Time seemed to slow down. Storm clouds moved through the sky as the wind blew across the once-active battlefield. The roars of battling had gone quiet a while ago. All that was left now was Erik and the wolf leader. Not one of them made a move.
Erik did not move from his position. He was waiting for the wolf to make the first move. But the wolf was doing the same thing. However, the wolf wasn't as patient as Erik.
The longer it stood watching Erik the angrier it got. The thoughts of what happened all those years ago kept replaying in its head, slowly fueling the rage that built up within it. And staring at Erik only made it worse.
It had hoped that Erik would make the first move so it could counterattack, but that didn't happen. Instead, Erik stood unmoving as he too waited for the wolf to attack so he could counterattack.
Seconds turned into minutes and the wolf was losing all patience. It soon began to growl at Erik to try and provoke him but didn't work.
The hair on its back began to stand up as it kept replaying those memories in its head. Hatred was all it felt but it didn't let it control it. However, after almost half an hour, the wolf was done waiting.
Its blue tail began to glow as it prepared to launch an attack. More storm clouds began to form. The sky went dark and thunder began to roar.
Erik looked around to see what was happening. He knew that the wolf was planning to attack him in some way but he did know how.
The trees started to move around as the wind blew harder. Eventually, the wolf let out a loud howl which alerted Erik. A second later, lightning began to strike down across the entire village and battlefield.
Houses were destroyed in a single strike and fires emerged from the rubble. Erik wanted to stop the flames from spreading but he knew that he couldn't leave the wolf alone. He stayed put waiting for a lightning bolt to strike him. But instead, a massive bolt struck the testing hall.
The people inside felt the entire building shake but the building still stood tall with minimal damage taken.
When the wolf saw this it stopped its attack. Erik became furious when he saw the testing hall get struck. He tightened his grip on his sword and was about to run at the wolf when he felt it.
A drop of water landed on him, and then another. Soon, rain began to fall, covering the entire battlefield and making the ground muddy.
When Erik saw the rain a sense of ease washed over him. The gentle feeling of the rain washing down on him calmed his nerves. He did not care if his clothes got soaked. All he cared about was the feeling of the rain on his skin.
The wolf didn't know what Erik was doing but it got more enraged as it watched Erik enjoy himself. The wolf was done messing around. Its blue tail began to glow once more as thunder sounded above.
A moment later, a bolt of lightning came rushing towards Erik. But Erik didn't care. He had his sword in front of him aimed towards the ground. Then he swiftly moved his arm above his head to aim the sword upwards. As he did this, a large pillar of water came from the ground to meet with the lightning bolt. The two elements collided with each other creating a massive explosion.
Erik maintained his calm as the explosion went off, but the wolf was startled by it. It didn't expect Erik to counter his attack, but more importantly, it didn't expect him to use water.
The wolf had no idea what element Erik was proficient in so seeing him use water was unexpected. The wolf then took another look at the battlefield and saw what it had done. By summoning the lightning it had made it rain. Erik now had a huge advantage over it and the wolf knew it.
"I have to thank you. You brought the rain to me," Erik said as he continued to bask in the rain.
The wolf took a defensive stance as it waited for Erik to attack. It trembled as it tried to figure out from where Erik would attack. With water everywhere, he could attack from anywhere.
"So, you're afraid? Good. then I'll make the first move," Erik said as he brought his sword up to his face so he could see his reflection.
As soon as he did this, all of the raindrops around the battlefield and village stopped mid-air. The wolf looked around at the droplets not knowing what was happening. Erik slowly moved his sword above his head pointing it to the heavens. While he did this, all of the droplets began to freeze into tiny ice needles.
Seeing this, the wolf now knew that Erik wasn't going to attack from one direction. Instead, he was going to attack from every direction.
"Let's see how you handle this," Erik said as he slowly moved his sword down to aim it at the wolf. With that simple gesture, all of the ice needles went flying towards the wolf.
The wolf reacted quickly and put up his wind shield, but it wasn't fast enough. Some needles managed to get to it before its defenses were up. Dozens of needles pierced its skin and drew blood, but the wolf didn't care. It kept its focus on defending against the rest of the needles.
Erik watched closely as the wolf's shield was bombarded with needles. He waited for the right time to strike. With the amount of needles striking the shield, the wolf struggled to see Erik, but it still could.
However, there was a split moment where the wolf lost sight of Erik and he vanished. The wolf looked around for him but it couldn't find him. No matter where it looked it could find Erik.
But a moment later, Erik appeared next to the wolf's shield. His sword was coming down to strike at the wind shield, but the wolf didn't care. It believed that its shield would be able to hold off Erik's attack, but a second later, its face changed.
Erik's sword was cutting through the wolf's shield like it wasn't there and it was making its way towards the wolf. The wolf had a moment of panic so it expanded the shield to push Erik away and the rest of the needles. The needles stopped attacking the wolf as soon as Erik was pushed back. He landed on his feet and waited for the wolf to make a move.
