There was a total of 5 groups of hounds that were searching for Renji, he had taken care of 3 of the groups as he did to the first group. He was watching over the third group right now; he was waiting for the perfect opportunity to take them down. His level had gone up considerably after taking down so many of the hounds, he was currently level 15.
'I am not getting that much exp after killing them as I did before, this must be because of the level gap.' Thought Renji as he had previously read that, hunting monsters higher level than them gave more exp, now that Renji was close to their level, he got significantly less fore kill them.
[Yes, they are now just easy prey for you right now. If you want to hear my suggestion you should not think about killing the hound lord. When I saw the lord, I could immediately tell that the lord was 3 times more powerful than them, who knows what kind of skills it might have.] said Lisa trying to convince Renji.
'There is nothing to worry about, I know the big hound's weakness. Yes, the lord should be about 4th shard monster, I know all the variations of hounds that have been recorded by other hunters.' Said Renji confidently as he had studied many things related to monsters and the world with Clara. He never thought that knowledge would come in handy someday. Hearing Renji's argument Lisa didn't say anything more as she knew he had made up his mind, this was all she could do at the end.
-WWOOOWWWW-
Suddenly in the middle of searching a loud howl was heard by Renji, followed by the howl the group he was tailing and the other group that remained howled consecutively. There was a bit of silence after the howl, but the silence was once more interrupted by a very loud howl.
'What's going on?' Renji thought as he saw the hounds he was following and started to run instantly after hearing the last howl.
[The lord gave them a call to assess the situation and after finding out that 3 groups were missing the lord called them back. This is why a pack of hounds or any other animals are a lot more difficult to kill if they have someone leading them.] Lisa explained to confused Renji.
'Well, that's something new, there was not a thing written about such behaviors in the detailed journals. There seems to be a lot more thing that we still don't know about them.' Renji thought as he remembered reading about the hound.
Renji saw them get very far away and then started following them from a distance, he wanted to make sure no one noticed the sounds of him mobbing around the trees. After following them for a while he finally made it to the spot they were heading to, he could see the lord was sleeping in front of a cave while the hounds sat before him. It seems like the lord was resting while his minions worked.
Renji waited for a while but after not seeing any of them leave from the spot it seemed like they had given up on hunting Renji. He was dissatisfied by the turn of events but he didn't leave the area he waited there for the perfect opportunity to strike. A few minutes went by, and the lord still hadn't moved from the spot, but some hounds went inside the cave while stayed outside there was a corpse of a beast lying on the ground, they went there to have their meal.
"This is it," said Renji as he jumped off the tree and lunged towards the group of hounds, he was trying to take down as many of the hounds as he possibly could. With a loud bang, Renji landed on the back of a hound that was peacefully enjoying its meal, it died in an instant. There were a total of 5 hounds around Renji one he just killed and 4 more, they panicked and tried to run away.
'Time jurisdiction' thought Renji as he spread his mana out, in an instant the 4 hounds were trapped inside the skill. Renji swung his sword around a couple of times and let go of the domain. The hound lord who was peacefully sleeping until now was wide awake, it looked on as Renji killed his subjects in an instant with high speed. for those looking from the outside, they would not be able to see that the time had slowed down for the enemies, they would only be able to see Renji had become very fast.
Even after seeing so many of the hounds dying the lord didn't hastily charge in towards Renji, it seemed as if he was trying to analyze Renji. After the hounds were dead, the lord howled, followed by its howl the hounds that went inside the cave all came out. There were only 5 hounds left, one even seemed injured.
-GRRRRR-
The lord howled at the hounds, and as soon they heard him, they stood in front of the lord in a formation. They didn't try to charge towards Renji even if he didn't have his guard up, even the lord just stood there in position to defend. It seemed as if they were trying to defend rather than taking the offensive road.
"Well, if that's what you want you shall get exactly that." Siad Renji looked at the hounds with solemn faces. He dashed towards the group head first, but soon he came to realize it would not be that easy to face them in that position.
[Watch out dodge. It seems they are contributing their mana to help the lord amplify its elemental magic.] said Lisa to Renji as she felt Mana gathering around the lord as it prepared to launch an elemental attack on Renji.
Hearing Lisa Renji stopped in his tracks, if they combined their mana, he didn't know for how long they would be able to use elemental skills. He had to make sure what type of element the lord possessed before facing it head-on.
Renji had read that to become a lord, one had to possess a unique type of element, unlike the other hounds, the load must have an element so Renji wanted to see which type. As there are many elements and each of them has different types of weakness, Renji was making sure he knew the full scope of the enemy.
-SWISSS-
Soon enough Renji was welcomed by the lord with a barrage of ice spheres, the barrage was nonstop, and he had no other choice but to keep dodging. He was almost sure that if he tried to break the sphere in a collision, he would instead be killed. Though Renji was satisfied that the element that the hound had was ice because as he was dodging, he was slowly making his way toward the group. The rain of spears didn't stop but Renji had managed to reach very close to the group in no time, the lord had to stop firing the spears towards him as they could harm him.
Renji was standing there just a few meters away from the lord just staring at each other.