Luo Yi had seen wolves before—the Linde family raised sheep, and he and his grandfather had worked for that family for years, planting wheat and herding sheep.
So he knew the temper of wolf packs… you needed a club or a sling to defend yourself, drive away the hungry wolves, and protect the innocent sheep from being eaten!
Those wolves… skinny and cunning, were complete opportunists. Easy to deal with.
But this thing in front of him…
When Luo Yi had fought against Wargs before, he knew that a Warg was about two to three times the size of an ordinary wolf, which was roughly the difference between a common monster and a wild animal.
Then, at the edge of the forest, on a hill, the four of them saw the reclining Dire Wolf King, Lubriz.
It was bigger than a bear!
Even worse, it could speak.
“You came?” Lubriz’s fangs were sharp, and its voice was extremely piercing. “You’ve killed quite a few of my wolf children and grandchildren along the way, haven’t you?”
“What if we did?”
Eric laughed heartily. “Old wolf, your time is up!”
This pitch-black Dire Wolf King didn’t continue speaking, only lowered its head to lick its own paws.
Lubriz had more than just a pair of wolf eyes. To be precise, between its two eyes, on its forehead, there was a third eye, resting with eyes closed.
The Dire Wolf King was a demon wolf, a collective of thousands of evil wolves, an elite among the Demon Race.
It wasn’t casually licking its paws; it was taking the opportunity to size up the four intruders before it. Then, it sought the weakest among the four.
The black figure leaped up like a spring. The shadow expanded beneath the four’s feet.
“Defend, defend!”
Cassius spoke as the leader. This young master of the Lyoncourt family raised his spear, the gilded spear held high like an unyielding banner.
“In the name of Lion’s Fang! In the name of Lyoncourt!”
Cassius called upon the names of his weapon and family—
The spear indeed responded to its master’s call. After all, it was a weapon filled with magical power, and it was actually the same kind of item as Luo Yi’s modified Blazing Sword.
But then again, that spear was a family heirloom, forged by the best blacksmiths in the Royal Capital at great expense, and the material costs were even reimbursable…
Luo Yi’s was inferior. It was made by the craftsman masters of Armenia to thank Bali Saihe, as a favor to the old man, a rush job, and the materials used were the cheapest…
“In the name of the Primordial Tree of Life…”
Evelyn opened her palm. Among her pale, slender five fingers, on her middle finger, she wore a simple wooden ring, naturally smooth, engraved with ancient elven runes.
The Elven race boasted that they were the darlings of the gods. Naturally, their magical affinity was far superior to humans—when humans were still researching spells to capture and convert Ether, materials, and magical devices, the Elves had already learned to cast spells with a wave of their hand—relying only on a few auxiliary runes.
The ground trembled briefly, and then countless fist-sized clods of earth rose into the air, swept toward the Dire Wolf King Lubriz, smashed into it, raising a thick cloud of dust…
Evelyn, the princess of the Elven Kingdom and a great magic user, did not let her guard down—her cold eyes were always fixed on the direction where the dust had not yet settled.
The Dire Wolf King Lubriz. The three male companions tightly gripped their weapons, on guard against this cunning old wolf.
The elven girl’s pointed ears twitched—Evelyn frowned and shouted urgently toward her companions:
“Watch out!”
Luo Yi also felt it, similar to his previous fight with Ke Lun—darkness or something else that blocked vision… When unable to use his physical eyes to observe, he could only perceive with his heart.
From where Lubriz had stopped, something was flying over.
Luo Yi placed his heavy sword horizontally in front of him, the broad blade blocking those things like a shield.
clink clank—needle-like wolf hairs.
Lubriz was, after all, a cunning old wolf, the leader of the Wargs. Not only was it huge in size, but it also had even more vicious abilities. The hairs on its tail could be shot out like arrows.
The red-haired, gray-eyed boy pursed his lips—Lubriz seemed much harder to deal with than the Manticore. Not to mention how many Wargs he had to fight along the way to get here, just that tail alone was more troublesome than the Manticore’s.
A tail with poisonous stingers only stings; it doesn’t have the ability to spray poison. But Lubriz could.
The spear shaft spun on Cassius’s wrist, dodging the wolf hair attack—while Eric struggled more. As an excellent hunter in the forest, he preferred to roll his lightly armored body and plunge directly into the nearby bushes to avoid the edge of the attack.
First round, a draw.
Lubriz let out a muffled snort from its nose:
“Stupid humans, do you really think you can win?”
“Of course!”
Eric thrust his spear into the ground so he could free a hand and pointed his index finger arrogantly at Lubriz. “Your attack missed—the four of us will swarm and surround you. You’ll fail sooner or later.”
