Klein reappeared not far away; still in the sight of the family who were bewildered at his vanishing act.
"Wizards are incredible, aren't they?" Amelia could barely restrain her jaw from opening wide, then looked at her husband and kids who clearly didn't have the same restraint.
A small cloud of dust could barely be made out in the distance, and if it wasn't for the barest tremors Klein felt on the road, it could easily have been missed.
Klein faced the incoming disturbance, casting 'sight' to better make out its source.
Across the miles in the direction he had traveled from, there were about a dozen Armored Stoneback Rhinos charging his way.
"Ah, they must be searching for a new house" Klein smiled and grasped the military knife in his hand after twirling it around with a practiced flourish.
He cast 'Haste' and soon disappeared from the sight of the family of four.
Speeding past the flows of the air, and becoming one with the wind, his afterimage flickered slightly, and he soon found himself on the back of one of the charging beasts.
'Thank goodness I studied well' Klein chuckled, almost losing balance as he quickly cast 'Enforce' on the knife.
Klein knew he wouldn't be able to penetrate its stone-like armor, but he was also aware of a weakness these beasts had.
It was the smallest opening of their armor joint at the base of their nape.
Without any hesitation, he began to cast 'blink' again as he simultaneously rammed the enforced knife with a swift motion into the nape of the beast's neck, causing it to charge more wildly.
Before Klein could retrieve the knife, his cast for 'Blink' completed, and he appeared in the air above his next victim.
Having already anticipated this result, he had already cast 'float' and 'attract' on the knife, calculating its flight path accurately, and deducing where it would go.
The knife flew from the downed rhino's nape in an upward arc towards the airborne Klein, piercing through the nape of another rhino while following its trajectory.
As soon as the hilt of the knife touched Klein's fingertips, he deactivated the cast for 'float' and 'attract', and redirected its full momentum in a skilled twirling maneuver towards the rhino below him, accurately finding the nape of the beast.
From the moment Klein killed the first rhino, to when he killed the third, not even two full seconds had passed.
It was a swift sequence of events that appeared almost choreographed or staged. Any warrior or combat mage who had been there would have been rendered utterly speechless at Klein's precise positioning, movements, and casting accuracy and efficiency.
It usually took at least two Adept-level combat mages or a party of Skilled Warriors to confront one of these beasts, yet Klein had taken down three, taking less than a second for each.
Klein did not stop and continued as if in one fluid calculated motion. The knife flew, drawing elegant trajectories in the air as it attempted to follow the Mage who vanished and reappeared in seemingly odd places, piercing through its victim's tiniest weaknesses on the way, as if it were simply a matter of course.
Whenever the knife approached the nape of a beast, it would glow for a moment at the time of the attack, before losing its luster after the attack had concluded.
Klein was casting four spells consistently and simultaneously.
'Float', 'Attract', and 'Enforce' were used on the knife, while Klein only used 'Blink' on himself.
However, he could not maintain constant activation of the spells, for it would put a heavy burden on his mana consumption.
Therefore, Klein was always deactivating his spells before recasting them, deducing precisely how long each cast would take to activate, and timing them to activate at the precise moment they were needed, without wasting a second.
His elegant and efficient slaughter resulted in the swift disposal of the beasts, and even as some of them were drawing their last vestiges of energy at the moment of their deaths, Klein ignored them and began to harvest their Magi-Crystals from their corpses.
"Phew, that was a refreshing morning exercise" Klein whistled as he dug through the skulls of the beasts, soaking his arms once again in blood. He skipped around between the corpses, digging through each one.
After he was done with it all, he pocketed his gains - nine Magi-crystals. It seemed the other few beasts he had killed were too young to possess them.
After he replenished his mana using three of the crystals, Klein made his way back to the family of four.
They immediately kept some distance from him as he approached.
Klein stopped in his tracks, scratching his head with a bloodied hand, marring his short, dark hair with blood.
"Umm... What's wrong?" Klein spoke in Common with a sheepish grin.
Amelia covered her children's eyes with her palms, before urging Klein with her eyes to observe himself.
She and her husband were relatively calmer at the sight of the wizard's gross appearance. Amelia had graduated from Medical School, and her husband was a detective. They had seen everything under the sun, so they weren't bothered too much by the sight.
Klein looked at himself. Tattered military outfit. Bloodstains of beasts painted the shades of green. Hands red. Blood dripping from his hair.
"Ah! Good point. I should wash, right?" Klein spoke in Common with a nod of understanding, then walked past the family and into his vehicle.
He drove towards the river they had stopped at during the night, then walked to those calmly flowing waters.
It was an odd sight; to have such a well-paved road stop abruptly upon meeting the river. It seemed like something terribly disjointed, and Klein felt that the way they met seemed to break a law of nature or two.
"Oh well, these things happen sometimes, don't they?" Klein smiled at his reflection, who smiled back with a nod.
He dipped his hands in the cold river, washing off the blood from them as thoroughly as he could.
He sang a nursery rhyme from his childhood as he scrubbed off the dirt from his hands and hair.
"The beasts are in the oceans, the beasts are in the seas,
The beasts are in the skies, the beasts are in the breeze,
The beasts are in the mountains, the beasts are in the trees,
So beware the beasts around you, they'll find you everywhere,
And gobble up your family whole, then leave you in despair"
As he washed and whistled, he heard the sound of Harold's car approaching from behind him.
Klein continued with his task, scooping some water with both of his hands and preparing to wash his face.
As he did so...
Beyond his shimmering reflection in the water, a large green serpentine eye stared back at him.