fire huh?" Zalbas mocked it the moment he stopped spitting fire.
Samuel seized the moment to attack, right after the fire he appeared above the creature and blasted several beams of fire. The creature did its best to move out of the way, but everyone present noticed that as the area was lit up more and more, the creature seemed to diminish in size.
It quickly crawled back to the nearest shadow and resumed some of its previous size before hissing at them, then it turned to run.
But its retreat was quickly cut short by a shout. "Esplight!" A voice sounded out and a huge beam of lightning came shooting from behind them. The creature let out one last shriek as it was disintegrated by the pure energy.
Samuel turned around and saw several mages, one of them which he didn't feel like socializing with. The one that obviously had casted the spell, Khazan came walking with a smug smile as usual.
"I see you kiddos needed some help!" He grinned.
In the backround Vazmarx came running with the rest, he had reached them quick and they had responded. Khazan took a few smug steps forward but his smug look became a worried one when he saw the woman.
He took a few moments to check out the tent and returned with a much more concerned expression. "Why is it, that you always are in the center of these damn things?" He obviously asked Samuel who stood there dumbfounded.
He pointed at himself, "What me?"
Khazan groaned and nodded. "Yes you! WHO ELSE? You always find yourself in the middle of trouble! Soon people are going to believe you are the one causing the trouble just to solve it yourself!"
His rant seemed justified enough so Samuel had to take it, he could hear laughter inside his head again, Night was having another fit of laughter.
"You should be greatful that I know better!" Khazan spoke and his smug grin slowly returned again. "I will help you deal with this, you guys return to your tents!"
Vuldara handed over the woman to the healers that had just arrived and returned to the rest of them. She looked a bit worried while sneaking glances at Zalbas.
"Well I... Thanks I guess!" Samuel gave Khazan a nod before pulling his friends with him.
Khazan stared at the scene a little while longer and thought about the lengthy report he would need to make and grunted in annoyance, but not before winking at one of the female healers.
Samuel, Vuldara, Vazmarx & Zalbas all returned to their tents.
Once they were there, Vazmarx was quick to enter their tent but Samuel saw Vuldara tug on Zalbas shirt. He didn't want to eavesdrop but he just gave a quick look at the two.
"Im kind of scared to sleep alone!" Vuldara said while having the biggest blush. Because she was a woman she had her own tent among their team, Zalbas awkwardly scratched his head.
"If you are fine with me... then of course I will join you!" He replied and Vuldara gave him a very awkward hug while whispering something to him.
Samuel saw him nod and together they walked to her tent that was only a few steps away, Zalbas turned around to his tent and Samuel gave him a nod and thumbs up.
Upon seeing it Zalbas seemed to relax and returned the nod.
Soon enough they were all supposedly sleeping, Vazmarx was the quickest to fall asleep as Samuel heard loud snores. Samuel himself couldn't fall asleep and lay awake the entire night.
He wasn't able to shake the wolf out of his head, whenever he closed his eyes it was like he could see its reflection. It made him restless, and he couldn't help but wonder why.
He was human, but he had been given a gift that had made him a lycanthrope, but lycanthropy was something that usually spread as a curse or disease between people.
As far as anyone knew, no one had ever received it as a gift in this way that it was a part of their body. Many studies that Samuel had read detailed how the person and the wolf were often two different minds sharing one body, fighting for control at times.
But what was even more weird was the fact that he didn't seem to be a lycanthrope completely, werepeople were different, it was like he was something inbetween.
If that was the case then he might be able to transform both into a were form and then a full wolf form. More than anything it felt like the wolf inside him didn't fight him for control, instead it felt like it was just another part of him.
It never lashed out, but it felt restless at times. The instincts it shared sometimes made it feel like he was a cup that was overfilled and it simply spilled over.
It was quite annoying to always feel this half and half sensation, so he realized he needed to work on getting more attuned to his wolf. Was it truly a part of him only or was there something more to it.
Was it his subconscious mind or was there something else in there. He decided that if he couldn't sleep he could just as well train.
He closed his eyes and focused his mind on one sure thing, his mindscape.
After a minute had passed he found himself floating in an empty void, that slowly started getting lit with lights. He looked at his hands and saw his humanoid outline, the only difference being that he was completely shrouded in a light teal color.
He looked down and saw the good old regular abyss, where something lay deep down below. Something that he didn't want to disturb, something that he shouldn't disturb.
After a few moments of visualizing everything he was finally able to start hovering around inside the mindscape. Controlling your own body in there required a deep connection to mana. Which meant that even being in there required training.
It was one of the toughest things that Alsian had him train, because it was so exhausting for the mind.
After a few minutes Samuel suddenly saw something swimming towards him, gliding through the empty space a whiteblue wolf paddled its way forward.
It reached Samuel who was quite shocked to see the same wolf he had seen reflected in the water, the same wolf that appeared whenever he had closed his eyes.
"What are you?" His words resounded through the empty space around him, and as if overjoyed the wolf suddenly started swimming around him over and over and over again.
It wagged its tail while giving him light headbumps as if it wanted him to follow it.
"I don't know what you are trying to show me but alright!" Samuel replied after the seventh or so headbump.
The wolf tilted its head as if it understood and it started swimming away into the empty space, Samuel was quite confused but followed it none the less.
After swimming or hovering through the empty air for what felt like ages, something finally came into sight. From very far away it looked like an island had popped up in the middle of this empty space.
A very small island with grass and a few trees, flowers and a small stream of water than ran off the edge into the empty endless space. But the water never seemed to run out either, as they got closer Samuel saw a few visages of people on this island.
But it was hard to tell what or who they were from so far away, but the wolf seemed to press on and kept going so he followed it.
He was not prepared for what he was going to find however.