The wolf was left breathing nervously as it thought about Erik's sword cutting through its shield. Its only means of defense was deemed useless by Erik's blade so it had to find another way to fight him.
Erik waited for a few seconds to see if the wolf would attack. When it didn't, he launched his own. He rushed towards the wolf to unleash a flurry of swings at it.
Not wanting to get hit, the wolf started moving back to avoid the attacks. It used its wind element to move faster but it was still barely able to dodge Erik's swings.
After some time, the wolf launched itself away with a burst of air. At the same time, it also summoned multiple large roots to stop Erik. However, Erik was still able to cut through them easily. When that failed, it decided to try and strike Erik with some more lightning
Erik was once again able to counter the incoming lightning with his pillars of water. Seeing the wolf try to use all of its elements to attack him made Erik want to finish off the wolf faster. He once again rushed towards the wolf to hopefully end it in one final attack.
But before he got close enough to attack, the wolf sent out a blast of air at him. Erik stopped himself in his tracks and used his sword to cut through the blast of air. This gave the wolf enough time to back away from Erik.
Erik was getting annoyed with the wolf and was about to run at it again when he suddenly heard more lightning thundering in the sky. He readied himself for another attack but it never came.
The wolf stared at him with hatred in its eyes. It took the wolf some time to get over its fear and once it did, hate was all it felt. The hatred it felt was more powerful than the one Erik felt. This hatred had been building up for the past six years and it wasn't going to let the wolf die at the hands of Erik. it was going to do whatever it could to bring pain to Erik. The same pain it felt when it saw its father get killed in front of it. It wanted Erik to feel that pain and more.
Slowly the wolf lifted its head to the sky and released a loud howl. Erik thought that it was going to send a powerful lightning strike at him but he was completely wrong. Instead, a giant bolt of lightning came crashing down at the wolf.
The wolf did not flinch when this happened. It didn't even look like it was taking damage. Taking a closer look, Erik noticed that the wolf was absorbing the electricity. It took a few seconds for the wolf to absorb all of the lightning but once it stopped, Erik was met with a new sight.
The wolf, which had been slightly injured, was now fully healed. Not only that, but it also seemed to have grown in size. It was only a bit bigger but the change was still noticeable. But the biggest change was the fact that lightning could be seen running across its entire body which made it look like it was glowing.
Upon seeing this, Erik knew that it had activated its aura. Whenever someone reaches gold rank they gain access to an aura based on their element and skills practiced with that element. The aura would only cover the user's body and could not spread outwards. Erik had no idea what the wolf's aura did so he put up his guard to wait and see what it did.
The wolf kept staring at Erik hoping that he would attack it but when he didn't it enraged it even more. The wolf wasn't going to wait for Erik to make a move so it instead did. It was bolted towards Erik like a speeding bullet, leaving a trail of lightning in its wake.
Erik wasn't surprised by the wolf's actions and was even ready for it. But he didn't expect the wolf to be moving much faster than before. He almost didn't have enough time to react. However, he was able to react enough to swing his sword at the wolf like a baseball bat.
It looked like the wolf was going to attack Erik but once it saw him swinging his sword it immediately turned to go for it. Erik was surprised by this. He didn't think that the wolf would meet his attack head on but that didn't matter to him.
However, before the sword made contact with the wolf's face, it opened its mouth. As soon as the sword entered its mouth, the wolf clamped down on it, stopping it from moving any further.
Upon seeing that his attack was stopped, Erik tried to pull away from the wolf. But the wolf's jaw held on to his sword tightly. It would move an inch.
Erik wasn't going to waste time trying to remove his sword. If the wolf wasn't going to let go, then he would just attack now that it was close. He quickly attempted to throw a punch when suddenly he saw the wolf begin to glow brighter.
The electricity around the wolf started to move more frantically as it surged up to its head. Once enough electricity gathered at its head, it began to move down into its mouth and onto the sword. Upon making contact with the sword, the electricity ran down the length of it and into Erik's body.
Erik watched as this all happened but he was too slow to react. Before he knew it, the electricity was already entering his body, zapping him. He wanted to let go of his sword but his muscle had tensed up. If he didn't let go soon, he would take a massive amount of damage.
The wolf felt joy as it saw Erik finally take some damage, but it didn't want to defeat him so easily. The wolf bit harder on the sword, forming cracks along the blade. Eventually, the wolf broke the sword, stopping Erik from being zapped.
But Erik was still a bit stunned. He was going to fall to the ground but before he could, the wolf whipped him away with its tails. Erik was sent flying through the air landing around twenty meters away from the wolf.
Erik got up from where he landed and thought to himself, "So that's what its aura does. If I hit it then it will zap me. What an annoying creature to deal with. I May not be the best at it but I guess I'll have to use ranged attacks."
He looked at his now broken sword and frowned before saying, "That was my favorite sword. Well, now's not the time to cry about it." Afterwards, Erik threw away the broken sword and turned to face the wolf, readying himself for the next attack.