“Ridiculous—”
Lubriz grinned, revealing sharp fangs. “I actually really like eating human fingers. Crunchy.”
The Dire Wolf King had no intention of fighting a fair battle.
“Cassius!”
came the voice of Eric Blood Axe.
This berserker from the northern lands had plunged into the nearby bushes, and then collided head-on with an unexpected surprise.
Lubriz also had no intention of a fair fight. From its lair, packs of Wargs were continuously arriving! In terms of numbers, they could be several times that of the four adventurers!
“Four of you swarm? Surround?”
Lubriz let out a malicious laugh. “You humans…”
“Don’t lump me in with them,”
Evelyn said with a pout.
The adventurers under the Adventurer’s Guild… to put it bluntly, were a supplementary force established after the Human Kingdom failed, to handle a series of problems brought by monsters.
Fighting against the massive Wargs, were four people really enough?
Lubriz thought not enough.
But miracles always occur where it seems hopeless.
Eric unscrewed the lid of his horn cup and downed the Dragon’s Blood Wine in one gulp—Damn it, go all out against the Wargs!
This warrior swung his double axes, like a storm.
And Cassius gave Lubriz no chance. Trying to demoralize them with taunts? No way!
The young master of the Lyoncourt family grasped the family spear with both hands, one hand holding the front of the shaft just inches from the spearhead, the other holding the butt end, also just inches from the tip.
He charged—the Dire Wolf King Lubriz originally wanted to swat him into a meat paste with a paw, but the kid leaped up and performed a mid-air somersault.
The tribal spear of the Lyoncourt family had a heavy spearhead. If taken apart and carefully maintained, many laymen might think it was a short sword. This spear could be used to slash.
Seeing such an unpredictable leaping path, even the Dire Wolf King had to take it seriously—the old wolf chose to retreat, avoiding the edge of the slashing strike.
Cassius smiled. Lubriz was sharp—but the spear was a family art of infinite variations.
The meaning of “Lion’s Fang” was lion’s fang. The young master of the Lyoncourt family wielded the Lion’s Fang spear. What was wrong with that? Cassius even had “lion” in his surname…
The young lion wanted to bite the throat of the Dire Wolf King Lubriz and kill it in one blow.
Cassius lowered his center of gravity, thrusting the spear in mid-air—using his rear hand to push the spearhead forward, chasing after Lubriz.
An inch longer means an inch stronger—everyone knows that.
But the young lion was too rash. Fighting an old wolf, he was still too young.
A burst of ecstasy flashed in Cassius’s eyes—the spear tip had finally pierced Lubriz’s body!
“But not deep enough,”
Lubriz mocked.
Above the Dire Wolf King’s eyes, the third eye suddenly opened!
That eye, not belonging to an ordinary wolf, was designed specifically for killing—the dark power erupting from it, a cruel magical energy ray, was enough to kill anyone.
Swish—
At the critical moment, a stiff woody vine burst out from the ground and struck Lubriz’s sharp wolf face directly. The elven mage. As a result, that dark magical energy ray went astray!
It accidentally hit an ancient tree in the forest, directly piercing through a tree several meters thick!
“Good thing it didn’t hit me, otherwise I’d have lost my head.”
Cassius, still shaken, tried to push his legs to drive the spear further forward…
But Lubriz didn’t give a second chance. The old wolf extended another paw, knocking Cassius over—who had focused all his attention on the spear—and then pinned him down completely with its other paw.
“Time to eat!”
Lubriz opened its giant maw.
Evelyn screamed—for a moment, she actually forgot to continue casting spells to protect her companions…
But at this dark moment, a soaring pillar of flame stabbed toward Lubriz, its light and heat making the cruel Warg lose focus for a moment.
“Let him go!”
The one holding the Blazing Sword was just a red-haired, gray-eyed kid, but he walked steadily—Luo Yi’s eyes locked onto it.
‘Impossible. Even an excellent adventurer like Cassius had fallen to Lubriz’s cunning. Why would that kid dare to charge forward?’
Lubriz was momentarily dazed. Those eyes, he had seen them many years ago… Back then, there was a Brave named Bali Saihe, or rather…
No, Lubriz didn’t want to recall this. Back then, that damn guy personally commanded the allied forces, defeating the Orcs soundly—Lubriz’s master, Orc Azog’s father Balg, died at Bali Saihe’s…
It wanted to counterattack, but that scorching power didn’t give Lubriz a chance. Luo Yi swung that heavy slash, a slash with all his strength. Just like back then in the Manticore cave.