They had heard it long before they could see it. It was a herd of dire wolves. Normally dire wolves were the weakest enemy but in the number of 2000-3000 even slimes were dangerous.
Damian and others carefully circled around them, yet some got their scent and now the whole herd was chasing them. Riding as fast as they could in the place like forest, Damian was in search of a good place to fight off the creatures.
"Why in the hell are there so many dire wolves together...!?"
Lucian shouted while trying to get her sword out and hit the running grey wolves around them.
"Good question, Why don't you stop and ask them ? We will wait for you a bit away from here... "
After the bandit incident, Lucian had at least if not abandoned then toned down her higher than mountains attitude towards Damian and was more open to friendly banter. It was friendly for those two only though, if someone looked at them they would instantly call it a fight.
Damian could tell that his blatant disrespect towards her name or lineage was something completely alien to her, perhaps this might be the first time she even talked someone on equal footing. She was awkward at first but fighting monsters after monsters for a day and half, she got used to it and fired her own insults and scorn back at him.
He never went overboard though, he knew his limits no matter what era or age – a woman was a woman, treat her with respect and respect you will get in return.
The main reason Damian messed with her was because it was really fun to tease a brat like her, her annoyed expressions was the only joy left in this monster infested forest.
Thousands of dire wolves were indeed an odd scene to witness, He could handle them easily only if he had some time to prepare. He had some readymade rune scrolls but it was all random spells, nothing that would stop the whole herd.
The more dangerous part was the reason, if thousands of dire wolves were running from something then it was stupid to even ask if he could handle the thing himself, on the other hand if someone was leading this charge then a creature who can lead such a hoard was also nothing to take lightly of. The best way was to find a place to hold on till he could form a better plan.
"What do we do?"
Asked a scared voice of Rosie from Damian's right. He looked at the horde that was spread as far as his eyes could see, then he looked at Rosie and Lucian then returned his gaze to the small hill in the distance.
It was too far, they would never reach there in time. Should he unleash all his magic while making Lucian defend him? They won't be able to hold on for long and he was already at half his mana pool. However just as he was going to say make a last stand, Damian heard something in the distance. Lucian also noticed it and looked into that direction.
"A river!!"
"Goddammit! We don't have time to turn around!"
"No, it's good. Head towards it, we will fight them there."
Lucian looked at him with shocked face but nodded anyways. She had become surprisingly obedient recently. Rosie also nodded and Damian making his horse go just a tad bit faster raced ahead.
The river was shallow, but fortunately the force was so strong the dire wolves would definitely have a hard time crossing. In it's knee length water, horses could walk easily but the current was too fast for even them so Damian hurriedly made earth walls against earth walls to help lessen the force, yet the water was easily breaking through the hastily made mud walls. Somehow they got through and finally had some breathing time.
The dire wolves were crazy enough to try and cross the river without even showing a bit of hesitation, this was definitely an abnormal situation.
But only few succeeded, rest just drowned or water took them away. Damian and Lucian cut down any who survived easily, but slowly the numbers were increasing, even the ones forced away with water came running back from down the river after somehow getting on the shore.
Seeing as this was their last chance Damian shouted to back down and grab their rides to run away again.
Damian cut down the head of a drenched dire wolf and ran towards his horse, trying to get the leash off of the tree, suddenly a fast and loud swoosh sound came, Damian instinctively ducked down and in the next second he was painted red in blood.
Some kind of giant dark arrow had pierced his horse and tree together, making the poor beast explode on the spot. Just imagining that his head was exactly there a second ago, Damian shivered.
He jerked his head back to see where it came from and saw a giant, green; fat and ugly looking humanoid figure with shaggy breasts and beast skin wrapped around its' ugly form. A giant crystal orb was in it's hand glowing dark and purple.
"A Goblin Shaman !!"
Lucian screamed a bit away from him, Of course Damian also recognized the rare creature.
A terror ranked monster. With his prestigious job Damian could almost equal to basic enlightened, but even a whole party of basic enlightened would have trouble against a terror ranked monster. Not to mention they were caught completely unprepared.
The glowing orb in it's hand was it's source of mana. And it was a natural object that could recharge itself again and again by just staying in mana filled environment. Another arrow flew towards Damian at an incredible speed, at the last second Damian jumped out of the way and ate dirt on the ground. Anyone else other than him would not have been alive right now.
'Lucian can't help, I have to deal with this on my own and get them away from here.'
Damian jumped up from the ground with his small frame, breaking into a run that gave the bastard hard time to aim, yet instead of running away Damian ran towards the dire wolves filled river and opened two of his runic scrolls with his hands at once. One boosted him far off in the air, and that mixed with his increased strength Damian took off in the air and almost jumped the whole river only jumping off one of the drowning dire wolf when he fell short. With the next jump the next scroll activated and five incredibly fast air blades flew towards the still aiming Goblin Shaman, injuring one of its hands and making it miss its aim.
Landing among the wolves Damian summoned his spear and swung it around like it was a sword, just to get some breathing time, which somehow he managed and formed an enhanced version of fire rune that had long radius and far greater intensity – it also burned his mana like water in desert.
He turned full 360 burning all the dire wolves surrounding him in 10 meter radius to crisp. Now he was running on fumes, seeing that he lost the support of his minions the Goblin Shaman summoned more from the back and started to get backwards itself but they were far away and so it started chanting another spell in weird language to keep Damian busy.
Damian with spear in hand ran towards the giant green monstrosity, crunching the burning bones of wolves, like an arrow he aimed his spear at the still chanting Goblin Shaman's chest, just to get blocked by its other hand. The creature screeched in pain but continued chanting. In just another second a dark purple cloud came out of the purple magic circle that was hovering inches away from the Goblin Shaman's mouth and enveloped Damian whole.
He knew whatever this was, it was bad news for him. His head started hurting and his vision became blurry, then he remembered the wolves, of course the bastard had done the same mind spell as it did on the wolves. But Damian was not entirely lost yet. With trembling hands, and a great effort to stay focused Damian drew a whole runic circle with his spear. He was not sure whether it would work or not since he could barely see straight but he had to try.
Saying 'activate' in his mind after finally finishing it, Damian's eyes started bleeding and a darkness started swallowing his whole vision.